Late release : QotW for September 25, 2008

Burntvet

Posted in the last day or two, I think....

 

First off, I’d like to apologize to everyone for this getting up late. It’s totally my (read Lee’s) fault. We had a real big deadline yesterday, lots of meetings, etc., and it just got lost in the shuffle. I’ve been pretty good about predicting what weeks I’d miss the QotW or get something to fill in, but this time I just completely forgot. I apologize and will endeavor never to have this happen again.

So work is tearing along, though largely we’re working on bugs lately, as opposed to layering in new content. We’re looking at our tradeskill system for some balance tweaks, tuning up Old Kingman Prison, working on tradeskill component recipes, and finishing up the art on some of the badass higher-end armor (and as y’all will see in a few weeks, the new faction armor is freaking awesome).

1. Are coffee and cigarettes still in the development plans? If so, what will the effects be?

We do have various types of coffee, tea, etc in the game, though the best drink in the game is totally the Toilet Gin. These give different kinds of buffs, but generally help restore Stamina. They can sometimes give stat bonuses too (e.g. coffee gives you a bonus to Mind saves or Perception, as you’re wired on caffeine or some such).

We have some cigarette models but we don’t have a good way to really smoke them. They’re stuck in the mouth effectively. We’re still figuring out what we want to do with that.

2. Is there a time clock? How do you know what time of day it is in FE?

There isn’t one as part of the UI so far, but we may put one in. Currently the best way to know the time of day in FE is look at the sky or the placement of the sun.

3. Could you provide us with a complete list of skills as they currently stand?

Active Skills:

Animal Training, Armor Use, Dodge, First Aid, Group Tactics, Melee (which Melee Defense is derived from) Pistol, Rifle, Stealth

Trade Skills:

Armorcraft, Ballistics, Cooking, Geology, Medicine, Mutagenics, Nature, Scavenging, Science, Weaponry

Mutation Skills:

Enhancement, Empathic, Nano-Manipulation, Patho-Transmission, Primal, Sonic Manipulation, Suppression, Telekinesis, Telepathy, Thermal Manipulation

4. Is Salvaging (ie. breaking down items into their components) a skill in its own right? If not, what skill is it part of?

To Salvage an item you first need to have the skill and knowledge to make it.

5. On character names, how many spaces are allowed? Would you consider allowing some symbols that appear in real-world names such as "-" (eg. "Anne-Marie") and "'" (eg. "O'Tool")?

You can’t have numbers, but you can have symbols, I believe.

6. Does each character have only 1 name, or are there several (eg. nickname, separate first / last names)?

I believe it’s 32 spaces of whatever you can fit.

7. Disregarding a user's PC power, how far will you be able to see in the game? Will you be able to pick out a hazy mountain range in the distance, or will it suddenly pop out of nowhere when you get within a certain distance? Just thinking along the lines of using landmarks for navigation ingame.

You can see the landscape pretty far out, but individual buildings will fade in and out of view if you get far enough away. The larger it is, the farther away you can see it, so some of the water towers and such spread around the game make great navigational land marks.

8. Will there be shrines to deities or a "GOD"??

Yes, but most of them are not something you’d want to worship, unless you like being fed to a cranky lawnmower-machine god or having your blood drained by mutant freaks.

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