Posted a impressions piece at RPGWatch

crpgnut · Jul 3, 2014

Hope to get you guys some deserved downloads.

http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1061259678#post1061259678

Shiningted · Jul 5, 2014

Thanks CRPGNut (and for the contribution )

Someone pointed out some earlier chatter over there about KotB coming out, and folks legitimately asked, "why KotB?" If you want to (since I don't have an account there, and am not good with forums) feel free to post this over there in your thread as a sort of an 'open letter' from the Kotb Project Leader.

Some folks are legitimately asking, "why Keep on the Borderlands?" Or, "why in God's name Keep on the Borderlands?" Or, "we all wanted GDQ and you did KotB? WHY WHY WHY!??!!?"

We discussed this when the project began, but I just realised those discussions were in private, so I dug out the original post from September 8 2005 (yup, that's when we started, frightening to do the maths on that) and here's what I said at the time (complete with archaic references)....

I am going with KotB after a long litany of "which module should we do / I'd love to see Module XYZ on the ToEE engine / I'd love to see a sequel to ToEE involving module XYZ" threads at the Atari Forums. Also, having done a small mod myself, I think I have a pretty good understanding of what can (and can't) be done at this point (though thanks to Agetian's regular updates of ToEEWB, our horizons are constantly expanding). KotB is doable right now. Practically everything we need is already in ToEE, the exceptions being kobolds and fire beetles. For kobolds, Cujo is trying to crack the skm issue and introduce new races: if this proves insurmountable, we have a workaround (pint-sized lizard-men, they'll be the wrong colour but, well, meh!) As for firebeetles, I am confident a solution will present itself (rats with carapaces? )

KotB is familiar. Everyone knows it, has played it and even owns it or can get their hands on it. Therefore it is a module that everyone can get involved in making, and that will have a wide audience.

Furthermore it is the ideal module for accomplishing many of the things that people here on Co8 have said they want to see. Specifically, it supports:

Intelligent quests. There is plenty of room for quests, lots of intrigue in the original module, and fully developed Good and Evil plots. Particularly we have room for some interesting Evil plots (you people ALWAYS want the Evil stuff - you make me sick!), as each tribe in the caves can be dealt with in different ways: an evil party can blackmail, bribe, intimidate and assassinate their way to controlling each faction then the Shrine of Evil Chaos itself. True Neutral characters can always go live with the Mad Hermit

Intelligent monster reactions. These are already factored into the original module: if you attack point A, monsters from points B & C will respond in X rounds. If the Goblin Chief is killed (by a homicidal old man with a sword called 'Biter'?) the remaining gobbers will flee, to reappear later with the Hobgoblins. There are contingencies for all the tribes in the original module, and plenty of room to add further stuff ourselves. It will require some complicated scripting / use of jumppoints / flags etc but can certainly be done, and will be well worth it.

Ok, that's why we did KotB. As for why we DIDN'T do GDQ or Tomb of Horrors or something, it simply came down to an issue of the limitations of the ToEE engine. We couldn't at the time make new monster models (and that's only been cracked in these last few months) - so no Driders, no proper Lolth, no Mind Flayers. We could re-skin the Hill Giant to look like other sorts of Giants, but that came with a real risk of looking cheesy. The ToEE engine doesn't do 'cooperative combat' (like in BG, where if you get attacked in a town, the Flaming Fist join in on your side - ToEE doesn't do that) so the whole rebellion under the Hill Giant's Steading wouldn't be able to be done justice.... essentially, just too many areas where we wouldn't be able to do those sort of modules to the level of quality they deserve.

The U series might just be doable, for future reference... We'd need Sahaugin models though. (Yes ToEE does in-the-water stuff, though not proper submersion).

Thanks to everyone for your support Hope you like KotB 1.0: 2.0 is coming!
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Shiningted I want my goat back Administrator

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Posted a impressions piece at RPGWatch

crpgnut Member

Shiningted I want my goat back Administrator