March Newsletter

I was quite pleased with this newsletter. I'm excited about the disposition system to make dungeon crawling, camping, and exploring more alive and challenging. Some great stuff highlighted in the Q&A as well. So many of those questions I've also wondered and the answers make me feel Terminus will truly be immersive if design goals are met. Sadly the talk on progress of project Faerthale and crafting system makes me think PA5 is further off than I previously theorized. The comment of more "pre-alpha phases" leads me to think we won't see proper full alpha until late this year early next year. The moment there is an alpha announcement I'll be upgrading my pledge for that alpha access.

I must say I'm somewhat happy that the disposition of NPCs will be tied to the adjective in front of their name because good players will learn what they all mean and be better for it. People who actually pay attention and can remember all this will have the advantage. It will be "Oh, this is a deranged whatever that we can't mez and it runs so keep it snared at all times".

It's good to see mechanics that award the intelligent player not just the high APM super twitch response player. Also with your example of deranged mob, we need to handle that in a different way makes other classes unique capabilities come into play more, instead of just bard sing your lullaby or chanter mez away. Maybe something instead will be GO GO off-tank and have wizard be ready will big mana pool to fast burn.

In Thronefast and part of Avender's Pass are Gadai Bandit camps. The Bandits have 3 'representatives, the Bandit, the Thief and the Heavy. Of those 3, it is the Thief that, when aggroed, will immediately yell for help. Any Gadai within his shout range will run to assist. That's about the only disposition we've seen in game so far.

Each time you came up against a group of Gadai and a Thief was there you knew that anything nearby would also get pulled. But it was only ever the Thief.

I'm really wondering if, under this new expanded disposition system, the Thief could spawn with any one of those dispositions or none...or if the Thief always has the same disposition.

I like variety, but totally random application would be a bit much.

So I'm arguing on the pre-alpha forums about the disposition system in that I do not want the name of the disposition to appear in the nametag of the NPC. Thus you would never see A Bloodthirsty Orc Warrior. Why do I not want that? Because every time you see 'Bloodthirsty' you automatically know exactly what the mob will do. Without even fighting it. Even if it is an NPC you've never encountered, by having 'Bloodthirsty' in its name all mystery is gone.

Rather, when you see An Orc Warrior, you know that 'Warrior' means it could have any number of possible dispositions. Not all of them would be available to a 'warrior' class mob, just some..like 3 or 4. So if you see a group spawn of 2 mobs, both An Orc Warrior, one could have the Bloodthirsty disposition while the other could have the Avenging disposition. You won't know exactly which until you engage.

So much is already telegraphed to us: Race, Class, Level, the armor it is wearing and even the weapon (and the damage profile of slash, blunt, etc). Do we really need to know exactly what to expect even before engaging? I don't. I want something left to react to, at least a little surprise.