Kingdom Come: Deliverance

[Art Blade]

in a way it seems to be smoother. The main reason for that is probably the lack of those tiresome loading screens every single time you enter a building. Here are loading screens, too, but they're black and last perhaps one second, and that's usually when you enter a dialogue. At first you notice the little "blackout" but then you get used to it.

And it seems livelier. Villages and towns are populated by people who live their lives there. There are game animals in the forests like deer, hares and boars. And elsewhere in the countryside there are sheep, cows and chickens. The sound layers in forests and countryside are rich in lots of different bird songs, you sometimes even hear frogs, and other animal noises. It sounds very natural.

And speaking of all that, the world is alive and there are always green plants everywhere, flowers, trees.. it's not post-apocalyptic but pre-industrialisation

Looting and collecting stuff is probably en par. There are however no options to build anything. Character development in KCD is a lot more elaborate, and I mean it when I say "a lot," albeit you don't create your character from scratch. Armour and weapon workbenches in FO4 are missing but you get repair kits that at first only repair but once you acquired skills, they enhance your gear. For instance, armour is less noisy, a sword may deal more damage, and depending on perks, they either destroy opponents' armour faster or are more likely to cause bleeding (which usually quickly results in death) so there are things that are somewhat similar.

KCD is a lot more a sim than a "shooter" and based on reality while FO4 is a lot more a shooter and based on fantasy.

Overall: it doesn't compare.

[Art Blade]

As to RPG as in role playing:

In FO4, what you know about your background is that as a male character, you used to be a soldier and as a female character, that you used to be a law^&r. Your goal is to find your son and to avenge the death of your spouse.

In KCD, you are a male character and start as the son of a blacksmith who is currently making a sword for a nobleman, Sir Radzig. While you get to know the game's mechanics, suddenly a massive army arrives out of the blue and slaughters the whole village, including your parents. Before the slaughter starts, your father gives the sword to you and his last wish is you deliver it to Sir Radzig. You barely escape alive. A little later, bandits overwhelm you and steal the sword. Your goal is to retrieve the sword and to avenge the death of your parents.

In FO4, after the nuclear blast, you enter the world and start to play happily as you please, the background story is just as valuable to you as any advertisement flyer in your mailbox: You barely notice it and toss it into the bin. Essentially in FO4, your main goal is to stay alive, gear up, and deal with all sorts of fantasy creatures (supermutants, ghouls, combat robots, synths..) and the constant radiation. Rather than trying to find your son, all kinds of people start to ask you to w0#k for them, you instantly become their leader and yet, they tell you what to do. Finding your son? Despite mentioning it to everyone, they still want you to run errands for them for the most part of the game. All that makes it a lot less of a role you're supposed to play but a random shooter in a huge world with gazillions of opportunities to get distracted. Only the last part of the game casually leads you to your son but even then it feels meaningless. The game is fun as a shooter but role-playing just doesn't exist.

KCD leaves you vulnerable and incompetent in every aspect, you are a nobody and low-born in a world in turmoil where the nobles lead a rich life and the peasants just struggle with a hard and simple life. You know who you are and find out rather quickly that you can't do anything without help. Sir Radzig, who apparently had some kind of history with your (Henry's) father, takes you under his wings. There you get a chance to learn and develop your skills, you w0#k for your lord who sees your potential and supports your development. Because you happen to rescue a young noble's life, your name becomes a little more important, and the reward is access to better conditions. Now, working for Sir Radzig, you've got protection and over time, you continue to develop your skills necessary for your own goals. So this is indeed playing a role, and in an environment and under conditions that make sense.

So I'd consider FO4 a shooter with character-building options, and KCD in stark contrast, a proper RPG.

[LowPolyOWG]

Ah, in other words, FO4 is just a shooter with RPG elements (like UBI*bleep**bleep*'s Far Cry games), while this is a proper RPG. 

[Art Blade]

indeed.

[Art Blade]

Hmm.. I just played a side quest "Next to Godliness" that involved getting drunk with (underage) Lord Hans Capon in a bathhouse. When I woke up outside, I had to look after Sir Hans and see how he was doing. He came towards me from the Castle in Rattay, on foot, and wearing nothing but his underwear.

Not very noble. A bloody shame, really. I figured he'd go back to the bathhouse where we had to stuff our clothes into a chest for safekeeping while having fun with the wenches and wine and all that. I figured he'd go there to grab his gear (and fetch his horse) that was still there. For fun, I rode ahead in a hurry, jumped over the fence and ran into the room of the bathhouse where he had left his clothes in that chest. I stole them and replaced them with my stealth gear to see whether or not he'd dress up in them instead.

He didn't. So I took them back. He rode back to the castle, I followed him all the time, and went to his room. There is no wardrobe, only a chest that can't be opened. So he went to have lunch in his underwear. So far, I don't think there's any way I can "give" him his stuff back. There is a big maybe, however. Maybe I can sneak up on him from behind and knock him unconscious, then "reverse loot" him by stuffing his inventory with the gear I stole from him.

Not sure I can do that because he's an important character and I don't think I'll have the option to knock him out. For instance, pickpocketing is usually disabled on those characters and it doesn't w0#k backwards, I can only take stuff. Not sure.. I'll let it play out like this, I reckon. I guess eventually he'll miraculously have some clothes again.

Unless.. the executioner.. at the very beginning of the game I had to pay him a visit and steal something for the miller, and I knocked him out then, looted him, and never expected him to play a role again. But just before I met Hans in the bathhouse, I had by accident found a side mission at the executioner's place (I was passing time waiting for darkness to meet with Hans) and by chance ended up at his place in the fields behind a small strip of forest, and there was a woman crying. The executioner showed up, STILL in his underwear  Alright. So maybe his young lordship is going to attend the next banquet in his knickers..

I'm so bad sometimes. I didn't mean to.. but I can't be arsed to reload all the way back to when I nicked Capon's attires...

[fragger]

Real-worldism taken to extremes With a game like this, I guess the devs can't think of everything that could possibly happen, or everything that players might try, before release. Maybe they'll address that underwear thing in a later update.

Heh, those guys must feel like they're having one of those dreams... 

[Art Blade]

hehe As I had hoped, after one or two in-game days, he had his clothes back and I still got his, so they respawned on him. And just to find out whether or not I could knock him out, I approached him again but as I had suspected, the option was greyed-out, same as stealth-kill.

I did another side quest and tried something I was likely not supposed to do yet it could be done so I did it. Essentially, Sir Hanush of Leipa (who is the legal custodian of Sir Hans Capon until he comes of age) wanted me to get rid of a Vicar, an unwanted guest, so he didn't snoop around in the fiefdom. Well, that can be arranged.. I killed him while he was asleep When Lord Hanush learned about my deed, he freaked out Then I tried a different approach, I told the heretics that the Vicar was after them (which meant death at the stake or perhaps prior to that, during the "inquiry" by means of torture) and convinced them to flee which in turn made the Vicar leave the fiefdom, too, chasing after them. That was good (I could have delivered them to the Vicar but hey, I'm not helping the inquisition) but I had two options when telling Sir Hanush about how I got rid of the Vicar. The first was "the heretics fled. The Vicar's investigation wasn't exactly low-key" and that was the reply Sir Hanush accepted well. The other one was, "I warned them. They ran away" and that really made Sir Hanush furious

[Art Blade]

One of those days.. I'm glad I keep saving. After a similar scene with those four guards (barely visible in the background) dead on the ground, too, I found out some of them were guards when I picked up a shield which had the coat of arms of a nearby garrison painted on it. Dang. Hard to spot sometimes. Funny, there was another type of guards, too, from a nearby town. And they kept voicing warnings to one another when they bumped into one another, especially when one of the other group was involved. It was funny And no, those bodies were strewn across the path and downhill, everywhere, and I carried them into one place to show you how many there were. It earned me a lot of funny comments, like I shouldn't pick that (corpse) up or I should leave it in the woods and all that

Guests are not allowed to view images in posts, please Register or Login

"C'mon lads, 'twas nuffin'."

Ah, one more, I had put on all kinds of Cuman gear and ran into bandits. Here you see the moment I was performing a mercy kill with an axe and levelled up my axe skill the same moment

axe mercy kill
Guests are not allowed to view images in posts, please Register or Login

[Art Blade]

the executioner.. at the very beginning [...] I had to pay him a visit [...] and never expected him to play a role again. [...] I had by accident found a side mission at the executioner's place [...] and there was a woman crying. The executioner showed up, STILL in his underwear

First off, he got his clothes back, they had spawned back on him. At least he's not running around in his underwear anymore

The quote above means, I first met the executioner during an almost mandatory side mission. Second, I just happened to end up at his place and got a new side mission [the end of that was that I found out the crying woman was the widow of some guy he had executed recently and she also turned out to be the love of his life (he never believed he had a chance) and I made sure she stayed with him—I could instead have sent her to her late husband's mother who would literally have enslaved her] and third, now I went to see him just only because I got and brought some (stolen) clothes for him so he could finally dress up properly again.

Only he wasn't there.

Just the woman.

And that was the start of another side mission. Imagine, I wouldn't have paid him a visit if I hadn't had robbed his clothes, hadn't found out he was still without clothes, and hadn't wanted to bring him new clothes because I thought he deserved better. Again, by pure chance and a few funny coincidences.

The woman told me if he wasn't around the house, then he was likely in the nearby town of Rattay, in an ale house, to drown his sorrow and anger. The reason was, three high-profile criminals were to be executed and it was going to be a massive festival with people coming from far away to watch the spectacle—and he simply wasn't the executioner for that job. Instead, the job went to someone from a bigger city whom they had already sent for.

My job in order to help "our" executioner was to find out the crimes of the convicts and how they would be punished so I could sabotage the executions, affixing ridicule to the "star executioner" and restoring faith in our old one.

You're getting how it starts to get more and more complicated? Just a random side mission, found by chance.

The way each of the criminals would be executed wasn't anything I could just ask someone or anyone about. Only the executioner knew how and would keep it a secret. The bailiff was likely to know the crimes so I asked him and indeed, I learned about the details. Then I had to trespass and find the black book in the Rathaus (town hall) that kept record of major crimes and the corresponding type of executions. I literally had to read eight pages of that book right there (couldn't steal it) and return to our executioner to report a) the crimes and b) decide which type of execution was likely—by deducing that from those records in that black book of remotely comparable crimes and their corresponding types of executions. There were clearly more types of executions and more as well as different crimes in the book than those three crimes I was interested in. Making the wrong call would obviously lead to the wrong preparations for a type of execution that wasn't going to happen, and by that my sabotages would fail miserably. It was entirely possible to fail all three sabotages. Clearly, I wanted to triumph and succeed in all three and by that, restore my "friend," our old executioner. It wasn't easy, I can tell you that, but I am pretty sure I got it right. The executioner at least thought my choices made sense.

I'm curious, I haven't finished the mission yet. Next, I'll have to prepare three acts of sabotage: taking care of the cutting edge of the star's executioner sword so it wouldn't cut off the head in a single stroke, exchanging the rope for the hanging so it would tear apart and poisoning the thongs so the torture wouldn't last long. Imagine, try to visualise what is going to happen, geez! And then the showdown itself, I really hope that it is going to be a huge spectacle, like a festival, with loads of people, and then watch the star executioner fail three times in a row. He'll be done for and probably chased off!

What a GREAT game this is.

[Art Blade]

just released: https://www.vg247.com/2018/04/20/kingdom-come-deliverance-we-wanted-to-make-red-dead-redemption-with-a-sword/

And I mean just. Today. After the game had been patched several times and by now I don't have any of those glitches I mentioned before (including the help screen, I can now go back out of it again) and I have yet to see a game that is bug-free. So what I don't get is how they can start their article with "creative vision and creation of brutal and buggy RPG"—it's not that buggy anymore that you have to mention it in the first line. Also, it isn't exactly a shocking revelation that medieval times were brutal, so why mention that.

This here is more telling:
"Although the studio was independent, Warhorse's ambitions were far from 'indie', looking towards Red Dead, Far Cry, The Witcher, Assassin's Creed and Skyrim as inspiration"

[LowPolyOWG]

Which is how most games came to existence  Gameplay can't be trademarked, but assets (models/art) you create, can be

[Art Blade]

I don't get the reference when you say, "which is how most games came to existence," because the article is a bit too lengthy to serve as a reference by itself. I guess you could be referring to "a scrappy idea dreamt up in a pub" but I don't know any game that was dreamt up in a pub, let alone "most games," so I think that's likely not what you meant. I also don't think you were referring to the crowdfunding because it was so unusual that they "were on the front pages of all the mainstream media" the moment they did that. Or then you could have referenced how they pitched their "game to publishers and investors by referencing Rockstar's classic western." But that can't be how "most games came to existence," as you said. When I look at your second statement regarding trademarks in relation to gameplay and models/art, I can only relate that to "looking towards Red Dead, Far Cry, The Witcher, Assassin's Creed and Skyrim as inspiration" but that is surely not how "most games came to existence," as you said.

So, I really tried to make sense of your post but I'm lost. Please help me out here, and please be a bit more elaborate (examples?) because what you said interests me. What did you mean?

[LowPolyOWG]

I meant that the developers behind KCD were inspired by those games. They didn't blatantly copy-pasted stuff from those games I guess, as they handcrafted the world as stated in an article previously posted. I think it applies to most games being created. Hitman is a 3rd person, stealth shooter. It does resemble a 3rd person shooter, but it has a distinct design and theme that separates it from the others. I wonder what made IO Interactive to create that game. They must have taken some inspiration somewhere, be it a movie or a game. Oh, and the games KCD were inspired from don't have a patent on their formulas/gameplay mechanics. I guess saying "most games" was probably quite imprecise

As for the latter:

I watched a Jimquisition video were he said that the Battle Royale game PUBG was a successful failure. It can be blamed on the lead developers.
The battle royale game trend is currently dominated by Fortnite and PUBG. The developers behind PUBG are literally suing imitators/games being inspired by their take on the genre. Currently, Bluehole sued a Chinese game based on frying pans and the usage of storage containers... Too bad, frying pans and storage containers have been used in many games already. They also threatened Epic, the developer behind Unreal Engine 4 and Fortnite for ripping them off. Now, PUBG does zero creativity in their w0#k. They are buying up art assets made by others to make their game. Which makes it quite easy for imitators to replicate it. The assets are basically free to be reused by everyone, if you release them to the public. Bluehole's director was a lead developer for the battle royale mods in Arma and Daybreak's H1Z1 battle royale. They should have been happy with their success, rather than being angry of something else getting bigger and more successful, based on their w0#k.

Fortnite use original assets created by the UE4 developers themselves. Giving it a distinct look compared to its rival and make it possible to trademark assets as their own IP. It has the same battle royale mechanics (air drop spawn/scavenging weapons), but they added in a building mechanic. Back in the days, everyone copied Doom since it was so popular. You probably heard about the "Doom-clones". They imitated a lot of Doom's mechanics, but I guess nobody claimed patented ownership of the Doom formula.

I was trying to relate that into KCD, it is inspired by AAA open world games, but it's unique enough to be it's own game within the open world genre. Also, the devs behind KCD is not stupid enough to claim ownership of certain core gameplay elements (like the open world/horses/bladed combat). Elements we have seen with their own twists across different franchises over the years.
Sorry if that statement appeared vague/a bit weird I guess

[Art Blade]

thank you very much. Now I see where you're coming from and indeed, your post really helped understand your point of view.

Having failed to find investors and a publisher for a long time, I think it was a marketing trick to use big names like Red Dead Redemption for their pitch because everyone knows that title and associates with it the success it implies, same goes for the other really big titles mentioned.

Regarding the RPG genre, I wouldn't say that I favour it over other types like shooters or racing games but looking back, I have to admit that over time I played quite a few RPGs, among which The Witcher 3 and The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, which could be compared to KCD regarding their (if fantasy style) medieval open world. You almost instantly compared it to Skyrim which, as far as I understand it, isn't far from Oblivion, a game that I know and I played the living daylights out of it.

With my background, I'd say KCD may have been inspired by some of those games but I've never seen anything like it when I go into the details. I think Warhorse Studios took it to a new level, and that's a classy one. Despite the many posts I wrote about my adventures in KCD, I barely scratched the surface of how deep it really is and how enormous the level of details is. Writing about that in detail would cause a ton of lengthy posts that would simply bore most people to tears unless they were considering buying the game. I am convinced that WHS created a new, higher standard with their game. Which is why I was instantly hooked and have been addicted right from the start

I am aware of all the bugs, some of which were game-breaking, but man, the patches came really quickly. One was a tad too quick, the Easter patch, which caused a new bug for everyone (I wrote about it, it was impossible to pass through a certain town without a CTD) yet they fixed it quickly. They admitted they had been too quick about it and wanted to test more the next time before releasing something that needed subsequent fixing. I mean, they're eager for the game to run as originally intended. They're really keen to fix every bug they learn about. And that's just great

[Art Blade]

Just to pick up where I had left off, regarding the executioner and the sabotages.

Waiting for the execution.
Guests are not allowed to view images in posts, please Register or Login

It was as I predicted, and fun. First I made a savegame and told the star executioner from Kuttenberg that our executioner had sabotaged the sword, the thongs and the rope, and each item I named earned me 300 Groschen reward, it would have been comparatively lucrative. The reason why I told him was that I wanted to watch a proper execution and knowing what was sabotaged, he could fix those things. And indeed, he performed three neat executions and acted like on a stage of a theatre. All in all, he was very arrogant.

Note the blunt tip of the Executioner Sword. It did exist in reality, just like depicted.
Guests are not allowed to view images in posts, please Register or Login

Then I reloaded and watched how he screwed up every single one, it was hilarious When the head didn't come off with the first stroke, he couldn't believe it and started to curse, all the while hacking away like a madman because I had dulled his sword so much you couldn't cut butter with it It made a sound as if chopping off chunks of meat, the people were shocked and in disbelieve, the sound it made was disgusting but fun, too

Then his torture victim died seconds after he tore the first bit of flesh off the convict because I had poisoned the thongs The audience kept booing and the executioner was really agitated. He tried to hang the last convict and the rope snapped under the weight because I had replaced it with an old rotten one The convict literally fell down on his knees, alive.

rope snapping!
Guests are not allowed to view images in posts, please Register or Login

You need to know that people back then believed it was an act of god and the will of god to release the lucky bastard. A horrible situation for the executioner

executioner, embarrassed
Guests are not allowed to view images in posts, please Register or Login

And then there was the story I kept telling you about, that I wanted to go disguised as a Cuman to infiltrate some huge camp. I managed this time And it worked. I sabotaged the arrows so the archers wouldn't have much ammunition and I poisoned all stew pots with lethal poison. My disguise worked well, up to the point when some Cuman must have observed how I dropped a vial of poison into their stew. That was when I realised I had to slaughter the whole camp, which I did

I'm a disguised killer (mercy kill animation)
Guests are not allowed to view images in posts, please Register or Login