KickStarter Stoneshard - open world roguelike RPG - now available on Early Access

[whydoibother]

Other terms are only needed as a cope for the gullible

They've got different flavors of copium now, just like with vaping.

Got more words for scam games than we have genres of metal.

 

[Zanzoken]

Those patch notes certainly give the impression that the game is severely overdesigned. Devs have created a million different mechanics all interacting at once, and the end result is a clusterfuck.

Hence why elegant design is about knowing precisely what to add, instead of just trying to do everything you can think of.

 

[HeyCheckOutHowHardICanPee]

sunk cost fallacy with a heavy dose of burnout laced with a fine layer of spaghetti engine+design foundation

 

[Jenkem]

earkuer access shirte

 

[oscar]

It's a shame because there's such a promising game here but they really need to put the pedal to the medal and tackle the hard remaining 35% of content instead of fucking around tinkering with balance and fine tuning (that will inevitably be upset anyway). Stop adding new helmet variations (this new bascinet has 5% protection bonus over the kettlehelm at a -4% energy drain!), dungeon art and what stat effects drinking Elven wine does and nut up and finish the damn thing. You suspect that they overhired on pixel artists and shit that they're trying to keep busy when they need to focus on people who can get the game over the finish line or else the cash will inevitably dry up and we'll be left with a half-cooked product (though at least the fork and plate look elegant).

 

[Modron]

35% of content

According to the map they've only got like 1/3 of planned locations implemented (and it's not like they don't need to flesh out the big city a ton yet still), I think they'll probably just do one more big city and axe the third one. Unless they really find their rhythm.

 

[oscar]

Even so it'd be a good (if unfortunately short) game. It sucks because there's so much promise here (they've made a beautiful and intuitive engine, sprites, UI, everything) but it doesn't seem like the promise will be fully realised.

 

[Kabas]

Remember liking the demo(the older one specifically) so i gave the early access version a try.

Don't recall Pyromancy feeling that underwhelming. Probably should have tackled the prologue with the melee build.
Yep, can't be bothered to read any lore. NPCs talk too much.
Electromancy is interesting, basic ranged spell is a pea shooter. You kinda want to hit enemies with your close range spell in order to actually do some damage.
During my assault on bandit fortress i realised that i forgot to take extra splints. My legs were not ok and frankly speaking i couldn't be bothered to crawl all the way back to the village.
Pixel art is very pretty at least.

 

[Fedora Master]

Just more proof that developers need suits with whips behind them to deliver a product.

 

[Abu Antar]

All Events > Stoneshard Events >

Devlog: Settlement Outskirts & New Bags

Hello everyone!

The last couple of months our team has been working on lots of new content: the long-awaited Caravan, the previously highlighted rework of the Dungeon Generator, and dungeon and settlement modifiers that will be a part of the upcoming Contract System rework - speaking of which, today we’d like to elaborate on some of its elements, namely Outskirts locations.

Outskirts are a new type of Points of Interest that will be introduced to the game with the next major update, “Rags to Riches”. Located a few tiles away from settlements, they still act as their continuation of sorts

Their main purpose is to add more variety to the basic contract loop and facilitate early game exploration. Most Outskirts will usually offer you the following things:

• A spot to save your progress.
• Access to one or more traders and craftsmen who will sell vital consumables, fix your gear, etc.
• A chance to interact with new NPCs who can offer you contracts or give rewards for their completion.

It’s fair to say that granting alternative access to contracts and rewards is perhaps the Outskirts’ most important function. After “Rags to Riches”, village Elders won’t be the only ones in the contract business, the following three new NPC types - Officials, Captains, and Couriers - will be able to participate as well.

Their main difference from Elders lies in the rewards they will offer:

-
Captains
won’t pay as much, instead providing extra Reputation with settlements you complete contracts for.
-
Officials
will split the Reputation boost between all settlements of their faction (for instance, completing Osbrook contracts will slightly improve your standing with both Brynn and Mannshire).
-
Couriers
won’t actually hand out quests, instead giving rewards for completing contracts that require you retrieving certain items. Bringing those directly to a Courier will earn you extra gold.

Additionally, contract rewards can be received from any of these NPCs regardless of your initial quest giver, thus breaking the routine of walking the same roads over and over again. So instead of having to stick to the “settlement-dungeon-settlement” route, you’ll be able to receive a contract in a village, clear out its dungeon, get your reward in a nearby Outskirt, grab a new contract there, sell your loot and replenish supplies (optionally), then head straight to the next dungeon.

All Outskirts can be roughly split between these three categories:

-
Military Camps and Outposts
. This is where you’ll find Captains and, most likely, someone to fix your gear and sell you medicine and ammunition.
-
Trade Posts and Production Sites
. Their main role is selling special goods that can be transported to other settlements via the Caravan and sold at a profit. An example of such a site would be the Osbrook Mill or the Mannshire Winery, which many of you are already familiar with. This is where you may also encounter Officials, who are tasked with overseeing the production.
-
Homesteads and Roadside Inns
. These locations will offer a hearty meal, a place to catch some shut-eye, and a chance to meet a Courier, should the need arise.

To better illustrate the system, here are some of the new Outskirts:

Osbrook - Roadside Tower

Not wanting to be caught off guard if the Council suddenly breaches the truce, the Magistrate took it upon themselves to restore the web of outposts and signal towers that now covers the entirety of the Brynn March.

Osbrook - Drunken Woodsman Inn

The Drunken Woodsman is a safe haven for any hunter whose trade brings them close to Osbrook.

Mannshire - New Orchard

The war gave the best cidery in Aldor little time to react: its previous owners couldn’t save neither themselves nor the flourishing gardens, taking the ancient recipe of their specialty beverage to the grave. But not all hope is lost: the new proprietors of the New Orchard are determined to do everything in their power to restore this place to its former glory.

Mannshire - Southern Outpost

This encampment was originally established by Duke di Berro during his brazen counterattack against the Council army. It’s not nearly as large as it used to be, but it still plays an important role in bringing order to the Magistrate-controlled lands.

It’s worth mentioning that the existence of Brynn contracts and dungeons is only temporary (in the future there’ll be an entirely new way of gaining city Reputation), so it won’t have Outskirts in the gameplay sense of the word. At the same time, you can expect a certain other location to receive its share of Outskirts POIs…

New Backpacks
Let’s move onto the next addition planned for “Rags to Riches” - a wide selection of new bags and their overall rework.

Right now the game features just one backpack type that offers as many slots as it occupies in the inventory - this was done to prevent exploits associated with carrying multiple backpacks.

In “Rags to Riches”, all bags and backpacks will become much more capacious. As a tradeoff, you’ll have to equip them first before storing any items, and they’ll have to be emptied before you can place them in the inventory. These combined tweaks allowed us to create a bunch of new backpack configurations:

Medium Backpack
grew in capacity and received sizable side pouches.

Small Backpack
isn’t particularly roomy, but it’ll be much easier to obtain than other bag types.

Field Surgeon Bandolier
- a solid choice for anyone who wants to carry lots of meds and other consumables.

Herbalist Satchel
allows you to not really worry about precious inventory space while transporting large amounts of potion flasks and other vessels or gathering important herbs.

Hunting Backpack
is meant to easily fit a few pelts and can be used to comfortably carry a bedroll.

Treasure Seeker Backpack
will greatly improve your carrying capacity, although its bulky frame will do no favors to your agility and finesse.

On top of all that, it will also be possible to store single cell treasure items in common
Purses
.

And finally, here’s a teaser for the much-anticipated Armor ability tree that we’re currently working on as well:

===========================================================

That’s all for now. Until next time!

 

[Fedora Master]

 

[Kabas]

Such pretty locales, such chore to actually traverse.

 

[Salvo]

Took them how many months for this?

 

[The Wall]

Programming ABSOLUTELY 1000% should speed up with use of ChatGPT4. Every single type of programmer, from Web Developers to Video Game Makers to Dev Ops to Financial Sector has seen an increase in code writing thanks to ChatGPT. Anyone who denies this undeniable fact is either lazy and hasn't tried it, or is (very) bad liar


Hopefully that means faster pace of updates for Stoneshard. AI code co-pilots, along with text-to-speech and text-to-image generators should give us truckloads of more indie shit. And many more QUALITY indie games which were before unimaginable with small manpower and budget

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Good luck convincing anyone in financial sector to give their code to a black box off-premises. Unless you can run the whole thing in-house, without transmitting anything of your stuff outside it's not going to fly.

 

[The Wall]

After fully entering the world of programming, my biggest suspicion about fall of Gaming Industry seems to be true. Second biggest bottleneck in modern gaming industry, why Total War or Paradox Grand Strategies have terrible AI or why you can't climb ladders in Skyrim etc. etc. Answer is painfully simple and disappointing: super majority of game devs are TERRIBLE programmers, unlike game devs of 90s, 2000s and early 2010s who were one of the best. In this industry everyone knows that game developers nowadays just suck. They write terrible spaghetti code, have 0 will to improve their coding skill (which is the actual biggest problem), are notoriously lazy, and have delegated most of thinking to Game Engines. Game developent is today mostly lowcode or nocode job. That's one of major reasons why modern games lack innovative features and are so sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow to develop

Please, I beg some smart retard midwit to start argument over this with me. C'mon, I'm so FUCKING READY FOR INTERNET FORUM FIGHT over this )))

 

[The Wall]

Good luck convincing anyone in financial sector to give their code to a black box off-premises. Unless you can run the whole thing in-house, without transmitting anything of your stuff outside it's not going to fly.

Dude, my friend, there is no 'giving of code' to blackbox. You simply use AI to debugg, refactor and give boiler-plate code for You. Whole Code will remain mystery to It, unless you literally copy-paste feed it. It speeds up process by eliminating all the repetative tasks so much. Not to mention of actually giving you accidentally seeds of great solutions to technical and non-technical problems

 

[The Wall]

Game developers, with few exceptions, are considered utter retards in this field. Lowest caste in IT
Do you realize that 9/10 developers on Paradox or Bethesda games write zero code?!
And that CD Projekt Red AI programmers can't program Police AI to be on the lvl of GTA San Andreas from 20 YEARS AGO. Twenty. Years. Ago
Again. Only midwits can come up with 1000 smart sounding DUMB excuses why that is so. There is only one answer: pure retardness and incompetence of modern game developer. Truth is often simple and disappointing

Also game developers are notoriously incompetent in self-organizing their personal lives and business projects. They need a good manager. Countless times proven fact

 

[notpl]

Programming ABSOLUTELY 1000% should speed up with use of ChatGPT4. Every single type of programmer, from Web Developers to Video Game Makers to Dev Ops to Financial Sector has seen an increase in code writing thanks to ChatGPT. Anyone who denies this undeniable fact is either lazy and hasn't tried it, or is (very) bad liar


Hopefully that means faster pace of updates for Stoneshard. AI code co-pilots, along with text-to-speech and text-to-image generators should give us truckloads of more indie shit. And many more QUALITY indie games which were before unimaginable with small manpower and budget

Where are you getting the idea that the devs want to add more content, but are merely being stymied by slow coding? The much, much simpler explanation is that they made out like bandits and feel no compulsion to deliver to their backers.

 

[notpl]

Good luck convincing anyone in financial sector to give their code to a black box off-premises. Unless you can run the whole thing in-house, without transmitting anything of your stuff outside it's not going to fly.

Dude, my friend, there is no 'giving of code' to blackbox. You simply use AI to debugg, refactor and give boiler-plate code for You. Whole Code will remain mystery to It, unless you literally copy-paste feed it. It speeds up process by eliminating all the repetative tasks so much. Not to mention of actually giving you accidentally seeds of great solutions to technical and non-technical problems

Using AI to debug would definitely involve sending excerpts of existing code to the chatgpt4 server, no? Which is majorly federal-prison-illegal for anyone working in the financial or defense sectors. Even boilerplate code - even stuff you yourself have copied from a public library - becomes a crime if sent in the other direction.

Not that this has anything to do with stoneshard, obviously.

 

[The Wall]

Programming ABSOLUTELY 1000% should speed up with use of ChatGPT4. Every single type of programmer, from Web Developers to Video Game Makers to Dev Ops to Financial Sector has seen an increase in code writing thanks to ChatGPT. Anyone who denies this undeniable fact is either lazy and hasn't tried it, or is (very) bad liar


Hopefully that means faster pace of updates for Stoneshard. AI code co-pilots, along with text-to-speech and text-to-image generators should give us truckloads of more indie shit. And many more QUALITY indie games which were before unimaginable with small manpower and budget

Where are you getting the idea that the devs want to add more content, but are merely being stymied by slow coding? The much, much simpler explanation is that they made out like bandits and feel no compulsion to deliver to their backers.

They would have quitted a long time ago, if that was case. There is game, with 50h+ of content, which regularly gets updated with new game mechanics, systems, quests, areas etc. Why would they waste their personal lives on keeping 'a lie' in life, paying opportunity cost by not doing anything else, in order to what? You tell me what. I dunno. Updates are slow, yes. They are using war in Ukraine as shield from criticism, yes. But they are fucking making the game. That is obvious to any human brain not-affected by mutating powers of Polish butthurt

 

[Harthwain]

Where are you getting the idea that the devs want to add more content, but are merely being stymied by slow coding? The much, much simpler explanation is that they made out like bandits and feel no compulsion to deliver to their backers.

There is another explanation - they are bad at optimizing which features should have a priority and this feature creep we're seeing is the result (developers of Battle Brothers were very open about what they had to leave out of their game in order to keep the development a realistic affair in terms of delivery). The constant re-doing certain aspects of the game does support this possibility as well.

 

[Tygrende]

All Events > Stoneshard Events >

Devlog: Settlement Outskirts & New Bags

Hello everyone!

The last couple of months our team has been working on lots of new content: the long-awaited Caravan, the previously highlighted rework of the Dungeon Generator, and dungeon and settlement modifiers that will be a part of the upcoming Contract System rework - speaking of which, today we’d like to elaborate on some of its elements, namely Outskirts locations.

Outskirts are a new type of Points of Interest that will be introduced to the game with the next major update, “Rags to Riches”. Located a few tiles away from settlements, they still act as their continuation of sorts

Their main purpose is to add more variety to the basic contract loop and facilitate early game exploration. Most Outskirts will usually offer you the following things:

• A spot to save your progress.
• Access to one or more traders and craftsmen who will sell vital consumables, fix your gear, etc.
• A chance to interact with new NPCs who can offer you contracts or give rewards for their completion.

It’s fair to say that granting alternative access to contracts and rewards is perhaps the Outskirts’ most important function. After “Rags to Riches”, village Elders won’t be the only ones in the contract business, the following three new NPC types - Officials, Captains, and Couriers - will be able to participate as well.

Their main difference from Elders lies in the rewards they will offer:

-
Captains
won’t pay as much, instead providing extra Reputation with settlements you complete contracts for.
-
Officials
will split the Reputation boost between all settlements of their faction (for instance, completing Osbrook contracts will slightly improve your standing with both Brynn and Mannshire).
-
Couriers
won’t actually hand out quests, instead giving rewards for completing contracts that require you retrieving certain items. Bringing those directly to a Courier will earn you extra gold.

Additionally, contract rewards can be received from any of these NPCs regardless of your initial quest giver, thus breaking the routine of walking the same roads over and over again. So instead of having to stick to the “settlement-dungeon-settlement” route, you’ll be able to receive a contract in a village, clear out its dungeon, get your reward in a nearby Outskirt, grab a new contract there, sell your loot and replenish supplies (optionally), then head straight to the next dungeon.

All Outskirts can be roughly split between these three categories:

-
Military Camps and Outposts
. This is where you’ll find Captains and, most likely, someone to fix your gear and sell you medicine and ammunition.
-
Trade Posts and Production Sites
. Their main role is selling special goods that can be transported to other settlements via the Caravan and sold at a profit. An example of such a site would be the Osbrook Mill or the Mannshire Winery, which many of you are already familiar with. This is where you may also encounter Officials, who are tasked with overseeing the production.
-
Homesteads and Roadside Inns
. These locations will offer a hearty meal, a place to catch some shut-eye, and a chance to meet a Courier, should the need arise.

To better illustrate the system, here are some of the new Outskirts:

Osbrook - Roadside Tower

Not wanting to be caught off guard if the Council suddenly breaches the truce, the Magistrate took it upon themselves to restore the web of outposts and signal towers that now covers the entirety of the Brynn March.

Osbrook - Drunken Woodsman Inn

The Drunken Woodsman is a safe haven for any hunter whose trade brings them close to Osbrook.

Mannshire - New Orchard

The war gave the best cidery in Aldor little time to react: its previous owners couldn’t save neither themselves nor the flourishing gardens, taking the ancient recipe of their specialty beverage to the grave. But not all hope is lost: the new proprietors of the New Orchard are determined to do everything in their power to restore this place to its former glory.

Mannshire - Southern Outpost

This encampment was originally established by Duke di Berro during his brazen counterattack against the Council army. It’s not nearly as large as it used to be, but it still plays an important role in bringing order to the Magistrate-controlled lands.

It’s worth mentioning that the existence of Brynn contracts and dungeons is only temporary (in the future there’ll be an entirely new way of gaining city Reputation), so it won’t have Outskirts in the gameplay sense of the word. At the same time, you can expect a certain other location to receive its share of Outskirts POIs…

New Backpacks
Let’s move onto the next addition planned for “Rags to Riches” - a wide selection of new bags and their overall rework.

Right now the game features just one backpack type that offers as many slots as it occupies in the inventory - this was done to prevent exploits associated with carrying multiple backpacks.

In “Rags to Riches”, all bags and backpacks will become much more capacious. As a tradeoff, you’ll have to equip them first before storing any items, and they’ll have to be emptied before you can place them in the inventory. These combined tweaks allowed us to create a bunch of new backpack configurations:

Medium Backpack
grew in capacity and received sizable side pouches.

Small Backpack
isn’t particularly roomy, but it’ll be much easier to obtain than other bag types.

Field Surgeon Bandolier
- a solid choice for anyone who wants to carry lots of meds and other consumables.

Herbalist Satchel
allows you to not really worry about precious inventory space while transporting large amounts of potion flasks and other vessels or gathering important herbs.

Hunting Backpack
is meant to easily fit a few pelts and can be used to comfortably carry a bedroll.

Treasure Seeker Backpack
will greatly improve your carrying capacity, although its bulky frame will do no favors to your agility and finesse.

On top of all that, it will also be possible to store single cell treasure items in common
Purses
.

And finally, here’s a teaser for the much-anticipated Armor ability tree that we’re currently working on as well:

===========================================================

That’s all for now. Until next time!

Getting real tired of this "look at this cool stuff that's NOT IN THE GAME FOR FORESEEABLE FUTURE LMAO" shit.

 

[The Wall]

Unless you can run the whole thing in-house, without transmitting anything of your stuff outside it's not going to fly.

In the future you'll be able to do exactly that. Every serious, big company will have its own, in-house AI
Also you'll be surprised how much people in banking sector are tech illitirate and easy to fool
Watch few tutorials for Cobol, and you're hired. Why? Cause greedy bankers don't wanna pay for legacy code to be converted
In the long run the cost of paying Cobol programmers (most of them Undead) is higher then paying code conversion

Does anyone here seriously thinks that modern bankers are smart? Have you seen the Economy lately
But hoW dO theY gET AwAy with iT? Simple. Most normies are retarded cattle. Literally

 

[The Wall]

Where are you getting the idea that the devs want to add more content, but are merely being stymied by slow coding? The much, much simpler explanation is that they made out like bandits and feel no compulsion to deliver to their backers.

There is another explanation - they are bad at optimizing which features should have a priority and this feature creep we're seeing is the result (developers of Battle Brothers were very open about what they had to leave out of their game in order to keep the development a realistic affair in terms of delivery). The constant re-doing certain aspects of the game does support this possibility as well.

That's good observation and I share your thinking. Their ogranizational skills are below average for a game developer. Which is very polite way to say: they are bunch of cats working together on Nuclear Power Station. Game is made in GameMaker Studio 2 engine by 10+ grown up, full time working devs. Updates absoultely can be faster while maintaing same quality level. GameMaker Studio is among Game Engines what is HTML among programming languages. I just commited heresy