That actually, is probably it. I was thinking maybe "FOR ONly a small fee." Perhaps previewing what a expansion module cover may look like, but for one character only makes much more rational sense. It's probably along the lines of a tutorial or a means of picking up more characters in a role play style instead of just making all 3 at the beginning. Also, the prospect of some adventures only allowing 1-2 characters is very appealing. I think it would add a unique challenge to the whole thing. I hope that this isn't just for the first adventure, and that you may encounter more with some of these limits. I believe this sort of thing was hinted at in an early dev diary (I don't want to try and find it. ). I vaguely remember Jon talking about how there would be some adventure modules that had race/class/character limits. Am I correct in this assumption?
I think it's "FOR ONe night only!" TONIGHT IN CONCERT: Raid on Ommlet, with special guests Troglodyte and The Lord Batford Experience.
He he, that's the icon for "we didn't draw this one yet". Very professional of us to leave one in a screenshot! There are both sorting (the icons) and filtering (the drop down). Nope, that's "Raid on the Trogolodytes", not "Raid on the Troglodytes". The Trogolodytes are a break-away group who object to the misspelling of their racial name. Yeah, water is something we added fairly recently. As you might expect, it doesn't block line of sight but it does block movement. That's different from difficult terrain which only requires you to stop when you enter it. Ice is just blocked terrain (you can't enter it or shoot through it).
Icy ground doesn't add +1 movement in a random direction every time after a move card is played? Aww... Edit: There's a specialized card for you, Flippers of the Lake Thing (boots) - adds 1 walk and 2 Swim cards.
While that would be cool, I'm trying to keep the number of basic terrain types low - it's currently just four.
Bwaaaah? . . . Is that a joke, or can I legitimately look forward to killing linguistically-minded "noble savage" cave-dwellers? And those ARE . . . ?
Nice catch on those mysterious circular items. That whole image sparks curiosity. Also, I'll back you're wondering about the arena button, although I imagine that's the link to multi-player. Edit: Whell, looks like I posted before reading somehow. Forgive me for that! Also, I really would be behind the linguistically-minded "noble savage" cave-dwellers. That would be all too awesome. Wait a second. That's 5! I thought Jon said 4.
So it seems that in all those PAX videos the party has the same starting hand -- my memory isn't quite good enough to be sure about the rest of their draws. It shows off a variety of interesting cards right away so I'll assume it's a special feature for the demo. I'm fairly sure the lizardmen have the same hands, too. Farbs did mention that the demo party has fixed decks, as do the monsters: could this be related? Will a given enemy have a predictable card pattern? http://thewayofthegame.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/world-map.jpg So the dungeons with red titles would be for a higher level party? Can I try them anyway? And the ones without glowing red eyes are completed? With little achievement medals -- do they come in flavors other than silver?
I believe this would be why Farbs said "The terrain types are spiraling out of control already!" I'd doubt that. "Arena" is often a reserved word in gaming: it's usually a plot-free kill-things-fest, for such functions as character spec testing, game mechanic dissection/practice, and mindless "Rraaaah I play arena on level 25,000!" gaming. Depending on the game world, there can be "single player" and "multiplayer" arena play available. If they do mean multiplayer, I'd encourage them to change the word before releasing the game.
For the demo, we rigged the card draws to give a consistent experience. In the real game, decks are shuffled.
Correct, red named adventures are too high level for you - you can't even attempt them until you have met the minimum level requirement. Also, correct about the eyes indicating not yet completed. It's a bit more complicated than that - will explain more in a diary. The medals are called quests.
Yeah, it links to multi-player but we will almost certainly change the name on the button, as you suggest.
Follow-up question: is the minimum for everyone in the party or can my Level 80 monster slayer bring along his kid brother? Can't wait to hear about quests!
Currently your Level 80 monster slayer's kid brother can bring along your Level 80 monster slayer, but not vice versa. Adventures have minimum and maximum character levels, however higher level characters can still participate by temporarily de-leveling. This means characters at lvl 80 and 8 can play a lvl 7-9 adventure together, but not a lvl 79-81 adventure. That said, our reasons for setting a minimum character level for each adventure might not be valid anymore, so we'll try to find time to review the decision. This is the sort of thing that might change during Beta.
Regardless of how it changes, I'm glad forethought went into this. I hadn't thought of this being a feature I'd desire, but as it turns out, now that you show it to me I feel like I should have been wanting it all along. I'm totally cool with the de-leveling, but what changed to make the minimum character level requirement not valid anymore?
^This. The talent system replaces levels on the equipment screen, but you still get a bit of health with each level, right? And the talents themselves are derived from level according to some internal table. Unless you've made changes, level is still the handiest measure of character progress. It makes sense if some characters are judged to be unready for some challenges. Or, from another perspective, some challenges are created with a minimum expectation of preparedness. This is, after all, a game about playing a game. If Gary simply refuses to run certain modules for low-level characters, it would fit the meta-story. I can think of one reason for scuttling minimum levels, namely that "required" levels are self-enforcing: either you can beat the enemies or you can't. But I believe that line of thought pales beside the goal of delivering a quality player experience. As a player, I would be quite frustrated if I played and played a mission but just didn't have sufficient tools to complete it. This isn't an open world of accidentally stumbling into a dangerous area: the player hand selects each adventure and to make the selection available on the map implies that the player is (edit: approximately) ready for it. "Can I try them anyway?" was a question aimed at whether the red labels are strict ("You need more levels") or advisory ("This dungeon is unlocked, but highly dangerous"). Some hardcore nuts may think impossible challenges are fun, but at the end of the day I prefer to play games that I have a decent fair chance of winning. The one thing I might ask (and not with much pressure) is perhaps a little elasticity, so that "For Levels 14-18" becomes "Best for Levels 14-18" with, say, a hard minimum 2-3 levels below the recommendation. Three characters of level 14-18 would have total experience between 42 and 54 levels. So two characters at (or de-leveled to) 18 plus one at 12 would have a shared total of 48, nicely within range. The CH team could probably do a fancier analysis with the cumulative talent pool available to the party, but you would still want to present it to the player in terms of levels for simplicity's sake.
