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If the avatars aren't going to be animated, I think it would look better if only the party leader's tile is displayed when moving around, then break out the whole team when combat begins. Are there still going to be attacking/casting animations? Replacing animated guys, even if they only have 2 or 3 animations, with still images is a big change. The animations in Helherron for example are bare-bones simple but IMO they add a lot to the experience. I never get tired of seeing the wind-up before the attack.

One tip I wanted to share with Helherron fans: there were three different places where I would get combat crashes and I finally figured a way around it. The crashes all had grid bugs in play and if I avoided casting any spells which leave graphics on screen, like Create Great Fire and Web, the game wouldn't crash.

It's hard to tell from the short description, but I'm getting the idea that there will be only combat animations and nothing else, a bit like the old Gold Box games. I'm not quite sure how I feel about this. I think it worked fine for those games since (1) movement was occurring in a 3D perspective where you didn't need to see the characters and (2) the graphics were themselves fairly basic. I think it's going to feel incongruous to have high-quality graphics that are mostly static.

On the other hand, it'll probably make the game feel more like looking at a miniatures board, which isn't entirely a bad thing.

I've also noticed that while I like the current graphics quite a bit on my laptop (14 inches), they look much worse on my desktop (19 inch widescreen).

Are there still going to be attacking/casting animations? Replacing animated guys, even if they only have 2 or 3 animations, with still images is a big change.

Sure, there will be special spell graphics and the creature icons will move in the same way that they do in KotC when they attack. I don't think even having a single frame for attacks is necessary. What you really want to know is whether the attack worked and how much damage you did. Civilization 1 uses static pictures for the military units and strangely, I think it works better than in Civ 3 where battles are animated with lots of frames.

Where can I download Helherron?

I think you can get the less buggy 2.03 version here, Vent. Read up on party creation before you play. You can't replace any units after you start and the game is NOT forgiving of Orc Mages or Fairy Barbarians. Actually, it's just unforgiving period.

screeg wrote:I think you can get the less buggy 2.03 version here, Vent. Read up on party creation before you play. You can't replace any units after you start and the game is NOT forgiving of Orc Mages or Fairy Barbarians. Actually, it's just unforgiving period.

Honestly, I don't know if the new version is less buggy. It doesn't have fixed the bug when game crashes in combat with many enemies. (typically spiders, gridbugs, undead, etc) Usually, it has to be overcame with scrolls or spells of mass wound... Furthermore, thanks to lesser sight range on main map, Tikku's cave on insland is inaccessible. And finally, once an ice sphere froze one of my two priests. The priest crumbled down and died. Next combat, the priest was always frozen. I had to keep him away from the combat by the dimensional gap spell, or whatever. He remained frozen all the way into the fiery Hell

2.03 is the less buggy version, 2.04 is the newer, more buggy version. To get around the grid bug combat crashes, don't use spells like Create Great Fire or Poison, which leave graphics on the game map. I've had great success by tackling them without spells. Sometimes you have to wait until your guys are at a higher level.

Darthcast wrote:I think the music is just awesome. (Edit: I actually just started the game after writing this post, to listen to the title theme )Would be great if the music in KoTC is of similar quality. I'd also like to hear a few of the old titles again, especially if you plan to switch to CD quality.

(Well, I'm not an expert but I've read that the music for Realms of Arkania 2 was originally composed as midi and then converted to CD quality, using a high quality soundcard...)

I like the music as well...

About music composing, usually all the scores are written on paper and on "midi files". These files are not General Midi but use specific instructions related to the procedures used by the Music Studio. These procedures are confidential and each Studio has its own professional secrets.

Then the files are used to produce the source audio files, through high quality samplers and synthesizers.

If the project has enough budget, the music files are then used as guidelines or demos only and the final soundtrack is the result of an orchestra live recording... and yes, a real orchestra is very expensive.

Any news on KotC 2 for the new year?

I was thinking the same, we havent had any news since a while, throw us a bone, some screenshot, something please