Zoria: Age of Shattering - Interview by Couchpotato

Thanks for the interview Couch and Tiny Trinket!
Backed at Wizard level last week because of the latest demo.

One question I haven't seen answered so far: How will loot work (apart from ingredients)?

I am a big fan of "What you see is what you get" and magic items with meaning and story. Also risk vs. reward and exploration to find new goodies.

Of what I have seen, many objects have names like "Sparkling Hammer of Pestilence" which reminds me more of an ARPG with randomly generated loot from Prefix - Name - Suffix. How do you mean to handle this?
 
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Hello, thank you for the question and thank you for backing us.

Due to the overall system involving a lot of followers and a lot of gear to have them properly equipped, there will be a lot of loot. It's more on the loot heavy side from this point of view, but it's totally intended as the system works this way.

Yes, your observation is correct, there is a certain amount of loot that is randomly generated. Our loot generation system is quite complex, so we can generate from completely random items, or specific items, specific level bracket, specific rarity and specific armor type.

So expect the game to have them all - fully random generated items, narrowly random generated items (e.g. lvl 25-27 hardened chest of epic rarity) or completely specific items - this is usually the case for important items.

Risk vs reward: that's a tough question in many ways. Usually RPGs don't necessarily have high risk gameplay, everything you do wrong is a "load" away from fixing, and "let's save here and do this obviously unwise thing" is something we all did or do :).

So exploration can and most certainly will give you rewards and will most certainly carry risks. We are fans of surprising the player, making the world feel alive and full of good and bad. Expect chests that will give you loot or chests that will give you pain, just for one example. Venture in the wrong area and something 20 levels above you might give you a massive headache.
But again, nothing is more than a "load" away from fixing, since it's not meant to be a rogue-like in any way. It's a quite story-heavy game where doing permanent damage to a player's campaign brings no value to the gameplay.

I hope this answers you questions, but always feel free to return with fresh ones or anything else that needs a clarification.
 
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Thanks a lot for the exhaustive answer!
As I said, I am not the biggest fan of constant loot pinatas with randomly generated things. Although, I can understand why you do it that way and that the scope with many followers and outposts is a bit different than with a small-party-based game.

Still looking forward to it! ;-)
 
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Nice interview. Thanks for that. I've been following Zoria for a long time and backed it right away (thanks for the early bird special!).
Q: Which so many potential companions, will they have personalities like Baldur's Gate or Pathfinder or will they be more generic like in X-com or Icewind Dale?
 
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Great interview CouchPatato. Thanks.
 
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Great interview, CouchPotato :thumbsup:
 
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Nice interview. Thanks for that. I've been following Zoria for a long time and backed it right away (thanks for the early bird special!).
Q: Which so many potential companions, will they have personalities like Baldur's Gate or Pathfinder or will they be more generic like in X-com or Icewind Dale?
Hello,

As with many things about Zoria: Age of Shattering, we're aiming somewhere in the middle between these scenarios.

I'm not really a great fan of the generic feeling of all the characters if X-Com for example, but I don't think we can have the depth of character development afforded by having only a few.

Expect some characters to be more developed than others, expect quests involving personal stories of at least some followers and expect quests where you will absolutely need a certain follower to progress, the system was designed this way especially because we want to have a level of character development for these characters.
 
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Thanks a lot for the exhaustive answer!
As I said, I am not the biggest fan of constant loot pinatas with randomly generated things. Although, I can understand why you do it that way and that the scope with many followers and outposts is a bit different than with a small-party-based game.

Still looking forward to it! ;-)
(rant on) Going back and playing old games show that random loot generation is nothing new. Wizardry games have it, and I also believe that not all loot in games like Baldur's gate are fixed. Important items are fixed and the number of items are limited and item properties are limited. What I really dislike is items with hundreds of properties where you can't determine at a glance if an item is better and have to take time to study and compare each item. Even though Diablo 2 started going in this direction, I think its items are still pretty managable. Only rarer items have multiple properties. The first game I remember having overly complex items was Sacred, where almost every item I picked up had 3+ properties and I found it a headache to sort inventory rather than being any fun. Inventory management should be a short fun diversion, not like a school exercise. (rant off).
 
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Been a busy and stressful week so sorry about the late reply. Thanks for TheJabberowck and his team for doing the interview. The project is more then half funded.

 
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Really interesting kickstarter. And a big thumbs up for the honest answer about advice to new developers! Survivor bias is often overlooked and your awareness of that speaks of you all being humble. :)

A question:
I watched the gameplay video by GameZine and there seemed to be too few sound effects. Is this part of what you want to invest in, if you get successfully funded?
 
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Really interesting kickstarter. And a big thumbs up for the honest answer about advice to new developers! Survivor bias is often overlooked and your awareness of that speaks of you all being humble. :)

A question:
I watched the gameplay video by GameZine and there seemed to be too few sound effects. Is this part of what you want to invest in, if you get successfully funded?
Sorry for the late answer, things have been a bit chaotic these days.

Yes, sound effects, as well as soundtrack are still a work in progress. These together with other areas of the game (UI, characters) will be upgraded in the following months of development. The success (and level of success) of the KS will not necessarily impact "if" we adjust these areas, but how much we are able to invest in them.

As we said in the KS page, the game is getting done, and we have a production plan in place, touching on a lot of areas we're not happy with at this point. A successful KS will simply help us do more on all fronts.
 
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Sorry for the late answer, things have been a bit chaotic these days.

Yes, sound effects, as well as soundtrack are still a work in progress. These together with other areas of the game (UI, characters) will be upgraded in the following months of development. The success (and level of success) of the KS will not necessarily impact "if" we adjust these areas, but how much we are able to invest in them.

As we said in the KS page, the game is getting done, and we have a production plan in place, touching on a lot of areas we're not happy with at this point. A successful KS will simply help us do more on all fronts.
That's cool. Thanks for your answer!
 
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Tiny Trinket Games interview on kormakrtv.

Today we invite you to an extensive, almost two-hour conversation with NeLeS, one of the developers of Zoria: Age of Shattering, in which he talks about many aspects of the game that are not yet known to you. NeLeS also explains many of the features and plans and presents interesting facts from the development.

We highly recommend it for your morning coffee as it is a compendium of knowledge about Zoria, sometimes in a very loose form.
 
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Out of curiosity does anyone still have questions they would like to ask, or have they been answered already? If so I may be able to put together another small article with your input.
 
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What's new in the world of Zoria - Monthly changelog + new screenshots
It's been almost a month and a half since our Kickstarter, and during this time, we're working up a sweat to deliver the game that will give you a ton of fun. We want to introduce you to what we are currently developing and show you some new screenshots. We hope you enjoy them and whet your appetite for more!

But before we get to the main course, we'd like to ask you to vote for Zoria in IndieDB's Indie of the Year poll. There are many of you out there, and we believe that together we will rank high in this competition for indie game lovers.
 
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