Rathmor comments and suggestions

[Verdite]

"Wow, a new demo is fantastic news!  I played around for an hour or so and was very pleased - great job!"

Thank you Mord its great to have feedback and i'm pleased you enjoyed it.
Holy Diver had mentioned about the black band item too. I'll likely build a patch for the demo soon for everyone to use. The beach map doesnt work at the moment, this is something else i will fix, i cant believe i let it slip my mind.

Sure there will be a good deal of lore and i imagine that the 'truth wand' or such an item will be available from the start of the game. The enemy analysis will be
available by visiting an underground library and activating statues of monsters. As you level up you will eventually discover the enemies strengths and weaknesses.

"Also, out of curiosity, how many barrels can you break before the shopkeep stops selling to you?  I broke all of them in the name of exploration, naturally."

I setup an event where he would argue with the player if they didnt pay for the breakages. Breaking 5 should be the amount. Dont worry about breaking things, the slate will likely be wiped clean in the full game.

Did you know that you can attack the training dummies?

[Mord of Swoonlight]

Yeah, the dummies met a quick demise.  Just FYI, I went back and broke some more of the shopkeep's barrels for grins.  For me, he stopped responding to clicks after the first one was broken. 

I verified the man-eating house issue - twice.  The left side of the soldier's house dropped me, as well as the back wall (outside) of the empty building near the skull save point. 

I think I've cleared out everything area accessible in the demo (unless there are some secret places where you need to use special items to get to).  Even with the good armor, those alkargs gave me a run for my money when they ganged up , and you did a great job of making the running skeleton appear creepy - I'm very much looking forward to the difficult battles in the finished product!

[HwitVlf]

Just wondering Verdite, are you planning on tweaking the light sources more in the final version of your game?

[Verdite]

I'm not sure wolf, im not a fan of SOMs baked-in lighting. Its likely that open roofed areas / caverns will have directional lighting. 

[HwitVlf]

I was thinking your "village" map would look cool in a night-time version where everything was dark except for a few lanterns. What is it that you don't like about the baked in Lighting?

[Verdite]

Outdoors where there are no houses, i think it would be feasible, but outdoors where there are houses, i think its a bad idea. SOM seems to just cut a path straight through all the map pieces. So if i wanted light on my cliff tiles, the interior of houses would be lit too, sadly... The houses that havent any windows or doors facing towards the projected light would look unrealistic. I would have to setup all the houses around the lighting for it to work properly.

Ive noticed that most of the lighting in mount and blade is very simple and not based on directions. Maybe thats what it is lacking 

Do you think setting up 4 different directional lights with varying colour strengths would work? Maybe one at 150/150/150 , the other 180/180/180 etc?

[HwitVlf]

Yeah, I understand that. The lighting setup is a bit archaic by modern standards. Setting up Lamp light sources and un-checking the "Affect Placed Objects" box, it might limit the "shine through" effect.

When I turn the light values up to 100+, it seems to bleach out the shadow effects more than I liked so I had been setting the "ambient" light source low, to around 20 and adding one directional light angling  downward (about 20 also). It made a mild shadow under things that I think looks nice.


A pic with just ambient:


With ambient and a directional - I like the slight shadowing under the barrels etc.


Same as above but with a lamp light source added ("Affect Objects" turned off)

[Verdite]

That last screenshot is incredible, what a nostalgic feeling to it. Its almost like the kind of fire you'd expect to tell tales around. Love it.

I see why i gave up on using lamps - i had no idea you had to set them up. Thanks for pointing out that minor detail 

Is that cave a custom? Its nice.

[HwitVlf]

Yep, the cave is a 5-part map Piece that was going to be a wolf den. I never liked that it looked so un-natural, but I guess such fake conventions are often used in video game.

Your coffin looks quite good also- well crafted! I'm always tempted to make "new" items look weathered and ancient because my game has a Dark Ages setting, but realistically new items should look spiffy even if they have an archaic design 

[Verdite]

The sarcophagus can be opened - like a chest. I was planning on having skeletons emerge from it. The design is my own.