Got an email today from Basilisk. They have officially announced Eschalon: Book II, currently scheduled to be out sometime in second quarter ’09. That’s good news. I’m glad to see that the first game sold well enough to make a sequel possible (recall Book I came with no CP). There isn’t all that much info yet, but I include links to the press release and page for the interested.
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Sorry, can’t really comment. Just bought Book I yesterday. :)
Hmmm. Hunger and thirst?
I enjoyed the first game. I hope they don’t ‘improve’ it too much.
The new graphics look very neat. The affect weather has sounds interesting. Always neat to have the resolution of quests impact the story line. But hunger and thirst? I’m already managing hit points and mana. Hunger and thirst in the past have more often than not meant tedium and and obnoixious pain-in-the behind inventory management — carry that water-skin and bread loaf! Eat’em up or collapse in a heap!
Hunger and thirst? Sheesh, I hope not, Myrdin. Where did you see that? It wasn’t mentioned in either of the links up there.
Look at the official page’s screen shots.
A little TOO much like the old Ultima games, maybe…
Although… I didn’t mind it in Ultima Underworld. But I always felt that UU was kinda “survival fantasy” anyway, so it felt like part of the game instead of useless extraneous micromanagement.
All I can say is, I hope they drop that idea before the game comes out. Puzzles and stuff, that’s fine.
But I have absolutely zero tolerance for that “gotta have food” business. There is no need for it, and diverts you from getting on with the game itself.
I remember one of the early Ultimas (not UU) where I lost patience and finally hex-edited the food to maximum, and continued doing so when supplies became low. I had better things to do than worry about starvation.
This does nothing to make the game fun. If they keep it in, I will skip Book II, regardless of how good the rest of the game may be. There are times when emulating the “oldies” can go too far.
Designers of today should not be repeating the mistakes of the past, and food requirements was one of the biggest mistakes.
Scorpia: hexing, tsk tsk :)
Granted that micromanaging food/drink is a pain, there is at least one good reason for it — it forces the player to return to the nearest village/town, where something could have changed that wouldn’t have been known otherwise.
True, some snot-nosed kid standing in the middle of the forest can send you back, but…
Ok, maybe I’m just playing devil’s advocate here. :D
GB, if that’s the only way they can think of to get you back to town, then those designers might be better off programming in a different venue.