Februmarch Podcast Answers
Join us for the 40th Metroplexity Podcast over on the devblog.
If you want to follow along, I'm answering questions from here.
Cheers!
Kinak
Februmarch Podcast Answers
Forum
» Game Discussion / Beta Gameplay
» Februmarch Podcast Answers
Summary:
Screw you and your 28th days! This came out on February 30th.
Also, related to the answers, several things have been fixed:
- Enemy evil eyes should interact with the eye amulet consistently.
- The pretenders' list should be populating properly.
- The quad punks should be less confused when you're wearing the Officer Punk outfit.
Cheers!
Kinak
Yeah, I know about Crusader Kings II. And yeah, I did consider making it a 3 coin item. But current profit forecasting couldn't see a significant turn of time investment per coin exchange to justify the expansion.
I am pleasantly surprised to hear you are familiar with Crusader Kings II! And I am, in turn, saddened to hear it's application for an expansion from 2 coin territory to 3 was turned down. We can now only dream of what could have been.
Back to Crusader Kings II, funny you should mention people being upset about having a female heir! The biggest project I undertook in Crusader Kings II was bringing Absolute Cognatic inheritance laws to the Empire of Britannia. First time starting out as a One Province Minor and second time as a Norse warlord. For those unfamiliar, Absolute Cognatic is a Succession Law where Females inherit on the same grounds as Males. I did this challenge mainly because I was irritated about people bitching and moaning about having female heirs and getting into all kinds of shenanigans to get rid of them. A -10 to opinion isn't a big deal people! Not if you know what you are doing. A -20 opinion for having both a female heir and a female ruler is kind of significant though but still totally workable.
Anyway, bringing about Absolute Cognatic into Britannia is an absolute bitch of a challenge. So it appealed a lot! I really hope you are familiar enough with Crusader Kings II, Kinak, to appreciate how much of a bitch it was to do this. Both my attempts I succeeded at doing this while I had a Female Ruler with a Female Heir. Didn't plan for that to happen! It just did. And wow it made things 2x harder. But after putting down about 3 major revolts where about 2/3rds of my vassals took arms against things stabilized. Hard but so worth it.
You can really tell the designers of the game did not design it around the idea of people actually playing with absolute cognatic. Cause with the way it fucks with everything and all the other little things you notice that implicitedly assume you have a male ruler. So good. So worth it.
Anyway when I hear about people bitching about them females I can only roll my eyes.
Oh and yeah, much disappoint about no 3 coinage here ah well.
Thanks as always for the podcast Kinak, and thanks for others sitting through my questions that make Kinak look stuff up for a while!
Re: the discussion of 1 vs 2 coin items is pretty interesting. I would be personally be fine with it if Zack started charging 2 coins more often with maybe a little bump up in content.
Part of the "problem" (not that there's a really problem) from my perspective is just how variable a one coin item can be — for example a one coin item can be as simple as the Toad Statue or bullet-holed vest, or as complex as the Midgard HGS prototype or shield of scales, which feel like a totally different scale. So I guess I have no idea where to put my expectations when a 1 coin item comes out — and some of the items end up feeling a bit disappointing in comparison to the rest.
I think maybe bumping up the mid-range items to 2 coins more often would have a bit more consistency in scope, and therefore better managed expectations from the players?
(And I guess I am using "complex" here to mean "amount of content"? Something like the HGS system was yes quite "linear" to play out and use, but does feel like there was a lot going on, and pretty awesome that way. An balance between complex puzzley items and more linear items is appreciated too.)
Also — hahaha, yes, exploding cola stomach interaction totally makes sense now. Pretty funny.
Also — odd that I don't think we've found a news story for the costume crown, elegantly torn pants and Book of Common Dreams yet. (I have vague evidence that some of the unearthly stories have other requirements past just being in season — or perhaps that the newspaper vs TV draw from different story pools — or we got the story but didn't correctly associate it with the item —but I am assuming we're missing/missed some trigger on those.)
Notably, I'm not getting any news story for the following, though someone got a message for the paperback and coat at some point: costume crown, tattered horror paperback, elegantly torn pants, coat of mysterious circuitry
Thanks, Kinak! I think you missed a question, although I guess I could just repost this in the neglected Suggestions forum:
Starting the punk uprising quest causes an "abandoned" quad, but the fleeing pool shark is still able to hide in the crowd of students. Could this be made into a very roundabout way to catch the pool shark?
In the beginning, men were mortal.
Arkaim:
Anyway when I hear about people bitching about them females I can only roll my eyes.
My CKII lore is entirely second hand, but I've watched enough people hurt themselves for another +X that I'm not surprised when people complain about something even slightly suboptimal.
Oh and yeah, much disappoint about no 3 coinage here ah well.
Yeah, I should probably introduce another 3 coiner at some point. The last one provided… several years of spading fun, so it might be time to bang that drum again.
Al:
I think maybe bumping up the mid-range items to 2 coins more often would have a bit more consistency in scope, and therefore better managed expectations from the players?
That's sort of what I'm thinking. The 1 coin items are intended to be very simple and straight-forward (like the festive knit hat and bullet-holed vest). I've drifted away from that with my personal love for complexity.
This month's should be an honest 1 coin, but I'll try to price things more appropriately in the future.
Also — hahaha, yes, exploding cola stomach interaction totally makes sense now. Pretty funny.
:D
(I have vague evidence that some of the unearthly stories have other requirements past just being in season — or perhaps that the newspaper vs TV draw from different story pools — or we got the story but didn't correctly associate it with the item —but I am assuming we're missing/missed some trigger on those.)
Ah, yeah, it's not just a blanket "if in season." That's obviously part of it, but the intent is to point you towards content you haven't finished.
For an item like the mirror, everyone will see it because everyone still has some stuff to do. But an item you've fully explored or doesn't have an obvious end point can become "old news" and not show up.
Vholes:
Starting the punk uprising quest causes an "abandoned" quad, but the fleeing pool shark is still able to hide in the crowd of students. Could this be made into a very roundabout way to catch the pool shark?
I'd be okay with this working, but I'll have to look at the code for it.
Edit: This should work now.
Cheers!
Kinak
Nice one, that sums up that discussion quite succinctly. Thanks Kinak.
/forum/t-1135668/februmarch-podcast-answers#post-