So I see the art style for this game is inspired by old school AD&D modules. My question is, will the adventure structure, story, and writing draw from the same? As someone who grew up playing AD&D in the early 80's I certainly hope it does. I love flipping through my old modules and reminiscing about the old adventures I had. It would be great if this game can recreate some of that.
While it would be awesome, I feel like there's only so much material you can rip whole-hog from AD&D, D&D, Pathfinder... I'm almost positive that there will be a lot of that influence, but I wouldn't hold my hopes out for the entire game to be so nostalgic.
Just to clarify, I'm not talking about game mechanics. I understand that they are a hybrid with many different influences. I'm taking about story and the way the story is told. Anyone who's play the old AD&D modules probably knows what I'm talking about. There a kind of cool campy quality about them.
Oh, certainly! I completely understand. Blu Manchu has indicated a couple of times that the singleplayer portion of the game will be fairly large, so I'm certain there's some sort of overarching plot... not sure where they'd be pulling their influence for that from, though. I suppose we'll see, after all you may have completely different experiences with AD&D. Even while we're on the same page, we may not be talking about the same thing, hahaha. I guess I'm just rambling for the sake of rambling. Nevermind me.
The short answer is "yes"! The longer answer is, we'll be trying to recreate that old school fantasy role-playing feel throughout the game. The next dev diary should start to talk about some of the meta-structure and I'll have some more announcements to make on this front soon.
Thanks for the response Jon. Just noticed on the map there's a Willingham Forest. That wouldn't be a nod to Bill Willingham would it?
You'd have to ask Ben - he drew the map. Could well be though. As for "Gnoll's Milk" - what's that all about?!?
Speaking of "old-school feel," I was listening to the Tristram music from Diablo I while reading the forum today. Totally a coincidence, but it reminded me that I still hope you've got good sound to back up the visuals and story, too. Anyway. Dunno, man. I know I stole the Grue's Milk in Wishbringer, though. It messes with a whole other crowd of "old-schoolers" when I tell 'em there was a game where I did that.
Lol thats a weird soundtrack to listen if you wanna listen to music. But i need to admit it suited diablo vibe very good.
Would you care to know what percentage of my playlist is videogame music? I can't give you an exact number right now, but I've got folders and folders of the stuff. It includes creations by Mr. Lightning Bolt from the trailer, in fact, hence my interest in knowing who's going to make the music for Card Hunter. But on the other topic, are there any folks here who know of Grue's Milk? Or any who have, at a minimum, been eaten by a Grue?
Like all milk, someone must have said to themselves, "Hey, I'll pull on the udders of that beast and drink what comes out..."
No different than the blind monks who shepherd Cockatrices and make expensive cheese from their milk in D&D's Forgotten Realms setting.
This post answers my question nicely. http://www.cardhunter.com/2011/08/d...m_campaign=dev-diary-4-the-jewel-of-alet-zhav It seems that the narrative may just be a paragraph or two between each battle, which is a little worrisome. I'm hoping for more of a role playing vibe were the story is more interactive.
You will probably be able to get into the roleplaying aspect a bit more once you have legitimate groups meeting to play the game, especially with their fan base so far.
I'm very interested in module-like storytelling, yes, but I personally didn't expect much storytelling at all. With things like character advancement pitched as "You can play against the computer over and over to build your deck," it sounded like the game would consist of duel after duel. With such a setup, the "battle" must be inherently enjoyable: and I mean both that "The creators must make it enjoyable" and that "You will wind up focusing on how fun the battle is above all else." After all, you could read the narrative text that sets up the battle over and over, but eventually you'll just remember everything about it that you care to know. Now, again, I love story. That's my top priority in just about anything. But it can only be incorporated in so many ways. For instance: a play map of a castle may have several small rooms in it. In a D&D module, each room will have a description. Will Card Hunter give pop-up text to describe what happens every time you move a character through a door? This would interfere with play. As such, this "Narrative between battle phases of the overall campaign" setup may be the only way that works. Edit: Re-reading this post, I sound like a bit of a downer to me. Let me emphasize, for a third time, that I hope storytelling turns out well in this game.
The narrative of a module is mainly description: "the room seems to be 30' square and the light from your guttering torches picks out the dried blood on the rough hewn floor." That bit will be taken care of by the artwork of the map / board The best part of the story is how the characters interact: "You, ser, killed my father and now you must pay. Draw your steel and prepare to die..." Quite how that bit works I leave for an exercise for the reader.