Two weeks since our latest post so we are here again with some juicy info for you all. As you noticed, we've been a bit late with new features promised back in September. We are very sorry about this but we changed our plans on the way while iterating stuff. This is a pretty common thing in development but we thought it was right to explain this to you all. We originally thought it would have been cool to split scheduled upgrades in many different small patches but while doiing things, we decided to go on in a very old school way. Managing small patches on weekly basis would have been doable but painful at the same time, considering that, as usual, we've added contents to the original plan that were not even part of the one shared. What does it means? It means that we'll go big in a while, putting a great part of the contents you were expecting by roadmap, in a unique Winter Update to be released soon [details to follow]. We are targeting Dec 21 at the moment, but it could be next week, it depends on testing we are going through right now]. So, we are probably going to release a couple of preparatory patches in the next days, prior to the big one. As already said, few things have changed, following feed and requests from you all, so we are taking our time to test everything properly. Prios have been set again and we'll explain our choices as soon as the new contents will be available. Anyway, the Winter Update will be massive, following the Strongholds Update and the Mouse & Keyboard Update that have been the biggest updates so far since we've launched EA back in June. We are pushing hard right now to be able to slow down a bit from Xmas on, ready to be back in action in January, with tons of amazing news and a new updated roadmap.
"It looks like a blend of early Dungeons & Dragons sourcebook art, Baldur’s Gate, and Dark Souls"[PCGamesN]
Hello Champions!
We decided to open this new update with one of our fav quote ever for a reason. Autumn Sale started yesterday on Steam, and we were thinking it was a good moment to clarify a few things, as we already did talking about localization recently. It's nearly 5 months since we've released Alaloth in Early Access and we are super happy with the work done, with our amazing community, with the feed we've got day by day here and on Discord. Despite this, we had to deal with a few issues on the way, in regards of what Alaloth is and how we push it to the players. You know we've decided to adopt a very clear and straight forward approach to communication and PR. We always answer to people asking, we can easily say we can be considered one of the most active dev around and this time there is no exception. Since when we've got back our game publishing rights, we've tried to explain our vision, our approach to development, our long term plans. We've told everyone what to expect, what Alaloth is and what Alaloth is not [and will not ever be]. We've posted FAQ following AMA, we've gone through every single post here, answered almost every good and bad review and so on. Apparently, this is not enough. We thought a lot about posting an update like this, but here we are. Being a super small indie team, self publishing its game, putting personal money in, means that we have to carefully weight everything, including the way we handle PR but this doesn't mean that we follow the common habit of passively accepting criticism coming from people saying wrong things, just because "players are always right". We think this is not always true. Sometimes players happen to be not 100% right and if for big guns this means nothing, for a small studio getting bad reviews without a proper reason it's a huge problem instead, impacting sales, available resources and the team itself. Just to be clear: this doesn't mean that bad reviews are not accepted or bad feed are not correct. Everyone has the right to say whatever he/she wants about the game, destroying it the way he/she prefers but we've set just one rule internally, about this. Getting a very bad feed, insults or whatever is fine somehow, but all of this has to reflect reality and not to be just random words dropped through a keyboard. In these cases, we've always [politely] answered, trying to explain things at our best.
So, just to recap a few things, we would like to tell you once again what the game is, what you should expect from the game and how things work in Alaloth, trying to avoid wrong feed based on the fact that devs have not been clear enough [even if we've been], as any kind of disappointment in players that decide to support us. We thought to quote a few sentences from reviews, refund notes, Discord posts and board topics:
"Devs said it was inspired by Baldur's Gate but it's not Baldur's Gate"
So true. This is not Baldur's Gate. This is Alaloth and it is in between old school classics and modern action RPG. This is how we've pitched the game and this is what comes out of a ton of reviews, good and bad. Point is that bad reviews focus on the sentence above because BG has been taken as an inspiration. Yes it is. The game is inspired by Baldur's Gate as it is inspired by The Lord of The Rings, Willow, Dragonlance, Shannara, Game of Thrones, The Wheel of Time, other games like Diablo, Mount & Blade, Dragon's Dogma, Ultima Online, Pillars of Eternity etc. Books, movies, games, TTRPG. Inspiration means exactly what it means. Inspired by Baldur's Gate does not mean it is Baldur's Gate. Inspiration is not doing the same thing 1:1. So, again: Alaloth is not a CRPG and is not Baldur's Gate as it is not a book, a TTRPG or a movie. Alaloth it's a unique game inspired by these experiences. And yes it is even inspired by Baldur's Gate and Infinity Engine games. That's why we use an iso camera, for example.
"Mouse & Keyboard not supported"
Not true. The game fully supports M&K. We've released the game in June with partial support only for M&K [which means that the game supported them at launch as well, even if partially only]. We explained why. We are not crazy but it was about surviving as a company when we've got the game back. We patched the game in September with the full support after a full rework of the UI and since then, M&K has to be considered in full. You can say that it could be improved [we are always improving the game and this makes no exception] and you can say you don't like it but you can't say M&K is not supported. Better with a controller? We just think a controller can give a better exeperience, but you are not forced to use one to enjoy the game at all. Hades states the same in its main menu, so nothing weird here. Just a sample of a great PC game working nice with a pad.
"The game needs some extra development"
That's exactly why we are in Early Access now, otherwise we were talking of a full release. Despite this, we have players with 100+ hours under their belt, the game is fully playable since D1, 22 patches so far, 2 Major Updates not even scheduled originally! Yes, the game needs some extra development and we are on it, following feed from our audience. Consider that, right now, the game is aready three times the original scope and we are adding features on weekly basis with new quests, chars, items, locations and so on. We could say that Alaloth is already one of the biggest indie RPG out on the market at the moment [the biggest?]. We are not going to stop of course. We iterate a lot. We like the idea to be able to put in new features, even if these features were not part of the original roadmap. This is how iteration in game development works.
"The game is overpriced"
We decided to go with a very low price point and considering contents offered, it is the exact opposite. We were thinking about partnering with a few publishers before going self publishing: they were suggesting to release at 39.99/49.99 because of contents, just with the standard game [not considering DLC included in the Supporter Edition]. Just check the store and make comparisons with other RPG and other games. The game is probably underpriced but again, it has been a choice we've made when we've got publishing rights back, trying to maximize the huge number of wishlists we have.
"Coop is advertised the wrong way because it is not real coop"
Steam works in a very easy way: you put in flags that pop-up as icons in the store page. We have coop in and it works the way that a player can jump in a fighting session anytime in FA. It is local only but it works through Remote Play as well and it works the way you can invite friends [not owning the game] and play with them. To flag Local Coop you have to flag Multiplayer first in the sys, no matter what. If you don't, you can't flag Local Coop option which is what is in. There is not an option and no distinction between full coop campaign or small coop options. We are at work to improve this feature as well because a lot of people is asking. You can talk about getting a full playable coop campaign and it is really something we would like to deliver at some point but local coop is in from D1, and it is real. There is no chance to explain coop if not writing about it right now and as we always did so please, read all the useful links we've posted or join our AMA or jump in our Discord server. In order to play coop, main char has to find companions first. Companions can be used by other players once invited [both locally or online through Remote Play on Steam. Invites are open to people not owning the game too].
"My choices are not impacting the world"
As already said, Alaloth is not a CRPG but choices matter. We used to say that Alaloth is not a player centered game it is a world centered game. Plamen, the game world, move on and things happen with or without you so, depending on your choices, some quests can be unlocked or not, NPC can show up or not, you can meet them or not. Playing the game more time with a different alignment and with different choices, simply brings on new content everytime. This not means that players have to rush anything [Single Player campaign allow you to play taking your time of course] but this means that you are going to get 100% of the game playing more than one run, familiarizing with the calendar, scheduled events, timed events and so on. Just a sample: we have unique merchants selling unique goods popping-up during festivals at the same time every year in-game. If you miss them, you can find them in following their route or just waiting one more year. Some Quest Givers work the same way and hints to find wandering chars/special chars/special quests are all around the world in dialogues, barks, items description and so on. Quests are streamlined [even if there are quests around in which you can take different decisions] but this means also that what happens around you changes the game world. Read carefully!
"I wish you the best, i know you are great, the game is amazing but is not my cup of tea so i'm leaving a thumb down"
We know that a lot of people is leaving feed in good faith to help us improving the game. We could say that we are way more happy of bad reviews with constructive feed than anything else. But something like this does not really help us. A good average on Steam is crucial at this stage and if you enjoyed the game or just recognized value in it, even if it's not a thing for you, please consider helping us with a thumb up instead and check the game later on to see how much love and effort we've put in it!
"You should change this and that"
As already said, we take every single feed into account. We included a ton of features requested by users since launch and tried to discuss almost every topic from our Discord server, coming from the channel we've set-up to collect user suggestions. Quality of life improvements and any possible update increasing the overall quality of the game, are probably already in or in the pipeline for future updates. But please consider that we are not going to change 100% of the game because you don't like it. Alaloth is not a CRPG and will not turn into a CRPG, now and never. Alaloth is not Diablo and it is not turning into it, now and never. We know someone don't like to read stuff but we have a 300k words game we've worked on considering players actually reading texts to get the best from the world and no, we are not cutting dialogues to add guided quests with a UI bringing you to your quest objective as an autopilot. Focus is on melee and it will stay like this because magic is described in a certain way in the lore of Plamen but we've received many requests to change this a bit and you know what? We are doing this, we are enhancing magic and working on new spells and professions because our final aim is to maake everyone happy with a great, fun game. And this is going to happen for sure but we have to preserve our vision at the same time.
"The game is great but I want it in my language"
If the game is great, leaving a thumb down is not the way to help us localizing it. Thumbs up help with sales. More sales mean more resources to invest, more resources mean localizing the game in more languages. Our will is to localize the game as much as possible. Buying the game knowing that loc is not in, pointing that the feature is not in, does not seem a smart move to us [and it is valid for any feature].
We are working together with you all, our dream of developing a game for players loving good old times and new modern masterpieces is here. Help us shaping the future of Alaloth, we have so many cool things on the way, and we can't wait to unveil all asap!
Hope this update will help claryfing once again what to expect from Alaloth - Champions of The Four Kingdoms. We've posted this with the aim to underline once again our direct and transparent approach to our community and to development. This is our life and we are giving 110% everyday to achieve what we have in mind since the very beginning. We know we are not perfect and we know that many things could have been/could be way better on our side too of course. Just join us in this journey!
We are planning the next sprint with December approaching and we thought it was a good moment to talk a bit about what's going on with localization and language-related stuff, let's say. We are receiving hundreds of messages from players all over the world asking for Alaloth in their native language and we would like to clarify that, as developers, our will has always been to release the game providing the highest number of languages in. This has been one of the main reasons that brought us to sign with our former publisher back in 2020. The original plan from us was set to deliver a D1 release with at least 7 languages in and English dubbing for narration, companions and main quest as starting point. As you know, taking the game back has been a very long process and the plan changed. Localization is a really important part of game discovery, since it opens up so many new potential markets for us. For example, the Chinese market, is massive on Steam. If the game isn't translated into Chinese, most of the millions of Steam players in China won't even see it as a default game in their Steam store. That's how localization and discovery interact. This is just a sample to say that we do know how it works but once again, it's about budget and available resources. Just to give you an idea: Alaloth is around 300.000 words now and the original content we thought to be considered for dubbing was nearly 75.000 words. To give you a bit of context: The Lord of The Rings trilogy [books] is 455.000 words circa. Neverwinter Nights is 200.000. Baldur's Gate II is 188.000. 300.000 words means roughly 60.000€ per language [translation, implementation and testing], which is a huge amount of money, considering that we decided to go with a very user friendly price point in many different countries. Despite the great sales we had, these countries should sell x10.000 to make the investment reasonable. We are trying our best to build-up a plan to go through this, but it will take some time [and some tech work too]. We've met new potential publishing partners willing to help with this and we confirm our will to slowly include new languages on the way [one by one in case, if still self publishing] but of course it will take some time. We have to say that many indie groups offered their services for free but we didn't like the idea of taking something without giving back anything so, at least for now, this is not an option. If you want to help us, just point your friends here, use your social networks and bring people on our Discord server if they have questions. You know we are always on! It was a due update, thank you for the support as usual!
Time for a new development update and celebrations!
Hello Champions!
As we already said in our Discord server, we are finally back in action after a crazy October! Last month has been full of meetings and we have been busy with a relocation in the UK [not moving the studio, just opening a new office here!]. The team in Italy worked hard during this week and we've just released a new patch, so check the latest changelog and download the latest version of the game which is full of quality of life fixes and some new cool stuff to check. We have to say that we are a bit late with the plan. It's not about contents, everything is almost ready, but we've realized on the way that splitting updates on the way is not the most convenient thing to do at the moment, considering what's happening around us. Time ago, we sat down and decided to go on with small updates adding locations, quests, chars almost on weekly bases. We tried to work like this but we decided to revert and go big with a massive patch expanding the world map and including all the changes announced a few weeks ago. Again, nothing to be worried because nothing changes for the long term, but we really understimate what was happening around us and we already knew that development is not about coding stuff only and communicate things properly is pivotal. Even if we are looking for new people to join us, our team stays super small and business related stuff took 100% of the time of the people usually taking care of this [Alberto. Me]. We apologize for this but it is how it works. We literally didn't have time to sit and write down stuff: flights, trains and meetings in four different countries drained our energy. Not whining, all has been great but still a lot of work to do! At some point we've announced that we were running for the Indie Development Awards at Game Connection and we are proud to announce that we've won Best Hardcore Game! Game Connection is one of the most important business event in the world and we love celebrating such an important achievement.
Game Connection has been a RL event of course but it was not the only one we were attending last week. Just a day before the kick-off in Paris, we've received other amazing news from the US, with five awards won at Nyx Game Awards, PC Game category. Alaloth has been awarded as:
Best Indie Game
Best Gameplay
Best Visual Art
Best Role Playing Game
Best Game Direction [lovely personal achievement]
Past editions celebrated games like Dying Light 2 Stay Human, The Last of Us, It Takes Two and many others, no need to say how much we are happy of this. All of this is a breath of fresh air for us, after the storm we've gone through before the release. We are still giving 110% to improve the game, with new features, balancing and all the adds we've promised.
Right now, we're putting together the new locations and yes, we are a bit late as already explained, but of course what will be delivered will be way bigger than expected and way bigger than what we've announced, with way more contents available than originally scheduled. So, yes, Rockstarn, Arrowtooth, Mountain's Hands and Fal-Thalas but even Windscar [a new city in Edherest] and Na'Sharak [an orcish port close to Vokhen-Mahl]. And a few secondary locations filled with quests and new NPC. We've finally defined the new FA as well, with new bosses from The Spectral Circle and other vicious creatures from the abyss. And much more, details to follow! Can't wait to see you playing and get new feed on the balancing.
Time-sensitive quests are now better communicated via ad-hoc UI elements.
Banner notifications will state if a quest is time-sensitive on pick-up and/or progress.
Where the context allows an hourglass icon will be appended to the quest name if time-sensitive (i.e. Quest Log, InfoLocationBox, Zone Overlay).
A summary of all the stats of the character can now be accessed in the Character Tab.
When blocking using mouse and keyboard the character will now face the pointer as long as the blocking button is held.
Changed
The headgear toggle has been moved in the General options menu and its effect will now be global.
Fixed
Input will now be properly stalled after opening a Booty Chest.
Quick shortcuts when navigating lists could end up out of bounds.
Bogromon's boss introduction was leaving the player unarmed: weapons will now be correctly re-equipped.
Alaloth's boss introduction could make the camera unresponsive to player movement when attempting to pause near the end.
Fixed a bug that made some hardware configurations unable to provide at least one valid FPS cap: a FPS cap equal to the monitor’s refresh rate will now always be available.
Disallow Character UI to open itself if already engaged in a wandering fight when in World Map.
Counterattacking could make the game misbehave if triggered on the same frame of the counterattacker's death.
Transitioning from World Map to Main Menu wasn't properly stalling AI behaviors for the entirety of the transition.
Fixed a bug that caused enemies behind walls to be able to be locked when switching to next/previous target with mouse and keyboard (default E/Q).
Fixed a bug causing loading screens to occasionally get stuck.
Fixed icons inside texts overlapping surrounding characters with wide resolutions.
Fixed a bug in Keyboard Control Settings where the Game Menu could be closed as soon as a remap attempt was initiated, making the menu unusable for the session.
Fixed a bug in Keyboard Control Settings where changing remap category by clicking on relative arrows with mouse while an entry is selected makes it impossible to close the page.
Fixed a bug in Control Settings allowing it to close the whole Game Menu upon receiving the relative input to open/close the Game Menu.
Fixed a rare bug on death of last AI character in FA, making successively spawned ones unresponsive.
Added default sorting for items: navigating item lists should now be more manageable.
Fixed a bug that could leave the UI unresponsive when acquiring a new skill/trait/stat point.
Fixed a bug that could result in an entry being skipped while navigating any list (i.e. items, codex entries, quests, etc).
Fixed a bug that resulted in floating texts for damage received not being spawned correctly.
Fixed a bug that could make some NPCs in Thilaris being clipped by the camera.
Fixed A Mother's Gift quest day/night hints
Fixed a bug that caused blacksmiths craftsmanship progression not to match the original design intent.
Improved mouse support during gameplay
Mouse left click can now be used to interact when in range both in world map and within gameplay locations.
Holding the cursor movement button (ALT by default, freely rebindable) will make the player/pawn move towards the cursor to mimic joystick input.
Attacks and skills can now be directed via the mouse cursor without requiring for the target to be locked: just hovering over the target will make the character turn towards it.
We have been nominated! Vote for Alaloth for the People's Choice Award!
Hello Champions!
Some news for you all after a few days of silence! Lot of cool things are actually in progress and we are in the middle of many super interesting discussions, following-up the meetings we had at GamesCom! We spent the last month in the UK and we are dealing with some top secret corporate stuff now, that's why we have been a little bit slower than usual in answering here or on our Discord server. The World Update #1 has been slightly delayed as you probably noticed, but it will arrive soon along with other features originally scheduled for the next months [more details soon]. A new build is on the way for Wednesday with a great number of fixes, new contents and new improvements for mouse & keyboard, following the major update we've released last month. Meanwhile, we are proud to announce that Alaloth has been nominated in 4 different categories at the Game Connection Indie Development Awards, taking place during the Paris Games Week in November. A world class jury nominated us for The Grand Award [the main one], the Best PC Game Award and for the Best Hardcore Game Award. Moreover, we are competing for People's Choice Award, assigned directly by players. That's why we are asking for your help now: go here and vote for Alaloth. Always remember that anything helping with visibility means more sales. More sales mean more resources to invest in the development. More development means more cool stuff for you in an endless loop of happyness. Thank you for the support, as usual!
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