Kenshi - Heard of it?

[WindexGlow]

Kenshi is a indie game I'm helping make - modeling for, actually. It's a squad based rpg set in a mixed theme world. The guy in charge has some really cool ideas you don't get to see in other games - massive terrain, dynamic ai, evolving world, ect. He's also going with the mount&Blade release style.

For those who don't know what Mount&Blade is, it's a medieval game where the player can build an army, economy, ect. One of the many things which made it special was the way the released it. Initially, their price point for it was almost nothing - however the consumer would get what they had made for it so far.
When players could first buy it, it had very little in it. The game was coming out of it's alpha stage. However, as time went on it became more and more polished.

That's the current plan for Kenshi - the game is expected to be released come September in a very early shape, with little to do in it. However it'll have the element of a sandbox, than each update will bring more gameplay to the game.


Like mount&Blade, it's style of releasing isn't the only unique thing about it. It's landscape is 400km big. You can learn more about it on it's website - Lofigames.com

[Kedjane]

Running around in 400km of nothing sounds like a big bucket of boring to me. Looks like the terrain could use a bit more elevations, lagre mountains or plateaus.
Afterall Daggerfalls 161,600 square kilometres didn't do the game any actual good since people ended up just quick travelling between the relatively few actual points of interest.
Naturally, just like Daggerfall, I guess the success of the game will depend on what they make of theese points of interest, cities and such. Dynamic AI and evolving world never sounds wrong.

[Polygonspammer]

400 square km of playground sounds nice in theory but in practice it might be a developers nightmare. You'll require alot of artists to fill all that space with props. If you want it to be done in the near future that is.
Tthats what my negative thinking tells me.

On the bright side squadbased rpgs can be rather fun. Granado Espada is a good example of this. While its a dungeoncrawling mmo it shows that controlling a group doesnt have to be hassle.

[Tommy Gun]

Thats true, games like Fallout 3 and Mercanaries 2 had teams of over 100 people (and in "Assassin's Creed's" case, about 450) working on one tiny little house per day or something non-descript, and these games took 2-3 years.
Although, to be fair, those are FPS/3rdP with interactive environment. made by companies who have ALOT of money.

Sounds interesting, keep posting if it isn't a hastle.

[Yuhaney]

Well, I have few questions:

Since the game world is so big, how powerful computer you need to run the 'complete world' (what do I mean, is that everything you are going to put in are there. Enemies, cities, forests, what ever you are going to put in there) smoothly?

Also, is it MMORPG or Single Player game?

And in case you are interested, I'll give you a little hint with the world:

Since there's so much space, it would be nice to see lots of different places.
Like icelands, deserts, jungles, islands where you'll have to go with a ship, just some clean grass where's bisons roaming the area, tunnels to explore... Stuff like that. If you have imagination enough, you can fill that world 'easily'.

So far it sounds pretty good. (Read the FAQ!)

[WindexGlow]

400 square km of playground sounds nice in theory but in practice it might be a developers nightmare. You'll require alot of artists to fill all that space with props.

The game takes place on a dry-ish island, hence the color of the ground. There aren't going to be any trees, and rocks are too difficult to make. Building wise that also isn't too much of a problem - it takes me about 6 hours to model/uv, texture, and have collisions on a proper building if I put my mind to it. And I'm constantly getting faster at it, too.

If you want it to be done in the near future that is.
Tthats what my negative thinking tells me.

Initially, the first versions will be mostly barren. However as time goes on (and it gains more artists) things will become more detailed.

games like Fallout 3 and Mercanaries 2 had teams of over 100 people (and in "Assassin's Creed's" case, about 450) working on one tiny little house per day or something non-descript,

Fallout3's models absolutely fucking suck. I have no clue why a game with that budget and so many people working on it turn out so many subpar models. Those buildings can be done in hours - even less with the method they used (lots of pre-constructed parts fit into a full building)
At the same time, fallout3's environment is hardly destructive.
It must be nice working at bethesda, you get to sit on your ass all day and amaze Todd with how much grudge you can fit onto your building you spent a week putting off.

Since the game world is so big, how powerful computer you need to run the 'complete world' (what do I mean, is that everything you are going to put in are there. Enemies, cities, forests, what ever you are going to put in there) smoothly?

While the engine isn't the greatest (orge3d), the game loads things in when required graphically. While zoomed out like in the demo my fps starting to dip down, players will never be able to zoom out that far in the actual game.
While I don't know what methods he'll do it with, Chris is working on ways to make the world alive when on the other side of the world. Likely this will be done in a turn based manner, and turn into realtime as the player gets close to it.

Also, is it MMORPG or Single Player game?

Single player.

Like icelands, deserts, jungles, islands where you'll have to go with a ship, just some clean grass where's bisons roaming the area, tunnels to explore... Stuff like that. If you have imagination enough, you can fill that world 'easily'.

Icelands: Possibly, that'd be interesting to see.
Deserts: The island is practically one = )
Jungles : Trees don't exist on the island, and many large bushes don't either.
Islands : Yes, there will be some small islands once chris enables the ocean. They aren't too big though.
Tunnels : While I'd love to see some tunnels, it's difficult to do this due to the 3rd person view.