Post by Lord Ba'al on May 13, 2014 19:10:24 GMT
Peter Molyneux
Right. Welcome to the fourth of the design updates talking about Project Godus. As usual we are going to go through your questions and I’m going to talk about followers and if we’ve got time we’re going to talk about familiars and stuff like that. Ehm… You’re not very well Jack.
Jack Attridge
No I don’t know what’s come over me.
Peter Molyneux
Is it food poisoning?
Jack Attridge
I don’t think so. I haven’t eaten anything yet.
Peter Molyneux
You haven’t eaten anything. Alright. What did you eat last night because I’ve had food poisoning in the weekend?
Jack Attridge
I had pizza last night.
Peter Molyneux
Was it one of those warmed up pizzas?
Jack Attridge
No. No it was hot to my door. Hot to the work actually.
Peter Molyneux
Who’s pizza was it?
Jack Attridge
I can’t say that.
Peter Molyneux
What? Are you worried about being sued?
Jack Attridge
Yeah.
Peter Molyneux
Really. Okay. Domino’s pizza. Anyway. Let’s do our video before you throw up. And if you do throw up we’ll stop the film.
Jack Attridge
We’ll put the slow motion filter on.
Peter Molyneux
You know I was talking about followers and they get sick so.
Jack Attridge
Exactly.
Peter Molyneux
Right. What about questions? What about feedback?
Jack Attridge
Okay. So people have been wondering a little bit about eh… they’re wondering if there’s as much emphasis on like a good/evil affinity like Black & White. Is it going to be …….. from Fable. Is it going to be like you are borderline good/evil or is it going to be a little bit more fluid… a bit more of a… a larger spectrum.
Peter Molyneux
Well… Of course in the original Populous you either played the evil tribe or the good tribe. The only way we really did that was with the blue people or red people. Obviously we want a bit more than that in Godus. So what we are going to do is we’re going to measure the amount of suffering that your little people have and the amount of benefit that you give them as a god. That’s how we are going to measure good and evil. And that’s the thing that we experimented with in Black & White and indeed in Fable. So it’s definitely going to be a scale. We are going to be able to see how many evil people there are in the world because we’ve got servers now and we can say… you know… in Godus the world is trending to evil or is trending to good. So it’s a scale.
Jack Attridge
Brilliant.
Peter Molyneux
Yeah.
Jack Attridge
And ehm… Also people were wondering is it more kind of a… emphasis on the Black & White kind of sandboxy world or is it ehm… primarily a strategy game like Populous or is it a mix.
Peter Molyneux
Yeah so this is the thing. The thing you may find hard to believe. I think it’s an immensely deep strategy game. You’re building… you’re growing your civilization up, you’re encouraging your people, those people are power, those people will be able to go to war, those people will be able to give you belief. That all sounds strategy-ish. But also because we’ve got this home world, which is initially very peaceful, it’s a sandbox. And that’s the beauty of it. The sandbox gives you the resources to use in the strategy game of multi player against your friends, multi player against strangers or the single player campaign. So it’s both. And… you know… There’s a little bit of RTS in there. You know I loved RTS games. You know… Command & Conquer Red Alert and… ehm… Warcraft… I love those games. I’ve played them for hours and hours and hours. But there hasn’t been any… I mean there’s Starcraft but you have to have… you know 300 key presses a minute to actually even hope to survive Starcraft. So there is a little bit of RTS in there as well. I love the depth. I love the… you using the landscape as well as using gift of the gods, as well as using some of the kinder powers strategically against the problems that your people face. Remember …………………….. in the single player campaign, especially …………………………. problems of marauding tribes attacking them… they also appraise the problems of the elements.
Jack Attridge
What’s also kind of interesting with Populous and Godus is that… It’s not that you’re… You’re not directly telling these followers do this do that in fact your influence is trying to influence the world around them in order to kind of manipulate them to… carry your will.
Peter Molyneux
Except of course. That which we haven’t talked about at all. Totems.
Jack Attridge
Yep, totems, yeah. The one power where you can affect free will.
Peter Molyneux
You can affect free will, exactly. And do we really have free will? What’s your view on that?
Jack Attridge
You mean philosophy?
Peter Molyneux
In life.
Jack Attridge
Well, you know ehm… If a tree breaks, does it make a sound if no-one’s around? Some nonsense.
Peter Molyneux
Has that to do with free will?
Jack Attridge
I don’t know.
Peter Molyneux
The question is do we have free will.
Jack Attridge
Ehm… you mean… Do we believe in fate?
Peter Molyneux
Do you believe that your life is either just like a program… it is inevitable, absolutely inevitable that A leads to B leads to C leads to D or that just every moment is just random as though you have choices in your life? Which of the two things do you believe in?
Jack Attridge
Well I think with Godus we’re not going to be giving an answer but just raising questions.
Peter Molyneux
That’s good. That’s good. Yeah I like that philosophy. But what’s your answer?
Jack Attridge
Well I’m sure I’ll find my answer through my experiences with Godus.
Peter Molyneux
Well I’ll tell you. Sadly and unfortunately the debate is simple. We don’t have any free will. I’m sorry we are just machines. A, B, C, D. That’s going to be contentious isn’t it? Anyway, what’s the third question?
Jack Attridge
Well… I was going to pick up on the idea of the strategic elements of Godus which is that ideally if you are somebody who’s not really into the multi player and competitive thing you can literally just play the whole game in home world and you’re not going to be jumping in and out of ……………..
Peter Molyneux
Yeah that’s true, absolutely true. You can play the whole game in home world. I know there are some people, sometimes I’m like this, I don’t want to face the kind of embarrassment if you like of multi player, they may just stick in home world and be very happy to spread their people out and gain resources. Or they may be a turtle. And I’m a real turtle. I love building up a massive force so I can go and just totally annihilate things, especially in a single player campaign. Can we talk about followers?
Jack Attridge
Yes.
Peter Molyneux
Right. So followers, they’re your little people. And we’re going to have to move the camera down to these little sheets of paper now so… that means that Jack can easily throw up without being seen on camera. Followers… Here we are… We’re working on this prototype at the moment… As you can see in this shot… Look at what these followers are doing. They have certain behavior and that behavior is dictated by what’s going on around them. And in this example they’re in panic mode. In other words they are running away from danger. They’ve got little personalities. We really love this idea that… you know… when they’re panicking or if they’re walking. They’re not all the same. They’ve all got little personalities. Also each one of these are going to have a name and they’re going to have a little bit of history. I know that sounds silly, but I love that detail in the world. And if these people are your friends from your facebook account for example it just adds to the value you know. If this is my sister or if this is my wife, I’m going to really look after her. If it’s someone who’s just beat me in football, not that I ever play football, then I’d probably just squish them. So they really do have a personality and they really do have very interesting behavior, but understandable behavior. So let’s just move over and go look at another shot. This one is more peaceful. In here… This is where the followers have started to settle. And this is a key thing to the game. If you give them the land, they will settle and they will make a village and that village will turn into a town and that town will turn into a city. And that works under very simple rules. Each of these houses… the more space they have around them, the bigger that house will be. Also each of the houses get a bonus for being higher up. So it’s better to spread your people out over the landscape rather than having flat boring landscapes. And then the older a house is the taller it’s built up. And you can see that there are really interesting structures and we’ll talk to Paul and he’ll show you some concept shots about being inspired by ehm… you know… ehm… cities in our world. Also on top of that we really want to put in… This is where the humour comes in… These are three ideas I want your feedback directly on about whether or not it’s a good idea. So let’s talk about three characters. And these are characters that you will find as little bonuses in the game. Each of these characters are like little tiny challenges that give you… if you complete the challenge they will give you a huge belief bonus. Those three characters are… ehm… There’s someone called Immortal Bob, there’s Suicidal Sid and Fragile Fiona. These are my names. It’s just an idea in my mind by the way, you know. I want your feedback to say whether it’s a good idea. Each one of these little characters will come out when your town reaches a certain kind of level. So everyone’s going to get one of these characters. Now let’s talk through what these characters do. Immortal Bob is almost utterly completely indestructible. You can squash him, you can throw him in lava, you can try to drown him in the sea, you can throw him off the topside of a mountaintop. Every time you do you’ll have this amazingly funny lines where he says “aw that didn’t hurt” you know you need to prove it… it’s an idea directly from Black & White you know “oh I’ve just broken my arm”. You have to find the way to kill off Immortal Bob. To get that belief bonus. He’s just like a little play thing. Then we’ve got Fragile Fiona. She’s the opposite. At the merest shock of any description she’ll just keel over and die. You know “oh I’ve had a heart attack”. It’s directly inspired from Monty Python. If you can keep her alive long enough, without her tripping over something, without her… ehm… she could be shocked by some effect going off… you’ll get a belief bonus. And then lastly there is Suicidal Sid who just wants to end it all. He will rush towards the nearest cliff edge to throw himself off like a lemming. He’ll dive into the nearest water and try to drown himself. If you can keep him alive you’ll get another belief bonus. These characters all appear in home world. Is that a good idea? Is it… I love the humour side of it. Is it trivial? Is it too silly? Please give us your feedback. Anyway, in summary, your followers give you belief, the more you spread them out over the mountains and the more you encourage them the more belief they’re going to give you. They are also the resource that you can use to build into armies and go out. And they’ve got, you know, really great personalities. We’ve run out of time to talk about familiars and pets so we’re going to pick that up again tomorrow. And also tomorrow we’re just going to summarize everything that we’ve talked about over the week. And we’re going to start looking at Jack’s fantastic design document. How’s that going Jack?
Jack Attridge
Swimmingly.
Peter Molyneux
That’s a lie isn’t it?
Jack Attridge
If you can’t see me it doesn’t really count.
Peter Molyneux
………………………………. answer. Have you started on it?
Jack Attridge
I have started thinking about it.
Peter Molyneux
You’ve started thinking about it. Right. If everybody could ehm… What’s your twitter account?
Jack Attridge
@jakamofo Without a C.
Peter Molyneux
@jakamofo Ehm… Just tweet Jack and tell him to please do the document. Of course he’s trying to throw a sicky. I know he hates doing documents but there you go. Anyway, thank you very much again for following Kickstarter. We do need your pledges. We’re really worried now that you know… our Kickstarter campaign is slowing down. We need you to tell your friends. We need you to really passionately go out there and try to get more people involved because we really want to make you a great game. Thank you very much.
Right. Welcome to the fourth of the design updates talking about Project Godus. As usual we are going to go through your questions and I’m going to talk about followers and if we’ve got time we’re going to talk about familiars and stuff like that. Ehm… You’re not very well Jack.
Jack Attridge
No I don’t know what’s come over me.
Peter Molyneux
Is it food poisoning?
Jack Attridge
I don’t think so. I haven’t eaten anything yet.
Peter Molyneux
You haven’t eaten anything. Alright. What did you eat last night because I’ve had food poisoning in the weekend?
Jack Attridge
I had pizza last night.
Peter Molyneux
Was it one of those warmed up pizzas?
Jack Attridge
No. No it was hot to my door. Hot to the work actually.
Peter Molyneux
Who’s pizza was it?
Jack Attridge
I can’t say that.
Peter Molyneux
What? Are you worried about being sued?
Jack Attridge
Yeah.
Peter Molyneux
Really. Okay. Domino’s pizza. Anyway. Let’s do our video before you throw up. And if you do throw up we’ll stop the film.
Jack Attridge
We’ll put the slow motion filter on.
Peter Molyneux
You know I was talking about followers and they get sick so.
Jack Attridge
Exactly.
Peter Molyneux
Right. What about questions? What about feedback?
Jack Attridge
Okay. So people have been wondering a little bit about eh… they’re wondering if there’s as much emphasis on like a good/evil affinity like Black & White. Is it going to be …….. from Fable. Is it going to be like you are borderline good/evil or is it going to be a little bit more fluid… a bit more of a… a larger spectrum.
Peter Molyneux
Well… Of course in the original Populous you either played the evil tribe or the good tribe. The only way we really did that was with the blue people or red people. Obviously we want a bit more than that in Godus. So what we are going to do is we’re going to measure the amount of suffering that your little people have and the amount of benefit that you give them as a god. That’s how we are going to measure good and evil. And that’s the thing that we experimented with in Black & White and indeed in Fable. So it’s definitely going to be a scale. We are going to be able to see how many evil people there are in the world because we’ve got servers now and we can say… you know… in Godus the world is trending to evil or is trending to good. So it’s a scale.
Jack Attridge
Brilliant.
Peter Molyneux
Yeah.
Jack Attridge
And ehm… Also people were wondering is it more kind of a… emphasis on the Black & White kind of sandboxy world or is it ehm… primarily a strategy game like Populous or is it a mix.
Peter Molyneux
Yeah so this is the thing. The thing you may find hard to believe. I think it’s an immensely deep strategy game. You’re building… you’re growing your civilization up, you’re encouraging your people, those people are power, those people will be able to go to war, those people will be able to give you belief. That all sounds strategy-ish. But also because we’ve got this home world, which is initially very peaceful, it’s a sandbox. And that’s the beauty of it. The sandbox gives you the resources to use in the strategy game of multi player against your friends, multi player against strangers or the single player campaign. So it’s both. And… you know… There’s a little bit of RTS in there. You know I loved RTS games. You know… Command & Conquer Red Alert and… ehm… Warcraft… I love those games. I’ve played them for hours and hours and hours. But there hasn’t been any… I mean there’s Starcraft but you have to have… you know 300 key presses a minute to actually even hope to survive Starcraft. So there is a little bit of RTS in there as well. I love the depth. I love the… you using the landscape as well as using gift of the gods, as well as using some of the kinder powers strategically against the problems that your people face. Remember …………………….. in the single player campaign, especially …………………………. problems of marauding tribes attacking them… they also appraise the problems of the elements.
Jack Attridge
What’s also kind of interesting with Populous and Godus is that… It’s not that you’re… You’re not directly telling these followers do this do that in fact your influence is trying to influence the world around them in order to kind of manipulate them to… carry your will.
Peter Molyneux
Except of course. That which we haven’t talked about at all. Totems.
Jack Attridge
Yep, totems, yeah. The one power where you can affect free will.
Peter Molyneux
You can affect free will, exactly. And do we really have free will? What’s your view on that?
Jack Attridge
You mean philosophy?
Peter Molyneux
In life.
Jack Attridge
Well, you know ehm… If a tree breaks, does it make a sound if no-one’s around? Some nonsense.
Peter Molyneux
Has that to do with free will?
Jack Attridge
I don’t know.
Peter Molyneux
The question is do we have free will.
Jack Attridge
Ehm… you mean… Do we believe in fate?
Peter Molyneux
Do you believe that your life is either just like a program… it is inevitable, absolutely inevitable that A leads to B leads to C leads to D or that just every moment is just random as though you have choices in your life? Which of the two things do you believe in?
Jack Attridge
Well I think with Godus we’re not going to be giving an answer but just raising questions.
Peter Molyneux
That’s good. That’s good. Yeah I like that philosophy. But what’s your answer?
Jack Attridge
Well I’m sure I’ll find my answer through my experiences with Godus.
Peter Molyneux
Well I’ll tell you. Sadly and unfortunately the debate is simple. We don’t have any free will. I’m sorry we are just machines. A, B, C, D. That’s going to be contentious isn’t it? Anyway, what’s the third question?
Jack Attridge
Well… I was going to pick up on the idea of the strategic elements of Godus which is that ideally if you are somebody who’s not really into the multi player and competitive thing you can literally just play the whole game in home world and you’re not going to be jumping in and out of ……………..
Peter Molyneux
Yeah that’s true, absolutely true. You can play the whole game in home world. I know there are some people, sometimes I’m like this, I don’t want to face the kind of embarrassment if you like of multi player, they may just stick in home world and be very happy to spread their people out and gain resources. Or they may be a turtle. And I’m a real turtle. I love building up a massive force so I can go and just totally annihilate things, especially in a single player campaign. Can we talk about followers?
Jack Attridge
Yes.
Peter Molyneux
Right. So followers, they’re your little people. And we’re going to have to move the camera down to these little sheets of paper now so… that means that Jack can easily throw up without being seen on camera. Followers… Here we are… We’re working on this prototype at the moment… As you can see in this shot… Look at what these followers are doing. They have certain behavior and that behavior is dictated by what’s going on around them. And in this example they’re in panic mode. In other words they are running away from danger. They’ve got little personalities. We really love this idea that… you know… when they’re panicking or if they’re walking. They’re not all the same. They’ve all got little personalities. Also each one of these are going to have a name and they’re going to have a little bit of history. I know that sounds silly, but I love that detail in the world. And if these people are your friends from your facebook account for example it just adds to the value you know. If this is my sister or if this is my wife, I’m going to really look after her. If it’s someone who’s just beat me in football, not that I ever play football, then I’d probably just squish them. So they really do have a personality and they really do have very interesting behavior, but understandable behavior. So let’s just move over and go look at another shot. This one is more peaceful. In here… This is where the followers have started to settle. And this is a key thing to the game. If you give them the land, they will settle and they will make a village and that village will turn into a town and that town will turn into a city. And that works under very simple rules. Each of these houses… the more space they have around them, the bigger that house will be. Also each of the houses get a bonus for being higher up. So it’s better to spread your people out over the landscape rather than having flat boring landscapes. And then the older a house is the taller it’s built up. And you can see that there are really interesting structures and we’ll talk to Paul and he’ll show you some concept shots about being inspired by ehm… you know… ehm… cities in our world. Also on top of that we really want to put in… This is where the humour comes in… These are three ideas I want your feedback directly on about whether or not it’s a good idea. So let’s talk about three characters. And these are characters that you will find as little bonuses in the game. Each of these characters are like little tiny challenges that give you… if you complete the challenge they will give you a huge belief bonus. Those three characters are… ehm… There’s someone called Immortal Bob, there’s Suicidal Sid and Fragile Fiona. These are my names. It’s just an idea in my mind by the way, you know. I want your feedback to say whether it’s a good idea. Each one of these little characters will come out when your town reaches a certain kind of level. So everyone’s going to get one of these characters. Now let’s talk through what these characters do. Immortal Bob is almost utterly completely indestructible. You can squash him, you can throw him in lava, you can try to drown him in the sea, you can throw him off the topside of a mountaintop. Every time you do you’ll have this amazingly funny lines where he says “aw that didn’t hurt” you know you need to prove it… it’s an idea directly from Black & White you know “oh I’ve just broken my arm”. You have to find the way to kill off Immortal Bob. To get that belief bonus. He’s just like a little play thing. Then we’ve got Fragile Fiona. She’s the opposite. At the merest shock of any description she’ll just keel over and die. You know “oh I’ve had a heart attack”. It’s directly inspired from Monty Python. If you can keep her alive long enough, without her tripping over something, without her… ehm… she could be shocked by some effect going off… you’ll get a belief bonus. And then lastly there is Suicidal Sid who just wants to end it all. He will rush towards the nearest cliff edge to throw himself off like a lemming. He’ll dive into the nearest water and try to drown himself. If you can keep him alive you’ll get another belief bonus. These characters all appear in home world. Is that a good idea? Is it… I love the humour side of it. Is it trivial? Is it too silly? Please give us your feedback. Anyway, in summary, your followers give you belief, the more you spread them out over the mountains and the more you encourage them the more belief they’re going to give you. They are also the resource that you can use to build into armies and go out. And they’ve got, you know, really great personalities. We’ve run out of time to talk about familiars and pets so we’re going to pick that up again tomorrow. And also tomorrow we’re just going to summarize everything that we’ve talked about over the week. And we’re going to start looking at Jack’s fantastic design document. How’s that going Jack?
Jack Attridge
Swimmingly.
Peter Molyneux
That’s a lie isn’t it?
Jack Attridge
If you can’t see me it doesn’t really count.
Peter Molyneux
………………………………. answer. Have you started on it?
Jack Attridge
I have started thinking about it.
Peter Molyneux
You’ve started thinking about it. Right. If everybody could ehm… What’s your twitter account?
Jack Attridge
@jakamofo Without a C.
Peter Molyneux
@jakamofo Ehm… Just tweet Jack and tell him to please do the document. Of course he’s trying to throw a sicky. I know he hates doing documents but there you go. Anyway, thank you very much again for following Kickstarter. We do need your pledges. We’re really worried now that you know… our Kickstarter campaign is slowing down. We need you to tell your friends. We need you to really passionately go out there and try to get more people involved because we really want to make you a great game. Thank you very much.