Warhorse Studios Weekly Torch

DrFusselpulli · July 19, 2017, 11:07am

Petr “Baz” Ondráček was born in the Czech Republic, where he studied mathematics at Charles University. He formally worked at Bohemia Interactive on ArmA III. He later joined Warhorse Studios very early in summer 2013 (before the launch of the Kickstarter campaign). As a Senior Technical Designer, he is responsible for many parts of the game’s mechanics. He is also a scripter who implements these said parts into the game.
Do you have any additional questions to Petr “Baz” Ondráček? Just ask here!
You can find a Spanish translation of this interview here.

1) How did you hear about Warhorse? How/When did you join?
In 2012, I heard about Kingdom Come: Deliverance from an archer on a medieval market at castle Rábí. Like me, he was a history enthusiast and he read about the game in an interview with Dan (Vávra). I was working on Arma III at Bohemia Interactive in Brno at that time. I needed to move due to family matters back to Prague a year later and I was looking for a job in the industry here. Warhorse studios had an opening so I joined. It was in July 2013; we had only 25 people on the team and we weren’t quite sure if we’d ever make it to some publisher with our game, lest we shut down.

2) Describe your usual day at the Studio.
I am a technical designer and a scripter, so the usual day is partly asking around the departments for the technology and assets that are necessary for some game mechanics to work. Most of the game mechanics are already designed, however, some cases haven’t been solved yet or even discussed. The point of a good technical design is to use all that is already done and to limit what still needs to be created. Then I script the game mechanisms, quests, and assets and piece them all together into the game. Usually, this is done several times over and over and can be a quite painful and frustrating process.

3) What are you currently working on?
I am currently working on the beginning of the main quest as well as the first location where the player will visit. You meet many important characters that will reappear throughout the rest of the game. It is quite action-packed and the player is introduced to lots of game mechanics here such as lock picking, combat, negotiations, shopping, sneaking, etc. So there will be those annoying tutorials that everyone tends to skip through. I am working on solving a couple of design problems in order to have the game flow as smooth as possible.

4) What are some of your notable accomplishments?
I did a lot of prototypes in the beginning of the development and all were nearly abandoned. In time, it moved us toward the final solution that is in the game. I see my footprints in many systems (the dialog system, combat system, day cycle of an NPC system, LOD system, quest system). Moreover, I was taking part in creating our AI scripting language together with our AI department. I think my greatest accomplishment is that all of the mentioned systems are working and being used in the script. We were able to make them work and usable by constantly finding and reporting bugs to the programmers. I have a reputation for being a relentless designer who does not stop until the issue are solved satisfactorily (hence the nick Bazilisk).

5) What do you like the most about Kingdom Come: Deliverance?
It’s a chance to create a new first-person RPG franchise. It’s exciting to be able to create a new non-magical universe, based on historical accuracy and having the potential to expand it. I’m also a fan of role-playing games, so I would like our game to be different depending on how you decide to play it. Last but not least, I like open-world games such as Skyrim or Fallout 4.

6) How, when and with what platform or game did you first get acquainted with videogames?
I am a geek from the previous century, so I started playing videogames on the Atari Amiga 500. Games like Turrican, Eye of the Beholder, Settlers, Ambermoon - that was on Amiga 1000 of my friend, a 10 floppies RPG (!). Then I got my first PC (or I took it from my father) and I played Civilization I when he wasn’t watching. Those were the days…

7) Which videogame character or figure is the best?
In my opinion, it is Gordon Freeman (from Half-Life) because the character development during the game(s) were so well-written and believable. Now that I think about it, it may be because he was always silent in those games, so he didn’t spoil the player’s imagination.

8) Which class or type do you usually pick?
I almost always play wizards if such a class is available. I guess it’s because I usually have more fun paralyzing, mind-controlling or obfuscating monsters rather than hacking them with my razor-sharp-sword™. So I like games with a big palette of spells. Ironically enough, I am working on a game without magic…

9) Which videogame character are you?
I was helping in the development of our 3D face scanner and they made a prototype model of my face. It is known in the Beta as Reeky. I did not record the dubbing, however. So it is not me acting, which is a shame (I am a splendid amateur actor). As one of the devs in control of the database, I can easily turn Henry (our main character) into my face, just in time for the day of the release! Mwahahaha!

10) Most hilarious bug you have ever encountered or worst video game experience?
To my knowledge, many funny bugs have something to do with physics. The virtual world simulated by the engine, of course, has some simplifications over the real world. Otherwise, it would be impossible to calculate. One time, for example, we had huge objects in the game. They were wash tubs that the characters pour water into, in the morning. Somebody updated the engine’s physics and suddenly those wash tubs started to fly away like autumn leaves. It turned out they had the wrong weight set in the database: the engine update started to calculate the density of an object by the known formula p=m/V (where volume V was measured from the bounding box of the object and we set the incorrect weight m of all database objects to 1 kg). So it calculated that the water tub is less dense than air, so it should drift in the wind. The calculated trajectory of water tubs blown by the wind and flying in the village was impressive. They even rotated when they hit chimneys…

11) How do you relax after a hard day at work?
I am playing table tennis in an amateur league and I also act in a theater which I recently also helped directing. It is essential to me to clear my head, so I choose not to work at home. Rather, I play pen and paper RPG’s out of my own rule book. There is a catch to being a developer: once you work every day on a single game, other (similar) games are not as appealing as they once were. Either you don’t play them for very long or you look at the other game as a “competitor.” What did they do differently than us? How does their “dialog system” work? These are just a couple of reasons why I’m still searching my stronghold’s first basement in Pillars of Eternity.

12) Your favorite movie?
The Life of Brian – for the absurd humor that goes with it. Then there’s 1984 – for the ever actual general traits of totality that are described there. I have many favorite historical films (or fictions) such as Seventh Seal or a Czech film Hammer on Witches.

13) Is it possible to buy you with candy?
Oh yes and everyone is very aware of this. However, I don’t like sweets. I understand “candy” more as a metaphor.

14) What is your kryptonite?
Women. That is why I am in computer games, you see?

15) If you could say something to the fans of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, what would it be?
Continue to stay as positive as you are and hang in there, we’re almost finished! We thank you for your feedback. It is very encouraging to know somebody out there is caring about the work we do!

Do you have any additional questions to Petr “Baz” Ondráček? Just ask here!

DrFusselpulli · December 2, 2016, 5:29pm

And here are the answers to your community questions with additional pictures:

[quote=“iamidea, post:81, topic:29619”]
How much you are proud of the AI system in KCD?[/quote]
We have managed to develop the AI system into a full programming language. That is great not just as a proof of concept, but as a way to perceive and manage a world within a world: i.e. how to model information about the world the NPC is living in for the AI entity without cheating (the internal look from the AI system to the data in, say, the simulation system). We decided not to cheat in many fundamental ways previously not modelled. Such as our line of sight, for example. The AI really does not see things it should not (because it is around a corner) despite the fact that all information about surrounding objects is in the system somewhere for a different purpose. The player can use this to his advantage and we are happy if he does. You have surely come across games in which artificial intelligence was replaced by peeks into systems the NPC should not know about logically. Therefore, we voluntarily have the infamous bucket problem in our game (in original TES: Skyrim one can place a bucket over the head of a shopkeeper to prevent him/her seeing a theft from them - which we mitigate by not having a bucket interactive object). In all I am proud of it and looking forward to using it’s full potential in KCD and subsequent titles.

[quote=“iamidea, post:81, topic:29619”]
As a Senior Technical Designer, do people come to you for solving the technical issues or do you task others to solve problems diagnosed by you? Which one happens most?[/quote]
At this late stage of development it is more the case that some (many) details and corner-cases of existing design are re-discussed or re-worked. Mostly it is a combination of some programming work (always code is faster than any script), some script changes and sometimes changes in assets. So the technical issues come often from some reported bugs that are discovered in the game. The bug report is assigned to the designer of the quest (or game mechanics), which opens up some Pandora’s box, can of worms or whatnot, and then the cycle of meetings and feature assignments is at hand.

[quote=“iamidea, post:81, topic:29619”]
Are there cutscenes in side quests?[/quote]
Yes, they are. Since the side quests are designed more to “do at free will in random order” the amount of cutscenes is limited. The player can potentially kill many of the protagonists of these cutscenes before the quest starts and we could not for those cases prepare too many alternative cutscenes.

[quote=“iamidea, post:81, topic:29619”]
For this year, if you are given a chance, which game will you award for the Best Technical Design?[/quote]
I was looking for some interesting battle systems lately among turn-based games and in my opinion the best one appeared in Thea: The Awakening. I also like a lot the more recent Darkest Dungeon, although I am still not sure if it is genuine game design or insane “conquer a random game” design. Last but not least, I am glad how well Darkest Souls III went.

Nope, none

[quote=“Blacksmith, post:80, topic:29619”]
Can you explain the schematic in this picture a little?[/quote]

What you see there is our AI system scripting tool. In the central panel you see what we call “Nodes“ or “Boxes“. Those are essentially functions written in code that are “black boxes“ for script and we use them as primary building blocks of the script. They have some input values (parameters, variables) and several states: they can be passive (gray), running (blue), done successfully (green) or failed (red). Once we run the game these nodes change color as the code is executed and we can see what part of logic is processed in the brain of each NPC at any time. We can add breakpoints and stop the simulation to see what has happened. The tree structure of the nodes is an important limitation: every node has a unique parent node up to the root node, that is in the left most part of the panel. The behavior of each node is documented in our (as yet) internal perfect ™ documentation. Another important part is our link system (pic3). We have extended Crytech entity links to carry variables on the edges and we model by that a network of information and relations between objects. For example, the selected object on the screen (so-called smart object) is a quest object that is linked to every other object that is affected by the quest (be they the NPCs in the quest, items, special places, tagpoints or areas etc.). No other information about the world is needed inside the “brain“ of this object. We have nodes to query this linkage such as “give me the nearest tagpoint“ for my guard watch. It is a very powerful tool.

[quote=“Blacksmith, post:80, topic:29619”]
Is there anything, you wanted to have it in the game, but it was not possible? Something that make “competitors” better (like children)?[/quote]
Yes, there is. But there is a chance it will make it to some DLC or sequel, so I am not telling. All the great games are to be learnt from, Witcher 3 is my personal exemplar for super story-telling.

[quote=“Blacksmith, post:80, topic:29619”]
Fighting is not the best way to solve a problem/game (for me). Is it possible to finish KCD without killing an NPC?[/quote]
I am afraid there won’t be a chance not to kill any NPCs during the entire game. Some deaths push forward the story. But it is true that the number of kills player must do is very limited (you can usually make others do the dirty work). Hmm, maybe it would be a good achievement to kill only those NPCs.

Thanks

DrFusselpulli · July 19, 2017, 11:50am

Václav Prchlík was born in Tábor in the south of Czech Republic and joined Warhorse Studios in January 2015. He formally worked as a QA member, where they are producing all the bugs for the development team, but then he switched to the position of a Video Editor.
Václav has a strange talent of immitating a T-Rex, which is quite fun to watch.
Do you have any additional questions to Václav Prchlík? Just ask here!
You can find a Spanish translation of this interview here.

1) Describe your usual day at the studio?
Firstly, I would like to say that these answers are dedicated to (the lady) Dáša of Milíčov.
After breakfast, I turn on CryENGINE and start working on the production of shots from the game, which will later be used in our videos that we publish on our Youtube channel, social networks etc., or which are presented at various conferences and exhibitions. Occasionally someone comes up with the need to make a screenshot of the game (such as the character holding a torch on the cover of our weekly Torch header), or similar design data. Between tasks I go for lunch, have a coffee or chat in the office.

2) What are you currently working on?
Currently I am working on materials for our next video. I don’t want to reveal more, it will be a very interesting video… hopefully!

3) What are some of your notable accomplishments?
Because I am member of the marketing team I don´t participate directly in development, but to give an example, I acted as a little sidekick producing one of the cutscenes for the final game and the Beta Trailer. For example, I made one cutscene, which you will see in the final game, shots for beta trailer etc.

4) What do you like the most about Kingdom Come: Deliverance?
Leaving aside the visual aspect of the game, which is really beautiful, I can’t ignore such a great living world. For example, I refuse to help an NPC who wants to kill someone, but that NPC just goes and kills him without my help, and I can join him later or watch the victims die. Apart from that, there’s our Combat system - if you don’t hate our Combat system after a few minutes, you’ll start loving it.

5) How, when and with what platform or game did you first get acquainted with videogames?
I think it was Christmas 1998, me and my sister got our first PC with Windows 98 - a Pentium II 233Mhz and 32MB RAM, which in those days was quite a good computer. I also got two great games from EA SPORTS - FIFA and NHL 98. When I scored my first goal in NHL after about a month of playing, I ran and screamed around the apartment. Regarding FIFA I got to learn the proper gameplay after a longer time because I wasn´t aware I had to press the right arrow on my keyboard to control my team. I remember that several times I just watched the full 90-minute regular gameplay with just the AI on. I remember watching how AI played against AI for 90 minutes several times.

6) Which videogame character are you?
I’d like to be Max Payne or Jack O’Hara, but Artyom from Dmitry Glukhovsky’s Metro series fits me better.

7) What was your best/saddest/happiest/most touching video game moment?
OK, let me describe what was for me probably the saddest moment in my gaming “career”. I was playing FIFA Manager 07 for (our local team) Slavia Praha. It was a play-off match of the Champions League, I was playing against Arsenal and lost 1: 2. I saved the game before the rematch, but of course I lost this match and even though I replayed it with various tactics and players at least 100 times, I never won it.

8) Who is your favorite historical character?
Karel Kryl (a famous poet, singer, and a dissident during the communist era) and my grandfather’s uncle Colonel General Václav Prchlík who, after the year 1968 (the Soviet military invasion of Czechoslovakia) stated that the Soviet troops should leave, which got him arrested and demoted to the rank of Private.

9) Which is your favorite historical event?
The WW2 covert mission to assassinate the Schutzstaffel-Obergruppenführer and General der Polizei, Reinhard Heydrich, in 1942 (he was the no. 2 in Hitler’s 3rd Reich during the war).

10) Which class, gender, or type do you usually pick?
I usually pick a character with whom I can identify and I try to be honest and honor a kind of demi-god or Mirek Dušín.

11) Your favorite music playlist
It is not easy to decide but let me try to summarize it. I will not name any artists, because I would definitely forget some great ones and then I would be sad. There is nothing better than listening to a record, lighting a cigarette and having a drink. The Rolling Stone magazine once released a track list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All time, about 90% of which I concur with.

12) Your favorite movie?
I have got a lot of favorite movies, but once a year I watch the series “Chalupáři” (Cottagers) and that always amuses me.

13) Sport is…
a beautiful thing.

14) Please describe one of your colleagues or your department:
A kind punk-rocker who is afraid each day of receiving a phone call from Jirka.

15) Imagine you are a cake, what kind of cake are you and why?
Probably the saltiest one, because a colleague licked me several times in the pub and told me that I was very salty.

16) Do you have a Bucket List?
I don’t have one and I don’t plan to.

17) If you could say something to the fans of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, what would it be?
Thanks for your support, without you everything would be more difficult.

Do you have any additional questions to Václav Prchlík? Please ask here!

WH_JiriRydl · November 29, 2016, 8:10pm

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WH_JiriRydl · November 29, 2016, 9:16pm

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DrFusselpulli · December 3, 2016, 8:16pm

[quote=“iamidea, post:88, topic:29619”]
Any plans to release CG or live action trailer for marketing purposes just like in other games viz witcher?[/quote]
We have a lot of plans

[quote=“iamidea, post:88, topic:29619”]
Did you do the Alpha teaser video?[/quote]
No, I was hired after that.

[quote=“iamidea, post:88, topic:29619”]
Do you have any plan to release bugs compilation videos?[/quote]
Good Idea, I will think about it.

One of my favorite is for example 3years old Wolfenstein: The New Order – E3 Trailer
Probably Mafia III - Worldwide Reveal Trailer, because i love Jimmy Hendrix which is singing All Along The Watchtower in this trailer but this song is written by one of my favorite person Robert Zimmerman.

Yes, here is this nice ingame screenshot you could use, especially for you

no, only T-Rex

DrFusselpulli · July 19, 2017, 12:24pm

Prokop “Proky” Filcík was born in Prague, the capital of Czech Republic and joined Warhorse Studios in 1st of April 2016, but this was no joke. Formely an enthusiastic community member now a loyal bug hunter! Beeing Part of the QA-Team, he is reviewing the latest builds of Kingdom Come Deliverance and constantly on the go between different departments to assign the spotted bugs (when he is not on the hunt for Him-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named).
Do you have any additional questions to Prokop “Proky” Filcík? Just ask here!
You can find a Spanish translation of this interview here.

1) Where can we usually find you lurking in the holy halls of Warhorse?
My workplace of course. It was previously called “cinema” because it was a big space in the hallway with projector. Well… now it 's the QA department.

2) How did you hear about Warhorse?
I first heard about the game on Facebook from a local game magazine that published a video from “new Czech historical game”. It was sometime before the Kickstarter campaign.
When Warhorse showed up on Kickstarter, I immediately backed it (I think I was among the first hundred backers)
I joined the studio this year (2016) on April 1st, which made me really nervous. However, I was active in the community since 2014 (I even became a forum moderator and I am still very active).

3) Describe your position. What is it about being a QA tester?
As a tester, you play and test the game. The game consists of several main parts: Features, Quests (and dialogues), graphics and animation. The QA department is testing all of these things. At the moment we are focused on finishing quests, which is probably the hardest thing to test.
We have a reporting system through which we can mark which objective is working and which is not. We can even link the objective with a corresponding bug.
We also have to our use a program called Skald (some might have heard about it from Dan Vávra) which is used for writing the quests and their dialogues. As testers, we use it as an ideal state for the quest and we compare it to the reality of the actual game.
The work itself consists of:
1) Learning how the quest/feature should look like (either through Skald or talking with designer/scripter/programmer)
2) Testing whether it works as intended
3) Reporting any found bugs or writing feedback if you think it should work differently.

4) Have you ever worked on Videogames before?
My last job was not in a videogame company, but in a company which specialized in producing devices for trains, trams, underground and buses. I was in charge of customer documentation. Strange how similar that job was to my current occupation.

5) Please describe Warhorse Studios:
Working at Warhorse is amazing. In my previous jobs I could barely talk about games with anyone, but here everybody plays something so there is a lot to discuss. Everyone is friendly here, except before some important dates when some things just HAVE to be done, then some people might start losing their nerves (like me).

6) Please describe one of your colleagues or your department:
There is this one guy who watches youtube videos all day. and it’s even part of his job! Fuck that guy, right?!

7) Did you enjoy the Community Event at Battle of Nations?
How could I not? We had a nice evening in a pub before BotN, where I got decently drunk (as always) and then we had great time the next day walking up that mild hill together with @Urquhart, @Wenceslaus, @Waldkauz, @tomtom and others, where BotN took place. We ended up surviving the slope (and the heat) and the reward for that was another pub where I got… you guessed it… “decently” drunk.
I’d like to thank everyone who participated and especialy to @Blacksmith who brought me some Bavarian beers. I have drank them all and the empty bottles now stand on my shelf.

8) What is your favorite team activity?
I think you will guess this one too: it’s beer activity. You can try out our own brand, I especially recommend the Knecht one!

9) Describe your usual day at the studio?
I wake up at 7 am and I arrive to work by 8 am. By this time, there is a new build downloading on my PC and then I make my way to breakfast. Did you know?! We have a breakfast every day paid by the company!
After breakfast I sit all day and test things with a (short) pause for lunch. I leave work sometimes around 5-7 pm or sometimes even later.

10) What are you currently working on?
Right now the QA department is focusing on finishing what we call the, “internal beta”. It basically means that every part of the game (features, quests, graphics, animations and cutscenes) should be in the game.
As I mentioned earlier, the main focus right now is on quests because quite frankly, we are a bit behind with some of them. That puts a real strain on the script department and us, but we are advancing in steady pace.
I think it was two months ago that we officially went into crunch mode, which basically means that the studio highly encourages people to stay longer and do more work. Because of that, we needed to upgrade our work mechanics. Now we have more strict rules for what to work on and for how long.
Anyway, I think we really did a big chunk of work in those two months. Beforehand, we had these separated parts of the game which were not even on the same level - the optimization was really bad. I was testing in 9fps max for several months and the game level was not even complete.
Presently, when all the parts have been put together, I have even seen the battle of Pribyslavitz in 30fps now… and we are still reaching higher! It is amazing to see this progress.

As for me personally, I have been testing the Sasau monastery for several weeks now. Let me say that monastery is even prettier now than when it was presented at E3. But otherwise, the monastery is very difficult for us testers, because it is a cluster of several different quests that are interconnected with each other and some even share several NPCs. So if you piss off one NPC in one quest, you won’t progress in another quest because the pissed NPC won’t speak to you anymore. So be careful when you get there!

Other than that, I am also the guy who disappoints anyone who decides to write a report on our support page, because many of the reported bugs are either known or fixed and aren’t relevant anymore. The hardware problems people keep reporting are often unsolvable since the Beta will not be updated anymore and some systems (like save/load) are obsolete.
Ceasing the updates was really necessary as every update was like a little release, which meant long nights and many lost nerves. Thank god I was not here for any of those updates (I joined a month after the beta).

11) What are some of your notable accomplishments?
As a member of QA, I often feel that we are not accomplishing much, but when you look back and remember how things were a few months ago, you realize that much has changed and you were a part of it.
My accomplishment is probably that I was able to stay here without running naked in circles and shouting nonsense like “we need to be able to look back on the horse!”

(that is Stumpy, our MoCapHorse)

12) Why do you think it’s the most important part or thing in the game?
For me it is the story, but the sandbox element makes it a big part of the game and it definitely will be the source of much, much fun.

13) What do you like the most about Kingdom Come: Deliverance?
It would be the idea of a realistic RPG without magic. As for a specific thing I really like our alchemy (nothing is better than brewing yourself some diarrhea potion).
There is a trick for enjoying this feature: just sit back and enjoy the animations, lighting and the sounds of fire and boiling water. In fact, it really is mainly a relaxing feature.

14) How, when and with what (platform, game) did you first get acquainted with videogames?
My father had a PC since I can remember. So I grew up playing PC games. The first game I can remember ever playing was QBASIC gorillas.

I played many classics like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Monkey island and Alone in the dark, which I had nightmares from. Two of my most favorite games are Warhammer 40K: Dawn of war and Start Trek: Deep space nine: The fallen.
At the end of 2009, I got into League of legends (it was not so popular back then) and I ended up playing it till now.
I enjoy action-packed games. I just don’t really have patience for more strategic stuff, even though I try some strategy from time-to-time.
Right now I am really into Warhammer: Vermintide and I am really looking forward to Spacehulk: Deathwing.

15) Which class, gender, or type do you usually pick?
I play almost always a male character (If I can choose) and as for class I tend to go for some kind of support/healer. I don’t really enjoy destroying the enemy but I enjoy keeping my teammates alive and helping them achieve a goal.

16) Which videogame character are you?
I am one of the guys you kill in the first seconds of any Call of Duty game.

17) Are there any videogames you repeat playing over and over again?
Because I like online games, I repeat playing League of Legends and Overwatch. I am kind of a mainstream player. But sometimes I go for Call of Duty 2 and MW in singleplayer mode; these are great shooters. Otherwise I like games with a strong story, but I only play through them once.

18) What would a perfect game according to your wishes look like?
I dream of a Harry Potter MMORPG. Hogwards is a perfect setting for leveling up your character and after you reach the max level and graduate, you go for dungeons and hunting Death Eaters, exploring the world and many other things. However, I am dead certain that if this game ever gets to be made, it will suck badly.

19) Most hilarious bug you have ever encountered or worst video game experience?
Well, it wasn’t 'till I started working for Warhorse that I’ve seen a rotating horse that would launch you into the air when you got too close. That was pretty funny.

20) What game have you been really looking forward to but turned out to be a total disappointment?
Definitely Watch Dogs. The advertisement it got was really disproportionate to what the game actually had to offer. You didn’t even sleep with the girl before they killed her!! Are they even serious?

21) How do you relax after a hard day at work?
Surprisingly, I play games, or watch movies or shows. This Monday for example, I finished Ori and the blind forest and I must say I had a blast, though the levels where you escape the elements drove me crazy.

22) Your favorite music or Spotify playlist
Recently I got into sea shanties. I especially like the versions from Assassins Creed: Black flag…
Or this great playlist:

23) Your favorite movie or book?
I really love Interworld from Neil Gaiman and I am heavy fan of Song of Ice and Fire series.
As for movies, I like Guardians of the Galaxy ,which is better and is the less awkward version of Avengers (which I passionately hate)

24) What species is your spirit animal?
A sloth

25) Sport is…
I regularly train Iaido, which is a Japanese martial art. And when I say regularly I mean before the crunch time was announced. Now, I don’t really even go to a pub, except on special occasions.

26) What’s your guilty pleasure?
Czech Bohemian chips. I am never too lazy to get up and get one of these.

27) What was your greatest mistake?
Repeating the last grade in secondary school, but it was more of a guided mistake. Because of that I found good friends with which I had and will always have a great time.

28) Is it possible to buy you with candy?
No, but you can buy me with beer and meat.

29) What is your kryptonite?
Beer and meat.

30) How do you like living in the Czech Republic?
Since I was born here, I have no other choice than to like it. Czechs don’t like to involve themselves in other people’s bussines most of the time, which is an ideal situation for me. We also have a good beer, I heard.

31) What is your weakest trait?
I am lazy. It’s not that much visible when I am not at home, but when I get there I could be mistaken for a very rude furniture. All I do is sit at the computer and throw curses at my enemies.

32) If you could say something to the fans of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, what would it be?
Many of the active members of our community know me and I am grateful to make their acquaintance. I hope we will be able to organize another get-together because last time was really great.
I would really like to thank to our moderators Blacksmith, Urquhart and Wenceslaus who are a real help on the support page and on the forums. Honorable mention also belongs to McWonderbeast, our former U.S. moderator who can be a sarcastic piece of salty meat, but otherwise he means well
Also, I want to thank our personal trolls which you won’t hear much from for being here with us (because of some hidden feature) and taking our (mostly mine) bullshit.
And lastly, my thanks belong to any fan out there who still has a faith in us (and even to those who don’t).

Do you have any additional questions to Prokop “Proky” Filcík? Just ask here!

DrFusselpulli · December 7, 2016, 3:34pm

And here are the answers from @ProkyBrambora:

Hi, you mighty Beast
As you can imagine, it affected it a lot. As you know I was a big fan of the game and I would play the shit out of it after the release.
Now I might consider playing just some parts, which I haven’t had chance to test. Though I doubt that there will be such parts.

Hey, bro
And go to hell. No one shall insult my games!

Nope, I live with my family. I am abusing that privilege to maximum extent.

Hopefully I will be still working at Warhorse on the next game, If Kingdom Come Deliverance will be successful.

I am exicted to see what will people say about the game and how will they like it. And simultaneously I am a bit afraid of it.

It’s something around a hundred people.

Oh yea, it was. I am not sure, though, whether the next BoN will be held in Prague again.

I depends. Does the bug blocks the progress? or does it lead to crash? Those are the angry bugs.
But otherwise I am definitely more amused. I am like “HEY… THAT’S A BUG!!!.. HAHAHA!”

Sometimes. But I confess before Warhorse I would not report bugs. Only now I am professionally deformed enough to do so.

I don’t know of any plans for closed beta.
But I do see where you are coming from and closed beta would definitely had some pros.
We do need more testers and some new ones are yet to come. But we are running out of space where to put them.

I cannot really say whether we will have our own downloader for the final release. I don’t know, that is to be decided yet, I suppose.

Oh no, in Watchdogs they killed her in the middle of the game (or was it the end?). We operate differently

Thank you!
Looking forward to meet you again.

yes

Let me assure you it isn’t easy.
It is difficult to stay sharp and critical all the time. It’s easy to get used to some bugs and that is exactly what should not happen. Every bug is a xenos filth (if you forgive me that expression) and has to be eliminated!

I still remember… Straubinger-gäubodenfest… I will go there sometime

As @GingerFOX said below. It should be out tomorrow at 8th December.

Almost not at all. Even though the alpha quests were good representation of what is coming, I surely did not expect so awesome writing and so funny and bad-ass dialogues.

As I said above, I don’t know of any plans.

I don’t think so. Even the big studios release games with many bugs and they have much bigger QA teams working for them than we have.
Bugs will always be present and at some point someone has to say “stop” and then it only comes to which bugs will stay and which will have to be fixed.

what do you think?

DrFusselpulli · July 19, 2017, 12:36pm

Tomáš Duchek was born in Pilsen, in the Czech Republic, a city famous for its tasty beer. Tomáš has an excellent taste in art, which is important because he is one of our concept artists. He joined Warhorse Studios in November 2013, even before the Kickstarter campaign.
Do you have any additional questions to Tomáš Duchek? Just ask here
You can find a Spanish translation of this interview here.

1) How did you hear about Warhorse?
It was probably in my final year at university when I realized that I wanted to pursue a career in game development. I believe that my friend told me about Warhorse because he was already a keen reader of Dan Vavra’s developers blog.

2) Describe your usual day at the studio?
After greeting everyone I sit down, put my headphones on and I focus on my work. During the day we have a consultation with our art director, Miki Podprocký, and also our researcher, Asia. If there are any important paintings to be done, we share ideas and try to help each other inside our small concept art team.

3) What are you currently working on?
Right now I am working on illustrations for our ingame codex, which is basically a small encyclopedia that contains all the information about the world, people, crafts, history setting, etc. Our goal with this is to help players be pulled into the game more easily.

4) Can we see your portfolio?
Sure, here is a link for you: https://www.artstation.com/artist/dusint

5) What do you like the most about Kingdom Come: Deliverance?
It is definitely the courage to focus on Bohemian history. When I first heard about the theme of the game, I had doubts about anybody taking interest in our little homeland. But this project proved me wrong and I believe it’s because of the passion with which this game is being developed that people care about the most.

6) How, when and with which game did you first get acquainted with videogames?
It was probably Prince of Persia. I played it with my brother and our neighbor on our black and white monitor. Good times.

7) What was your most touching video game moment?
It may sound strange, but my happiest or strongest gaming memory was probably watching a walkthrough of Journey. Even though I never played it myself it left me in awe. I still look up to this incredibly polished and well executed project.

8) Which class, gender, or type do you usually pick?
Love warriors, hate rogues.

9) Are there any videogames you repeat playing over and over again?
I wish I had no regrets after playing for a long time. Nowadays I tend to work a lot and I expect my daughter to be born in the spring, so I think I will not repeat playing any games soon.

10) How do you relax after a hard day at work?
I go climbing, or running, watch a movie, paint something fun for myself, or spend some quality time with my new family.

11) Your favorite music playlist
I enjoy a wide variety but lately, as it is so cold and cloudy outside, I listen mostly to Autumn acoustics playlists or some oldschool stuff.

12) Your favorite book?
Probably Catch 22 from Joseph Heller. I read it long time ago, but I still remember the insight from a military camp was very captivating. Seeing soldiers as regular people with all their flaws and qualities was very inspiring to me.

13) What’s your guilty pleasure?
Doing ordinary things. Sometimes I think to myself, ‘So this is how people from Earth usually spend their time.’

14) What will be your famous last words?
„What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

15) If you could say something to the fans of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, what would it be?
I am really looking forward to seeing all your walkthroughs of KCD on youtube. And please, don’t run through the world so quickly.

If you have any additional questions to Tomáš Duchek, then you can ask here.

DrFusselpulli · December 14, 2016, 3:42pm

Here are Tomáš Ducheks answers for your community questions:

There are a lot of things that they did so well in their paintings in medieval times. For example drapery, or portraits – it would take a long time to learn. But then there are things, that they didn’t know so well, like perspective, anatomy shortcuts. And mixing this correctly in a painting is very tricky.

[quote=“Feek, post:104, topic:29619”]
Anything interesting you found out?[/quote]

while I was doing research, I found so much freaky and funny illuminations you wouldn’t believe.

That’s a good question. I definitely enjoy the freedom of fantasy stuff. But I believe that restrictions boost creativity. On the other hand, too many restrictions are a little annoying. Well sometimes I wish we could loosen up the rules a little

I enjoyed it especially in the beginning. It was the best way for me to learn all the basics. But coming up with coolness can be difficult without a good research.

Including our art director we are five concept artists.

Team work comes in play mainly while working on promo art. Otherwise we communicate mostly with our art director. And the amount of paintings we have to create for anything varies greatly. Basically we have to create as many as is necessary for the 3d artists to understand perfectly what they will be modeling.

For creating visually attractive and historically accurate paintings. Each member of our team is working many sorts of things so we do not specialize.

Nowadays we know a lot about medieval culture, but we used to consult practically everything.
Using the right colors, decorations, what can be found in the medieval interior.

This painting is based on an in-game terrain. It took probably one day.

The will to learn constantly. Ability to accept criticism. Passion for the project.

I probably enjoy characters a bit more.

Oh, I love so many
Probably Princess Mononoke

DrFusselpulli · July 19, 2017, 1:02pm

Tomáš Kozlik was born in Veľký Krtíš, in the south of Slovakia. He worked on Mafia III at 2K Czech before he joined Warhorse Studios shortly after our Kickstarter campaign in early 2014 where he became our Senior Animator. Part of his job is to get his colleagues animated to work.
Do you have any additional questions to Tomáš Kozlik? Just ask here.
You can find a Spanish translation of this interview here.

1) Where can we usually find you lurking in the holy halls of Warhorse?
My table occupies the far western corner of the animation & character art office.

2) When did you join Warhorse Studios?
I joined Warhorse basically immediately after 2K Czech closed down its Prague offices. There were a few of us who made the same decision, and at one point, there seemed to be an influx of former 2K Czech employees that came into Warhorse Studios. Even the famous Lubos used to work there.

3) Which job would you not want to do?
A Tester. I definitely would not want to be a tester. I do not envy their job description. To be really good, you have to be quite proficient in programing and have knowledge of other gaming related professions as well. All your friends may think it’s easy because all you do is play video games and eat pizza all day long. Furthermore, your job description is basically to dig into other peoples’ work and to point out their mistakes, which can tick people off. That being said, I absolutely respect the guys who chose this as their job; they are really good at it. It’s hard work and a good Q&A team can really make or break the game.

4) Please describe one of your colleagues or your department:
There are many talented people in our studio. One person that stands out for me is Jan “Jabba” Zamecnik. He’s technically part of the animation team, although we sometimes joke that he’s his own department. It’s very hard to describe what his profession is, because he’s an animator, a scripter, a character artist, a tools programmer, a designer and who knows what else, all at the same time. Seriously, go ask him about a game related problem that you’re unable to solve; he had the solution figured out five years ago. At the very least he’ll have an opinion. A huge chunk of learning the ins-and-outs of game animation got way easier because I’ve worked with him.

5) Describe your usual day at the studio?
My usual day starts with my first morning cup of coffee and it ends with a fourth or fifth cup of coffee in the afternoon. I often occupy first place in our coffee consumption leaderboards. In between the coffee drinking I animate, resolve bugs, supervise mocap shoots or act on the mocap stage myself with an occasional philosophical debate with my colleagues sprinkled here and there.

6) What are some of your notable accomplishments?
I’ve been part of the combat team right from the start so the combat is the biggest feature that I’ve worked on. I took part in a combat workshop and supervised the mocap shoots with fencers. Over time, I became so involved with fencing that in the end, I was entrusted to record some of the motions myself. Towards the latter stages I recorded some of our special moves that require two characters being recorded at the same time. We had a proper fencer performing the cool, special-move, and I was the one being punched in the face.

7) What do you like the most about Kingdom Come: Deliverance?
I love that you can fight with a halberd. It’s much more badass than all the other weapons and when you see a guy in a full plate armor wielding a halberd, you know you’re in trouble. I think that one turned out very well, although it was quite a challenge to get it working in a system designed primarily for the longsword.

8) How, when and with what game did you first get acquainted with videogames?
I believe the first game I played was some kind of Robocop themed platformer. I was probably five or six at the time and my dad brought a laptop home from work. It blew my mind, although I’ve never played it since. I tried searching for it, but none of the games I found resembled anything that I can remember and I was also very young. For all I knew, it might have been a text editor that I mistook for a game.

9) What was your saddest, video game moment?
When they captured Uncle Pey’J in Beyond Good and Evil. I know it fits the drama arc of the whole story, but it took me a couple of hours to get over it and to accept Double H as a replacement of Pey’J.

10) Are there any videogames you repeat playing over and over again?
Yes, it would be Icewind Dale (the first one). I love the atmosphere and the visuals of it. I’ve always been a fan of Dungeons AND Dragons and having a PC game based on D&D was a blessing. I need to install it again when I find some spare time.

11) What game have you been really looking forward to but turned out to be a total disappointment?
I’m aware of the inflammatory nature of this subject, but for me it was Planescape: Torment. For me, the second word describes my player experience. This game was hyped by my friends so much, it felt like they were getting paid for it. I was very excited when I installed the game. It wasn’t 5 hours later until I realized that I had read a ton of flavor text in dialogues, I hadn’t progressed a single inch in the story line, and I couldn’t remember any useful information. However, I did read a lot about how different the Planes are arranged though. I compared my experience with my friends to see if I was playing it wrong, but I really wasn’t. They just forgot to tell me that most of the game, especially at the beginning, consisted of reading inconsequential flavor text. I uninstalled it with the sad thought that this would be the only D&D based game that I’ll never be able to enjoy.

12) How do you relax after a hard day at work?
Just hanging out with my wife and my daughter doing all sorts of silly things. My daughter is two-and-a-half years old and she’s able to turn any day into the best day of our lives. Whether she falls asleep watching movies or playing board games with my wife, I’m able to relax and enjoy the day.

13) Do you have a personal story?
My wife used to be my colleague at 2K Czech and now we’re both working at Warhorse. I never thought I’d marry a coworker, but I guess love doesn’t care about your thoughts. She’s a talented character artist and she manages to work from home while taking care of our little one as well. For that, I admire her eternally.

14) Your travel tip?
Go visit Crete. Take a tent (or don’t. It doesn’t rain there anyway), rent a car and just drive around the narrow roads in the hills. I guarantee you will be stopping every five meters for some, “honey we have to take a picture of this view” moments. Pro tip: take a two-year-old kid with you. If you don’t have your own, borrow one from your friends. They’ll be thankful for the much needed free time and you’ll have at least ten times as much fun exploring all the things you never thought could be interesting. Everybody wins!

15) What’s your guilty pleasure?
I listen to Lana del Rey, when I have too much and find myself working till late hours. There, I said it.

16) You have to fight in medieval times… who are you? Which weapon do you choose?
Knowing my luck, I’d probably be the guy, who gets a blunt spear and armor, that’s missing a helmet. So in short, I’d be dead.

17) If you could say something to the fans of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, what would it be?
I’d like to thank all of you guys for the continued support. If the game turns out at least half as good as all of you believe it will, it’ll be awesome to the moon.

Do you have any additional questions to Tomáš Kozlik? Just ask here.

DrFusselpulli · December 21, 2016, 2:28pm

And here are the Weekly Torch community questions and answers.

This question is best answered by somebody from the character department, as they are the ones responsible for scanning the faces. But I completely agree, that the throat area must work together with the face to create believable expressions.

[quote=“Blacksmith, post:109, topic:29619”]
Everyone wants a fluid combat and superb animation. But I prefer it more natural. If not every movement looks like a choreography. Will we have different animations for the same move?[/quote]

I don’t think those are mutually inconsistent. The motions can be fluid, well animated as well as natural. In fact I personally believe, that the fluidity adds to the natural feeling, since even in real life fencing you want the motions to flow, so that you don’t lose too much energy. As for the second part, we didn’t capture variations of the same moves for aesthetical reasons. The amount of data would be too much for the little effect that would have on gameplay. There is however a lot of variations out of necessity. Every basic attack has one version for both feet positions and each consists of two animations blended together according to the distance to the target. Multiply that by the amount of weapons, add all the special moves, ripostes, blocks and dodges and suddenly there is quite a lot of variation even as it is now.

I don’t think that was a goal from the start. We aimed more for an believable reimagining of the historical fencing. To make fencing feel as smooth and fluid as shooting, we would have to sacrifice a lot of realism and in the end we would have a system, that is very different to the actual fencing.

All our combat animations were created with one-on-one combat situations in mind. The group behaviors and large battles are handled by our AI, so from our standpoint there wasn’t a lot of extra challenges. Our role was more support and creating references, from which the AI programmers could distill their behaviors.

[quote=“iamidea, post:110, topic:29619”]
‘Historically Accurate Combat’, ‘Inverse Kinematics’, ‘3D Animation’, ‘First Person’ - What were your initial reactions on hearing this?[/quote]

To be honest I’m the kind of person who doesn’t respond much to buzzwords. What I was more intrigued by was the Kickstarter demo, which although still in an early stage looked very promising. In the end I believe that the combat team was successful in keeping those promises.

DrFusselpulli · March 31, 2017, 2:47pm

Daniel “Hellboy” Vávra was born in the North of Czech Republic in a small town in the mountains close to Poland. He was the mastermind behind the story of Mafia, before he came up with the idea to open his own Studio: Warhorse Studios. Someone would call him an angry cave troll, we just call him @Hellboy. Meet the creative director and the brain behind Kingdom Come: Deliverance.
Do you have any additional questions to Daniel “Hellboy” Vávra? Just ask here.
You can find a Spanish translation of this interview here.

1) How did you get the idea of making Kingdom Come Deliverance?
I was always interested in history. When I was a little kid, I drew pictures of huuuuge medieval battles. My grandparents took me to all the castles and I wanted to make a medieval game even before we started working on Mafia. We even had a prototype of it in 1998. Hell, back in 1995 or so, we were working on something similar to Elder Scrolls Arena where you would be a scribe to a knight…

2) Describe your position. What is it about being a Creative Director?
I came up with the idea of the game, then started the company with Martin, wrote most of the design document with Victor, and then I prepared the outline of the story. I then lead the team and I’m basically that annoying guy who needs to have his fingers and last word in almost everything that gets into the game. I also wrote quite a few of the main quests, directed the actors, and hell, I even did some of the icons. Most of the directors do just the “management” and vision stuff, so I am doing it all wrong and everybody hates me for giving them advice on how to do stuff that they are better at then I am

3) The Region of Rataje and Sázava offers some very beautiful places with an interesting history. How did you find this piece of landscape?
When I chose the events that are in the background of the game, I was literally checking out the history of every castle, town, and village in the region (literally hundreds of places), in that particular year. Even if I couldn’t get some more info about what happened there (or interesting inspirations of some real-world events), I found Skalitz and Ratay, which played an important role in this little war, which is what the game is all about.

4) Which job would you not want to do? Why?
Programmer. I’m really bad at math.

5) Please describe Warhorse Studios:
Well, we have a very flat structure, so everybody can talk to anyone at any time. I guess that Americans especially would be a little shocked that it’s possible to just come to the CEO of the company and tell him that his idea (to do something) is really stupid and still have a job the next day, which is a daily routine over here at Warhorse Studios Currently, it’s also very busy and very tense right now. There’s a lot of very complex work with a very tight schedule and there’s lots of issues to solve. So, it’s definitely not just “shiny, happy people”.

6) Why is Kingdom Come Deliverance called Kingdom Come Deliverance?
People at the time really believed that the end of the world was coming, especially the Hussites (a few years after the events in our game). Deliverance is a story thing and it was also a very cool Amiga game and a very good Opeth album

7) Why did you choose the year 1403 and not the Hussite wars period?
I wanted to begin when it all started and eventually continue to the Hussite wars in the future. Furthermore, we are building the technology, the combat system and everything else, so we would not be able to create such epic events as those that happened during these wars. When we are ready, I want to make sure that everything is done properly.

8) You did a lot of research for Kingdom Come Deliverance, what turned out to be completely different from what you expected?
There were lots of myths about medieval times that turned out to be really stupid. Combat and sword fighting were totally different than in the movies. The times were not as dirty, brown, cruel and dangerous when there was no war. Actually, all was quite colorful: they had lower taxes then we have today and even the crime rate was quite lower than most big cities today What shocked me was, when I got into the intrigues of the nobility - it was much more complicated than the craziest plots of Game of Thrones. The ability of nobles to switch sides, ally with their worst enemies, and then switch again the next week is really unbelievable. I still don’t get how they could come along with each other.

9) Kingdom Come Deliverance is still a game and not a Simulation, can you give an example where game design is more important than realism, and why?
We let you do most of the stuff people could do in a real world, but we try to do it as simple and intuitive as possible. So, it may be complex, but you don’t have to learn everything and memorize some keyboard shortcuts. It’s a game, so even if it was a simulation, it would be much easier and much faster pacing than real life experiences. For example, many things in combat could not be made, even if we wanted to create a hardcore simulator. The way you control the game dramatically limits the complexity of the action on screen. Your body movement is not limited by two sticks and eight buttons.

10) How would you compare Mafia to Kingdom Come Deliverance?
Mafia gave you the experience of what it’s like to be a gangster. Kingdom Come gives you the experience of what it’s like to make you a knight. Both share a strong story, open world, and interesting characters. Kingdom Come has more freedom and non-linearity… and RPG stats.

11) Describe your usual day at the studio?
When I arrive in the morning, we usually have a scrum with the designers where we plan what each of us will do that day. Then I check emails and news, and then the “fun” begins. There are days where I am at meetings for the whole day, which is terrible. We have meetings about planning, features or management and those can be extremely long (like 5 hours in a row long) and painful. Then there are meetings where we solve development issues, features or quests. These are more interesting and most of the time much shorter. Lately, we’ve discussed what trailer we want, we’re designing covers for the game or we’re discussing how we will place all the items into the game and the database etc. During quieter days, I actually do some work! I write quests, review quests of others, play and test the game, or I even photoshop something for the GUI etc.

12) What are you currently working on?
Writing the script for a future trailer, working on the cover for the game with our lead artist, fixing bugs in the quests that I wrote, solving lots of small issues and features every day (for example today: objectives are sorting in a wrong way, fast travel is not intuitive…) and most importantly we are recording voiceovers so that during the days the actors are here. This leads me to being in the studio several days in a row.

13) What are some of your notable accomplishments?
Just recently, we completely scrapped our original idea for a trailer and I came up with a script that I really like - it has lots of cool ideas that define our game very well.

14) What do you like the most about Kingdom Come: Deliverance?
Well it’s supposed to be sort-of a time machine that will take you to medieval Europe and let you experience how it was back then. You could be a medieval knight in a world that is as accurate as possible. I am proud that while we are a rather small team with a very small budget compared to big AAA titles, we’ve achieved lots of things that teams with budgets 10 times bigger than ours didn’t even dare to try. We have a huge world with state-of-the-art graphics, a one-of-a-kind lighting system, hours of cinematics that so far, look very good, and our AI is incredibly complex. The nonlinear quests can get very complicated with very complex mechanics that try to count even with tiny details and options.

15) How, when and with what platform did you first get acquainted with videogames?
Our country was behind an iron curtain and the import of computers and consoles was almost non-existent. My first contact with computers was through German shopping mall catalogues like Quelle. I was fascinated with those small screens of computer games. We also had some form of arcades, with mostly old games. Golden Axe was one of my favorites. Later on, I bought a Czech clone of ZX Spectrum in the late 80s.

16) What was your best/saddest/happiest, most touching video game moment?
The ending of first fallout was great; I remember how I finished it late at night and I was blown away.

17) You lived under the communistic regime which was a huge obstacle when it comes to video games, how did you become a game designer?
I never ever even dreamt I would be making videogames, but I was “designing” them on paper. Back in the 1987 or so, I designed something that took place in a Nazi bunker and it was viewed from first person perspective. My friend told me that he could easily code it on his Atari 800XL

18) Which videogame character or figure is the best?
I think that most of the videogame characters are really cheesy. Commercial-calculated products are not actual characters. Even in games that I generally like, I don’t like the characters and I would have a problem wearing a T-Shirt with gaming themes, thanks to that. There are exceptions of course: The Witcher for example or Shenmue.

19) Are there any videogames you repeat playing over and over again?
Candy Crush Saga before I go to sleep. Somebody help me, I am addicted…

20) What would a perfect game according to your wishes look like?
It generally needs to be about the EXPERIENCE that puts me into the shoes of SOMEONE INTERESTING and I need to be able to experience his adventures in an interesting, functional world where I can meet cool characters (i.e. Fallout, Red Dead Redemption, Witcher.)

21) How do you relax after a hard day at work?
Reading the newspaper on a couch, listening to black metal and doing nothing, which is kinda hard with kids. I watch lots of movies. I am reading lots of stuff everyday - comics (Vinland Saga, JoJos Bizzare Adventure, Unwritten…) history, politics, but I should read more books. I also love to play paintball or train with real steel at the range with my friends.

22) So you like to go to the shooting range. What is your favorite firearm?
Most likely V-AR 15 which is Czech version of AR15 with piston. CZ 75 Shadow pistol and CZ Scorpion EVO.

23) Your favorite music band, album or song?
Bathory, Enslaved, Opeth, Masters Hammer…

24) Your favorite movie/book?
Sapkowski’s Hussite trilogy.

25) What species is your spirit animal?
Dog. White. Bullterrier.

26) What do you most like about living in the Czech Republic?
It’s a mixture of California, Texas and Germany. We are one of the most tolerant nations in the world, we work almost as hard as Germans, we are one of the safest countries, yet at the same time, we have the biggest beer consumption in the world. Everybody smokes weed and everybody has a gun, because we have one of the most liberal gun laws out there Plus, the country is beautiful with amazing history, nature and sights.

27) What is your weakest trait?
I am really lazy person. But when I start to do something…

28) You have to fight in medieval times… who are you?
I would be Skald as I am today

29) Knights or Samurai?
Knight!

30) What was your favorite subject and your most hated one at school?
I was generally a good student. I had problems in chemistry and mechanics because I have a shitty memory. I also hated sculpting lessons; I hate dry-sculpting clay

31) If you could say something to the fans of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, what would it be?
Marry Christmas and have a great year, keep your fingers crossed for us, we are working hard to finish the game and make it as good as possible.

Do you have any additional questions to Daniel “Hellboy” Vávra? Just ask here.

DrFusselpulli · March 18, 2017, 4:10pm

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.

DrFusselpulli · March 31, 2017, 3:37pm

Vojtech “Vojta” Nedved was born in was born in Kladno (the same town where Jaromír Jágr was born) a town not very far from Prague in the Czech Republic. Vojta is a very passionate Sound Designer, always on the hunt for the most authentic sounds with the love of detail.
Do you have any additional questions to Vojtech “Vojta” Nedved? Just ask here.
You can find a Spanish translation of this interview here.

1) How did you hear about Warhorse?
I was playing live some chiptunes at a Czech gaming prize giving event. At one point, Dan Vavra barrel-rolled to the stage for no reason; it was pretty impressive. KC:D also looked good
I joined Warhorse midway through 2015.

2) Describe your position. What is it about being a Sound Designer?
Being an Sound Designer means responsibility for the creation of quality audio assets and putting them to audio middleware (we use FMOD Studio but we don’t use stock soundbanks). I want to have every single piece of audio created in-house, so I can often be often seen in the forests, recording atmospheres, or in the studio wielding swords. I have to make sure that the CryEngine communicates with FMOD the way we want to (with Adam Sporka we created FMOD wrapper for CryEngine). The important part is setting the sounds to react to the game events so that the audio fits every game situation. I’m doing audio dramaturgy for cutscenes and adding sounds to them. I’m also responsible for game dubbing (we have people who help us with it).

3) Have you ever worked on Videogames before?
I worked on some Amiga and PC games. I also did additional music for Jets ‘n’ Guns Gold. Then I worked on some mobile games but nothing big as KC:D. In the past, I worked as a sound recordist, sound mixer, boom operator (microphonist), audio post-production and I even worked as a data analyst.

4) Please describe one of your colleagues or your department:
Our department consists of academics and crazy people only. I’m a half-insane chiptune freak who gathers 8bit machines, owns a large variety of microphones, and listens to horrorcore. I only fall asleep with a yellow bucket on my head. Adam is a brony, has a brony music band. and visits My Little Pony fests around Europe. Our composer Jan can compete against decadent poets and likes to show his nipples to random people when he’s drunk.

5) What are you currently working on?
At the moment, I’m working on English dubbing. Of all the stuff that we receive from the recording studio, we must pick the right takes, normalize loudness and process them (remove plosives, crackles, clicks, use deesser and sometimes EQ or harmonic exciter). With Adam Sporka we are also working on a more automated solution that would help us deliver thousands of lines per week.

6) What do you like the most about Kingdom Come: Deliverance?
The atmosphere - I feel like I was there. The game has a somewhat slower pace, which is actually a good thing. When I played Ishar 2 there were cool forest pictures in the intro and I told to myself back then, ‘Perhaps one time there will be games which will look like this but in-game,’ and now I’m working on one of them. Wow…

7) How, when and with what platform or game did you first get acquainted with videogames?
It was a long time ago. A local friend (an interesting person who years later ended up getting busted for stealing stuff at an airport) let me borrow Commodore 64 when I was 6 or 7. The datasette (tape data storage) was half broken and I had to load the game 5-10 times. I went through it anyway and I began to get seriously addicted. The very first game I can remember was Agent USA where you had to destroy Fuzzbomb, which infected poor people by the fuzz. The game required knowledge of American geography but I decided to play it anyway.

8) What was your most touching video game moment?
For me, the most touching moment was the ending of Another World. The music, the emotions… I think it was the first time I cried while playing a computer game. Other than crying in a hysteric rage (Prince of Persia? Come on!? Who could finish that game without cheats?)

9) Which videogame character are you?
Probably Q*bert. I also make funny sounds.

10) Are there any videogames you repeat playing over and over again?
Occasionally, I get back to playing old games. I dig Archon, Rescue on Fractalus (I’ve never been more scared in my life), the Ishar series, Waxworks (those death pics!), Another World, Neo Turf Masters (only a few can beat me), Bad Mojo, Vietcong, Rocket League…

11) Your favorite movie?
My favorite movies are Marketa Lazarova, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Come and See (Idi I Smotri), Starship Troopers, Braindead, No Country For Old Men, The Hunt (Jagten) and many others.

12) Sport is…
I watch ice hockey and play floorball. I used to play a floorball at a competitive level for like 10 years.

13) What’s your guilty pleasure?
I watch bad movies, especially 80’s horror movies. For some strange reason, I like awkward situations. I often tell people my own bad jokes and enjoy it when they don’t laugh.

14) Is it possible to buy you with candy?
If Candy has nice tits then why not?

15) What is your kryptonite?
Olives, olive oil. I just love Mediterranean cuisine.

16) Imagine you are a cake, what kind of cake are you and why?
I’m a cheesecake because almost all of my answers are cheesy.

17) Knights or Samurai?
Shadow Warrior is cool but Moonstone is BETTER!

18) If you could say something to the fans of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, what would it be?
Stay cool! We try our very best not to disappoint you and bring you the game you want to play.

Do you have any additional questions to Vojtech “Vojta” Nedved? Just ask here.

DrFusselpulli · January 12, 2018, 8:55am

And here are Vojtas answers to your community questions:

Hello Pandemic. Beautiful music indeed. It’s somewhat different style when I compare it to KC:D but it sounds fantastic.

Hi Urquhart. I recorded many hours of different forest atmospheres and sounds. I came through it and cut out nice oneshots that play in our forests from time after time. Some are rare if once in 3 minutes is rare enough for you ;] But memory wise we can’t afford to play large variety of sounds so we have neutral forest beds with some random bird/wind/whatever oneshots playing. There aren’t certain trees that are yelling but around ponds there are some willows that sing. In theory I have a perfect forest in my mid. I’d record many 4channel beds which would blend and cover the forest plus large variety of random and scripted sounds around listener. Now we have 2channel beds which cover large portions of a forest with small variety of random sounds.
“Audio dramaturgy of cutscenes”. Yeah, it’s not self-explanatory and my English is rather bad ;] It means where to put which sounds, where to put dramatic silence, how to adjust levels of music to coexist with sounds. Audio direction would be probably better term. It’s not rocket science but it needs to be done right.
About the last answer… I honestly don’t know. I play mainly old games but I can at least say I haven’t seen better looking forest in a game so far.

Hi. Kakyou. In our beta version there are already draw/holster sword sounds. I recorded them with real sword and kept them the way they were. If I was working on different game perhaps I’d put there that boring “tsching” sound as well Someone already asked me why he doesn’t hear that sound he’s used to. But some other people liked this approach. We try to stay as realistic as possible as long as the gameplay’s not affected.
Yes, there will be animation triggered sounds from animals and people doing their stuff. There are visible gusts of winds in the game and they can be also audible. But because of engine limitations these two aspects can’t be connected together (visible and audible gusts at the same time). I wasn’t happy about it, believe me but it’s how it is. We try to make sounds as interactive as possible but sometimes you have to help it with some atmospheres.
Yes, there will be dynamic footsteps on wet/dry soil, I have it implemented already.
Not for now. If we find especially good use, we may include HRTF support for some sounds.
Yes. It’s composed and we have to record it and mix it. Adam and me will take care about it. Period music probably will be the last music to be made for act I.

Thanks guys for your questions, it was my pleasure to answer them.

DrFusselpulli · March 31, 2017, 3:19pm

Michal “Mikee” Hapala has a crazy haircut, but he is a talented programmer, who joined Warhorse very early in February 2012 long before the Kickstarter campaign. He was raised in Prague but born in Bratislava which is nowadays in Slovakia, formerly Czechoslovakia, but that is a history on its own…
Do you have any additional questions to Michal “Mikee” Hapala? Just ask here.
You can find a Spanish translation of this interview here.

1) Where can we usually find you lurking in the holy halls of Warhorse?
At my keyboard, with in-ears blocking outside clatter. As we’ve entered the optimizing and fixing phase, I also frequently roam the halls in a lookout for heretics claiming there are bugs in my code. Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition!

2) How did you hear about Warhorse?
In 2008 I worked with Viktor Bocan, our lead systems designer, on a Nintendo DS game (that never got released) at a company called Cinemax. Later that year I also became involved in teaching a computer games development class at my alma mater. I invited Viktor to have a lecture there and evaluate the student projects too. Some years passed and at one of the evaluation meetings he mentioned that the new game studio he works for (with a yet unannounced project) will soon be looking for experienced programmers. At that point, I was in the third year of an EECS doctoral study and I was looking for ways to get out of it at least for a while, so I told him I’ll be interested and to keep me posted. And he did . I joined Warhorse in February 2012.

3) Describe your position. What is it about being a programmer?
I’ve always believed that being a programmer is a diagnosis. My job is a manifestation of my character, not vice-versa. Was that too deep for your taste?

4) Have you ever worked on Videogames before?
When I started attending university my goal was to get a job in the gaming industry, so after I felt a little confident I applied and started working externally for Centauri Production (much later they were incorporated into Bohemia Interactive) and then for Cinemax working on a Nintendo DS engine with a few of released DSWare titles. Before and after I did other programming jobs too: mainly web and database programming and also some computer graphics research.

5) What is your favorite team activity?
The occasional football or floorball game with colleagues. We even played cricket once!

6) What are you currently working on?
There’s honestly not that much to talk about right now since it’s bug fixing and optimizations. Here and there though there are some new (forgotten) features or tweaking of some old ones, but we try to keep that to a minimum.

7) What are some of your notable accomplishments?
Since I’ve worked on this project almost from the start, my code changes are all over but mostly in the animations and (oh my god) the physics systems. I am pretty satisfied with the new leg IK solver we created with our lead animator Petr Samek. His idea, my implementation, to be absolutely fair. For those who have no idea what that thing means: it dynamically fits the legs and feet to the shape the character is standing on.

8) What do you like the most about Kingdom Come: Deliverance?
I am a history buff, so the story and the setting are my thing.

9) How, when and with what platform or game did you first get acquainted with videogames?
Oh boy, I don’t remember the glory of the good old 8-bit days, but the first computer my parents owned was an IBM XT with a black-yellow monitor and on this beast of a machine I played my first videogames. I systematically went through the “games” directory and for example, it took me a few months to figure out how to take off in Microsoft Simulator 1.0. I was about seven and I knew only a few English words, but I did it!

10) What was your most touching video game moment?
Through the audio logs and e-mails, I became pretty attached to the character of Marie Delacroix in System Shock 2. To this day I remember how sad I was to find her dead nearing the end of the game.

11) Which videogame character or figure is the best?
Drizzt Do’Urden. Drow ranger wielding two scimitars with a magical panther. Are you still asking why?

12) Which class, gender, or type do you usually pick?
Elven mages are my RPG favorites. I usually want to control the character that has the most gameplay options.

13) Are there any videogames you repeat playing over-and-over-again?
I used to play (and finish) the original Diablo from time-to-time. Last time it took me four hours (with the sorcerer, of course). Now that I think about it, I might play it again!

14) How do you relax after a hard day at work?
Married with a kid. What’s that “relax” thing you are talking about? Seriously though, of course I play videogames (MGS V: Phantom Pain is my current favorite) and I try to find time to get through at least one book a month. When completely exhausted, I pick a movie I’ve already seen a couple of times.

15) Your favorite music playlist
“Floating through space” on Google Music. I am a trip-hop fan, so anything that includes Portishead, Lamb, Massive Attack and such.

16) Your favorite movie or book?
Too many to list, but if I have to mention one author I do love Richard P. Feynman’s books. Also, I’ve recently seen Blade Runner with Ridley Scott’s commentary. That. Is. A. Treat.

17) Your travel tip?
Israel. Cheap flight tickets, cheap car rentals, and a small country with history on every corner make perfect traveling.

18) What is your weakest trait?
Concentration deficit mixed with a mild OCD…. or is that my strongest?

19) What was your favorite subject and your most hated one at school? What were your grades in history?
It depended more on the teacher than on the subject, although in general, you can say that I liked information, I hated classes. Grades in history? I honestly don’t remember.

20) If you could say something to the fans of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, what would it be?
Thanks for staying with us for so long. The less you ride the hype-train the more you’ll be satisfied!

Do you have any additional questions to Michal “Mikee” Hapala? Just ask here.

DrFusselpulli · January 12, 2017, 2:51pm

This bug usually happens when there’s only one update of the ground alignment system instead of continuous updates and the body of Henry is thus not moved upwards (the anti-duck algorithm). And yes, I will be the one to fix it, once I delve through our buglist deep enough to reach its priority

[quote=“Kakyou, post:148, topic:29619”]
In which cases do you rely solely on the CryEngines pyhsical system and in which cases do you use self-desgined physical systems (if any)?[/quote]
Except some special cases in combat we use it everywhere.

[quote=“Kakyou, post:148, topic:29619”]
Have you modified the CryEngine Core? If yes, then in what extent?[/quote]
Yes, in some parts we modified it pretty heavily e.g. to paralellize some core features like animation update. There are also a lot of surgical changes that amassed over the years. It’s not a completely different engine though, major parts of the code are untouched. There’s no backward compatibility with original CryEngine levels and data however, that would be almost impossible to maintain.

[quote=“Kakyou, post:148, topic:29619”]
What were the biggest problems you have encountered so far?[/quote]
I think what technically slowed us down the most was the move to CryEngine 3.5 a couple of years ago, mainly the changes to the animation system since we had to recreate and rethink most of the data.

[quote=“Kakyou, post:148, topic:29619”]
What tools did you create and for what puroses?[/quote]
The AI system and its toolset is completely in-house. There are many smaller tools out there too, but that is the major one.

[quote=“Kakyou, post:148, topic:29619”]
Some architectural/technical questions

What are the langues your game is written upon. The Cry-Engine is the core (C++), you have built your system above it with plugins (I presume also C++), then you have your AI/Behavior/Game System Scripts, what languages are you using, I presume LUA but I also saw Python in the install directory.[/quote]
Engine code and game code is in C++, scripting is done in Lua and in our custom AI behavioural trees as you mentioned. Python is not used for anything that is in-game.

[quote=“Kakyou, post:148, topic:29619”]
For what do you use Python?[/quote]
Our automatic profiling system is written in Python.

[quote=“Kakyou, post:148, topic:29619”]
What programm did you used to make your animations (Maya? 3DsMax)[/quote]
Maya is the favorite here, although at first we used 3dsMax and there still might be some people using it.

[quote=“Kakyou, post:148, topic:29619”]
What is the format of your animations?[/quote]
CryEngine has a custom animation format to which you can export from Maya.

[quote=“Kakyou, post:148, topic:29619”]
What are the mesh types your characters are composed of (The standarad, skeleton and static) or with more[/quote]
Characters have a skeleton (tree) structure built out of single bones (or joints, depends on the view). The visual is then made either out of meshes animated with multiple weighted bones (i.e. skinned meshes like heads or limbs with clothing) or meshes attached to one bone (like weapons). There are some tricks done in the clothing system so you can layer clothes on top of each other.

[quote=“Kakyou, post:148, topic:29619”]
Do you work with destructible meshes?[/quote]
No

[quote=“Kakyou, post:148, topic:29619”]
What IDE are you using, in your videos I saw IntelliJ[/quote]
I am not aware of anyone using IntelliJ, we use primarily Visual Studio. Some people have external editors (like Sublime) and only use it for compiling though.

[quote=“Kakyou, post:148, topic:29619”]
Optimization

What is your approach for the optimization of the NPC-Behavioural optimization?[/quote]
I am not sure I understand what you are asking, but anyway Tomas Plch was the guy to answer this. I guess you will have to wait for another AI programmer to fire himself up with the Weekly Torch and maybe rephrase it for him

[quote=“Kakyou, post:148, topic:29619”]
What will be optimized graphically?[/quote]
That’s a very general question but basically our game eats through memory pretty fast so a lot of the game assets are getting optimized for size when for example we find out that the resolution is unnecessarily high (as was the case for some textures) and ideally you should not tell the difference.

[quote=“Kakyou, post:148, topic:29619”]
How many LODs will you include?[/quote]
Depends on the type of the asset, this can’t be said in general. Animation skeletons have three LODs right now, while some static objects are using merging to create one object in place of many when you are far away.

[quote=“Kakyou, post:148, topic:29619”]
How is your approach for the LOD change?[/quote]
We use CryEngine’s dissolving LODs.

[quote=“Kakyou, post:148, topic:29619”]
In which cases are scripts more performant than using only the CryEninge itself? (If there are some cases)[/quote]
I am not aware of such a case in our project.

[quote=“Kakyou, post:148, topic:29619”]
Will you use multithreading for AI-Calculations or do you already use it to some degree? If you will use multithreading will you implement it scalabe or will you assume a certain amount of cores/threads and set it as a maximum?[/quote]
We already have AI on its own thread in parallel to rendering and we’re still working on this one to make it faster. As far as assuming a certain amount of cores, the job system usually tries to fill as many cores as possible, but that depends on the type of the jobs.

DrFusselpulli · March 31, 2017, 3:26pm

Joukejan “Jouke” Timmermans is one of the Environment Artists here at Warhorse Studios, doing an amazing job in creating the beautiful landscape of Kingdom Come Deliverance. Jouke was born in Ljouwert, Fryslân in the Netherlands and moved to Prague to work for Warhorse Studios.
Do you have any additional questions to Joukejan “Jouke” Timmermans? Just ask here.
You can find a Spanish translation of this interview here.

1) Where can we usually find you lurking in the holy halls of Warhorse?
You will find me in a dark room with all the other environment and concept artists. It’s the room where you can melt from the heat that is being produced by the people working hard on making the world look great. Seriously, it’s a sauna here!

2) Describe your position. What is it about being an environment artist?
I am working as a 3d environment artist for Kingdom Come: Deliverance. This means I am responsible for making awesome looking places and objects for the player to walk through and to enjoy. This job is not only about making the most beautiful piece of art you can make, but it’s also about making the artwork together with all the other aspects of developing the final game. For example, if I were to make the interior of a house interesting by filling it with objects and the testers find problems with the NPCs, then I would have to go back and fix it. That’s exactly what we are doing at this moment: optimizing the art to eventually make the game work and look awesome at the same time.

3) How did you hear about Warhorse?
I heard about Warhorse Studios when I saw the first Kickstarter video with Dan “the Viking,” as my father keeps calling him. In January 2014, I first applied for a job as a 3d junior artist at Warhorse and I was fortunate enough to do the art tests that every applicant had to do. So I got through both the art test and the level test (that came after the art test) and I was very thrilled. Unfortunately, at that time they needed to drop the open position to hire someone for the animation department. I was still out of work and I knew I had to pick up the pace and not fall behind on the newest technology. I took a job as a newspaper delivery boy, which meant getting up at 5 and bring the newspapers around different neighborhoods. At 7 I would be home and then I would start working on my portfolio during the day. On and off it took me 11 months to finish some decent portfolio pieces with which I could do another solicitation round. Of course, I contacted Warhorse Studios first and I immediately was asked to do a skype meeting. What follows, like they say, is history. On March 6th, 2015 I became a Warhorsian.

4) What are you currently working on?
Currently, I am busy with fixing bugs regarding mainly Sazava and Rataje City. Bugs vary from bad terrain alignment to characters grinding a fence when jumping over it. You come across some very interesting and funny bugs. Another thing that keeps me busy is making LODs for the models that are in the game. This means making ‘cheaper’ versions that will be displayed as the distance between the player and the object getting bigger.

5) Why do you think it’s the most important part or thing in the game?
There really is not one thing that is most important in my opinion. I believe that what each department is making is a piece of art in and of itself. Combining these pieces of art into one game is what is most important and I think we are succeeding greatly in this effort. From immersive and epic music to tense combat situations. When these aspects of the game come together and they are, that to me is what is most important.

6) What do you like the most about Kingdom Come: Deliverance?
What I really like about Kingdom Come: Deliverance is that I have no clue what the quests will be like. I will jump into this game knowing most of the layout of the world but with zero knowledge of the story and missions. I purposely tried to not get a lot of information regarding the story because I want to be surprised when the game comes out. Secondly, I love the attention to the detail that is going into the world that we created. It really is amazing.

7) How, when and with what game did you first get acquainted with videogames?
I think it was Super Mario Bros on the Super Nintendo.

8) Are there any videogames you repeat playing over and over again?
No question about it: Medal of Honor Allied Assault. Another really good one that I enjoy playing over and over is Hidden and Dangerous 2. The core mechanics of Hidden and Dangerous 2 strike me as one of the best to this day. I think I could play this game even 20 years from now, though I am hoping by then I will be playing Hidden and Dangerous 3

9) What would a perfect game according to your wishes look like?
I would like to see an Assassins Creed game in a World War 2 coat. I can already see the opportunities with such a concept.

10) Your favorite music playlist?
Electric Light Orchestra, Bee Gees, Interpol are the bands I am listening to at the moment. Besides that, I love to listen to the soundtrack of the TV series, “Band of Brothers”.

11) Your favorite movie/book?
There is one movie which I really love and which I can watch over and over again. It’s called “Where Eagles There” starring Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood. This 1968 movie has everything I want a movie to have, amazing music, drama, action and pretty good special effects for that time.

12) What species is your spirit animal?
Flying Spaghetti monster and don’t tell me he is not real!

13) Your travel tip?
That’s easy: Nepal. If you want to have an active and cultural vacation/trip, go to this country. Do a group vacation and you will go to amazing places, see crocodiles 2 meters from you in the water, hike the base of Mount Everest and go paragliding.

14) You are from the Netherlands, what are the main differences between the Czech Republic and the Netherlands?
The most noticeable difference I would say is that beers in the Czech Republic are served in .5l glasses. In the Netherlands, you get .33l and you have to ask if you want a bigger one. If you’re lucky, they’ll find some big old dusty .5l glass somewhere in the cellar.
Another big difference is the price of the beer. In Prague you can get drunk for less than 8 euros, so maybe it says something about me, but I don’t think so

15) How do you like living in the Czech Republic?
I really enjoy the Czech Republic, it is so rich in forests and there are many medieval sights to explore. The weather is amazing too. I am used to rain and wind, a lot of it. Over here I never had any real issues with wind or rain; it all seems quite moderate. On the other hand, there is plenty of snow around here. Last winter season was awesome but this winter season already makes last year look like a tropical season. I don’t enjoy it alone, I have a girlfriend with whom I am traveling a lot around the country and we try to explore as much as possible.

16) Which is your favorite historic event?
World War 2 for sure. This to me is so epic in scope and destruction that sometimes it is so difficult to imagine that it happened only around 76 years ago.

17) If you could say something to the fans of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, what would it be?
Thank you very much for your support in making this game happen. I am looking forward to hearing your experiences with Kingdom Come: Deliverance when it releases.

Do you have any additional questions to Joukejan “Jouke” Timmermans? Just ask here.

WH_JiriRydl · January 15, 2017, 7:34pm

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