Here are the answers to your community questions by Daniel Vávra:
[quote=“Gulle, post:112, topic:29619”]
You mentioned that you were interested in the Hussite wars and perhaps continuing the Kingdom Come series with those as a theme. Do you think Kingdom Come will always be set in Bohemia in the 15th century, or will you perhaps branch out to other time periods and locations?[/quote]
I don’t know. Currently, we want to finish this one. If it’s successful, there is a lot of space to continue the story into many interesting events that happened here and they also caused some international events as well. But never say never. I like Vikings, Crusades and many other topics.
[quote=“Vojtroslav, post:113, topic:29619, full:true”]
Do you have some fans? If you have did someone give you some gift? Like groshen or a metal figure of a knight names(Oldřich) or some fan art???[/quote]
Yes I do
[quote=“kaiman, post:114, topic:29619”]
Can’t really think of any question right now, but I want to take the opportunity and offer Dan my heartfelt thanks for all the hard work he and his team is putting into KC:D. While I do have some gripes (like the as yet unknown fate of the Linux port), I must say that I am really impressed with the level of professionalism on display and all the innovative and ingenious ideas, not the least of which is the focus on realism and historical accuracy.
Which maybe actually begs a question, or two: since it only seems a small step from existing open world cRPGs to one grounded in reality, why has nobody done it before? I mean there have always been more and more accurate computer simulations of planes and cars and whatnot, and even fantasy RPGs have their roots in realistic wargames. Are developers too cautious because of the risk involved with trying something new, or is the prospect of letting ones imagination run wild in a fantasy environment just too tempting?
How do you deal with the restrictions imposed by that choice? What was the feature most dear to you that had to be sacrificed on the altar of realism?[/quote]
The reason why no one did it before is simple: there is no comparison, so they can’t be sure it will sell and hence it’s quite bit a risk for them. The moment somebody tries it and it works, everybody will want to try it.
The second reason, is that it’s surely more complicated than creating an artificial, simplified, abstract world. When you go with realism, you have to do It all. If you drop one “detail” the whole “simulation” stops working. It’s like car simulators - you can either make fake arcade physics and it will work, or you can go with real physics. But if you try to drop some physical laws from the simulation, the simulation will not work.
[quote=“Grubocap, post:115, topic:29619”]
Is that true, that pierce/thrust skrikes was allowed in the arena?
Today I showed the game to my friend. He was a crossbowman in the Kulikovo field. He said that pierce strikes is forbidden now and it has been forbidden in the medieval arenas as well. [/quote]
I think he is right. Surely you cannot stab people in modern HMB like Battle of the Nations. Arenas in our game are not meant to be a perfect recreation of medieval contests, but rather a training ground for combat.
[quote=“snejdarek, post:117, topic:29619”]
What are your favorite shooting ranges?
Why do you prefer V-AR over PAR MK3?
Do you concealed carry?[/quote]
The ones that allow free movement on the field. So not many,
I just like the feel of it.
No.
[quote=“miketearon, post:118, topic:29619”]
is it hard to create and manage your own studio?[/quote]
Few years of stress. No money in the bank. Gray hair. Everybody hates you for being a megalomaniac. Piece of cake.
[quote=“Cherepanov, post:119, topic:29619”]
From the point of view of the video game developer do you think will in the future elderly people to play games? if Yes then for what reasons? or with age, the interest in the game in any way will reduce?
I would say… Are there any prospects that games would be very popular with the older audience?[/quote]
I don’t see a reason why people who play games now will stop doing it when they get older. But I do think, that we can’t count on the fact that the world will be the same as it is now in the near future. In a couple years, we will either see a terrible decline of civilization and no one will play games, or the world will change so much, that the games will be 100% neural virtual reality and people will be genetically enhanced immortals, so the age will be irrelevant. And I don’t mean 50 years from now, but rather 15-20 years. Scientific progress is faster and faster.
[quote=“Dbeat60, post:120, topic:29619”]
As you mentioned before Daniel, Kingdome Come is a more open, free roaming game than Mafia. In this manner, do you consider that linearity must be essential in every game that is narratively heavy oriented? Does Kingdom Come really entirely on the dynamics?[/quote]
It’s hard to make a nonlinear open world game. You want to have a story, and even if you have a story that branches, there must be some boundaries. On the other hand, you have a 100% open world game, where you can do interesting stuff that doesn’t have to be generic, but the narrative will be less interesting and very loose.
[quote=“Paul, post:123, topic:29619”]
Questions for Dan - don’t you think it might be a bit hurtful to the game’s reception to show extremely work in progress versions of the game full of placeholders? First impressions are important and some more… “casual” gamers might dismiss the game due to seeing some video from alpha with no facial animations and clunky combat, stuff like that.
Yeah it could and I was and still am a little bit worried about this. Its very hard to decide what to show.
And second question, is there any possibility of releasing the original publisher pitch prototype that was shown during kickstarter, to backers ? Would be cool to see how the game evolved from back then.[/quote]
I would say that what we said on Kickstarter was very much the same thing we showed to the publishers, even the same prototype. Of course, some things were said differently to different audiences, but the overall pitch was the same.
[quote=“Paul, post:123, topic:29619”]
And last one - is there any chance you would start doing regular written blog posts about development again? I enjoyed the shit out of those. Cartography in potato land is legendary. Thanks and can’t wait for the game.[/quote]
I was thinking about this, but generally the video seems to have a better reach and it takes me personally the same amount of time as a written article would. For once, I would like to write something and compare the views of our videos to a blog post.
[quote=“Freix, post:124, topic:29619”]
Will it be a live-action game trailer as you were considering in the past or standard one made in the game engine (I suppose CGI is not an option due to the price…)?[/quote]
There will be more than one trailer. Some will definitely be taken just from ingame stuff. I generally don’t like CGI trailers, so the live action seems like a cool option for our game. We will see.
[quote=“Freix, post:124, topic:29619”]
Do I understand it right that you are also directing the voiceacting? If so, how is it going? I would expect it to be really hard for non-native speaker to supervise english voiceovers because non-native speaker will imo lack the proper feeling for the language. Are you confident that the voiceacting will be good?[/quote]
Yes, parts of it. It would take one person around half a year to record everything, so I directed most of the cutscenes and some parts of the voiceovers and the rest is done by our writers. We finished the main phase of VO just yesterday. Now we have around 90% of everything recorded and we will do the rest just before the game is finished, so we can implement some last minute changes with the dialogues.
[quote=“tommyangelo, post:125, topic:29619”]
Hey Dan - what’s next after KCD? Can we expect a mobster game from you in the future (hopefully)?[/quote]
Never say never, but I don’t think so
[quote=“bones, post:126, topic:29619”]
You never mention axes in your videos. You seem to always say “Swords, maces, bows, and polearms…” Whats the deal? Do you not like axes?
On a side note: You mention that you shoot at the range with your friends. Do you practice long range or marksmanship much? I live in the USA so I do quite often. I love guns.[/quote]
There is quite a few axes in the game
I do train some basic drills with assault rifles and pistols, movement and such stuff. Mostly up to 50m so no marksmanship yet. I just want to be able to handle real steel reasonably well in case zombie apocalypse starts
[quote=“Blacksmith, post:127, topic:29619”]
After KCD; will WH work „only“ on KC2 or have you plans for another game? Maybe work on at the same time?[/quote]
We will see. Its too soon to announce anything when you don’t know the results of your current plans.
[quote=“Blacksmith, post:127, topic:29619”]
For finishing KCD you planned 22 months (after Kickstarter), but now you will need more than 44.
How long will it take for part 2?(plans at Kickstarter 9 months → are 18 months more realistic?)
What are your plans for WH in general? Should WH stay at this size, or do you want become a „big player“?[/quote]
Its very hard to plan a game as ambitious as what we are doing, too many unknowns. Nobody here is happy that it is taking us longer than we thought, but its simply not easy and we want to make a good game. Trust me.
But for a sequel it should be VERY different. When we started KCD, we dint have anything. We had to create tons of mechanics, systems and engine tweaks. We will have those ready for next game. We would be even able to use lot of current assets (foliage, generic buildings, clothes, items), maybe even some voiceovers (barks of NPCs). So I dare to say, that good 50% of stuff we had to do now, we will already have for anither game, and for the rest, we will already know how to approach it, what worked and what didn’t. So it should be much faster and easier.
[quote=“Blacksmith, post:127, topic:29619”]
The setting of KCD is fresh at the moment, but you don´t want to work the next 10 years always on the same(KC2, DLCs, prequel of KCD ect.). What are your personal goals? Work the next 30 years on videogames? Start with something different/new?
You worked the last 7 years on this project. Is it correct to say, this was the center of your life? Was there a weak moment (after kickstarter), where you said the project is shit/waste of (life)time?
How do you motivate yourself and your employee after this long time?[/quote]
There are many things I would like to do. But as for the game, I do think, that creating sequel would not be the same stuff again. There are lot of things that we haven’t done yet and I really like the setting. But with the tools we have now, we can create almost any genre and setting. The game is so complex that we can use our engine and systems even for science fiction game with very little effort.
[quote=“Pandemic, post:128, topic:29619”]
Will there be more animations for doing things like picking up stuff, maybe dropping from inventory items.
Also will there be anything to do in forest besides visual entertaining ?[/quote]
We are still tweaking animations, but no major changes.
In forest you can pick herbs, mushrooms and hunt animals (boars, rabbits, deers and bandits)… So its not just an empty prop.
[quote=“cr4zydave, post:129, topic:29619”]
Are you planning to include proper scabbards into the game? Was there discussion about it in the development already?[/quote]
Yes there was a discussion and as far as I know there is still a plan for it.
[quote=“Kakyou”]
Will there be a full fledged SDK for modding purposes, so that we can alter more than visual/sound aspects?
Will the DLC include also new SMALL expansions to the previous gameplay, new small animations etc. besides the stuff which had to be cut out due to time purpses
For how long do you intend to support the game afterwards?
What is the plan for console mods. Bethsada has a nice concept with Skyrim, will you do the same?[/quote]
Generally we do plan to support modding, Cryengine is good for that, but its not going to be supported by us from day one. Lots of other work. We have plans for DLCs, I already said, that some sfuff that didn’t made it into the game will hopefully reappear in DLCs, but I cant provide details now.
[quote=“sdshannouns:”]
Dan, would you ever consider placing a sequel in the 9th century focused on playing a viking during their time of expansion?[/quote]
Not a sequel. But different game? Definitely yes. I travelled all around the Scandinavia to see all important Viking places and I do really like them.