Below are the Question that was put to Chris Taylor on Wednesday 22nd September,
1.How many faction will Kings and Castles feature? The last video blog showed at least 5 on a concept.
2.Will there be units named after prominent community members?
3.There are no plans currently for any further SupCom sequels or full expansions." Confirm or deny?
4.Will KnC be most similar to FA or to SupCom2?
5.Can you elaborate more on plans regarding an integrated modding/mapping tool for KnC?
6.Is it planned to have organic units behave/look/move in a more lifelike manner than seen in the past Video Blogs?
7.Is it part of your design philosophy in K&C to reduce the need for starcraft 2 style macro management of resources and build queues?" I ask this because many players of that game argue that it is
part of the skill at playing the game simply to be good at the macro, while others like myself view it as a painful waste of my time and brain power.
8.Will K&C have flow or pay up front eco?
9.Will the Supcom 2 DLC be free, or paid. If paid, will it be more or less than $10
10.Will the FA lobbies continue for the next 3-5 years at least, or will all support for FA disappear?
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The Answers accompanied with the question that was asked. Chris Taylor's Answers are in Yellow. My Questions are in white.
1.How many faction will Kings and Castles feature? The last video blog showed at least 5 on a concept.
We haven't made the final decision yet, but we are leaning towards 5... so good observation!
2.Will there be units named after prominent community members?
hahaha... good idea! We should at least use community for the AI opponents!
3.There are no plans currently for any further SupCom sequels or full expansions." Confirm or deny?
Are you asking about the original SupCom?
Yes and supcom 2
If so, there are none planned, however, I can't answer the question yes or no when asking for SupCom 2.
4.Will KnC be most similar to FA or to SupCom2?
Similarity... we are making the game big in scope and scale like SupCom 1... But bringing some of our favorite ideas across from SC2 and Demigod. So it's a real mix of the ideas that we think
are cool. But the big maps, big armies, are central to the design. In fact, in this weeks blog, I want to show an army of 300+ in motion.
Interesting indeed, an eye opener in the next blog 2
5.Can you elaborate more on plans regarding an integrated modding/mapping tool for KnC?
Sure! Our goal is to give the community the tools to make maps... and this was not trivial for several reasons.
First, the way the mesh is created as a giant continuous piece of geometry. And second, the lighting model we used. So, first we need to create an editor that allows the construction from many different
pieces. You saw some of that in the blogs a few months back. Then we had to create our own proprietary lighting model. We are not able to release a licensed piece of technology intot he public. So, we had
some hurdles, but we have worked through them! But in the end, you will get the same exact tools that we are using every day... which is the only way to go in my opinion!
Did that answer the question, or do you have other questions regarding the map creation tools?
That answered it to what was asked yes + more detail.
oh good!
6.Is it planned to have organic units behave/look/move in a more lifelike manner than seen in the past Video Blogs?
Yes, absolutely the goal... most of the units are pretty rough, or gray boxed, and even though I say that a lot, I know it's...
hard to accept that those are temporary. We are trying to be practical about the preproduction process. But that has some pitfalls because folks make a harsh judgement on temp art.
But I was very passionate about showing the development process in its raw form and not a sugar coated version. So far, that has been a rougher ride than I thought it would be, but I think people are starting to understand development now... it's not pretty!
Personaly it has opened the eye to what goes on behind that seens.
yes, we really want folks to know what goes on, and how many hours and hours it takes to make a simple thing... or what appears to be simple in the end result.
I think mod and map makers know a bit of this.
7.Is it part of your design philosophy in K&C to reduce the need for starcraft 2 style macro management of resources and build queues?" I ask this because many players of that game argue that it is
part of the skill at playing the game simply to be good at the macro, while others like myself view it as a painful waste of my time and brain power.
That's a good question... hmmm, let me see. Well, I like the macro, as a starting place, philisophically. The trouble is, we get a lot of push towards the micro. The most popular RTS games in
the business today are micro. It makes it hard to simply ignore those players and what they like. However, our goal here is to find a way to introduce a little micro but not completely at the expense of the macro game. In other words, you can bring your own playstyle into the formula to shape the way the game plays. So, we have introduced the Talent Tree for the king, and the use of items. But we haven't applied that across the whole game. If during playtesting we find it sucks, we'll pull it out. I think it's fair to say that it has some more micro, but less tedious other things, like upgrading mass extractors, for example. We need to make a distinction between tedious gameplay and micro. They are not the same! And I know that sometimes it's easy to confuse the two.
Chris to try to put that in to context Would it be more or less microed then supreme commander 1?
I think it's fair to say that it would have MORE micro, but hopefully not so much it would lose that big macro gameplay. It sort of comes down to how often the player has to open up a tree and apply points of some kind.
8.Will K&C have flow or pay up front eco?
Accomplishing both goals. We are experimenting with something that, believe it or not, is right between the two... and it's surprisingly good at... For example, you can place all the
structures you want, regardless of available resources. You can queue up as many units as you want. But each time a unit, whether mobile or structure goes to be built, it deducts the resources. But factories won't pause. that's a key difference. the unpausing was a pain in the butt. We have a good solution for that. But like everything else we are taking a much different approach to this, and will much more thoroughly test it before making a final decision.
So its like fa when queuing but supcom 2 when its been built?
Yes, I think you have it right. The best part of the original economy, was the ability to just design your base and lay out all your plans, and work ahead of the game doing planning.
9.Will the Supcom 2 DLC be free, or paid. If paid, will it be more or less than $10.
I can't talk about the SC2 DLC, those announcements are made from the publisher.
ok
Thanks for understanding that!
10.Will the FA lobbies continue for the next 3-5 years at least, or will all support for FA disappear?
That's a good question! We will support it as long as we can, and I think it's fair to say that if the game continues to sell, then there will cotninue to be support... but sadly, this is also a decision that is not made entirely by me, it is THQ who ultimately makes those kinds of decisions. If it were up to me, I would of course support it until there was nobody using it.
If the server does go down is it possible for a 3rd Party company to buy it and keep it running?
I suppose anything is possible, but this is only a question that can be answered by the publisher who has the license.
And it looks like I need to run to my lunch meeting... but let's do this again soon!
Thanks to everyone for joining today, I can't tell you enough how much I appreciate the support!!
