Fireside Chats (with a video game designer) - June 20, 2014

[RalphKastro]

It's a bit hamhanded, but I agree with XirmiX. An actual ending is needed.

yeah, because a ending for an infinite game is always great... *looks at minecraft's End*

[KidneyBeanBoy]

So, what would happen if you haunted Abigail? The Corpse Bride?

[Silentdarkness1]

yeah, because a ending for an infinite game is always great... *looks at minecraft's End*

Don't compare DS to Minecraft.

[Malan-Tai]

"This is some fine dining right here!"

"Voilà un bon diner !"

[MycoLogical]

"Voilà un bon diner !"

"C'est une certaine amende manger droit ici!"

[RalphKastro]

Don't compare DS to Minecraft.

not everything is comparable, and some things really hurt when compared, but there are many mechanics that can be compared with each other, one being the fact that the game never ends(just gets boring). And just putting an end just for the sake of having an end in an infinite game is definetly not good for the game. And I don't think that there's that much need for closure after the Adventure Mode's ending. It could be somewhat similar in a way that it doesn't end the game, just gives more insight to it, but just saying "this is the end, you've beaten the game"(kinda like minecraft does) after doing it just doesn't really fit,

[Malan-Tai]

"C'est une certaine amende manger droit ici!"

You're obstinate, eh? Here's the exact translation of what you've said : "It's some penalty* eat left** here  !"

 

*some money you must give the police because you broke a law.

**orginally right, but it's got several meanings, so I replaced it with its opposite.

[MycoLogical]

You're obstinate, eh? Here's the exact translation of what you've said : "It's some penalty* eat left** here  !"

 

*some money you must give the police because you broke a law.

**orginally right, but it's got several meanings, so I replaced it with its opposite.

Damn Google Translate!

[Malan-Tai]

Damn Google Translate!

Yep. Use reverso, it's a liiiiittle less dumb than Google.

[Silentdarkness1]

not everything is comparable, and some things really hurt when compared, but there are many mechanics that can be compared with each other, one being the fact that the game never ends(just gets boring). And just putting an end just for the sake of having an end in an infinite game is definetly not good for the game. And I don't think that there's that much need for closure after the Adventure Mode's ending. It could be somewhat similar in a way that it doesn't end the game, just gives more insight to it, but just saying "this is the end, you've beaten the game"(kinda like minecraft does) after doing it just doesn't really fit,

Adventure Mode's "ending" is not an ending at ALL. Just a continuation of the same old thing. Minecraft actually doesn't have an ending, a wall of text after beating the Enderdragon, but that's it. Frankly, you could rename The End to just about anything and it wouldn't have lost anything.

 

Don't Starve still, still needs an endgame. What's the point of trying to survive forever if there's no real reward for doing so? May as well just have Wilson commit suicide and find something more productive to do. Minecraft is allowed to not have a real ending because of all the things you can do in the game once you're well off, particularly in the building department. The same can NOT be said about Don't Starve. Late game is either lacking or not there at all, and there's so very little you can do besides plopping up more bases everywhere, which isn't really creative. Okay, sure, you have walls and flooring, but that only gets you so far. Don't Starve needs an ending because it's NOT Minecraft. It's NOT a building-centric game. It's a survival-centric game.

[RalphKastro]

Adventure Mode's "ending" is not an ending at ALL. Just a continuation of the same old thing. Minecraft actually doesn't have an ending, a wall of text after beating the Enderdragon, but that's it. Frankly, you could rename The End to just about anything and it wouldn't have lost anything.

 

Don't Starve still, still needs an endgame. What's the point of trying to survive forever if there's no real reward for doing so? May as well just have Wilson commit suicide and find something more productive to do. Minecraft is allowed to not have a real ending because of all the things you can do in the game once you're well off, particularly in the building department. The same can NOT be said about Don't Starve. Late game is either lacking or not there at all, and there's so very little you can do besides plopping up more bases everywhere, which isn't really creative. Okay, sure, you have walls and flooring, but that only gets you so far. Don't Starve needs an ending because it's NOT Minecraft. It's NOT a building-centric game. It's a survival-centric game.

okay, yeah. I kinda misunderstood what you meant. I thought you meant a story-ending, not end-game content. Sorry.

I agree, the game does desperatly need late-game content and dangers(one more reason I'm against Don't Starve's new focus on development being MP)

[Silentdarkness1]

okay, yeah. I kinda misunderstood what you meant. I thought you meant a story-ending, not end-game content. Sorry.

I agree, the game does desperatly need late-game content and dangers(one more reason I'm against Don't Starve's new focus on development being MP)

Well, frankly, I want BOTH. Re-read the part where I said that Wilson should just commit suicide because there's literally no actual ending.

[AquaAtia]

Really looking forward to this! Remember if you guys need any help financially if you wish to continue updating in the future just let us know. A kickstarter would be a huge success or even simple donations. I would donate an arm and a leg (for science) to help you guys out! Anyways looking forward to our first footege of it.

[Imortalis]

This is going to be so great! Keep up the good work:D

 

Quick thought on the ghost mechanic you mention: Really creative way of dealing with it, even if I disapprove of the maximum health loss. I would however approve of a temporarily maximum stat reduction after revival, which gradualy disappear over time, which would make you rather vulnerable at first, but as you grow stronger you are more likely to stay alive (say you revive with only 20% of your original maximum stats, and you regain 4-5%, rounded up, each day untill you're back at normal). The game should absolutely discourage you from dying, but I hope you make sure that playing as a ghost is sufficiently entertaining;)

[DavsDue]

That's a question we won't be able to answer for a bit. The short answer is we want it to be done in the best and most convenient way possible with as little effort on the players part as possible.

 

If you could just automatically download the mod when you join and get right into playing, awesome. But we aren't at the point where we can really determine exactly how we will be able to work that out just yet. 

 

It may just end up that you have to install them yourself before you can join the server. But, we are aiming for convenience here. 

 

1. Make a popup for the player to accept the mod to be downloaded

2. When you revive one of your friends, he only can have max 75%, next time 50%. So he only can get revived 4 times (can be changed by the server).

[Silentdarkness1]

Welp. 4 pages. Ball is in your court, @SethR

[Zandorum]

Lol 1 day after I posted this: http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/36834-permadeath-in-dont-starve-together-announced-as-optional/page-15#entry502384 you post this lol

[SethR]

I love and hate the ghost mechanic. If there was an option that allowed you to disable the decrease of maximum health, I'd love that 

 

We're looking into a selectable (in the server options) more casual death mechanic. I'm not sure yet if this will just be an instant resurrection or if it will be a kinder version of the ghost mechanic, but we want to enable a sort of "endless mode". After approximately 30 seconds of thinking about it, I'm slightly more inclined towards the former solution because if there is no threat when you're a ghost, then there's no real interesting element to being a ghost. You're still technically playing Don't Starve, but you're not really playing Don't Starve: you're just kind of sitting there, waiting for your friend to revive you. The ghost is intended to function similar to how being "downed" works in games like Left 4 Dead or Borderlands: it provides a buffer when you die before things get really dire and give you a reduced set of tools to stave off that inevitability. If there's no tension, that's not terribly interesting to me. So, if there's no potential downside to dying, why bother: just go fully endless.

 

 

I think it largely depends on what "haunting" and other things you have to do to revive yourself are, at least for me

 

I've actually moved away a bit from being able to revive yourself through haunting. I'm thinking now more along the lines of haunting being a way to stave off the loss of humanity/maximum health. But as for how things react to being haunted, it's got a fairly wide range of possibilities. Rocks bounce a bit. Logs bounce a bit and have a chance to light on fire. Pigs panic and have a chance to turn into werepigs. Evergreens have a chance to turn into Treeguards. Chests drop an item. Generally, you're gambling on a neutral or bad thing happening in exchange for some humanity.

 

 

Will alive people be able to see the ghosts? Probably a question for later date, i just wanted to throw out the thought about it.

 

I'd definitely like to experiment with different visibility levels based on a ghost's humanity and/or a player's sanity. Right now, ghosts are always visible but can only be attacked if the living player is insane (though attacking them doesn't actually do anything at the moment). As with a lot of things, this will depend in some capacity on the number of players we're able to support. With larger groups, PvP is more likely to happen, which means that a completely invisible ghost is potentially problematic (although a ghost that is all but invisible unless you're insane is potentially really interesting).

[SethR]

I thuppose. Maybe it has something to do with your body, who knows. You're revived as a ghost at a random place on the map (which you cannot see) and you have to find your body or something. Or guide the other player(s) to it so they can use a revive item on it. 

Or maybe you have to actually build a rocket to the moon and shoot a laser off of it at your dead body which will cause it to turn into a gem, which will be a component in a tool which when used will summon your ghostly form off the moon and you will now be a pigeon. You must wait two days before being reincarnated again. 

 

...

Just think of the possibilities there are with this.

 

Right now when you die, you turn into a ghost right where you died. The ways that you can actually get revived are by haunting a Touchstone, Meat Effigy or Life-Giving Amulet. All of these items will fully restore your humanity when they get haunted, which will revive you. Implicit in this is that none of these are automatic any longer: if you're wearing the amulet when you die, it'll drop with the rest of your stuff and you'll have to haunt it. Touchstones can't be activated, just haunted and you'll have to go find one (or a Meat Effigy that you've built) in order to get resurrected by it. Haunting other objects will restore small amounts of humanity, but not likely enough to actually revive yourself. Other, living players can also use a new item that is basically a life siphon device on you. They sacrifice some of their health to restore your humanity and resurrect you. I'm planning on making it so that a skeleton gets spawned where you die, like in Reign of Giants--I like the idea of being able to use that device on the skeleton to restore the associated ghost's humanity as well. I'll have to look into that.

 

 

I want to hear the cheesy old pun names for Reign of Giants now.

 

Check out the new post

 

 

So would the ghost characters be floating/translucent or bed sheet style with their respective headpieces like skulls?

Just trying to get a mental picture of it. 

 

Right now, all the player ghosts just look like Abigail. We'll be making proper art for them at some point, but we don't know yet if it'll be something like Abigail but with different defining characteristics (i.e. Wilson's hair) or just a spectral version of the normal character art.

 

 

Just thought of this, what if you could sacrifice a permanent part of your health to revive the dead, with them being revived with that amount of health. (Could be permanent part or not for the revived, have not decided.)

 

It could be done at some sort of sacrifice structure, or it could be done at the player's body. (Which could be interesting, giving the ghost a reason to interact with the environment, so it can lead the other players to the body.)

 

Also, to help with the Revival Time problem with the Effigies and the Stones, perhaps when it's night or dusk, before reviving, if gives you a warning saying "Say Pal, It's a Pretty Dangerous Time to Go Back!", and you could either wait for revival, or revive right now. (Perhaps you could be a ghost form in this phase too, to lead a partner to light up the effigy/stone.)

 

I definitely like the idea of trading health to revive a friend, as well as the finding your friend's corpse thing--check out my response to The Letter W above. I think the manual activation of resurrectors handles the case where you would revive at night and die again immediately. We'll just need to tune it so that, as a ghost, you can survive at least one full night without losing any maximum health.

 

 

I have a question which I think is fundamental and essential for the development of this game that MUST be addressed as soon as possible....Will there or will there not be cannibalism in Don´t Starve Together? Thank you.

 

It's crossed my mind to put long pig in Don't Starve Together! It's funny to think about, but any serious thought about individual items (that aren't central to a mechanic, like the life siphon device) is still a ways off. There may also be ratings ramifications that we have to consider here...

 

 

What happened to the original Don't Starve designers/programmers, such as Kevin, Alia and Ipsquiggle? Have they abandoned Don't Starve development?

and

Could be wrong on this, but I could've sworn I remembered hearing elsewhere that the old team members who were never really for multiplayer in the first place, will be working on content for the singleplayer, while the new additions work on multiplayer.

The people that simplex listed have moved on to other projects. Two people that worked on Don't Starve worked on Reign of Giants, along with some people new to Don't Starve. Two of the Reign of Giants people continued on to Don't Starve Together, but we got a couple fresh faces there too. Like I said, the members of the team have changed over time.

 

What if... players could revive each other, using craft system?

"Dead" player is a ghost, while "alive" is looking for components, like skin (pigs have some ), rope, meat (or poop). Then "alive" player come close to "dead" player`s skeleton and fill it with combination of meat(poop), skin and sew it with ropes. Bingo! Your friend is alive and looks like a Frankenstein now. Could be even different skin.

Well, its just an idea. You have my support anyways

I'm planning on having some craftable way for living players to help out the dead. Check out my response above to The Letter W.

 

So for the more PvP inclined players, will you guys be implementing a proton pack so ghosts of the opposing team can be properly contained and prevented from untimely resurrection?

Right now, you can attack ghosts if you're insane. Especially if we manage to support large numbers of players, I'm thinking about adding a ghost trap. I haven't figured out yet exactly what it means for a ghost to die, but ghost griefing/attacks is definitely something I'm wary of. One other way that we might handle this is to make it so that haunting objects actually reduces your humanity, meaning you can only cause so much damage without reducing your own maximum health.

 

This is going to be so great! Keep up the good work:D

Quick thought on the ghost mechanic you mention: Really creative way of dealing with it, even if I disapprove of the maximum health loss. I would however approve of a temporarily maximum stat reduction after revival, which gradualy disappear over time, which would make you rather vulnerable at first, but as you grow stronger you are more likely to stay alive (say you revive with only 20% of your original maximum stats, and you regain 4-5%, rounded up, each day untill you're back at normal). The game should absolutely discourage you from dying, but I hope you make sure that playing as a ghost is sufficiently entertaining;)

The reason I went with the maximum health loss is because we don't want to lose (too much of) the severity of death in Don't Starve. If dying is merely a temporary setback, then there's not much urgency in avoiding it or recovering from it. Since other players can revive you, you can have potentially infinite lives in Don't Starve Together. While this is technically true in Don't Starve as well, it requires much more planning and up-front investment. With the ghost mechanic, you no longer have to prevent permanent death: you now have a chance to react to dying. If resurrection has diminishing returns (especially if you don't get resurrected in a timely fashion), then you're strongly incentivized to take preventative measures (like you would in Don't Starve) or to drop all other concerns when a friend dies.

[jbeetle]

 

I've actually moved away a bit from being able to revive yourself through haunting. I'm thinking now more along the lines of haunting being a way to stave off the loss of humanity/maximum health. But as for how things react to being haunted, it's got a fairly wide range of possibilities. Rocks bounce a bit. Logs bounce a bit and have a chance to light on fire. Pigs panic and have a chance to turn into werepigs. Evergreens have a chance to turn into Treeguards. Chests drop an item. Generally, you're gambling on a neutral or bad thing happening in exchange for some humanity.

So are you saying haunting will just not include revival or is reviving yourself/others reviving you still going to be a mechanic?

[SethR]

So are you saying haunting will just not include revival or is reviving yourself/others reviving you still going to be a mechanic?

 

Sorry, reading that again, I wasn't super clear. A lot of this will come down to tuning, but the model I have in my head is one where you haunt things and doing so does give you back some humanity, just not much. Hypothetically, you could revive yourself this way (i.e. without any assistance), but you'd have to haunt a lot of things. Rather than being primarily a way to revive yourself, it's a way to keep from losing maximum health while you wait for a friend to come find you with the life siphon device or as you make your way to a Touchstone. We want death to be scary/punishing still and it seemed like being able to haunt some stuff and revive yourself flew in the face of that. Does that make more sense?

[jbeetle]

Sorry, reading that again, I wasn't super clear. A lot of this will come down to tuning, but the model I have in my head is one where you haunt things and doing so does give you back some humanity, just not much. Hypothetically, you could revive yourself this way (i.e. without any assistance), but you'd have to haunt a lot of things. Rather than being primarily a way to revive yourself, it's a way to keep from losing maximum health while you wait for a friend to come find you with the life siphon device or as you make your way to a Touchstone. We want death to be scary/punishing still and it seemed like being able to haunt some stuff and revive yourself flew in the face of that. Does that make more sense?

I think that's a nice permadeath alternative.

[Ridley]

So if players can be revived from ghost form, what about the other ghosts like Abby? ( May of been mentioned, though I looked through three times and didn't see it. Blame the stupid addicting 3D puzzles.)

 

I once suggested that when the shadow hands reach the fire, they posses it and start doing things similar to the haunt mechanic. Picking up items to be annoying was one of them, though shifting the fire light around was my favorite.

 

If the haunt mechanic becomes official, can the shadow hands get some forms of haunting power as well? Right now they couldn't be less of a threat.

 

Maybe even let the night light cause similar shenanigans that could be used in strategic way? Like a passive base defense? It keeps winning the most useless item award on the wiki.

[Amkar]

 Right now, all the player ghosts just look like Abigail. We'll be making proper art for them at some point, but we don't know yet if it'll be something like Abigail but with different defining characteristics (i.e. Wilson's hair) or just a spectral version of the normal character art.

 

I personally prefer the first option, it seems more fitting with the other ghosts.

 

I also, while talking about this, think you should do something special with Wx-78 regarding ghosts, but I'm not sure what. After all, he is the "Soulless Automation".

[Silentdarkness1]

I personally prefer the first option, it seems more fitting with the other ghosts.

 

I also, while talking about this, think you should do something special with Wx-78 regarding ghosts, but I'm not sure what. After all, he is the "Soulless Automation".

WX-78 wouldn't have a ghost, and you'd have to repair him with either a ton of wood, rope and gold, or gears.