Desktop Tuesday: Re-Embarkation

[Voice_of_Whimsy]

It took me a bit of consideration, but the more I think about it, the more I can get behind the decision you’ve made here. It does indeed fit with the spirit of the game. The one thing I would offer, which appears to have been proposed and hinted at above (in which case, consider this more support for said ponderings), is the means through which past settlements could be echoed in some way into future settlements. From the perspective of someone who plays games with considerable amounts of progression in mind, the idea of re-embarkation holds quite a bit of promise (extending your time with some of the characters you’ve grown attached to). The problem is the clean slate dilemma - While you do get to carry a select number of Hearthlings and a banner over, it is as if the rest of that playthrough never was. It can come across as a “generate your three characters for custom embarkation” mode, only taking a playthrough or two to do so.

Much like the bunny shrines that litter the world, there should be some sort of sign that something came before, some means of continuing the narrative in a more tangible way. I like the idea of visiting traders from previous cities, quests that involve a select hearthling or two traveling off the map to visit a previous settlement and returning with something that settlement has come to be known for. To keep the development of such a thing feasible, you could have each successive town be chronologically forward in time a certain amount of time, with previous saves being stuck “in the moment” if you will, or you could have new quests in your original settlement occur once future playthroughs have reached a certain point (leaning on the more ambitious side here).

The point of my rambling though is that, just as there are the ancient rabbit statues and future “land scars” showing the history of Hearth for the player to form their own narratives, I feel like there should be some mark on a player’s world of Hearth based on the games they’ve played… Heck, maybe you could even have a series of games form a specific chronology, with all games born from an embarkation being an extension of the games they were spawned from and connected only to those games (so as to give you a specific set of data to work with).

Regardless, good desktop tuesday looking forward to seeing what’s around the next bend!

[Fornjotr]

Wow this tuesday really got emotional to certain people! What exactly is the thing that was said today that changed something so dramaticly?

I love the new reembarcationsystem! So cool that i can make small teams of my favourite hearthlings and bring them with me into new adventures!
Maybe i just dont understand the need to build cities that fill out an entire map, or stripmine for all the resources that can posible be found?
Every town i create starts with a vision, a small idea that i want to bring to life… new ideas comes along constantly when i play and therefor starting new canvases/games are really nice.

If i want to keep exspanding one town i just load up that save and play that?

When you have played your first three playtroughs, you never need to worry about all this again?

Thank you for a great DT team SH and i look forward to playing many great hours of SH in both SP AND MP

The wind is howling and the mountains will crumble in time…

[megashub]

@max99x

If we just keep “memories” of the town, that’s pretty reasonable to add to the current re-embarkation system

So, keeping that in mind, my thought is:

Let’s say you start playing Stonehearth, and you pick location 1 from the embarkation map. You develop your town to Tier 3, pick an embarkation party, and are given the same map to pick from, with location 1 showing as settled. You pick location 2, and start a whole new town in a new and empty part of the map. Rinse and repeat. You are now literally dotting the country side with a growing kingdom, one town at a time. Now regional map choice becomes more important too.

From there, you can look at gameplay options to trade with your “currently offline” settlements based on trading rules you define town-by-town while you’re actively playing them. “Do you want this town to trade with your other settlements? If so, what percentages of what types of items are tradeable?”

Savegames would just become boxes on the map at that point, as your empire of cities expands.

On the current map you’re playing you could build roads to little town direction arrow markers that appear on the edges of the map. You build a road out to one of those, and you unlock the ability to trade with that town so long as it’s not too far away. (just thinking out loud there).

Going bigger still, when providing the player with the same regional map during re-embarkation, you could provide arrows on the sides of the map leveraging the seed to generate them, kinda like how Cities: Skylines lets you slowly grow into the surrounding map regions… but Stonehearth would only ever need to load one region at a time. You’d just switch between playing your different towns in your kingdom. This would reload the client as you enter and exit towns.

In that way, you could also look at gameplay that requires your towns to prepare for a larger combat event (like titans roaming the country side), and other epic-level stuff… all still while preserving and fitting within the current size and scope of the game’s engine.

At least, I think it would work.

[megashub]

@megashub

In that way, you could also look at gameplay that requires your towns to prepare for a larger combat event (like titans roaming the country side)

to expound on this a bit… imagine playing the game in town location 2 (on my example map above), and a titan shows up and wreaks havoc. Your military valiantly manage chase him off… only… oh god. It’s head in the direction of location 3. I better get over there fast and get them as ready as I can before it arrives…

[nikosthefan]

@all GUYS, this thread moves TOO fast. Too fast I tell you.

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@tim1

If one of the ned goals is to transfer from village to village accumulating bonuses and creating ever-more beautiful cities, revamping the load game screen to reflect this might be nice. Instead of ordering them by last saved, order them in a sort of family tree manner, clustering the save games based on others together (possibly with a nice graphical tree style) to strengthen the idea that it is a continuous journey instead of completely separate games.

I suggested a while back to pretend save games to be (the stories in) books, or chapters of books. That could possibly work with this.

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@max99x on the ogo reincarnation issue, you could always have different sets of campaigns for different playthroughs. The second time you re-embark, the world of hearth has moved forward in the future a bit, with new campaigns. You’d only realy have to do one extra or so, and I’m sure the community can drum something of a continuous lore up and mod it, seeing as quests and events are I think .json driven

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@TheRedBaron91 I was going to write a lot of comments, but I’m going to keep this short. The only thing I have to add are the wise words of @Chymor

1. To quote @Chymor:

@Chymor

Because the game can be so much, any change is trivial compared to the possibilities. And with so many possibilities, someone always wants something else than what’s currently being developed. Especially when you have been fixing things that worked, but need improvement.

@TheRedBaron91

This corner of the world SHOULD NOT BE THE END, it should not even be the begining of the end.

Ahh, but they have thought about that.

[nikosthefan]

@megashub I like the idea of a kingdom in the same map. If you could take that to multiplayer in a different multiplayer concept from the one we already have, (maybe a group of modders could do that) you might have save games that operate on their own respective computers, and the server only tries to do the contact points. (Caravans etc,) I don’t know how heavy it is to let other players spectate the world of other players themselves.

[MelOzone]

This is probably the first DT I am disappointed about.

Not because it’s a bad DT, but rather because now it actually feels like cutting corners.
@Moai is right, this disappointment stems more from expectations than from actual drawbacks and failures.
I see this feature as a logical continuation of a “transfer” secret box from Dungeon Keeper, where you could port your own creature into your next map. That was of great help as well as simply fun.
The main problem is, it was fun as an optional feature to help you progressing through the campaign. It rewarded you for exploring the map thoroughly and keeping your creatures well-trained.
Stonehearth, on the other hand, has no main campaign. It has a chain of lighthearted small quests constantly repeating from one town to another, to another. And since its focus is on building, not on fighting, importing high-level units is not so valuable. Imported items could be helpful, but probably more for completists.
In other words, a thing that was fun as a bonus feature during progression, looks weak and underwhelming when presented as an endgame.

Other problems I see are:

1. Calling SH “a game not focused on fighting”. I read it as “yeah, our enemy AI is bad and we’re not going to fix it”.
2. No links to your old towns - economical, informational, quests or otherwise. “Use your imagination” is a good advice for basement roleplayers, not for computer games. (I hold nothing against basement roleplayers as I’m one of them)
3. Calling this “endgame” and telling “we have all the required systems mostly in place” means all the other ideas get busted. While I’m in no position to complain, I still see SH as the game that could be much more than it is now, and no mods can probably fix that.
   a) Combat. Currently combat is lacking in terms of enemy AI, enemies despawn when they can’t find a way into your town (or anything to steal). A simple wall-in technique makes any monsters completely powerless.
   b) Exploration. I encouraged fog of war experiments, expecting them to become something greater - exploration expeditions, uncovering forgotten caves, crumbling ruins and treasures underground, turning these adventures into stories later on, when the party returns to its home town. I don’t think it’s on the map any more. Which leads to…
   c) World generation. While current system works, it is a complete barebone. It has no underground generation, and surface generation is… basic, to put it mildly. No overhangs, little details, weak natural interaction. It is a sandbox in bad sense - with a couple of pots to build sand towers, high wooden walls to keep you in and barren landscape.

All and all, for me SH barely scratches the surface of what it could be. From visual quality standpoint, it is good barring on perfectionism (yay for style and animations). In terms of tech, though… Probably perfectionism in stylization sucked in any human resources that could go this way, leading to burnout. Who knows.

[MelOzone]

@nikosthefan

I like the idea of a kingdom in the same map.

A good idea indeed. I see one problem, however. It effectively locks you is a single biome (or, more accurately, in a part of it).

[TheRedBaron91]

You embodied exactly what I want stoneharth to be.

[TheRedBaron91]

You don’t even have to have 100% exploration, it’s just that that is an important aspect of creative games, you have to go exploring once a resource become scarce, or when you see a great opportunity to do something awesome.

Sometimes you do it just because finding out what’s beyond The horizon is extremely fun. And you have no idea what you will find.

What’s beyond the mountains? Are there goblins? Is it the rabbit people? We want to have a citadel for our citizens, but we don’t want to have the mines so close to their homes… Maybe we can have a caravan that will take them to work every morning?

Conversations should be something hearthlings do while doing OTHER things, like working, or eating, or just while walking.

Have them need free time or need to have fun or something else be the reason they stop working. Hearthlings are people too. Stoping to do nothing BUT talking seems off.

Right now, hearthlings are limited to work close to where they live, will this ever change? Will horses or csreiages ever be introduced?

Are there any plans to make combat more full filling? More fun? Even though it isn’t the main focus, it doesn’t mean it can’t be an excellent aspect of the game. Does this mean combat will remain as is? What about farming?

What other plans are there? Can we maybe have a list of specific features? (Rather than a roadmap showing completion of broader aspects, what is “feasible” to be added? In bullet points… Like… Maybe combat will change, maybe by adding more X? Or reducing Y? Right now we have no idea)

[MajorFordson]

Wew lads, a lot of feels flying around in here!

If this post can be taken as gospel END TIMES representation of the scope of each game instance in SH I’ll admit that with the game we currently have (which is of course unfinished) it does seem to be quite limited in scope. At the same time it feels like so many other kickstarted/EA games, where the finished product is GOOD but at the same time only feels like a shadow of what-might-have-been, which is often followed by the devs making a second game which is what the first game should-have-been.

I really like the reembarkment mechanic, after all by the time you unlock all the cool high level items you’ll want to extensively rebuild your town to be all fancy n stuff!

[Unreal_Gam3er]

only read a few replies (up top) so dont know if already said… etc

But… first off… i DEFF heard the voice… if you get me… i guess this is coming to the end of the peice of string? i am somewhat happy and somewhat… sad???

Second… with the arch - suggestion… old age? natural death? etc

Third you guys have been… are and ALWAYS will be EPIC!!!

I cannot wait!

[SachielMF]

It’s just like, the goal of a town being to start a new town seems kinda odd. If I want to start a new town I just do. Sure, I’m missing out on a bunch of experienced Hearthlings but that seems like a rather pointless reward if I managed to beat the mainquest once already without them.

Then again, certain changes for the second settlement that are rather easy to implement don’t seem too far off like harder enemies, harder enemies or harder enemies (yeah, I’m not too creative this morning). Maybe if Titans would only attack the second settlement, that would already be something to look forward to in my book. Anything to spice up the gameplay and to have something to work towards.

Plus, if Stonehearth is a builder first and foremost, building should pose at least a bit of challenge by itself somehow. In Cities Skylines you’ve got budgetary constraints and, most importantly, traffic to optimize. Coming up with something worthwile is the hard part, though, and I can understand if it’s too late for such changes. That being said, the prospect of a functioning and polished Stonehearth makes me a bit giddy.

[oldmacman]

No point posting here any more

[Hamnisu]

At around 2 minutes in to the DT video of re-embarkation, they display you have to actively select ‘Choose Saved’ in order to start with an old 3-man squad.
If you do not select this option, you can/will play a fresh vanilla game!

(edit: better phrasing)

[Fornjotr]

@SachielMF

Maybe if Titans would only attack the second settlemen

that sounds like a cool idea! i guess it is kinda like the gong quests, where that orc comes and gives the recipe to the gongs or something? Stating that the town seems to weak to be any challenge?

So maybe first when you have collected all three of the banners the titans will be attracted somehow? hmm i wonder what the devs plan is for the story?

[nikosthefan]

@Fornjotr

So maybe first when you have collected all three of the banners the titans will be attracted somehow? hmm i wonder what the devs plan is for the story?

Depending on the reason the titan attack, that could work. Especially if they are titan elementals who attack your city for being big and disruptive, then titans attacking titan cities who have all three banners could be a nice story point.

I second this!

[micheal_handy76_mh]

My thought on expeditions and end progress

First off will we still be getting those quest right, even if text boxes with decision making in them. for us to quest and explore, Also will there be like ruins or anything on the map to find to know the history of the area we are in, quest in ect ect, ie: the rabbit statue

Also the expeditions is it possible, to say you want to send an expedition on same map and world map, the 3 hearth u take go under ur control as yall said but the other become AI controlled and cont to move around their town u built as you start another. patrols could even still patrol the roads from them but u have no control over those hearths no more. and your patrols could patrol yours. giving a sence of roads being patrolled. Also u could establish trade with the town, maybe even make a trader of sorts that would go back and forth {this could even work with expeditions not on same map and on multiplayer})

Another way to immense the player about expeditions is kinda of do it like Rimworld, u have the main land i pick to settle on and when you send the next 3 hearths you can pick another spot on that map. showing a dotted line or a road forming between both. giving the sence of expanding too and not taking the player out of welp im done with this town time to build a new one. it would feel like your building a new empire or expanding the kingdom. again a trader class of sort could trade between the 2 ie, making still feel a since of connection to the old town and the new town. Or even better maybe those hearths from ur old town come visit ur town, as npc and look around say hi, shop, trade and then leave. this still gives the loop

My take on whole idea of loop is i get it, but end game is suppose to be grand and glorious.

other things to help with this is the titan, maybe you get him/her maybe you dont, a scout type class that investigate ruins could find quest to chain quest it. or you do so much to the land that they get upset. 1 could be hostle, 1 could be a guardian type. 1 could even be neutral and just roam around. then as you finish that quest it could lead to the loop(expeditions chain quest)

I could probably go on with this. but ill stop here

[micheal_handy76_mh]

@MelOzone

I like the idea of a kingdom in the same map.

A good idea indeed. I see one problem, however. It effectively locks you is a single biome (or, more accurately, in a part of it).

not technically, they could have a map your picking your settlement on with all biomes there, 1 if you pick between the 2/3 biomes it could just be something that mountain ranges border beween, or 2 you can pick 1 biome per settlement so they dont have to combine biomes on same area tell the player that area is too stress full for weather conditions or any other excuse why the settlement was rejected.

[SachielMF]

@micheal_handy76_mh

Also will there be like ruins or anything on the map to find to know the history of the area we are in, quest in ect ect, ie: the rabbit statue

I recommend watching Stonehearth Dev Stream 320 where Allie and Angelo show off some ideas for landmarks:

Fthagn!