System questions

[dingbat91]

Hey Chris and the Kenshi crew!

I was wondering if you go into some detail on how characters are going to be dealt with?

will there be just an initial bit for creating characters or will you be able to recruit them in-game?

and then detail; how far will you take character creation itself, will it be fairly basic (name, set of looks, skills) or more advanced (mixed choices of hair, clothes, attributes ect ect)

and then will things like modding be easy to integrate (more textures, choices ect ect)

this is for my personal interest as I already have the idea of creating me and my friends going on an adventure throughout the kenshi world.

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Ding

[Windexglow]

Hey Chris and the Kenshi crew!

I'm not him, but I think I can help a bit. And sup! [I'm a building modeler!]

will there be just an initial bit for creating characters or will you be able to recruit them in-game?

You won't control the looks as much as Oblivion, but you will be able to choose from a selection of body types, face types, hair, and so on. I'm not entirely sure what can be controlled right now.

and then detail; how far will you take character creation itself, will it be fairly basic (name, set of looks, skills) or more advanced (mixed choices of hair, clothes, attributes ect ect)

I think you can only choose 1 style of hair, rather than mixing them. But You can equip armors/clothes, and I'm sure you'll be able to add attributes to your character.

and then will things like modding be easy to integrate (more textures, choices ect ect)

This one I know a bit about for once! Adding models and textures are very easy - The engine uses DDS textures and ORGE .mesh files (lexiporter for 3dmax 9.0 for mesh, photoshop cs3 with nvidia dds import/exporterf or textures)
Collision is done in a seperate but free program called Sycthe.
Lastly, these are added together to create the entity ingame. For example, here's a picture I just uploaded to show off a small graphics glitch with shadows. I made the building and texture without much problem.
http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/63/lau ... 801272.jpg
It's badly textured though! =[

this is for my personal interest as I already have the idea of creating me and my friends going on an adventure throughout the kenshi world.

Me too, some of the elements sound really cool!

[dingbat91]

well that is a nice and clear answer! thanks windexglow!

on the bit about armour and clothes this has added another question for me

will you be creating individual armor textures or will it be a case of "invisible armor" (changing the characters armor doesn't change the character model's image at all)
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I have to agree the notion this game is taking is one game companies have been missing for years, an RTS/RPG which isn't a "hero unit" game and is one actually focused on the characters themselves... the closest that got to this was Jagged alliance and their campaign was pretty railroad (nothing to do really if you ventured off the path too much)

[Windexglow]

I believe the characters models are using template armor parts - seen in the pictures. I'm pretty sure armors will have their own model

Most game companies (at least the major ones) seem to believe the average gamer has massive insecurity problems and if the game doesn't revolve around them they'll hate it.

[Captain Deathbeard]

Hi Dingbat, let me clear things up.

You will be able to create a custom character at start, and recruit more characters both pre-made and custom. Also there will be ways of customising your character mid-game too.

I love character customising, so will be lots of detail here don't worry. You cannot change the shape of your nose like in oblivion, but you can control body proportions, height, weight, race, skin color, eyes, age, hair style and color, even posture. And when you choose the color of things, you have a full palette, not like Two Worlds where they give you a choice of 5 different shades of blonde/brown.

I don't know why so many games let you change minute facial detail, but when it comes to the body you can't even change your height.

You can change armour and clothing of course too, separate lower and upper body, hats, accessories, just like in most other RPGs. Except far cooler looking.


And there's a construction set, so modding is going to be dead-easy.

[dingbat91]

Thanks Chris thats great to hear!

I personally like to hear that it's not too specific, I hate it when my inner perfectionist streak just won't leave me alone during character generation

on the other hand more questions have arisen in my mind from that answer:

when you said you could modify posture will that effect combat styles, and then will weapons be attached to a specific combat style or will they be interchangable? and will there be a pre-set list of pre-made characters (possibly with a storyline attached) or will it generate random people on world generation?

hearing it will have it's own dedicated mod tools will be awesome! I cannot wait to tinker!

I look forward to the first release so that I can contribute something (don't have any of the skills to help with modeling or designing, and i'm too early into learning programming to be useful there either) as well as see the world your going to bring to life.

on the world aspect I was wondering how leadership will be handled? will you just be a party of adventurers or can you go higher, I know you said you could be a military grunt but can that go higher? can you become a lord of a province/city/sector? can you build facilities (camps, siege equipment or even new villages/towns/castles with enough support) If you can how will diplomacy be controlled? will characters remember you and have reactions based on what you have done? (for example if you kill a family member of a person will they attack you on site as revenge?)

Sorry to ask so many questions but there are so many angles this game could take and it is just too easy to get carried away!

[Captain Deathbeard]

Posture is just a cosmetic thing, I might take it out of the editor and have it affected by personality instead. Other characters will be a mix of randomly generated, and hand-made scripted characters. But although generated, ALL characters will be consistent, and have names, homes, affiliations and families, and remember you and what you have done.

on the world aspect I was wondering how leadership will be handled? will you just be a party of adventurers or can you go higher, I know you said you could be a military grunt but can that go higher? can you become a lord of a province/city/sector? can you build facilities (camps, siege equipment or even new villages/towns/castles with enough support) If you can how will diplomacy be controlled? will characters remember you and have reactions based on what you have done? (for example if you kill a family member of a person will they attack you on site as revenge?)

Yes. Yes to all.

[dingbat91]

another question has popped up from general observation

one of the characters on the Kenshi banners (just under the website menu) shows a person holding a sword in his left hand, he also has a scabbard angled for a sword for his right hand. (the character in question has a read cloak that immediatly makes me think of vincent from FF7)

this gives me the question: Dual wielding, is it possible? and is so how will it be managed? certain skill requirement? stat penalty against more attacks per second?

[Captain Deathbeard]

No, fraid not. I'd like to have dual wielding, but the simple reason is, I can't get any animations for it.