Russian Interview with WoodenDragon and InanKy translated

[CWagner]

Galagraphia translated the meaty parts of a 2-hour interview with WD and blame InanKy. This is about 1/3rd of it so far.

The original interview is here for those who speak Russian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3LVUQpW7PM

Host: “Introduce yourselves”

WoodenDragon: “I’m Liza, community manager”

InanKy: “I’m Lyonya, I’m just a game designer.”

Host: “Just a game designer!”

InanKy: “Well, it’s a small insignificant role in a project few know about.”

WD talks about how KS had fun parts. Like people guessing the next stretch goal

Asked about raising more money than DOS2. InanKy says that now they have to make a game to match, and it’s a big responsibility

They talk about who they are. InanKy says he started with NWN? Didn’t hear that part well. And made characters that didn’t work. WD adds that now he makes characters that do work. Then he played tabletop games at 6-7 grade. They got asked about PoE2 that made little money…

…they answered very diplomatically that there are too many opinions about that. In general they don’t think it was because now it’s too many RPGs, there’s enough RPG, and there’s a demand for more, and they are making one.

InanKy says another reason may be that RPGs take hundreds of hours to play, and instead people may want to play 4 different smaller games. I somewhat agree, I do that sometimes.

Asked about additional gameplay features like Kingdom Management and the new systems in Wrath…

WD: “We are not going to take HoMM and put it into Wrath”

Only the part where armies fight armies will be in, and it may look similar to Heroes

InanKy talks about the magic on the crusade, how they want to make these global spells like in Age of Wonders? I didn’t play, so I don’t really know what he’s talking about, but I have some idea like maybe control weather? Change landscape with stone-shaping magic?

Asked about their favourite games. InanKy loves NWN1, and has difficult relationship with the Witcher

Wooden Dragon finished Witcher 3 on switch [edit: WD commented that she is still playing and didn’t yet finish it]

Asked about romances and turning into “various things” (mythic creatures)

InanKy: “Imagine you are dating a girl, she’s great, you love everything, take her home, and in bedroom it turns out she’s a swarm of locust”

The romance stories are not finished yet, so he doesn’t know if it will end the romance, but he thinks weird transformations will have weird effects on your personal life

Asked how much they were hoping to raise. WD says 1 million plus…

Asked if they will move the release date. WD says no, when they were preparing the stretch goals, they considered both money and time. The release date may move a little, but not into 2022.

Someone asked a question that doesn’t make any sense to me, and I can’t figure out how to translate that shortly

It boiled down to how some people tell girls what they want to hear to lure them into bed, their relationship probably won’t work out after that. Because you turn into a swarm. And then she will turn into a swarm. Wooden Dragon: “And then it will work out!”

Asked about intelligent weapon and whether it’s related to archetypes of arcanist and magus. InanKy says no, because these archetypes can use any melee weapon. Second “how do you imagine writing basically a companion for 2 archetypes out of 170+?”

Confirmed Chris Avellone is writing a companion, again

Asked about int weapon again. Doesn’t know yet, suspects it will be a weapon that will be suitable for different builds

Will whips appear? InanKy: We want to, but I’m not sure we can, so I’ll say I don’t know.

They talk about how they don’t know many games with whips, because it’s technically difficult to make.

[CWagner]

Some more updates:

Asked about custom archetypes and consulting with Paizo. They replied that they do make their own archetypes, for example Ember and Camellia.

Asked about better weapon animation goal. Will it improve the animation for the casters? Answer: no, it’s for the weapons. But for magic there will be improved FX, magic will be really pretty.

Why do game devs rarely implement psionic classes in dnd-based games? Because some games came out before psionic classes. Also Kingmaker had kineticist, which is psionic. But to make someone like medium, you’d need to create a lot of exclusive content for that class, and that’s a lot of work and money. InanKy also mentioned he loves vigilante class, and to make that one right, you need to basically make a separate game about this character having a secret identity.

Why did you choose an AP about fighting demons, not something more exotic? When making that decision they had certain requirements: 1) they wanted something epic 2) with an additional mechanics to replace the kingdom management 3) must be really different in mood, feeling, and spirit from Kingmaker

Why didn’t name it Pathfinder II? Because it’s an indirect sequel, and didn’t want it to be mistaken for a second edition game. But the game will have some elements of 2 edition

2nd edition will be released in Russia in autumn. Plans to make a 2 ed. game? They are not the right people to ask. They are making 1st ed, but took some elements of the 2nd.

How much of Kingmaker is yours and how much Paizo? Difficult to say. There was a lot of collaborative work. The world is Paizo’s, but Owlcats put a lot of their own [content] into it. “Consider the Kingmaker we gave you our tabletop experience in some extent”.

In KM the team obviously had to write their own plot. How much do you have to do it in Wrath? InanKy says they didn’t come up with their own plot, they’ve kept the original plot, but modified, and added a chapter. In Wrath… They original AP is for a good party. They wanted to create a story for different characters, so they are adding a lot. WD: we are shifting the focus from the fight of good vs evil towards big power and big responsibility and how it affects the surrounding [people]. InanKy: “You can be a bad boy, and a very bad boy!” WD: “You can be a neutral, lawful boy, or even a chaotic boy!” InanKy boasts killing a chaotic neutral party which worked for money (in tabletop)

Hosts: is that your work duty to play TTRPG? Yes, it is. At 4 pm each Tuesday they all get up and go to play. It’s mandatory and part of the job.

What’s the deal with Drezen design? Why is it full of barrels and tents? It was captured a hundred of years ago, should be nothing but crumbling walls! WD: not only demons live there, some people too. InanKy: a million of cultists. Host: They need barrels and stuff! InanKy: they need toilets and kitchens. WD: they may not be the tidiest inhabitants, but the city is not ruined nor abandoned.

Plans to rework the icons and interface in regards to skills and feats? Interface will be improved, icons too, no concrete info rn. Will show screenshots of the final interface when it’s ready

Levelling schedule/calculator? No, no place in the budget for it (there was actually a reference to a joke about pulling an owl onto a globus, but this can’t be translated, it’s a local joke)

Will there be character customisation options? Because in the end of the game party usually looks like a bunch of clowns.
InanKy: magical items will look like magical items, and in the end the party will look like a Christmas tree, and that’s ok. That’s how things are, that’s how all high level parties look.

Did you take into consideration players’ suggestions during KM beta, and will you take seriously players’ suggestions this time? WD says OF COURSE! She reads it all and passes on to the team. All suggestions are considered, discussed, sometimes things get changed accordingly. Check KM patch notes to see how much was changed based on feedback. They are also grateful to the community for help.

InanKy sits next to the kitchen in the office, and it’s a bad place lol

Will guard and other NPCs be as useless in battle as they were in KM? InanKy explains how 8 lvl character is a hero of the town/country level of awesome. Guards are not that awesome. Crusaders are slightly stronger, but a moment will come when your super epic hero won’t notice them anymore.

Comparing Kingdom and Crusade management. Kingdom is about making your kingdom prosper, crusade is about punching demons and taking away from them cool things before they break them.

[CWagner]

The final part of the interview. All hail Galagraphia on discord!

Question from sponsor: he gets the blue screen of death on launching the game. The host gets crashes. InanKy advised not to alt+tab, it’s a known issue with Unity. Regarding the blue screen WD asked to send her logs, saves, etc, because it’s a unique case. They still work on patches for KM in their “free” time, but the main focus is Wrath. Still, WD says there will be more KM updates.

What was the most common complaint about Kingmaker? InanKy quotes: “Your difficulty is shit!” Host: too hard or too easy? InanKy: Both. Also people say it’s uneven. Cool story: after the release they received a complaint which said: “I’m playing on “hard” — it’s hard!” They fixed this by moving “custom” from the last to the right, to the first from the left. So instead of “hard” it was now “challenging”. Complaints stopped. WD: you can change the difficulty, you can even play on story. She plays on story and she’s not ashamed. Host approves. They have many tweaks for difficulty in KM, but doesn’t mean they won’t work on that further in Wrath. Also they will work on accessibility of learning how to play.

Will you recruit testers? What are the requirements? The love of the game and the desire to be paid in cookies? WD: will have alpha and beta tests with Kickstarter backers. InanKy: if you want to work with us, send your CV. Also mentioned the QA update about the bots.

What would you do differently if you could start the development from scratch? WD: dunno, we are sort of making the game of our dreams here. InanKy: tbh things we wanted to do differently - we did them. Thet have more experience now, so obviously if they did KM with the current experience, they would make it better and would make it faster, but there’s only one way to obtain that experience.

What’s your task during the development? To entertain the player or to torture? WD: what do you think? InanKy: both. If you entertain the player all the time, they’ll get tired of it, if you torture them - they’ll get tired of it (dark souls get mentioned, and that it tortures the players, but rewards for slaying the boss. InanKy says he couldn’t play it, but finished Seeker (?). Also mentioned Nioh (?), InanKy wants to play the 2nd when it comes out on PC, he should finish the 1st one by then).

Back to Wrath. How will gameplay look? Do angels and liches still need to do the ‘vacuum cleaning’ of the map? InanKy: first of all you won’t turn into an angel or a lich at the start, definitely not in the first hour. It’s a game about your path towards becoming an epic hero, not about being a chosen one. You start as a regular person, but quite soon it will become clear you are not a simple dude. But you will still have to vacuum clean the map, it’s an RPG, what did you expect?

Host: the game won’t end after becoming a lich? InanKy: you will still have things to do.

Will there be an option to smoothen the brutality of the random? InanKy: look, we have a simple policy: everything is honest. Honest NPCs, made according to PF rules, honest dice rolls. So, no. Dice are dice.

Hints on homosexually of some characters were added by your initiative, or by your western partners? To increase the sales there? WD: no hints, it’s pretty clear there are characters of different sexualities. They write characters first, with different stories, and in the end turns out they are different like that. They also base their stories on PF lore, where different sexualities are present. Host jokes about swarm fucking. InanKy: swarmsexual! WD is not sure about swarm fucking. Host: put a condom on your swarm.
WD talks about how Regongar and Octavia are the way they are not because they wanted to write a threesome, but because it made sense for them considering their story. And same for Tristian. Some wanted him gay, but he’s not like that, he’s straight.

Asked about humble choice? WD doesn’t know how that happened, probably the publisher did that

Is Jubilost the best boy? WD says Nikki told her to answer “yes”.

Do you consider making a game based on your own IP? InanKy: it’s a question like “do you want some free money?” All dame devs want to make their own games.

Why did you actually take PF instead of making your own thing? To gain attention? WD: the core of our team had PF fans in it. They wanted to make PF game. There was also no PF game like that, and Paizo agreed.

Next was chat questions
Host: quick chat questions. You can answer shortly: yes, no, fuck yourselves.

1. portal spells? InanKy: fuck yourselves! (i don’t know)
2. where is paladin’s horse? InanKy: paladin will get a horse at 5th level
3. can we hope for the hunter? InanKy: depends on slacker backers. WD: backers portal will be up by the end of March, anyone can pledge, it will count towards the stretch goal
4. did you really run out of stretch goals? They started to worry at some point they may run out of stretch goals, but they wanted to end at that one. Bit didn’t think they’d get to it.
5. Will Wrath have interactive environment? People will compare with Larian. InanKy: it’s cool, but they never planned that.
6. why is sling so poorly represented in KM? Because slings are not a thing in PF, it was replaced by crossbow.
7. what changes can we expect from AI? Massive changes. They are planning a number of systems which change which abilities mobs use at different difficulty levels. There’s already a system which makes different abilities work differently depending on difficulty level, because players on story mode probably don’t want to deal with drained levels, poison. Enemies on higher difficulty levels will have more complex behaviour.
8. macros for auto cast? No.
9. save import? Not decided yet. Two games happen almost at the same time. But it’s not decided yet how the cameo will be done and whether or not there will be a save import.
10. plans on Starfinder? (Or Starfarter, or Starfucker) No, no such plans.
11. do you have statistics on how many players played as evil characters in KM? WD: not sure we have the tools to count. No statistics, but it’s important that players know that they have this choice (to be good or evil)
12. romance with Lebeda? WD: in Wrath? InanKy: we won’t be making new DLCs for KM.
13. why did you release such a raw product? KM is great, but the bugs were freaking awful! InanKy: it’s a philosophical question. There are many factors, and you don’t always get to release the way you want to.
14. back to difficulty question. Have you played with a SCS(?) mod for Baldur’s? InanKy: no
15. Woljif! Can we romance him? We can’t announce what we haven’t announced. Check the romance update on KS.
16. we can romance 4+2+princess (InanKy and WD correct: The Queen!), is she (Galfrey) a companion? She’s not a companion, she’s a separate case.
17. is harem possible? InanKy: you’d need to ask the writers