Warhorse Studios Weekly Torch

DrFusselpulli · July 19, 2017, 9:35am

Alisa Zavodina was born in the city of Almaty in Kazakhstan and joined Warhorse Studios in late 2015 as a tester for the quality assurance departement. Recently she switched to the scritping team because of her interrest in technical design.
Do you have questions for Alisa Zavodina and her position at Warhorse? 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?
During my time in QA, I could normally be seen running around the studio with an axe and chasing colleagues, who usually vanished when they noticed me carrying another bug in their direction. Now that I’m on the other side of the field doing script programming, I can squash a few of them (bugs, not colleagues) myself.

2) How did you hear about Warhorse?
I heard about Warhorse from my friend whose husband works with us as a Character Artist. She knew about my passion for being a gamedev and she helped me push myself over the edge in making a decision, for which I’m forever grateful.

3) Describe your position. What is it about being a Scripter?
Being a script programmer means bringing the designers’ work to life. We put together the works of other departments - design, animations, functional details, etc. We use our tools to liven up the world, fill it with up NPCs, wildlife, and we aid designers in their quest duties. Afterwards, we work on the quests and then we give the quests some more touch until all of them are crafted and polished.

4) Please describe Warhorse Studios:
The atmosphere at Warhorse differs massively from the other engagements I’ve been a part of. It’s much less formal and much more friendlier; people are always there for you. There’s little to no competition between us as we all strive for a common goal, which is to polish the game. As a result, we’re no strangers to spontaneous after-work beers or outside activities as a team.

5) What is your favorite team activity?
I’m all about running and shooting (Lasergame), racing (karts, small cars at Matejska pout… or Rocket League) and of course I enjoy movie evenings with the team quite a lot.

6) What are you currently working on?
As of now I’m involved in livening up the game world, specifically providing jobs, food, and places to rest for our dear NPCs. Each house should have a certain set of content to suit the NPC’s needs and the workplaces should be equipped accordingly (i.e. a farmer’s got to have a hoe and a field to work). After a busy day, each NPC enjoys a particular hobby, that, in its turn, requires specific objects, and it’s part of my job to keep the stock full.

7) What was your most touching video game moment?
All of these moments happened during the completion of the Sleeping Dogs’ story. I’ve never been affected by a game as much as I have with this one. Someday I’ll play it through it once more.

8) Which videogame character or figure is the best?
Dante of DMC: his charisma and big mouth always deliver.

9) Are there any videogames you repeat playing over and over again?
As a kid, I’ve replayed Dune 2 - The Battle for Arrakis on Sega Mega Drive as House Harkonnen multiple times, then it got replaced by HoMM. I’m also a big fan of Devil May Cry and on an unpopular note, I’ve played the 5th game the most (and discovered Combichrist). Having rather warm feelings for the Bioware universe, I’ve also completed Dragon Age quite a few times.

10) What game have you been really looking forward to but turned out to be a total disappointment?
I had big expectations for Prototype 2, but since they’ve turned Alex Mercer into antagonist, I was too disappointed to even give it a shot.

11) Your favorite music playlist
Metal, metal and more metal of all kinds, especially live. Otherwise I’m attracted to various genres as long as it rocks me.

12) Your favorite movie or book?
That’s a tough one as I’ve been influenced by many books. George Orwell’s 1984, Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude and Stephen King’s The Running man are definitely there. My favorite movies are book-based too - Palahniuk’s The Fight Club by David Fincher and Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Miloš Forman. Like many, I’m a big fan of Quentin Tarantino’s movies, Pulp Fiction in particular. I never grow tired of watching it.

13) Your travel tip?
China. Marvelous country, ancient history, tons of sightseeing and on the other hand, a lot of hi-end decisions and scientific research. And if you’re into good food, this place has it all as each of China’s numerous regions has its own cuisine, the common thing being both quality and quantity. The nature’s something else, I mean, the country has karst hills, so what else could you possibly want?

14) What will be your famous last words?
I live, I die, I live again!

15) Is it possible to buy you with candy?
You can only buy me with meat.

16) Who is your favorite historic character?
Sir Winston Churchill was not just one of the history’s most prominent minds in terms of politics and military strategy, he was also a true intellectual genius. Nikola Tesla’s another brilliant man - a mind so revolutionary for its time that he was considered insane,. That’s the brain I’d love to pick.

17) Knights or Samurai?
Vikings!

18) If you could say something to the fans of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, what would it be?
We’re trying our darndest to make this a truly interesting and remarkable game and we really do put our heart and soul into making it just that. I hope in KCD you’ll find another realm you’ll be glad to return to.

Do you have more questions for Alisa Zavodina? Just ask here.

DrFusselpulli · May 25, 2017, 12:39pm

And here are Alisa Zavodina´s answers to your community questions.

I’ve lived here before I started working in WH.

there will be some dice game in the pubs.

Nope, but I played Alpha/Beta in WH.

You will see it in the game

Yes, and this mini game is great.

There are no random quests. We are trying to limit filler content as much as possible. All quests are hand crafted. But in the game are random events, for example, you can be attacked by bandits or you can investigate a murder.

There is one achievement where you have to find all the names of the higher kickstarter backers that we have in our game.

This is some debug for beds, benches etc. If it’s not working (or not correctly) – sheep is spawned on this place.

DrFusselpulli · July 19, 2017, 9:24am

Petr “Hudy” Hudeček is one of the newest members of Warhorse Studios, as he joined the team just recently in April 2017 as a tester for the quality assurance departement. He was born in Brno, in the east of the Czech Republic. But now he is here in Prague and helps to make Kingdom Come: Deliverance a better game.
Do you have any questions for Petr “Hudy” Hudeček or his position as a tester? Just ask here!
You can find a Spanish translation of this interview here.

1) How did you hear about Warhorse?
I first heard about Warhorse soon after its successful Kickstarter campaign. It caught my attention for its uniqueness. I‘ve been working for Warhorse since April 2017, so I’m one of the latest additions to the team. There is of course a less fancy name for it.

2) Describe your position. What is it about being a quality assurance?
I’m helping my colleagues to identify and eliminate problems in the game so we can deliver the highest quality product possible.

3) Did you ever worked on Videogames before?
I’ve created a few custom-made games for my friends so to be honest……no, not really.

4) Which job would you not want to do?
There is no such job. Any job you do can branch you out in a spectacular way. However, I know what I would love to do: design the whole concept of the game – gameplay, business model, monetarization, message to the players, etc.

5) Describe your usual day at the studio?
If possible, I start my day by dishing out offensive jokes towards Luboš Suk or Prokop Filcík. Afterwards, I start downloading new data while waiting for their sweet revenge. After that, I’m looking for problems in the game that might downgrade player’s experience. Part of the job is to analyze the reasons behind it and then see who the problem(s) should be reported to. It takes a lot of time and focus, but whenever I have some spare time, I’m of course inventing new offensive jokes towards Prokop and Luboš.

6) What are you currently working on?
Currently I’m working on E3 content, which brings both great fun and responsibility. Most of the E3 content is part of the main story (without spoiling anything major, of course). Besides that, I’m working on the crime system, ambush events, and several quests.
I like how the perception of NPCs in the crime system works, especially when you are trespassing into someone’s property. You can sneak through their backyard without being noticed, but if you’re not careful enough, they will come after you and hunt you down.

7) What do you like the most about Kingdom Come: Deliverance?
The whole package. It’s either that or nothing, as it always should be.

8) Which videogame character or figure is the best?
For me it’s almost all Bioware characters. I also love the Mass Effect series’ characters and Star Wars’ characters, how they ask the right questions and create emotional relations. The BEST one would probably be Kreia - she knew how to open one’s eyes. She made me realize how naive I can be about consequences and assumptions. It was the perfect thing to teach a young growing boy like me.

9) Which class, gender, or type do you usually pick?
The most fun of course. I’m open minded about it, but it depends on the gameplay. However, if I have the chance to play a supportive character, even in a small way, I usually take the opportunity to do so.

10) Are there any videogames you repeat playing over and over again?
No matter what I do, somehow I always end up playing SWTOR and LoL. I’m intensively trying to analyze why.

11) What would a perfect game according to your wishes look like?
I believe I will bring that bad boy to life one day. For now, I have my own fails to make. I can reveal that it will create a new genre, but it is all a work in progress. A second best game would be described in the world-renowned book: Ready Player One. I’ve never felt so passionate about the gaming world before. Ernest Cline created and described something very unique there.

12) Most hilarious bug you have ever encountered or worst video game experience?
Definitely something in KCD. Funny things happen during game development.

13) What game have you been really looking forward to but turned out to be a total disappointment?
Atlas Reactor. Information from developers was non consistent with the game itself. It was really a great idea that was badly executed, and the tutorial didn’t help much.

14) What species is your spirit animal?
Panda

15) Your travel tip?
Decide to go, then make the first step.

16) What’s your guilty pleasure?
Nutella, Lotus biscuits, peanut butter and chips.

17) What will be your famous last words?
Oh! So I was wrong again, I guess.

18) What is your kryptonite?
Nutella, Lotus biscuits, peanut butter and chips. I’m so weak around it.

19) Which is your favorite historic event?
Hannibal Barca’s campaign against the Roman Empire. Everyone in business should know his story.

20) If you could fight 100 duck-sized horses or 1 horse-sized duck, which would you choose?
Fight them? I would befriend them! That would be the ultimate badass achievement.

21) If you could say something to the fans of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, what would it be?
Brace yourself! Its coming.

Do you want to know more about our tester Petr “Hudy” Hudeček? Please ask here!

DrFusselpulli · May 31, 2017, 4:12pm

here are Petr “Hudy” Hudečeks answers to your community questions.

I find it difficult to admire people as idols. I always try to question everything and everyone. Including myself. I would do some things differently, but who am I to judge right now? You guys will be the judges that matter.

No I haven’t. I had general idea about the game from youtube, but that’s all.

In one word: inconsistency. But it’s improving.

Not to spoil too much, I can say that NPC reacts to noises in a way and dogs can be soothed right now.

Haven’t seen it yet, but I will definitely give it a go!

Oh yeah! Yeah! Lovely babes are all over me… begging for my attention, guys ask me what is it like to be so important! That’s a NO by the way.

That is interesting theory. But more important question is: why are you asking?

I haven’t spent that much time with everyone to tell. But I can say this. Ending of every project is hard. It’s not always sunshine and butterflies, but it definitely isn’t “just a job”.

DrFusselpulli · July 19, 2017, 9:14am

Jan “Bodkin” Němec is one of the designers here at Warhorse Studios, and his crazy mind makes for very interesting quests. He was born in Kyjov, in the southern Moravian part of the Czech Republic.
Do you have any questions for Jan “Bodkin” Němec or his position as a tester? Just ask here!
You can find a Spanish translation of this interview here.

1) How did you hear about Warhorse?
I can’t remember when I heard about Warhorse for the first time, but I do remember that I said something like, “Fuck, I wanted to make an RPG about the Hussite Wars!” Sometime later, Warhorse was looking for Designers and I was looking for work… just a simple destiny thing. As they say, ‘If you can’t beat them, join them.’
A few years later I joined the studio just two months before the Kickstarter…

2) Have you ever worked on Videogames before?
Yeah, back in the DOS times, I once opened Gorillas small QBASIC game, deleted one line of code and never made it work again.
In the early 2000s I was part of a team behind a game which was very popular with teenage boys.
Around 2009 I started to work on Roguelike to end all Roguelikes, as it never saw the light of day.

3) What are you currently working on?
Nowadays I am trying to play my quest, squash bugs, add moods, rewrite logs and weep silently.

4) What are some of your notable accomplishments?
There is one sentence I am really proud of.

5) What is most difficult in designing a quest?
To know where to stop. Or better yet, to find the right balance between over-designing and under-designing the quest. It’s too easy to add so much cool stuff that it is not actually possible to make it work together (or test every possible fringe situation) and it is too easy to miss an obvious solution, because you already have 3 and it is more than enough.
The other super hard thing is actually finishing the quest. The beginning is all fun and roses and beer (or other alcohol), but then the reality sets in and you start throwing out things that don’t work (but you loved that idea so much) and it’s not fun to play, it looks stupid, and it breaks your heart and you start to detest it sooo much, that you want to take the quest behind the barn and finally end its suffering. Furthermore, everything is your fault, it was your stupid idea!

6) Do you have a favorite quest?
My favorite quest is one where you can solve everything by just punching people in the face. Yeah, you can also solve it by other means, but this had a great feel of a stupid 80’s action movie.

7) How, when and with what platform or game did you first get acquainted with videogames?
In the early 90’s, I remember playing Captain Comic, Cosmo, Prince of Persia, and Crime Wave at my uncle’s computer. Later, Prince of Persia was the first game I played on my first computer - 386DX/40MHz (Yeah, I’ve been an AMD fanboy my whole life without knowing it…)

8) Which class, gender, or type do you usually pick?
I don’t like class-based systems in my RPGs! And because of the first Baldurs Gate, I absolutely hate magic casters (1 spell, 4 HP, bloody Tarnesh…). Arcanum of Steamworks and Magicka Obscura were the best: you could create elven time-bending sword masters, Half-Ogre Intellectuals, gnomes with grenade launchers, magic throwing dwarfs, and everything in between… VtM: Bloodlines and old fallouts too had fun systems.

9) Which videogame character are you?
Duke Nukem. I too have balls of steel. Childhood accident.

10) Most hilarious bug you have ever encountered or worst video game experience?
Does this count?

11) Are there any videogames you repeat playing over and over again?
Nowadays it’s a rare occurrence, as I am wasting time with MP games and roguelikes, but I’ve played through the first Deus Ex several times and my play-through count of Fallout1&2/Arcanum goes into the dozens.

12) What would a perfect game according to your wishes look like?
Far Cry 2 (or Metal Gear Solid V) mixed with Jagged Alliance 2, gently stirred with a pinch of simulation.

13) How do you relax after a hard day at work?
If my work day was creative, I’ll play games (MP shooters, Strategies, RPGs and roguelikes) or I’ll read a book (Scifi or Horror). If I didn’t reach my creative satisfaction, I’ll write short stories or short comic scripts or things like that - something that is finished in one go or in a day or two…

14) Your favorite movie or book?
Books: Terror by Simmons, Dune by Herbert and the Hussite Trilogy by Sapkowski
Movies: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Snatch, and Kung-fu Hustle

15) What’s your guilty pleasure?
Jaywalking, lollygagging, and infanticide. (Also reading TV Tropes)

16) What is your kryptonite?
UV radiation - I’ll burn to a crisp.

17) What is your weakest trait?
My attention span is that of a hyperactive kitten and the memory of a goldfish with Alzheimers.
Also, written English…

18) Which is your favorite historic event?
That is quite a hard question, as History is full of interesting/mind-blowing things. I’d say that the burning down of the library in Alexandria is my favorite (not in a positive way but as a warning and it makes me really angry).
Also, it could be, as we Czech says: “Pořádný fajrák.”

19) Knights or Samurai?
Pirate actually. Pirates, Vikings and Knights was a great HL mod.

20) Jan was a very important name in Czech History, Jan Hus, Jan Žižka, Jan Nepomucký. How do you feel being part of this tradition?
This is quite a funny question, because you don’t use Jan in a casual conversation. It is one of those written names that history is full of, but nobody says them aloud. You use the home version of the name or the nickname.

21) If you could say something to the fans of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, what would it be?
Well, summer is near, the sun is shining so please use protection! I mean it! Also, thank you for your support. I mean that too!

Do you want to know more about our tester Jan “Bodkin” Němec Please ask here!

DrFusselpulli · June 7, 2017, 4:22pm

And here are the answers from Jan “Bodkin” Němec to your community questions.

That ‘bug picture’ is from alpha/beta so no, it is not final

There was a English snippet of Hamlet in a book for literature class and bodkin had a really nice sound when read aloud (yeah, I’ve had no idea what it is, just that it is some handheld tool). And that’s it. I am sorry.

It’s always smart to have protection! But this was around our armor video and I was curious how does it feel to have it all on you. So after 10 minutes I found, that.
a) it is not that heavy,
b) I was dying from overheating.

Some smart pun. I guess. Unless someone else renamed because it was too stupid.

Sometimes there were problems, when I was counting on too many systems working together flawlessly, so it was cut out or simplified.

So there is this quest, with this one guy and when you choose the right answer to his question, he will say it! Sorry

Truth to be told, I was using examples from nearly all of my quests. I did a few mainquests and not-so-few sidequests. I couldn’t write a love story to save my life…

But you can’t write with your gloves on!

Well, I had to change all of my cynophobic NPCs to polephobic.

DrFusselpulli · July 19, 2017, 9:01am

Karel “pan Tau” Taufman is an Animator here at Warhorse Studios. He was born in Hradec Králové here in the Czech Republic. Check out what he has to say.
Do you have any questions to Karel “pan Tau” Taufman or his position? Please ask here!
You can find a Spanish translation of this interview here.

1) Describe your position. What is it about being an animator?
I work at Warhorse Studios as an animator/motion editor, which makes me co-responsible for motion of all characters and props in the game.
Almost all of our animations begin in a mocap studio, where we record actors playing out the required moves or acting out their roles for cutscenes. Although the recordings are very good and mocap itself has become an indispensable tool for any AAA game production, it cannot be used in the game as is.
Animations need to be looped, stitched or blended together, timing-adjusted, gestures enhanced or reduced, body language altered, and interaction with props must be corrected.
A good example from KCD is killing a person in a fight. We can’t really expect the actors to attack each other with deadly force and put mocap swords through their torsos. Actors record the motion as close to the intended result as possible and then the animator makes it look fatal.

As you can see in a photograph nearby, killing with a mocap sword is just not possible. We need to implement a workaround – the animator.

2) What’s the difference between an animator and a motion editor?
A traditional animator is responsible for the character’s motion and its concept from start-to-finish. He or she gets to choose when the character hesitates, what leg she puts the weight on, or how hunched she walks.
Mocap-based animation on the other hand, is a collaboration between a mocap actor and the animator. The better the actor’s performance the less work for the animator.
Sometimes the quality of the actor’s performance may pleasantly surprise you. Details like the blacksmith tossing the hammer into the air for a quick bit before getting to work make the animation more unique and interesting. Sometimes, on the other hand, you end up improving the actor’s performance by adding motion into an otherwise dead spot. In the end nobody knows who created what aspect of the final animation. If I do my work perfectly, everybody thinks the mocap was just that good

3) Is it beneficial to have an in-house mocap studio?
Mocap is a must for any game with a considerable amount of humanoid animation. The majority of game developers cannot afford their own mocap studio, so they need to commission one. Although a common practice, this presents many problems for the workflow in the ever-changing world of computer game development. It is not only about planning the mocap sessions to be as few and economical as possible, it’s also about the distance to a good studio.
At Warhorse the animators are separated from the mocap studio by some 2 meters. It is just across the corridor, which is a blessing. Whenever there is an issue we can quickly record a new motion. There is no ordering process or negotiation slowing us down. We can experiment and spend as much time in the studio as we want.

4) What are some of the difficulties of game animation?
Coming up with interesting motion is getting more and more difficult. In every game we get to see walks, lifting, or dropping items and random gestures during dialogues. The complication is, there just isn’t an infinite number of ways a biped character can pick up an item. Because of that, similar motions turn up not only in games but also in animated children television programs. This puts more stress on work of everyone involved with the recording in a mocap studio.
Technical issues also come into consideration. When the cameras in the studio cannot see the markers (little plastic balls attached to actors and props), no motion can be recorded. I confronted a very bad example of this issue when working on a cutscene, in which our hero finds himself in an intimate situation with a girl. Since both actors recorded the motion with their bodies very close to each other, many markers were hidden from the cameras and the actors’ motion could not be recorded properly. I took up the challenge and hopefully made the animation work. I admit that research for this particular animation was rather peculiar.

5) Is there any part of animator’s job that may be surprising to us?
I don’t know about surprises, but perhaps something that could happen unexpectedly. Being an animator is not only about moving objects by hand; the experience in scripting and programming also comes in handy. Our macro scripts may be as complex as the one depicted on a nearby screenshot.
I used a simpler one for the stone that gets loaded into a trebuchet. Considering the type of motion, it made really no sense to animate the stone by hand, so I used a script to move it along with the character and roll along the ground (trebuchet). It was fast and with a few polishing touches it worked very nicely.

6) Did you ever worked on Videogames before?
I started in the gaming industry as a journalist for printed gaming magazines. I got to play games, travel to trade shows, interview game designers, and I was well paid for it. Can you imagine? For a young kid that was a dream come true.
After that I was a game designer, screenwriter, project leader, 2d and 3d artist and animator on forty six games. Until KCD happened, the biggest game I worked heavily on was ArmA III. I also worked as a VFX artist, copywriter, TV commercials writer, and director.

7) Please describe Warhorse Studios.
The atmosphere at Warhorse is very good. Even after so much time spent working on one game, people are still enthusiastic about it. The interaction among colleagues is very pleasant. You don’t see any bullying, mobbing, or bossing going around as it’s been unfortunately reported in some other game development studios today.

8) What are you currently working on?
The whole animation department is currently back at work on cutscenes. We are doing another quality pass that includes (among other things) detailed hand/finger animations and most importantly, facial animations for all characters.
We use an in-house tool to procedurally build basic mouth animation from the dialogues. This is just as great of a help as mocap itself. I used to do such animation by hand only a few years ago, so I would know. There is no ay a game of this magnitude could be accomplished the old way in our lifetime.
After adding procedural mouth animations, we hand tune them in every cutscene. At the same time, we add all facial animation: smiles, frowns, eye movement or blinks. All cutscenes combined take more time than a very long movie, so there is a lot of blinking to add.
The secret to a proper facial animation is subtlety. Sometimes not so much though as you can see in a screenshot nearby. Also in the same screenshot, note our very secret rig for facial animation.

9) How, when and with what platform or game did you first get acquainted with videogames?
The first game I played was the first commercially successful game in the world: Pong. At the time, it was only available to me occasionally in traveling arcades. I was instantly hooked on the phenomenon just like all the other kids. Pong had no AI, so you had to find another kid to play against you. Sometimes no one was available so you had to stoop to playing against your sworn enemies! It made the game that more interesting.

10) What was your most touching video game moment?
Probably not what you might expect. It was actually when I animated the hero of “Evil Days of Luckless John” and his girlfriend. After escaping the bad guys in a deadly chase the couple finally got to share a kiss by the sunset. It was very romantic and pretty cheesy and it was the first time my own animation touched me emotionally. I created an illusion of love by moving bones of a character skeleton. It blew me away. I couldn’t wait to see it in the game.
EPILOGUE: There was a mistake in the design and I was asked to reanimate the whole scene for the opposing camera in a fraction of the originally allocated time. Oh well, sigh…
Things like this do happen in game animation though, and you must never take them to heart.

11) What game have you been really looking forward to but turned out to be a total disappointment?
I was a big fan of Ultima RPG series when Ultima IX: Ascension was announced. Considering the grand ending of the preceding Ultima VIII and the subtitle of the game, it promised to be a proud finale to the third trilogy in the series.
Use of a 3d engine in what was previously an isometric game, was supposed to give the player an unprecedented freedom and immersion. That’s in a game series famed for allowing players to mix ingredients and bake their own bread. Not that you had to but you could. Over the development of the game, Origin Systems would release sneak peaks at the prerendered cutscenes that were second-to-none at the time and hinted at a truly epic story.
The development of the game took five long years. In the meantime, with no new Ultima to play, I’d finished all of the series’ MS-DOS/EGA installments. I wrote walkthroughs for them that were printed in the Excalibur magazine along with the maps I drew (you can see one somewhere nearby).
When Ultima IX finally appeared it failed in every department except for the cutscenes.

12) How do you relax after a hard day at work?
I am a very digital person but lately I started to feel a need to create something I could touch with my hands, so I started working with wood. I built my first cabinet only a few weeks ago. Surprisingly it looks good. The door works and most importantly - it does not disappear when the power goes off.
I also write a little bit. In fact, I’ve been writing screenplays for a comic book series for almost fifteen years now. It brought me together with some of the kindest people in the world, so it’s a little treasure in my life.
The real challenge of writing for comics is telling your story with short bursts of text that can fit into the speech balloons. Forget graphomania, you cannot use any fancy sentences and you often find yourself deleting your best dialogue simply because it is too long for the balloons that are available. So writing for comics is definitely not for everyone.

13) Your travel tip?
Anywhere with someone you love. Still, maybe not Mogadishu.

14) What will be your famous last words?
You mean I get to say my last words now?!

15) Is it possible to buy you with candy?
Nope. You can try to be a nice person though. That should be enough.

16) What is your kryptonite?
I certainly have one, but you will never know.

17) If you could say something to the fans of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, what would it be?
With pleasure: Rictusempra, Tarantallegra, Levicorpus, Rictusempra, Liberacorpus, Molliare, Rennervate, Episkey, Erecto, Aguamenti, Obliviate.

Do you have any questions to Karel “pan Tau” Taufman or his position? Please ask here!

DrFusselpulli · January 5, 2018, 12:06pm

And here are Karel´s answers to your community questions:

Greetings to Thee, Baron Blacksmith. Thank you for your questions.

This is my favorite question in the batch. You could write a thesis on this topic alone. It touches upon animation, game design, programming, hardware and more. Unfortunately I have neither the time nor expertise to give you a deserving answer. Let me try my best.
We have several distinctive animation sets for normal, subordinate, regal etc. characters. These were required by designers and will be used throughout the game. That is why it makes sense to create whole sets of motions for them.
Why only make full sets for selected character types? One reason above all is RAM. Every animation that is being played must be loaded into RAM. That is every motion of every bone in every character on the screen. This is the main reason why all game characters in all games tend to share the same sets of motions. It is also why game characters have so few bones. For example the rat I modeled and rigged for DayZ had a limit of 18 bones only!
Obviously more character variety is needed and it is usually achieved by inserting characters with limited motion sets. For example a beggar who can only beg and react to people passing by in both positive and negative ways.

Technically we can do lipsync for any language. The automatic process that we use is only a start though and there is a huge amount of hand tweaking and polishing. Because of this and because of the very many hours of cutscenes and dialogues, lipsync will be fitting for English only.

Nope, I am only an animator

There is never enough time. Neither in game development nor in life. But I would like to pass the question to Martin Klekner who will be certainly happy to answer in more detail in the next Weekly Torch.

Nice idea, but arm wrestling was never intended to be a mini game and as of now, there are no plans to make it into one.

In the beginning, Warhorse Studios bought some mocaps of a horse. We did it because we needed those motions very fast and also because the horse did not fit through the corridors leading to our mocap studio. I am not joking. There are mocap studios designed specifically to let big animals or vehicles in. This requires a ground floor and an appropriate building. Our mocap studio is on the fifth floor and covers 99.9% of our mocap needs. It is possible to mocap animals though, but it is very difficult especially with those that are not easily trained. Also animals tend to find mocap markers all over their bodies very unnatural and often reject wearing them. Can you imagine attaching mocap markers to a cat? You can find horses tamed enough for that or dogs trained for obedience, but even they may prove quite a challenge in the studio. I know this because I worked with a dog mocap and it was quite unusable. It would work for an episodic character in a movie, but could not be used to create motion loops needed for a game. Currently we animate all animal motion manually in the studio. Even the original horse mocap was heavily altered during the production and there was no other mocap/animation purchase after that.

@savvym has already answered your question correctly, so I will only fill in some details.

Accidentally you ask the right person, because I did the animations for the trebuchet. We now have anims for loading up the rock, pulling down the trebuchet arm and firing; including all the trebuchet motion. They are now at the disposal of designers and scripters to use as they please. As far as I know, the trebuchet will be fired both in a cinematic and by the player and I think it’s been already implemented.

Facial mocap would produce much better results than manual animation of facial rigs, but we don’t use it on purpose. Firstly recording facial mocap and accompanying contact sound and reference video for all of our cinematics and dialogues would require tremendous amount of storage. Mere management of this amount of data would require much more hardware, a lot of additional manpower and time. Secondly, it would take much more time and manpower to polish facial mocap than it takes to animate the rig by hand. In both cases we are talking a difference between a car shop and NASA. That is why facial mocap is so successfully applied in film production but not so often used in computer games. It is about the difference in the amount of data (i.e. animation) that needs to be processed at every stage of production.

Hi! Thank you for your questions and good wishes!

Cumans will play a very important part in the story, which is very unfortunate for our hero.

KCD was designed from the get go with the first person view only in mind. A lot of the production is heavily influenced by that.
For example all the player animations, that we see through the POV cam, were tailored to look as good as possible in the POV cam. The modifications we apply to achieve that often make the animations look unnatural in the 3rd person cam.
If there is a 3rd person mode in the end, it would only be in a form of an Easter egg, but it will not play well.

Hi and thanks for your questions. This is what I’d call the Andromeda effect. One thing is the animation itself, while the way it is used in the game is another thing alltogether. Animators cannot really influence in any way how characters move around the streets or the country. We can do the animation cycles as well as we can, but the motion of characters around the world is totally in the hands of scripters, AI guys and programmers who then combine those animations to create illusion of living beings. You may need to approach them for a more detailed discussion.

Yes there is an awful lot of foot sliding and there is no way around it. I know, I couldn’t believe it either. Although again this has nothing to do with the character animation. The reason is Cryengine’s way of interpolating feet between two animations. Instead of going from one pose into another, it sort of interpolates the first anim feet into a kind of default pose and then into the feet of the next anim. Our technical animators would be required for more in-depth explanation.

Perhaps Dan would be better qualified to reply.

Absolutely no bad feelings. Thank you for your time. Best of luck to you too!

Hi, umar! I am not sure what part seemed wooden but again this appears to be related to how the animations are used rather than how they are created. The dialogue system is in constant development and characters are still being heavily worked on. I can’t really tell more without better description of the parts you found displeasing.

NOTE: Karel didn´t saw the E3 presentation, so he don´t really know what exact animations you were talking about.

Thank you everyone for your time and your questions. Best of luck to you all!

DrFusselpulli · June 30, 2017, 2:11pm

Martin Klekner is our Lead Cinematic Designer here at Warhorse Studios. He joined the team after the Kickstarter Campaign back in 2014 and enriches the team with his excellent visual sense. He was born in Liberec in the north of the Czech Republic, but now he is here in Prague of course.
Do you want to know more about Martin Klekner and his job as a lead Cinematic Designer? Don´t hesitate and ask here!
You can find a Spanish translation of this interview here.

1) How did you hear about Warhorse?
I am one of the many people who first heard about Warhorse through their Kickstarter campaign. It’s funny, because I never actually thought that I could become part of the WH team. However, by total accident, I got invited in. Back in 2014 I was working on a student project called Chronicles: Prague - basically an iPhone app, tourist guide and video biography of Charles IV.'s life, all in one - and for this app me and my friends built a pretty substantial 3D model of the 14th century Prague. I wanted to lend a helping hand to Warhorse’s project so I sent an email to Dan Vávra, offering him this model. It turned out completely different than I expected. Several weeks later, Dan sent me a message, in which he told me that he saw Chronicles and he wanted me to join the project. I was to be helping to create the game’s future cinematics. To be honest, I have always been more of a freelance guy, but this was an offer I simply could not refuse. I’m glad I didn’t… and I’m really grateful for the opportunity Dan gave me.

2) Describe your position. What is it about being a Cinematic Lead?
Well, it’s pretty much about trying to persuade the rest of the team that our open-world RPG needs good looking cutscenes as well But really, what I love about this job, is that it’s many things in one. One day I find myself drawing storyboards for Dan’s story, other times I’m directing actors on motion capture, even fooling around in mocap suit myself, the rest of the time it’s about working with a talented team of cinematic guys and animators, editing cutscenes in MotionBuilder and CryEngine and trying to achieve the best results possible in our limited conditions. It’s an adventure, often strenuous, but I guess that’s what I love about it.

3) Have you ever worked on Videogames before?
All of us in the cinematic department - Petr Pekař, Tomáš Kraus, Jiří Švarc and me - have come from the film and vfx industry. Everybody - except Petr - never worked on a game before (Petr worked on Mafia 3)… After three years of doing this, I must say, games are probably the most difficult projects to work on - there’s so many elements that must come together for the game to work, so many different departments, and all of it is constantly buggy and crashing. You may finish some task on Friday and find it completely ruined on Monday, without apparent reason (I don’t actually laugh when this happens). But we’re doing our best, learning on the run, solving one problem at a time. I believe it will pay off in the end

4) Please describe Warhorse Studios:
It’s an adventure, simple as that. Sometimes we hate each other, sometimes we despair, sometimes we feel immense pride in what we were able to achieve. It’s a process of trial and error, so it really can’t be any different. What makes it different from any other studio project I’ve worked on, is the enthusiasm.

5) What is your favorite team activity?
Our (more or less) weekly screenings of cutscenes, where we debate what can be improved. Especially when accompanied by a bottle of beer Also, lighting and fine tuning cutscenes with our Art Director Mikuláš Podprocký. Miki has a great eye for detail, one can learn from him a lot. The fine-tuning phase is when all our work finally comes together - and it’s always a great feeling.

Also, the mocap recording with our team of actors. I think I will never forget this experience

6) Describe your usual day at the studio?
A hot cup of coffee. That’s where it always starts Otherwise, it varies. A year ago, the process was completely different from now (we were mocaping the cutscens), two years ago as well (that was when I drew the storyboards) . After that, we edited the rough cuts of the cutscenes, putting the mocap data together, adding cameras and cuts.

These days we are in the finishing phase of cutscene production. Which means, first thing in the morning, I start downloading the latest data build of the game and in the meantime, I solve some bugs reported by our testers. Then, I start working on my cutscenes, same as the rest of the cinematic team. We polish the camera moves, the lighting, the environment, add particles etc. etc. Anything to make the cutscene look nice, while not lowering the FPS too much.

7) What do you think is the most important part of the game?
There’s this atmosphere of believability about the whole thing. For example, I remember the first time I walked into Talmberg village. It was at night - and suddenly, this huge black shape appeared in front of me. It was the Talmberg castle. And for some reason, it made a greater impression on me than any other castle from any other game. It was not the biggest, not the most awesome looking castle I’ve seen in a game, no. But since it was set in this realistic, down-to-earth environment, it stood out. And I realized: wow, this is how it must have felt to see a real castle in the Middle Ages.

I get the same feeling from all the elements in the game, from the story, the combat system or just from strolling around through the environment.

8) As a lead cinematic designer you can surely tell us more about the Global announcement Trailer?
Well apart from the fact that we had a crazy deadline and generally it was one big chaos, trying to make the best possible result without a final edit of the video up until the last moments… it was fun! Required a few sleepless nights spent in the studio, but it was worth-it. A great team effort. And a lot of people seem to like the trailer, which is awesome

9) You were involved in the recent change of Henrys hair-style, can you tell us more about that?
Well, I’m not really sure about the importance of my role in this change, in the end, it was a joint decision of Dan Vávra, Mikuláš Podprocký and Ivan Čerevko (our character artist working on the characters’ haircuts). But I did make some comments about Henry looking a bit too metrosexual for a son of a blacksmith. And I probably mentioned this to Dan, Miki and Ivan… I think the new haircut is much more fitting, which means it helps to tell the story of the game… And that’s the most important thing for the cutscene department.

10) with what game did you first get acquainted with videogames?
Prehistorik! I loved that little fella

11) What was your most touching video game moment?
Oh, there’s so many. I think the time around 2003/2004 was when, for me personally, the most influential games were released. Max Payne 2, Half-Life 2, Far Cry, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time… I realized then, that games are capable of telling a gripping story. The next wave of games I loved came around 2010: Witcher 2, Mass Effect. I am also happiest when I win a battle in Total War games - oh, I love their games.

If I had to pick, though… probably the ending of Max Payne 2.

12) Are there any videogames you repeat playing over and over again?
Total War games. I’ve also played Mass Effect series, Dragon Age 1, Max Payne 1,2,3, Witcher 2 and Half-Life 2 several times.

13) Most hilarious bug you have ever encountered or worst video game experience?
New and exciting bugs are created every single day in our game! There’s a lot of hilarious stuff. I remember a bug from recent days, that made me laugh: “Sir Robard appears to be holding a chair in his hand and flying around the map with it.” You wouldn’t come up with these ideas the game produces even if you tried. Of course, we in the cinematic department, encounter our fair share of strange stuff.

14) How do you relax after a hard day at work?
Reading a good book, swing dancing or brazilian jiu-jitsu sparring. Especially the last one. There’s something about being choked by your sparring partner that makes you forget about KCD… at least for a while

15) Your favorite movie or book?
The Lord of the Rings. Yes, movie and book.

16) What’s your guilty pleasure?
The movie 300. It is atrocious… but awesome at the same time.

17) What was your favorite subject and your most hated one at school?
Now when I think about it, I probably loved history lessons the most. I love great stories. And history is full of great stories.
Most hated? That’s easy - Math, Physics, Chemistry. I can’t really say which I hated the most

18) If you could say something to the fans of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, what would it be?
Thank you for your patience and your faith in our project. It never ceases to amaze me how many people are interested in an RPG situated in 15th century Bohemia, a relatively unknown part of history. I think this is a once-in-a-life-time opportunity to make a game like this and we all do our best to make you happy in the end

If you still have questions for our lead Cinematic designer Martin Klekner, just ask here!

DrFusselpulli · January 5, 2018, 12:04pm

here are the answers to your questions about Martin Klekner.

Well, I think that the original idea came from Dan Vávra and Mikuláš Podprocký (our Art Director). And to be honest, the concept art Miki did for Henry’s undercut looked great! He looked gruff, rugged, anything BUT metrosexual. It seemed to work…on paper, but when our character artists tried to replicat that haircut in game, it simply did not work on Tom McKay’s type of head.
It’s worth mentioning, that the undercut is historically accurate. It was quite common among higher classes and fighters of the time, probably because it is easier to put on a helmet, when you have sides of your head shaved.

Yes, we go through a lot of stages. First there was a rough cut, then polished cut, then some first camera polishes, overall polishes, etc. We schedule the completion of each phase around some important milestone our management gives us. In each round of this process, we try to improve the look of the cutscene as much as possible.

All of it, probably But you know what? I think that on every project worth doing, there’s never enough time, money, tools or people. It’s just about what you can do with what you’re given.

Yes, we are all very much aware of how Mass Effect: Andromeda ended up, so our animation department will definitely try their best to make the facial anims as polished as possible. It’s a tough job, though, especially in the span of 4 hours of dynamic cutscenes.

You are probably referring to the “dead faces” seen in our E3 demo. No worries there, the facial “moods” for in-game dialogues are one of the last things that are implemented. Basically, for each paragraph of our in-game dialogues, a character mood needs to be set and somebody has to set it. This, however, was not finished when we set out for E3 this year. Don’t worry, it will be ready for the final product, the characters will be blinking, have different emotions etc.

Creating different good-looking hairstyles for the main hero takes a lot of time. At this stage, we rather focus on polishing the stuff we already have

That really depends on the type of a deadline. For E3 trailer deadline there really is no plan B, it needs to be finished on an agreed-upon day. For game-related deadlines, there are often plans on how can we make things simpler or what we can cut, to finish everything in time.

I wish I could tell, sorry, I wasn’t tracking the hours It took us about four weeks from first cut to final polish. That, however, was just a process of polishing shots that have been in production for more than a year. However, in those 4 weeks, I think our team often worked double the normal workweek hours We were also still working on finishing the rest of the cutscenes throughout the production of the trailer.

I try not to think about it too much, one can get crazy thinking like this

It is my opinion, that one has to be familiar with the game we’re making, with its story, the medieval setting, the historical characters etc… generally, you have to live it and put a lot of heart into it, to make good cutscenes set in the world we crafted. Outsourcing is not really an option.
However, the cinematic team is pretty well balanced at this point, everybody is great at something, we work really well together and made good improvement since Beta. So I am confident we can make something worth watching.

The whole layer system adjusts to everything the character is wearing, changing shape so that it can fit to the layer above it. I am not really an expert on this topic, however. I think there is a videoupdate about this, probably update #2.

Filming a movie or a series from medieval era, that would be great.

DrFusselpulli · June 30, 2017, 1:56pm

Tobias “Tobi” Stolz-Zwilling has evolved very quickly from the Community Manager when he started in the summer of 2014 to the PR Manager in 2015 and has since become the face of Warhorse Studios. Born in Offenbach am Main he is known as the German intruder in the office.
He just came back from E3 in Los Angeles, and left the beautiful Californian sun behind, just to answer the call of the Weekly Torch for you.
Do you want to know more about Tobias “Tobi” Stolz-Zwilling and his job as a PR Manager? Don´t hesitate and ask here!
You can find a Spanish translation of this interview here.

1) You just came back from the E3 in Los Angeles. How was it there?
Extremely exhausting. People tend to believe that I am going for a fun trip whenever I am attending a convention. However, in reality it’s tons of hard work, from building the booth, fighting with hardware and software problems, buying last minute stuff because everything is broken, to presentations every 30minutes to a new bunch of journalists. I think we did 36 presentations to over 150 journalists in 3 days. In the end of the day I am always so tired that I skip all those fancy E3 parties. But to be honest… it’s still kind of a fun trip!

2) What exactly did you do on E3?
At E3 we were a team of 7 people. While Rick Lagnese and me presented the game the others either helped with technical problems or guided journalists through their hands on sessions. Before E3 my core job is to take care of journalists appointments and while E3 of course presenting the game to them. It’s pretty tough if you consider that you have to present the same thing, with the same enthusiasm up to 16times per day (8h), but I love my job and love to be in contact with the people. The best moment is when I hear those whispers of “wooooow”, “no waaay” or “cooool” while I present my stuff. Always makes me smile!

3) What was your personal Highlight on E3?
Unfortunately, I can’t leave my E3 booth, that means that I almost never see anything else than our own game. Therefore, my highlight every day was when Jiri Rydl came into the booth each evening saying “Done! That was the last bunch for today!”.

4) Where can we usually find you lurking in the holy halls of Warhorse?
I am almost always at my desk in the Marketing and PR Office. And yes! I will forever call it like that even though we share this office with Scripters, IT, Testers and other. However… WE WERE HERE FIRST!!! (and are the only ones who didn’t move back and forth)

5) How did you hear about Warhorse?
I was watching my favorite gaming show back then called “GameONE” and they were talking about “Hardcore” games. So while I was munching my breakfast they introduced Kingdom Come: Deliverance and some bearded Hobo who was presenting it. In the same week I was taking the elevator to my flat and another bearded guy shared it with me. I saw the guy several times and always asked myself who this burglar is. When we shared the elevator, he looked at me and said “Hey I am Dan, do you also live here?”. That was the first time I looked into his face – I had this sudden feeling that I know this guy. I went to my apartment, tried to google him and boom… Daniel Vávra, creator of Mafia and founder at Warhorse Studios – the same guy I saw on GameONE. I tried to sneak on him somehow, wanted to pass my CV to him, but WHS only searched for programmers and alike. I even tried to look out the window to see if he is going on a walk with his baby and/or dog. Didn’t work out. But then one day… I think it was Thursday evening 9pm, I checked the WHS job page and they were looking for a Community Manager. I dressed myself, printed my CV, went down the stairs, knocked on the door. Dan in shirt and his undies opened the door and I said: “I know who you are, I love what you do, here is my CV”. He laughed, said that it was shitty payed, but that he will look over it. Right day, right time I guess.

6) Describe your position. What is it about being a PR Manager?
Whatever job at Warhorse Studios you’ll apply for, be sure that you most likely will do several other things in addition. So as PR Manager I should do strategical planning of our entire communication including media relations. However, I also do press speaking (presentations, interviews, streams and shows), organization of events, supervising our Community Manager, media/community monitoring, organizing team activities like our annual Secret Santa or Team Building, being the captain of our Warhorse football team (the European one… the only real one!!!) and running a very successful business, we call TobiShopTM. In the end my job is all about communications, either to the outer world or to the inside of the holy halls of Warhorse Studios. And hell… I do talk a lot!!!

7) Did you ever worked on Videogames before?
Not at all. I always played a lot of videogames, but I worked as a freelance journalist before. I always thought that I am very good in asking questions and writing. At WHS I found out that I am even better in answering and talking.

8) Which job would you not want to do?
In Sims 3 there was an ability you could add that was called something like “Enthusiastic” or so. I always took it because this describes me pretty well. It said that you are happy about all the small things in life - I think I would try all jobs and would give my usual 110%. However, I really sucked at programming at University… almost break my neck… I am almost sure… it would break my neck for sure if I had to do this as a living.

9) Please describe Warhorse Studios:
Warhorse is a great place to work! It surely has its flaws and tends to be a bit too punk rock from times to times, but on the other hands it gives a chance to proof that you are worth it. It gives you the freedom to develop your skills and pitch new ideas projects that might or won’t find its way into the project KCD. One moment everyone loves each other the other one everyone hates each other. It’s almost like working with friends rather than with coworkers.

10) Please describe one of your colleagues or your department:
Jiri Rydl is a great guy… in his own weird, crazy, annoying, hateful, dick-move way. He really is… trust me… like for sure!!! Ooooooookay it might be true that whoever meets him for the first time thinks that he is a total unfriendly douche… but that’s only a facade. If you are able to look through that you’ll meet one of the most loyal and diligent persons at WHS. He was my tutor and coach when I started here and turned out to be my best friend at the studio… in his own dick-move way :). He didn’t get me a birthday present… DOUCHE!

11) What is your favorite team activity?
I am proud to call myself the founder of the WH Soccer team, the teambuilding at fortress Malesov, the Secret Santa Christmas Party and dealer of sweet treats at TobiShopTM. I love my baby’s equally!

12) Describe your usual day at the studio?
My work varies strongly from day to day. Usually I start my day with our free breakfast and a cup of coffee and go over though monitoring the internet, searching for articles, tweets or general mentions about the studio or the game. However as I said, since my job changes every now and then there are always different challenges.

13) What are you currently working on?
I just finished some E3 paperwork, internal reports about our performance. My next task is a live stream we are going to have today, on this Friday 23rd at 6pm CEST. But to make things a little trickier, I also have to welcome ESO today, a YouTuber from UK at the WHS who will get my full attention. But he agreed to join me at the stream which could be really great. I am looking forward to it.

14) What are some of your notable accomplishments?
Well, whenever I prepare myself for a big show I play through the presentation build and start my usual hate speech about how I dislike this and that. Our devs hate me then thinking that I hate our game which is not true at all. I love it… I am just really nitpicking when it comes to the stuff I am presenting. In the end this potentially benefits the bug hunting and optimization since I have a different view on the game. And then my biggest fail – I have a small voice over role in the game… and I hate it

15) What do you think it’s the most important part or thing in the game?
Every department thinks that their feature is the most important one in the game. However, I really like the combat. I know that some might have issues with that… but hey… I finished DarkSouls 1, 2 and 3 :). I really love the way it is. Hard, tactical and technical. Even after 3 years of fighting, I still feel great after each fight I win. And this really is something special!

16. What is the most important characteristic a PR Manager must have?
Being a PR Manager at WHS requires you to be an extrovert. You need to be able to present the game, yourself and be full of enthusiasm.

17) How, when and with what platform did you first get acquainted with videogames?
It was a Atari 2600, but I went to many platforms. Sega Mega drive, DOS gaming, a Gameboy… but the one that I still play today, and consider the best platform ever is my SNES. I love it… and it’s actually in the studio. We even had a Tetris league once… I think we never found the true master of blocks.

18) What was your most touching video game moment?
Finishing Final Fantasy X… I thought I have nothing to accomplish anymore in life… I didn’t know what to do next… it was just such a great game. I finished it another 5 times later

19) Which videogame character or figure is the best?
Tobi in which ever I can create and name my own character!

20) Which class, gender, or type do you usually pick?
I almost always play as a mage with fire attacks.

21) Which videogame character are you?
Tobi from the character editor.

22) Are there any videogames you repeat playing over and over again?
Well I finished Final Fantasy X 6times, I play my Snes over and over again (preferably Super Mario World) and I really love Xcom 2. Hmmm… I also play those games no one understands… like Football Manager.

23) How do you relax after a hard day at work?
I keep telling myself… today I am going to plays some games… end up sleeping on the couch… DAMN!

24) Your favorite music or Spotify playlist
I like electronic music but I am able to listen to all kind of stuff, so it really depends. I found an old Offspring CD yesterday… so guess what I am playing on full Volume when driving to the studio.

25. Your favorite movie or book?
To my shame I must admit that I am not a great reader. I read the Harry Potter books before the 1st film was aired. It was great but nowadays I almost only read news.

26) Your travel tip?
You’ve never been to Prague? Do it! There is tons of great food and beer… which is pretty much the only thing you can get cheap in Czech Republic.

27) Sport is…
The greatest thing on earth. I played Handball for 19years and made it even to contracts. However I have a bad luck for injuries, so after 9 surgeries my career ended. But on the other hand, if I stay fit and made it to be a professional. I most likely wouldn’t ended up at WHS.

28) What’s your guilty pleasure?
I love cookies… and everything that is baked like cakes and stuff. Hmmmm… CAKE… wheeee…

29) What was your greatest mistake?
My greatest mistake is about to come… and I am still waiting for it.

30) Do you have a Bucket List?
Well actually… I could imagine myself living and working in USA or Canada. So maybe that might be something?

31) What will be your famous last words?
I actually hated all of you…

32) Is it possible to buy you with candy?
Sure, I mean one hand washes the other… right?

33) How do you like living in the Czech Republic?
I had the advantage that I was able to talk Czech since my mum is from Czech Republic. So when I moved here in 2012 I had an easy start. But my plan was to finish my studies and return to Germany… but then I worked as a journalist… and met that bearded dude… well and now I am here. But Czech Republic is great… the Texas of Europe!

34) What is your weakest trait?
I am not patient at all. And I tend to be really pissed and angry if things are not going the way I imagine it. I mean… let’s talk about stuff… but I am too German to miss deadlines!!!

35) Who is your favorite historic character?
I liked Alex the Great when I was younger… I don’t even know why.

36) What was your favorite subject and your most hated one at school? What were your grades in history?
I was pretty good in all “talking” subjects obviously like history, politics and alike. I was pretty bad at Maths and Physics. There was only one way… become a Journalist… … or PR guy.

37) If you could say something to the fans of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, what would it be?
I know many of you people for a long time. Back then, when I started as a Community Manager I was closer to you, but I always like to remember the goofy discussions we had at the forums. Well, we came a long way together and we are almost at the finishing line. I hope, and know, that you are as excited as I am so let’s bring that baby home!

Do you want to know more about Tobias “Tobi” Stolz-Zwilling and his job as a PR Manager? Just ask here!

DrFusselpulli · January 5, 2018, 12:02pm

Here are Tobi´s answers to your community questions.

Not really. My girlfriend asked me to grow a beard… I refused… well… you know the result.

I don’t know. I can’t compare it to the situation of starting as “someone”. However, when I started at WHS, they were in an office made for 20 people, but they already were a team of almost 40. So my first month at Warhorse Studios was on Home Office… I think you can consider this an easy start. And yes, but this is a general phenomenom, the closer you get to the finishing line the more attention you create. In the beginning it was “Wow, that KickStarter success” then “Wow, it’s really a thing and they are developing it”, and now “Wow, it’s on the finishing line”. Fingers crossed to get it to “Wow, what a great game” stage.

I don’t know. I inherited this from my parents I guess. My father is an introvert and very professional (German), my mother is an extreme extrovert and very creative (Czech). I guess I actually am a mixture of both. Professional extrovert… hmm… sounds good!

No never. That breaks your neck and is never good. No matter if at work or in your personal life. However, I said stuff that got changed afterwards, which is unfortunate but life is a process, so is game development. And processes change sometimes.

Yes. But since it’s a secret I can’t tell you. Which is actually a real pain. For those who know how I present the game… .I LOVE TO TALK… and I would love to praise all the secret cool stuff.

Something that caught me off-guard you mean? Being a good PR means to have satisfying answers on questions you have no clue about. Like politicians!

Everything you wish for: cereals, fresh boiled eggs, fresh bread and different cream cheeses. Vegetable and fruits and the souls of broken developers. Yummy!

Hmm… we’ll see. KCD would certainly have many more stories to tell, so there is no dead end. However, I’ll see where my feet bring me…

There is always PR to prepare. No matter if Social Media activities, streams and stuff. But since I also do a lot of internal stuff there is always work to do. Currently we are working on Gamescom preparations, then eventually Paris Games Week and so on… well… and then there is the release… so I guess the window for possible vacation is slowly closing down for me

Yes. My girlfriend forced me into it while everyone else hated it. Now almost everyone likes it.

Of course, constantly. We get feedback on several stuff: The booth, the game, the e3 build, my performance and so on and so on. The Media feedback is pretty good. People really seemed to like what we showed.

Not at all. It just tells us what to focus on on the next show. Something like “The seemed to have trouble in XY, so we focus our presentation on YZ”. Not talking about optimization of the game. This continues of course.

Yes! It was great.

Well Angela Merkel will be at Gamescom, POTUS should have been at E3 as well. He would like Wolfenstein

Not scratched, just postponed to unknown.

Hm I am not sure what you are referring at. I am no Designer so I don’t add anything to the game per se. However, when it comes to fine tuning before events, I want to make it more accessible for media and players. Devs tend to presume that the person who is going to test the game saw all of our videos and heard all of our presentations. Dumb down would be the right term, but this sounds way to negative. Just more accessible!

Hm… hard to say. I vocalize the things I hate before events, so they usually get fixed or changed . But to be honest, I really like our game.

Actually no, there is always some game. No matter which day or month you release it. But of course, the further away from such huge titles, the better. But this is only one factor of many to determine the “right date”.

Hmmm… now that you mention it…

Naaaahhh I think I already passed the acceptable amount of Hipsterness. That’s a really thin line and I don’t want to overdo it. However, the coffee tastes a lot better now!

Show (first presentation) started at Tuesday 12:00pm nothing worked (hardware), and I had to sacrifice my presentation laptop for the first Hands on session at 12:30 pm. While the first bunch of people played we had to crawl beneath the tables to wire stuff. We even accidently unplugged a PS4 while someone was playing… this is one of the moments were I get super angry. But in the end we made it!

Hmmm… It’s no present if there is no display!

DrFusselpulli · June 30, 2017, 2:26pm

Anna Pačesová started as a tester in 2014 here at Warhorse Studios, but her dream was to become an Environment Artist, and here in wonderful Prague -the city where she was born- that was definitely in the realm of possibilities. So her new job is to work on the beautiful countryside and create assets to bring it to life.
Do you want to know more about Anna Pačesová and her job as an Environment Artist? Don´t hesitate and 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 can find me in our dark vampire artist cave, where is no light at all, so we can see the colors properly (or maybe we are light sensitive, because if somebody accidentally switch the light on… mayhem! Everybody starts to scream - “Light! Switch off the light! It hurrrrrts!”)

2) How did you hear about Warhorse?
I like to play video games, so I like to read about them as well. I´ve probably read about Warhorse somewhere on the internet for the first time. I actually started here as a quality assurance person and then I clawed my way up to the 3D department, because that was the thing I wanted to do all my life and I am really happy I´ve got the chance. I am here for almost three years now.

3) Did you ever worked on Videogames before?
I have worked previously on “Attentat 1942” (or “Československo 38-89”) as one of the game designers. It is a project of Charles University, where I am studying, so this is how I ended up with the project. I also like to play historical games and currently I am writing a thesis about them.

4) Please describe one of your colleagues or your department:
His head is shiny and round like the moon!
When he will see this, awaits me the certain doom!

5) What is your favorite team activity?
Ehm…drinking?

6) Describe your usual day at the studio?
When I am able to wake up early, I come around 8am and eat our Warhorse breakfast, which consists of eggs and bread. Then I download the new data and start to work on various tasks (modelling, creating the actual environment, optimizing), lately it was a lot of creative work and final touch ups in our areas (every artist has a part of the map, which he takes care of - for example - mine is Úžice area), like creating the points of interests, which I´ve really enjoyed and I am looking forward what will people say about them. Then I work, work, work (while listening to some music and audiobooks), tea time with other art colleagues , work, work, and after that I submit my work and go home.

7) What are some of your notable accomplishments?
I don´t know if it is notable, but at least is is noticeable – I´ve made the shop signs and the dice for the minigame.

8) What is the most important characteristic an environment artist must have?
A good eye for detail, a lot of imagination and passion.

9) What do you like the most about Kingdom Come: Deliverance?
The environment of course!

10) How, when and with what platform or game did you first get acquainted with videogames?
When I was three years old, I played Prince of Persia for the first time on my mum´s laptop. I think I had died every five seconds, but I really liked that Then I spend a lot of time with Prehistorik, Stunts, UGH, Heroes of Might and Magic III, Age of Empires and all those old time classics.

11) Which videogame character or figure is the best?
Geralt or Ezio Auditore… I can´t decide which one is better, but they are both sexy, clever and funny
Oh, and I can´t forget to mention Guybrush Threepwood!

12) Which class, gender, or type do you usually pick?
Stealthy, pretty females (boring, I know).

13) Which videogame character are you?
I am a random villager in Kingdom Come: Deliverance Yes, you can find me there!

14) Are there any videogames you repeat playing over and over again?
No. I hate to repeat things. So every game which is repetitive absolutely frustrates me. I´ve tried to play Fallout: New Vegas for more than once, but I´ve ended up trying to break the game and did really silly things. Another exception are story driven multiple choice games - I sometimes go back and see what would happen differently.

15) What would a perfect game according to your wishes look like?
True open world RPG in Dishonored world. It would be nice to walk around freely and discover the stories of inhabitants and not just be hiding and be hunted all the time

16) Most hilarious bug you have ever encountered or worst video game experience?
The flying people in KCD. It does not happen anymore, but it was hilarious. Especially this one I have managed to capture.

17) What game have you been really looking forward to but turned out to be a total disappointment?
Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. I used to love AC series (mainly those with Ezio), but after so many parts it became soooooo repetitive and stupid. I love victorian London as a setting, so it was very disappointing when I have realized it kind of bores me.

18) How do you relax after a hard day at work?
I like to eat good food, so I either like to cook or hang out in some great restaurant. Also I relax a lot while painting or drawing. Or I read some book, play games, do yoga, ballet, learn new things…

19) Your favorite music playlist
So many genres, so little time! I love especially the older music - jazz, big bands, 80’s. From the newer interprets - Lana del Rey, Nick Cave, Marilyn Manson. And the best soundtrack ever -The Witcher III.

20) Your favorite movie or book?
The Last Unicorn - movie (I am not ashamed of that!) Other than that I like movies by Tim Burton, Wes Anderson, Jim Jarmush, David Lynch and also weird japanese movies.
From books - Neil Gaiman is my favourite writer. I love Kafka on the shore by Haruki Murakami lately and comics by Guy Delisle - also other serious comics are my favourite thing to read.

21) What species is your spirit animal?
Jack Daniels

22) Your travel tip?
Japan and Canada! People are nice and kind there, nature is beautiful and food delicious! What more do you want? (Tip: Best sushi is in Kanazawa.)

23) What’s your guilty pleasure?
Eating french fries with ice cream. And watching high school themed movies … while eating the french fries with ice cream.

24) What will be your famous last words?

25) Is it possible to buy you with candy?
Oh, yes. For a period of time I was subscribed to Japanese candy boxes. They have sent me box of various weird treats every month. Omnomnom.

26) What is your kryptonite?
Stupid evil people. I want to commit suicide when I have to deal with them.

27) What is your weakest trait?
When I am hungry, I get grumpy.

28) Imagine you are a cake, what kind of cake are you?
Sushi cake

29) Who is your favorite historic character?
Cleopatra. She had cool hair and boyfriends. And when I was young I had always the feeling that Jan Žižka is my uncle for no reason at all

30) Which is your favorite historic event?
World War II, because it is fascinating and also terrifying how people can be manipulated.

31) You have to fight in medieval times… who are you?
The leader. I have no weapon. I am in the tent… where the food is. I just point on the map and send people to die.

32) Knights or Samurai?
Samurai! Obviously!

33) If you could say something to the fans of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, what would it be?
Find all the easter eggs!

Do you want to know more about Anna Pačesová or her job as an Environment Artist? Just ask here!

DrFusselpulli · January 5, 2018, 11:59am

And here are Anna Pačesovás answers to your community questions:

You can expect deer, red deer, roebucks, hares and wild boars.

I have never eaten frozen grapes, so I would probably choose ice cream… but I need to try those frozen grapes! Thanks for the tip!

Sure – there is the sound of rain, and for example, birds are little more quiet too

There are more types of clothes on the lines now, so you don´t have to worry anymore
When we don´t like something in our game, everybody can write a bug or feedback and it is discussed then.

Thanks! You can make your own sets in the game from the dice you find (maybe buy?). There is 16 types, you can combine, and each of them have special abilities.
No, I didn´t work on the look of the real die of KCD. I made the KCD die in the game based on the already made one. Other dice are based on real historical dice of that time.

Work on more amazing games!

DrFusselpulli · July 19, 2017, 10:43am

Vaclav “Wenceslaus” Fliegel made its way as a moderator from the Kingdom Deliverance community forum to a tester in the quality assurance deparement here at Warhorse Studios since spring 2017.
We was born here in Prague and he bears the same name as the king of Bohemia in 1403, Wenceslaus. Luckily our Wenceslaus is much more productive and not as lazy as Wenceslaus IV.
If you have any questions to Vaclav “Wenceslaus” Fliegel, don´t hesitate any longer and ask here.
You can find a Spanish translation of this interview here.

1) How did you hear about Warhorse?
Back in 2012 I was curious what are creators of the Mafia or the operation Flashpoint doing . And I’ve found Dan Vavra‘s blog and topic “Overkill design“…
Since then I start following the project that then eventualy came to Kickstarter.

2) You came directly from the Community, how is working at Warhorse different from your expectations?
I tried not to have specific expectation. I know that it will be different to what I did.
Even before I came here I was interested in game development (as a player). I listen to GDC vault recordings and visit similar event in Prague, I seach forum sand blogs where various developers describe how they do thing and such… hmm…. so perhaps I had some idea after all.
All in all, I really like it here!

3) Your Name is Vaclav, or Wenceslaus. How is it to have the same Name as the King of Bohemia in the Game?
Ha! You mean “His drunken majesty”?
Anyway, it is quite common name here. So no special feeling about this. It is not the only Wenceslaus in our history either. Even the Charles the IV was born Wenceslaus and accepted the name Charles in France.

4) Did you ever worked on Videogames before?
No, I never have worked in game industry before.
Previously, I worked in the National Film Archive. I mainly work with old documentary from 30’s and 40’s. It is quite interesting if you like history (I do!) – seeing all the historical events, even the propaganda or just a daily life.

5) Describe your usual day at the studio?
After arriving to the studio, I download the new data, check yesterdays reported bugs and our forum and then we have meeting. Then it’s time to test, getting trough the quests step by step or retest already reported bug sent to retest.

6) What are you currently working on?
Except quests that each tester have to test I now test also an archery. So, I sometimes equip bow & arrows and just start shooting first NPC I met! For example to test if the animation stuck when I pull the bow and was hit in the same moment and so on. That is no doubt my favorite thing to test.

7) What do you like the most about Kingdom Come: Deliverance?
The combat! I think it really makes you feel like you are fencing. More than any other game I played.

8) How, when and with what platform or game did you first get acquainted with videogames?
When I was 8 or so I think. I get Atari 800 and played River Raid a lot with my older brother.
Not sure if that was first game I played though. That could be Mario, Duck tales or Golden Axe as friends also have something to play on.
Anyway, I remember I really wanted “486” back then to play Warcraft I.

9) Which class, gender, or type do you usually pick?
I actually prefer premade character as it usually fits more to the story. So I do not mind any of those option.
But if I have to create one, I usually made some sneaky, male character.

10) Are there any videogames you repeat playing over and over again?
IL-2 BoS and War Thunder (tanks) probably. I also played Fallout 1&2 quite a few times. I like simulators but I often prefer playing faster games due the time.

11) What would a perfect game according to your wishes look like?
I can play The Talos Principle, then the Withcher and then the Il-2 BoS and have fun with all of those. So I do not think there is guide to make a perfect game.
But there is one thing I would love to see more in games; that realism doesn’t mean it can‘t be fun. It can! And it also could add to the immerion.
So I like games that keep some sence and authenticity where they could. Like if there would be a viking game where you fight mythical creatures but the armour and equip and such would be kept historical (no horns on helmets and such).

12) What game have you been really looking forward to but turned out to be a total disappointment?
Dawn of War III. I really hoped for something more closer to the 2nd one or the CoH.

13) How do you relax after a hard day at work?
Except for playing games I also try to make models in Blender and then export them to the Unreal engine and see what happens.

14) Your favorite book?
I like the 1984 book.
But I now rather read about military history, like Cromwell IV user manual and such.

15) What will be your famous last words?
I don’t know.

16) Is it possible to buy you with candy?
Do you have any or Is this just a rhetorical question? If the latter, then the answers is – definitely not.

17) What is your kryptonite?
Why should I tell you?!

18) How do you like living in the Czech Republic?
I do a lot! A lot of history there around as well as nature just few minutes from the city.

19) Knights or Samurai?
Seriously? Knights of course…

20) If you could say something to the fans of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, what would it be?
We now have a specific release date!

Do you want to know more about Vaclav “Wenceslaus” Fliegel and his job as a tester? Don´t hesitate andask here!

DrFusselpulli · July 13, 2017, 3:49pm

here are Vaclav “Wenceslaus” Fliegel´s answers to your community questions:

Good enough to do the job, cheap to produce and upgradable. Which is basically all that is needed.
But it has its flaws as all tanks. It suffered from technical problems at early stages, crew has not enough room and the visibility from the tank was poor. And the armour wasn‘t great after Germans came up with KwK 40.
And it has wide tracks which is certainly good for mobility in difficult terrain, but the clutch-break steering wasn’t as good as differential steering which loose less energy (speed) while turning.
I would probably rather choose a Sherman than a T-34 in late WW2. For all its equip, realiability and maintenance.

Hard to tell. You would have to see them. Like if you shoot a hare and his ragdoll drops to the river and that somehow amplify his movement and after few bounces the water surface shoot this poor creature high to the Sun and far over the hills. That looked hilarious.

None I know about. But I’m here just for few months.

Fun has to be tested!

Currently, even if you miss, the civilians start to panic and soldiers start to looking after you.

Look at the third printscreen I posted. The one with the dead cuman. That was the first shot and I killed him only because I hit the face part.
So if the helmet does not cover the face, then it is unprotected.

DrFusselpulli · July 19, 2017, 8:43am

David Horák has known the people around Kingdom Come: Deliverance for a long time now, even before Warhorse Studios was founded, but he did not join the team until 2015 and became one of our designers who worked on the quests and story.
He was born in Prague and grew up in its outskirts. Do you have any questions to David Horák and his job as a designer? Don´t worry, you can ask community questions right 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 the very end in our designers lair.

2) How did you hear about Warhorse?
Actually, I was on first meeting between Dan Vávra and Martin Klíma, when a historically accurate RPG was just an idea in Dan’s head. But I was not on board from the start, I joined the team 2 years ago.

3) Why did you choose to work on Kingdom Come: Deliverance?
Because it is the best job ever!

4) Describe your position. What is it about being a designer?
I have a little different position on KCD than on a Mafia game, where I wrote quests. My first part of work on KCD is reviewing quests and all texts from other designers and feedbacking them (this part is almost done), and the second part is writing shouts and barks for NPCs and Henry for every possible situations (I hope this part is done too).

5) Have you ever worked on a videogame before?
I had a part-time job for Illusion Softworks at the beginning of my game dev career, and then a full-time job in Illusion Softworks, which was later bought by 2K and renamed as 2K Czech a few years later. I worked as one of the designer on Mafia 2 under Dan´s lead and I wrote a script for budget game Chameleon. And, of course, I had a lot of other different jobs, too.

6) Which job would you not want to do?
Whatever job in a corporate company. I tried it a few times and it did not work for me.

7) Please describe Warhorse Studios:
I am amazed by all the talent here every time I walk through our offices, by the creative and passionate people I have the privilege to work with. And in the back of my head I always think: “Omg, what am I doing here with my poor skills…?”

8) Describe your usual day at the studio?
Coffee, reading some text, coffee, writing some text, coffee, and again coffee. Yeah, it sounds boring, but it is fun… Did I mention coffee?

9) What are you currently working on?
I am reviewing Henry´s diary entries, which will reflect on how the player goes through the game and which highlights all his choices and what they caused later on. So, in case you hate Henry’s diary, you know who is responsible: I am.

10) What are some of your notable accomplishments?
I wrote around 20 different versions of a bark: “Please, don´t kill me!” It was very painful.

11) What is the most important characteristic a designer must have?
Simply the constant awareness of the very basic rule: think what a player could do in each moment, because no matter how obvious you make it, often what you want them to do is the exact opposite of what they will actually do. And be aware of memes having power in game writing: “arrow to the knee”!

12) What do you like the most about Kingdom Come: Deliverance?
Except everything? Sound for sure. Our sound department composed outstanding music and mixed awesome sound effects.

13) Who´s your favorite character from Kingdom Come: Deliverance and why?
Cumans. We wrote a few funny situations and dialogues or just one liners in their language, so if you happen to be Hungarian, you’ll have a blast.

14) What is, according to you, the best thing you designed for the game?
The crime system (in collaboration with Martin Ziegler) - it is possibly the most branching dialogue tree in the game.

15) How, when and with what platform or game did you first get acquainted with videogames?
It was possibly Jumping Jack on ZX Spectrum. Pure history. From this time I draw 8x8 and 16x16 pixel art of various heroes for imaginary games.

16) What was your most touching video game moment?
This will be the most selfish answer ever: a reaction by one player of Mafia 2. She screwed up my quest when Vito Scaletta (M2 hero) kills Tommy Angelo (M1 hero) 3 times in a row because she always started to cry. Then I knew that the quest works as I intended!

17) Which videogame character or figure is the best?
Lemmings. I even dreamed about those little unstoppable bastards.

18) Which class, gender, or type do you usually pick?
Because I don´t enjoy looking at male butts, I rather chose a female characters in third-person games. In combination with most underestimated classes, because it is challenging.

19) What would a perfect game according to your wishes look like?
“Geez, is it 3am now!?”

20) How do you relax after a hard day at work?
Going to the cinema with friends, watching movies and TV series on Netflix, playing games, grabbing a beer in a pub, and sometimes home improving.

21) If you weren´t a designer, what do you think you would be doing?
Comics letterer, as I did before Warhorse. Second best job in the world!

22) Your favorite music playlist
Nine Inch Nails is my long-term favorite band, I was on all of their concerts here in the Czech Republic and in nearby countries. And I found few new great bands like Rabbit Junk, 16Volt and to me, the very entertaining Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker from Canada.

23) Your favorite movie or book?
Ugh, I have a looong list. Started with Blade Runner, Alien(s), Princess Mononoke and on the writers side I’ll go with Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Richard Stark, etc.

24) What species is your spirit animal?
Sloth apparently…

25) Your travel tip?
I really love Prague, but I highly recommend Znojemské vinobraní. It is great celebration of the end of harvest. Everybody in the wonderful city Znojmo prepares for this event during the whole year. There is a huge historical parade based on a 14th century visit by king Jan Lucemburský with his wife Eliška, there are a lot of concerts, knight tournaments, shops with handmade wares and great fireworks at the end. And unlimited amounts of tasty young wine at every corner. Czech it out!

26) What’s your guilty pleasure?
Walking in Prague.

27) What was your greatest mistake?
In the games on my mind: I didn´t read the script for Chameleon half a year later again, which I should have done. There are a few dialogues that could have been much better. It is my big fault and I apologize deeply to all my coworkers on this project.

28) What will be your famous last words?
beeeeep!

29) Is it possible to buy you with candy?
No. But “please” works quite well on me.

30) What is your kryptonite?
Home cleaning. I will be the first guy in the world who will install any new system, which on simple button press cleans the whole flat with a bunch of showers and, hopefully, it will get dry before I get back from work. I hope somebody is already working on that.

31) Who is your favorite historic character?
Nicola Tesla. His inventions really changed the world, even though lots of them will never be known to the world.

32) Which is your favorite historic event?
Velvet revolution… Freedom!

33) You have to fight in medieval times… who are you? Which weapon do you choose?
I want to be the man with the boomstick.

34) Knights or Samurai?
Knights. I think seppuku is bad for guts.

35) What was your favorite subject and your most hated one at school? What were your grades in history?
I loved math and literature. And I hated chemistry and surprisingly history – those damn dates!

36) If you could say something to the fans of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, what would it be?
I think nobody mentioned it here, but the game is improving every single day, it is far away from the beta version now. Of course, a lot of things still don´t work well, but it is great to see something being polished – even for me. We are working very hard on the game and I hope you will like the result.

Do you want to know more about David Horák and his job as a designer? You can ask your questions here.

DrFusselpulli · July 21, 2017, 7:44am

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DrFusselpulli · July 21, 2017, 2:11pm

Daniel Mikeš joined Warhorse Studios in May 2015, after he finished university here in Prague, his home town. As a technical designer he is responsible for bringing the work from the other departments together, in his case with a strong focus on the quest system.
Do you have any additional questions about him or his position here at Warhorse? Please ask here

1) Where can we usually find you lurking in the holy halls of Warhorse?
There are days when you have to spend most of your time visiting your colleagues at a tour de Warhorse. But sometimes you get lucky enough and you can spend all your day at your workspace.
And when there is a crunch and things get heavy, I’m underneath the pile of sticky notes.
You can find a Spanish translation of this interview here.

2) How did you hear about Warhorse?
I first heard about Warhorse during the Kickstarter campaign. A few hours later I became a proud backer of KC:D.
Then I had to ensure that I would get the best results for my invested money! After I finished my last year at the university I had decided to join the team.

3) What is your favorite team activity?
It is without a doubt the closing ceremony of our daily scrum routine!

4) What are you currently working on?
The good thing about working at the script department is that there will always be something to work on. You can choose from many different parts of the game. After you finish working on a quest you can return to the horse script maintenance or just fix the broken door. That`s what I do.

5) What is the most important characteristic a technical designer must have?
Before I had joined the team, I always thought that what only matters are the technical skills. Since then I have learned that the communication skills are also very important. So choose your talent points wisely!

6) What was your most touching video game moment?
I was playing this German RPG Drakensang. I was wandering through the harbor and I met a sailor.
He said that he will sell you his ship for one million gold pieces, which is really a lot in the game. On the other hand, you walk the entire game on foot and you see this amazing longboat. So, I just knew I need it!
Sometimes when I play an RPG I tend to grind. I always gather my gold and don’t spend it on potions which I don’t need.
This time I didn’t pay much attention to the main quest and instead I stole goods from every NPC in the town and sold all the loot to just buy the ship.
I_n the end, I had finally gathered one million, thinking that there will be some hidden minigame. It turned out to be a scam, the sailor sold me his other ship - a tiny half broken boat which was not interactive at all._
Retrospectively, I have enjoyed the gold hunt more than any other guest in the game because I was looking forward to this great reward.

7) Which class, gender, or type do you usually pick?
I usually pick sorcerers, but I’m kind of tired of all the same fire magic spells. Rogue would be my second pick.
…And I will not discuss the gender of my avatars any further.

8) Are there any videogames you repeat playing over and over again?
I always return to Might and Magic 7. Its feels like returning home from a vacation. Sometimes I feel I know Erathia better than Prague.

9) What would a perfect game according to your wishes look like?
The main feature of the game would be… Oh, nice try. I almost told you the game design of my secret personal project!

10) Which videogame character or figure is the best?
I always admired Edwin from Baldur´s Gate. He is intelligent, funny and evil.

11) Which videogame character are you?
I’m the face of Mathew from Skalitz. He might not be the sharpest tool in the shed, he is not even a nice person, but that doesn’t mean you should kill him, right?

12) How do you relax after a hard day at work?
Recently I started watching documents with David Attenborough. Even the Hulk could relax with it and he would still learn a thing or two.

13) A personal story you would like to share?
There are many ways to play a MMO.
I was always the one who did these small conservative steps – the same dungeon for a long time with a stable experience and the average drop to earn enough to buy some persistent equip.
My brother had a different approach. He invested his gold into mana potions in order to visit a high level dungeon with a low-chance drop of a unique artifact.
In the end, it´s not about the game you choose.
Today, my brother has an amazing wife and two little kids. The lesson is: don’t save on potions…

14) Your favorite movie?
I update my favorite movie every ten years. So far, it´s still Amélie Poulain.

15) What species is your spirit animal?
It would be the Tibetan fox. It hunts Pikas (predecessor of Pikachu) and it looks like it´s having the chill of its life. Google it!

16) Do you have a Bucket List?
As far as I can tell, there is:
- release my own game
- visit a rainforest
- fly a Rogallo wing

17) If you could say something to the fans of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, what would it be?
Thank you! I mean, I might not be working on this project without your support.

Do you want to know more about our technical designer Daniel Mikeš? Then use the barrel of questions.

DrFusselpulli · January 5, 2018, 11:57am

here are Daniel Mikeš answers to your community questions:

I bought only the Knight tier. Don’t tell anyone

I have finished Czech Technical University with a master in Computer Graphics. During the studies, I have worked on some small game project, but never managed to finish it so it could be released. So this is my first well known project. I have very few experiences with MODs.

I prefer my own nose. It has more vertices and the texture is so detailed. So its the oppoosite way, WH could not recreate such amazing nose

There is also praying, shopping, chatting with other people or visiting some events like the mass or the pillory. And I have certainly forgot some

If something unexpected happens he will try to get his schedule right. If there is work to do in the morning you just need to sleep less. We could easily add a debuff caused by the short sleep.

I have joined the the team after these quests have been scripted. I have worked on the quests for the following beta release.

I cannot decide