Queen Of Thieves beta 0.8.7

[Thee Forsaken One]

the talk scene Kira/Moirgane on the market is weird. M tells she has not enough money to buy food and the only topics are dead parents, beauty and the offer to visit the money lender (and I totally don't get the sense of the 'you're cruel' line).

THE obvious option is imo to offer money for food, no matter if it's a good or bad reaction in regard to the love story

The cruel line is that Moirgane mentioned she was glad the old healer was dead and Kira jokes (In an attempt to lighten the mood) that she didn't know Moirgane could be so cruel. She's not being serious and it's obvious she's joking when you pick the option.

The others, well I wouldn't say it's obvious to offer help. For all you know, it could offend Moirgane to offer her charity. I certainly have known people who would be offended if I offered them money. I won't say if that's the most positive option (Unless Jack has coded it so you do know if you're made the best choice) but sometimes the obvious isn't the best.

[myoksy]

As for the evil eyes bug, haha I actually didn't consider the option in which you could lose! I need to fix it, but I don't want to put a sudden game over if you lose, so they must be able to somehow kill them even if they lose, maybe sacrificing something,

the eyes are already an outside context problem* as they don't fit very well in your otherwise default high-fantasy setting - so a fine outcome would be some akin weird resolution: the eyes can bring the necromancer back, but still dead as a stone. while performing the rites they loose the energy and splash to the ground. next scene: The PC mage collects slime.

She's not being serious and it's obvious she's joking when you pick the option.
[..]
The others, well I wouldn't say it's obvious to offer help.

we're stuck here and can only agree that we disagree. You see my obvious reaction as bogus, I never thought once that the cruel line could be even near an obvious joke. stalemate : )

* to mix shamelessly genres

[myoksy]

as a PS

The others, well I wouldn't say it's obvious to offer help. .. I won't say if that's the most positive option (Unless Jack has coded it so you do know if you're made the best choice) but sometimes the obvious isn't the best.

I think we have a misunderstanding. It is not possible to talk about M's financial situation at all.

The four possible replies after her story are

- I know what it’s like to lose a parent.
- I don’t know about words but I do know about actions.
- I didn’t know you had such a cruel streak. I better watch out!
- Someone as wonderful and as beautiful as you shouldn’t get so worked up about this.

At first I thought 2. would be something like "Wait here, back in a second" and the handing over of half a swine or so (as I wrote before: the outcome for the love interest thingy is not important. I want the possibility to address the food issue). but nope. it was the offer to come along when M visits the money lender.

[Thee Forsaken One]

It might not be obvious when you pick but when Moirgane reacts poorly Kira tells her she was trying to make a joke and apologises for messing up.

I deliberately tried to keep choices sort relatively vague. I can understand why you might think giving her food seemed like the most sensible idea but Kira really can't go around giving away money. Perhaps it could have been communicated better that was the case but I'd have hoped the crazy sums the stranger demands as the game goes on kind of drops large hints that the sisters really don't have cash to burn outside of their mission. They eat and drink pretty frugally for the most part unless someone buys it for them. Besides, I doubt Moirgane would have accepted the food. Kira had to push hard even just to get permission to accompany her to see the money lender.

[jack1974]

Back to the bugs, today worked on a lot of things. First of all the gems screen should be more intuitive now:

added more info, added "sockets" on left, highlighted the sockets better, enabled click again on socket to deselect it, etc.

Also, now when you're BUYING items in shops, the number won't be anymore how many the shop has left (they shouldn't really run out of potions/bombs!) but instead how many you have, storage+currently equipped!

I think showing it directly in the buy screen is better, so you don't have to click on sell to see how many you have. I will of course update the help texts about this, and maybe probably also add some more hints of what that number is

I could do an update now but I'm probably going to implement the new main menu and also the missing Therjalla's story and the Evil eye thing first

[jack1974]

Voilà, if you have already more than 1, will show it directly in the item name, so you can't miss it

Going to take a break now since heat is starting to get worse, but I think tomorrow or max Monday could do the next update will all those changes+main menu image

[myoksy]

Shop and the gem slotting looks fine, thanks a lot!

But back to the market scene, I think I'll have to widen the scope further to get my point through.

My relationship to the personalities of the 3 PCs is indifferent, they have different traits and are discernible but stay within an archetype (The Grumpy Officer, The Superficial Flirt, The Methodical Thinker) without rough edges or greater surprises.

So far I stumbled over two outliers: The crippling of Tomas by Thalia (but then the eye-for-an-eye justice is a common trope in western fantasy) and Kira's ignorance of the OutOfFoodException (what does it cost in a medieval setting to feed 3 persons for a day? is it more than a huge jug of beer in a tavern?). In a way those outliers make characters more interesting, but I am not sure if it's intended that the more extreme traits are both at the negative end of the scale... The inability to select the food problem as topic makes Kira an arsehole in my eyes (not that I as player would exclusively choose this option, it's the expectation that Kira as character for sure thinks about the hunger issue and can address it) and Joanne will not heal her anymore.

The critical part of the exchange is:
"I came to the market today to get some food but realised I couldn’t afford any. It looks like we’ll have to go hungry for the next few days until I settle the debt."

And the archetype Grumpy Officer will not react to this because of the fear to receive a rebuff? Hell, nope. If the surprising personality trait "ignorant arsehole" is on purpose: great! Not exactly within the settled framework of the story ark but it's not bad to break expectations.

If you did not intend my reaction one easy fix would be to add something like "This means mixed pickles and porridge only. My brother will hate me but I will suppress his craving for sweets with an iron fist." This could solve both of my issues: An explanation why the food topic is not addressable and a second entry point for the cruel-streak-thingy when players like me are too dull to recognize the obvious joking (even with your hint regarding the dead healer I don't really see it as plausible reply. sorry.).

[Thee Forsaken One]

I'm enclosing some of this in spoiler tags since you've brought up end game stuff now.

Spoiler:

My relationship to the personalities of the 3 PCs is indifferent, they have different traits and are discernible but stay within an archetype (The Grumpy Officer, The Superficial Flirt, The Methodical Thinker) without rough edges or greater surprises.

So far I stumbled over two outliers: The crippling of Tomas by Thalia (but then the eye-for-an-eye justice is a common trope in western fantasy) and Kira's ignorance of the OutOfFoodException (what does it cost in a medieval setting to feed 3 persons for a day? is it more than a huge jug of beer in a tavern?). In a way those outliers make characters more interesting, but I am not sure if it's intended that the more extreme traits are both at the negative end of the scale... The inability to select the food problem as topic makes Kira an arsehole in my eyes (not that I as player would exclusively choose this option, it's the expectation that Kira as character for sure thinks about the hunger issue and can address it) and Joanne will not heal her anymore.

I think the issue is you're seeing them in these three archetypes which you have posited and they're not really like that at all. Kira isn't particularly grumpy (Despite Thalia's jokes) but is often insecure, especially when she gets closer to people. She's also insecure about her intelligence because she's been bullied about it before even though she's not stupid and is in actual fact quite smart. Joanne is a control freak so you're not far off methodical but it's far more nuanced than that. It's not something you've brought up specific comments about, though, so I'll leave it at that.

As for Thalia, she's a massive flirt but she's not superficial (Even if she acts it). She has the shortest temper of the three of them and is less concerned about hurting people than her older siblings. Joanne tends to be more controlled and Kira has had years of training to keep herself in control so it's no real surprise that Thalia is the one that loses her temper and attacks Tomas in that way. Thalia also took the loss of Arianna and the crippling of Lysander probably harder than the others, or, at least, has not come to terms with it like her older sisters have. She ran away to essentially join the circus, after all.

The critical part of the exchange is:
"I came to the market today to get some food but realised I couldn’t afford any. It looks like we’ll have to go hungry for the next few days until I settle the debt."

And the archetype Grumpy Officer will not react to this because of the fear to receive a rebuff? Hell, nope. If the surprising personality trait "ignorant arsehole" is on purpose: great! Not exactly within the settled framework of the story ark but it's not bad to break expectations.

If you did not intend my reaction one easy fix would be to add something like "This means mixed pickles and porridge only. My brother will hate me but I will suppress his craving for sweets with an iron fist." This could solve both of my issues: An explanation why the food topic is not addressable

I've gone over the grumpy officer stuff so I'll not repeat myself. As for your suggestion, I'll think about it. I can see where you're coming from even if I don't agree.

and a second entry point for the cruel-streak-thingy when players like me are too dull to recognize the obvious joking (even with your hint regarding the dead healer I don't really see it as plausible reply. sorry.).

If you don't see it like that, that's fine. Short of putting a at the end of the sentence it's hard to convey in text without tagging it as a joke so that every possible reader would see it as such.

[myoksy]

Thank's for the detailed reply!

I can see where you're coming from even if I don't agree.

Fair enough.

Bug time!

Win the eternal love of a merchant, get 50 % off. As money is stronger than love* you're supposed to rip off your significant other:
1. Buy a discounted weapon/armour piece
2. Sell it back at full price
3. goto 1 until it get's boring

* at least this seems to be the current knowledge level of economic "science"

[jack1974]

Haha interesting. I need to apply the discount even when selling Do you have a save with the bonus active (I'm lazy and don't want to replay it until that point). Thanks