After the first test
Menus instead of commands, a fuller world, NPCs that stop and listen, and the scribe.
Thank you to everyone who played the first test on 7 and 8 November. You told us three things: the commands were hard to use, the NPCs were rough, and much of the world stood empty. This update works on all three. None of it has been tested together yet, so expect rough edges at the next session.
No more commands
- Your book (L): one book with ribbons for Myself, Family, Holdings, Orders, Offices, The law, Church, News and Places. A ribbon only shows when it has something on it.
- Greyed-out buttons tell you why you can’t do something yet, and where to go to do it.
- Office tools from anywhere: judges open sittings and hear cases, gaolers let prisoners go, guard captains set their posts, priests bury the dead and keep the parish book.
- Messages from the server show as the game’s own notices on screen instead of filling the chat.
Meeting people
- Walk up to another player and press E. Their card shows the name you know them by; if you’ve never met, only how they look.
- Introduce yourself, with your real name or any other. Remember them as… keeps your own name for someone.
- A hood or visor hides who you are. No names over heads: hold H to see the names of people you’ve met, close by.
- The same card lets you ask to be wed, teach letters, or write down a crime against them, if your office allows.
A fuller world
- Kuttenberg and the villages are lived in. Houses without a purpose yet get a family for now.
- A building can have more than one purpose, like a grocer’s with a smokehouse, each with its own trade and goods.
- People move in by themselves once a building has a purpose.
- Suchdol: the church, the priest’s house and the burial ground are set. The castle is the lordship’s seat, with a steward and a garrison.
- Houses you can’t go into: the family walks to the front door at night and comes back out in the morning.
NPCs
- NPCs stop and turn to you when you talk, and wait until you’re done.
- Every NPC has Talk on E, including toll-keepers, criers, caravan guards and couriers.
- Traders: “Show me your wares” opens the trade screen, and it stays open.
- Women speak in women’s voices, and subtitles show NPC lines over the speaker’s head.
- Guards fit the crime and come at you from different sides.
- Wagons keep to the road, slow down in town and stop for anyone in front of them. That’s also how you stop the coach.
Downed, struck and wanted
- Knocked out? A line on screen says you’re unconscious, that others can bind your wounds or carry you, and when help will come.
- Striking any NPC is an assault. If no guard saw it, you have a few minutes to say “Forgive me, it was an accident”. Most forgive one light blow.
Reading and the scribe
- Below a certain learning the written word comes out jumbled, as in the first game. Priests and monks teach letters.
- The scribe writes a notice or a letter for a coin, and reads documents and the notice boards to you for free.
Under the hood
- The game’s menus went from about 15 MB to 1.1 MB, so they load faster when you join.
- Fixes for lost witness descriptions, the levy and three tools of the courts and the Church.