KickStarter Kingdom Come: Deliverance - Dan Vavra's medieval chad simulator

[Smejki]

Yo Smejki is the patching largely done or are there still major issues left? I remember a while back you talked about the reputation system being borked, for instance.

I honestly don't see the whole bigpicture, so take it it with a grain of salt.
But generally, yes. The bugs we're now fixing are less severe and the pace of incoming reports slowed down considerably. I personally for example received maybe 2 major issues in last 1.5 months and i'm responsible for the logic of 11 quests and several minor game systems. That of course means that I have time for creating new content (I'm working on the first DLC BTW). But it also means that most of us can pay attention to less severe bugs and issues which normally would (and could) remain unfixed. It's quite likely the following patches will be fixing similar amount of issues (around 200) however bigger and bigger proportion of them will be quality of life improvements in some quests or systems, minor tweaks and glitches a and bugs which are more and more negligible.
Patch 1.6 will be released together with the first DLC which is due later this month. And we will certainly release patches along with the other DLCs. No idea if there will be some other patches in between DLC releases.

 

[Smejki]

I thought KC was always meant to be a trilogy.

The whole "trilogy" thing stems from our long past history with publishers.
KCD was originally meant to be a complete story across 3 maps. The game was meant to be made by more people than we ever had for more money than we ever had. The project was rejected.
And thus we entered Kickstarter. I believe that our mentioning of ActI, II, and III was a mistake as it only confuses people. The acts correspond with those 3 maps I mentioned above. The KS campaign was only about ActI (with hi tiers preordering uncertain subsequent Acts) and this is what was turned into KCD (KCD1=Act1). However KCD had to stand on its own legs and so the actual KCD is much bigger than what was originally planned for Act1 (Pribyslavits, Uzhits, monastery interriors and big parts of the forests were not originally planned). So KCD1 is actualy Act1++. Unfortunately it's also why the story ends so abruptly. However even then I believe we could have handled it better. And by we I mean Dan. He wanted the story to end this way and we had biiiiig internal disagreements about it. To almost no avail. He thinks it's a solid ending. I don't think so.

I cannot tell you if Act2 and Act3 will be released together as KCD2 or if each Act will get its own installment (KCD2 and KCD3) or if the story ending will be expanded in some DLC. Nor can I confirm some actual "trilogy plan". All I know is that some people will be confused because of our mentioning of the original Acts structure.
Hope I made it at least a bit clear.

 

[Smejki]

Looking forward to Kingdom Come II: Hussite Wars.

I can confirm this - KCD2 story will continue the story of KCD1 right where it ended. That doesn't mean there can't a 17 years jump into the future in the middle of the game. Right? But ask yourself how likely that is.

 

[Smejki]

Smejki tell me when is the best time to start playing the game for real, I get bored watching the updates pile up and waiting for the last, best one.

If you want a complete and most stable experience I advise you to play (buy?) the game with all DLCs. That means in Q1 2019.
If you want just the smoothest experience of the current content I think the current 1.5 or soon coming 1.6 are more than sufficient options.

 

[Dagobert]

Smejki, do you plan to further optimize the game, it still doesnt work smoothly for me.
I have quite good specs, but unfortunately ram in single channel - i believe this is the reason?

 

[Smejki]

DM me your specs (best as the output of dxdiag) and describe your troubles in more detail. I'll pass it along.

 

[Quillon]

Looking forward to Kingdom Come II: Hussite Wars.

I can confirm this - KCD2 story will continue the story of KCD1 right where it ended. That doesn't mean there can't a 17 years jump into the future in the middle of the game. Right? But ask yourself how likely that is.

Same protag for KCD2 then?

What did that old knight called himself? A knight with no allegiance or something(hedge knight in asoiaf), make a younger protag just like that with character creation to some extent for the sequels Pass it along to Vavra, tell him its from me.

 

[Infinitron]

Unfortunately it's also why the story ends so abruptly. However even then I believe we could have handled it better. And by we I mean Dan. He wanted the story to end this way and we had biiiiig internal disagreements about it. To almost no avail. He thinks it's a solid ending. I don't think so.

Dayum. Nice that you guys are allowed to be candid like this.

 

[SlamDunk]

Smejki

Will you migrate to the latest version of CryEngine for Kingdom Come II?

...or will you just keep on molding CryEngine 3 to your liking?

 

[vonAchdorf]

Unfortunately it's also why the story ends so abruptly. However even then I believe we could have handled it better. And by we I mean Dan. He wanted the story to end this way and we had biiiiig internal disagreements about it. To almost no avail. He thinks it's a solid ending. I don't think so.

Dayum. Nice that you guys are allowed to be candid like this.

I predict a news post: "Codex exclusive: Creative Differences in the KCD team - Vavra against everyone: Did his stubbornness ruin KCD's ending?"

 

[Quillon]

Ending didn't bother me much but the twists in the story did. So many movies, series, games and whatevers used those kinda twists, we could see them coming a mile away, even if they are "true story" in KCD's case. Vavra wrote pure fiction better in Mafia games.

 

[Wilian]

Lol, seems like Warhorse Studios are p. fucking butthurt in their twitter. I mean I posted genuine positive tweet along the lines of:

"Happy to see patch 1.5 and can't wait to play thru' the game again! Hope the coding issues with rendering lights inside buildings when not entered is addressed as promised since it still probably is main cause of tanking FPS in large cities"

Albeit in little more detail than that but the tweet was promptly deleted by them. Kek.

 

[Got bored and left]

Unfortunately it's also why the story ends so abruptly. However even then I believe we could have handled it better. And by we I mean Dan. He wanted the story to end this way and we had biiiiig internal disagreements about it. To almost no avail. He thinks it's a solid ending. I don't think so.

Dayum. Nice that you guys are allowed to be candid like this.

I predict a news post: "Codex exclusive: Creative Differences in the KCD team - Vavra against everyone else: Did his stubbornness ruin KCD's ending?"

Followed up by: "Disgruntled employee's health insurance suddenly cancelled".

It's an industry standard at this point, isn't it?

 

[cvv]

My suggestions for Warhorse for the sequel. None of them will be heeded but here they are:

1. Don't use a number in the title. "Kingdom Come II: XYZ" is terrible. Just "Kingdom Come: XXX".
2. I like "Kingdom Come: Crusaders".
3. Drop the 1st person nonsense. Yes it's a bit more immersive but the difference isn't that huge and the price is too high. The 1st person combat is just too inferior to 3rd person. Plus it's more fun fashion-wise, especially with all that awesome medieval clothing.
4. For the sake of everything that's good and holy scale the difficulty please. "Story - normal - hard" at the very least. Story mode for women and children, normal for journalists and hard with all the bells and whistles like limited saving (but TRULY limited this time...no mega batch brewing of schnapps which makes the whole system pointless), no archery reticle, limited food etc.
5. Choose a new hero. I like Henry a lot, he's one of the best "tabula rasa" RPG heroes ever and the acting is great. But new hero please. A German crusader turned to the Hussite cause would be awesome.
6. Wait for the new-gen consoles. I don't understand game development at all but even I can see the game is bursting at the seams from lack of RAM. (I suppose it's optimized for 4 GB RAM?) An open world game with a simulation this complex simply needs more RAM, much more.
7. Do not back off from your high graphical standard but make animations and facials your priority. Mo-cap all facials if you can. If not, don't switch to 1-v-1 view in convos with second-tier NPCs. Just let them converse in the "street banter" way. Should be easy in 3rd person mode.
8. The world can't be full of orc lairs and ancient ruins, I get it, but still, ad more locations, events and interesting places to discover. I like to roam through beautiful forests, I really do, but it's still a game.
9. Not sure about the long railroaded opening. I personally utterly loved it but bitches will always wail and moan if they can't go everywhere and do everything from the get go. Maybe drop the long intro this time around? Not sure.
10. Good fucking luck :D

 

[Quillon]

3. Drop the 1st person nonsense. Yes it's a bit more immersive but the difference isn't that huge and the price too high. The 1st person combat is just too inferior to 3rd person. Plus it's more fun fashion-wise, especially with all that awesome medieval clothing.

After all dat research and development?

A mix would be better IMO; FP exploration & TP combat.

7. Do not back off from your high graphical standard but make animations and facials your priority. Mo-cap all facials if you can. If not, don't switch to 1-v-1 view in convos with second-tier NPCs. Just let them converse in the "street banter" way. Should be easy in 3rd person mode.

Ignore this, cut all the "cutscenes" in fact & make normal conversation animations better.

 

[Infinitron]

Lol, seems like Warhorse Studios are p. fucking butthurt in their twitter. I mean I posted genuine positive tweet along the lines of:

"Happy to see patch 1.5 and can't wait to play thru' the game again! Hope the coding issues with rendering lights inside buildings when not entered is addressed as promised since it still probably is main cause of tanking FPS in large cities"

Albeit in little more detail than that but the tweet was promptly deleted by them. Kek.

? Other Twitter accounts can't delete your tweets. They can only block you.

 

[Wilian]

Lol, seems like Warhorse Studios are p. fucking butthurt in their twitter. I mean I posted genuine positive tweet along the lines of:

"Happy to see patch 1.5 and can't wait to play thru' the game again! Hope the coding issues with rendering lights inside buildings when not entered is addressed as promised since it still probably is main cause of tanking FPS in large cities"

Albeit in little more detail than that but the tweet was promptly deleted by them. Kek.

? Other Twitter accounts can't delete your tweets. They can only block you.

Then how has my tweet disappeared?

 

[Paul_cz]

Lol, seems like Warhorse Studios are p. fucking butthurt in their twitter. I mean I posted genuine positive tweet along the lines of:

"Happy to see patch 1.5 and can't wait to play thru' the game again! Hope the coding issues with rendering lights inside buildings when not entered is addressed as promised since it still probably is main cause of tanking FPS in large cities"

Albeit in little more detail than that but the tweet was promptly deleted by them. Kek.

Nobody deleted your tweet, they cannot do that.

Smejki, do you plan to further optimize the game, it still doesnt work smoothly for me.
I have quite good specs, but unfortunately ram in single channel - i believe this is the reason?

This game really eats up CPU cores and memory. If you don't have hyperthreading or at least 6 cores, you will get some stuttering. I plan to get new Coffee Lake from Intel when they release it for that reason. My 4core Sandy Bridge from 2011 is not enough anymore.

I can confirm this - KCD2 story will continue the story of KCD1 right where it ended. That doesn't mean there can't a 17 years jump into the future in the middle of the game. Right? But ask yourself how likely that is.

Thanks for lot of cool info. I am glad you guys intend to continue and finish Henry's story. We can wait for the Hussite Wars, I can imagine what an undertaking that will be.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I plan to get new Coffee Lake

I'll have a Caramel Frappuccino while you're there.

 

[Nutria]

Why can't you jump ahead 17 years? It's not like you'd need to hire new actors. Would it make Henry too old?

 

[Smejki]

I can confirm this - KCD2 story will continue the story of KCD1 right where it ended. That doesn't mean there can't a 17 years jump into the future in the middle of the game. Right? But ask yourself how likely that is.

Thanks for lot of cool info. I am glad you guys intend to continue and finish Henry's story. We can wait for the Hussite Wars, I can imagine what an undertaking that will be.

Well, if we manage to sell 2 more millions at full-ish price there's not much that can stop us from establishing a second team which could develop a separate game in parallel. So... PREACH, BROTHERS, PREACH!

... I guess.

 

[Smejki]

Unfortunately it's also why the story ends so abruptly. However even then I believe we could have handled it better. And by we I mean Dan. He wanted the story to end this way and we had biiiiig internal disagreements about it. To almost no avail. He thinks it's a solid ending. I don't think so.

Dayum. Nice that you guys are allowed to be candid like this.

I predict a news post: "Codex exclusive: Creative Differences in the KCD team - Vavra against everyone else: Did his stubbornness ruin KCD's ending?"

Followed up by: "Disgruntled employee's health insurance suddenly cancelled".

It's an industry standard at this point, isn't it?

Maybe in da holy empire of murica

Not in the glorious paradise of eurocccp

 

[cvv]

Spoiler

 

[Smejki]

Smejki

Will you migrate to the latest version of CryEngine for Kingdom Come II?

...or will you just keep on molding CryEngine 3 to your liking?

I can't comment much on that. But from what I gathered the newest CryEngine has completely remade some systems which are crucial for some systems of our own that are dependent on the older implementation. However we could merge some of the new stuff into the older version's codebase and end up with a kind of a hybrid of old and new. But that's all hypothetical. I think the more important question is further optimization of the tech we posses now which we could do less of if we make too big jump in terms of technology.

 

[Smejki]

There's was a question about the upcoming Hardcore mode and what it entails. I couldn't answer you properly because it's a secret but also because I knew jack shit about it and didn't have the time to study the design due to my current work on concurrent DLC1. And I'm still johnsnowing.
But, here's some new snippet for you. Hope you like it.