i have just finished the game and i must say (as everyone) that i have enjoyed it as much as i could. Cheers, Basilisk. Keep it commin.
There are few suggestions for book II you might or might not find usable sorted in few categories:
i havent really readed through all the forums, but i have tried.. alot. so if i am repeating something, just pass.
The story pickup:
1) Though, it must be difficult to pickup a story. There is still huge chance that someone might buy it without any recolection of book I or character to import, but it would be pretty nice to feel at least some connection, so lets do the story played by the son of your original character from book I - like 20 years later or so. His father passed away few years ago, you heard him t elling you stories but never believed in it or didnt care. Suddenly, this guy appears at the door of your farm seeking your father with the message that the world of eschalon needs him - bang. What a pitty, its your job now. It would be nice to have at least some connections, like that the game searches the savegames from book I & names ingame father after the character from it, or looks up what face you have selected in B I & sorts you with one, just slighly changed.. etc. If not present, name & face you presetly.
It might actually open a nice space for Book I addon, where you could, by the way, fall in love with some woman you do quest for her or so. It wouldnt be so bad to make a little "data-disc", even later, called something like "Eschalon Book I - the lost chapters" that you dont have to reveal at all in book II and might be cool to make a competition or so later, which i will try to describe bellow.
2) Use the fact that the world of eschalon changed alot on your behalf & make it aviable for the game. Ihabbitate the village you pass around at the begining of book I, enlarge some cities and open the borders of crackamir as safe-enough place.
What makes me happy is to see that i have changed something moderately so far as tens of years later, even in pc games. Just imagine how lovely it could be, if you suddenly come across the formel gobblin citadel, now rebuilded & turned into something nice, eg. The Big Eschalon market with lots of stuff and so. Imagine how cool it would be to stumble across the formel bee hive and find there a woman, who managed to domesticate bees and makes the finest honey in eschalon. Make Grimmwold borderline with pass taxes and huge base of some army men.. and so on. Dont drop it, just get it better.
3) Make some trivia of the quests from book I, like the amber - i could believe that the trees made ambers alot faster than the librarian from blackwater thought, he became obsessed by this fact, moved deep into a crackamir and tried to recultivate a desert IE Jean Gion's "The Man Who Planted Trees"...
Or the drunk in adriell. Realised, what the legacy of his family means to him and makes long trips to foreign islands where he could neither take you whit him, or from where he could, time to time, find some pretty cool equipment IE pig legged boy from diablo 1..
4) Dont just expand the world from book I. Let the unmentioned world expand also. IE make a village of nice runaway goblins somewhere. Let new creatures infest piece of land you have slayed trought in book I or so on..
All of this is just basicaly redesigning already existing locations, so it shouldnt take so much time as bulding new ones. It will enlarge the playtime rapidly and it will please us alot!
The story itself:
1) Make more quests. This would be apreciated alot. Altrought i spend 30 hours with the book I, there was a very few quests and that mafe me feel kinda sorry. I would love to stumble across some quest by an accident or just make "silly" quests like bring-me-10-pieces-of-this.. Those quests shouldnt be hard to make and should improve the joy from gaming a bit.
2) Make more complex quests. Seriously. Dont get me wrong. Do both. Simple and complex ones. Do chainquests and nutcrackers. Not-so-sure quests like "someone broke into my house and stolen this and this and i want you to find it." - then, after a bit of gaming, you find it by an accident and say: hey, that is pretty cool! i have solved the quest!
3) Make as much as possible quests local. As far as its interesting. You will achieve more bounds in area for a player and make him to get his items and skills more hardly, therefore more appreciated.
4) Add some culture, for christ sake! Thats something i was missing in book I. Yes, i know that there was a war going on, but hell, the people are people even trough wartime. They should have a band in INN, close at 8pm their stores, have some fun and go to sleep. People in Book I were all alone, i dont remember a single NPC in the game who had a wife (except the dead guy) or brother around in the store that takes care of economy... There were basicaly just the guys that had a purpose - sellers or quest guys - noone to just talk with, listen some stories or complaint about the weather...
Or meet crushed circuis in the woods after attack of killer birds or so... let the player be aware that the world of eschalon actually lives, not just serves him. Seriously. You could fit in band of giants, called "Brutal Giant" as some trivia..
Ad women to inns. Just for talk, ending by the notice that youre nice guy. Tons of RPG geeks will be delighted.
Add gambling to some inn. Surprise two people having sex in the house you broke in.
5) Add some fun. i personally think that this was one of the things that made fallout unbeatable. Dont get me wrong, i have had a great time playing book I, but i havent laughted once. Eschalon would be great place for old fashioned black humour. Like, for instance, talking tree who mentiones that it was his grand-grand-grand-grand-uncle that talked to Moses, but immediately after that he get burned, because some badass kid set him on fire... or so on, im not good in making up jokes, but im good at laughing at them, thought
6) Break up some routines make seller in the city 10% probabilty that he wasnt able to obtain new suplies yet. Something with the delivery, bad week or maybe grinking through his money that he wasnt able to pay for something. Make quest npc some probability that they have lots of work to do and cannot talk to you for awhile... and so on.
Those things makes a game feel more alive.
7) Dont overcrowd the game with dungeons. That was one of the things i loved in book I - just few dungeons, not a dungeon on every corner as its modern these times. Think of some better way than that. Not every problem has to have solution in dungeon. If xphunt needs to be implented, just add a cave with some respawn of monsters, so the man has to wait awhile, not just clickin on the statue as crazy
Add some random things to the map. Make a places where you might and might not meet some camping traveler, just for once. Make random people in the INNs. Make different city versions of characters from elsewhere, like 5% chance that you will meet potionman from adriel in blackwater talking with his friend from childhood, blackwater potionguy. When you talk to him, he would tell you that he remmembered you from adriell and hows goin... Or the guy in the woods, that is amused by seeing human, saying that he was in blackwater drinkin, tried to get home drunk and forgot the way back to bordertown, asking you how to get back there..9) Use daytime a bit. make npcs sleep or unable to do buisness twenty minutes after 12 because of having meal. Make them tired, decreasing their merchandise skill a bit half of an hour before closing... and so on.
10) ... simply breath some live into NPCs. Make the shop closed with locked door and note saying that the owner went to visit mom and will be back tommorow. Or get him killed, start rummors in the city and make player to move to different town...
Im very sure that if you have lack of ideas to do that, there will be lots of Eschalon admirers that will be glad to do that just for line in credits or for a contest where every actually used conversation wins cd with the game in the first wave.
Game system
1) Try to keep it simple. I loved in book I the turnbased thing. I havent had to worry about lack of action points, everything was the same cost but still enough ballanced. As a warrior, i was actually able to enjoy the game just because the only thing a had to worry about were my hitpoints. Dont destroy it by adding anything more to worry about. There is no point in doing that. People require running? So what. Just add the button for "quick" mode, where you move still on turns, but the animations of steping are faster...
2) Alternate ways of quicktravel I dont know what your plans are, but imagine for a minute that there is like 20 places surrounded by 8 another squares of maps. You could get to 5 of them by quick travel, 5 of them are accesible throught the boat and in some point, after completing some quests for magickal guild, they allow you to travel by their portals and even later in the game you can buy some mercenaries as armed protection guides for lets say 100g and you are there. boom. no big deal & quick travel solution is here, also revealable time-after-time.
3) Map, map, map, map, map. Make the map you could get interactive. Limited by cartography or not, i dont care. Make a little red dot in the map of world for characters with lvl5 of cartography. At least. Make more maps for each region or even for locations that you buy from cartographers and when you read it, it fills your automap.
4) Ehnace questlog a bit. I found some crucial informations about the quests to be missing in the questlog. Neither make some diary of dialogues or make sure that you have putted everything OK in the log.
5) Get rid of current randomized drop system. Altrough i dont consider myself as a cheater, that thing made me save&load in greedy madness. Make random chests when loading the map and drops when dropped so it will be a bit more fun. It distrupts the feeling from game when youre able to do something like this, thought.
6) Make more things affectable, important or not. Let the sneaky players put down the fires and lamps. Let molotov guys burn the trees. Let the torch set barrell in fire and make it burn till "open". Let us blow holes in not-so-solid walls, let us shoot our bow at the target when aviable. It doesnt have to do anything.. Just let it shootable.
7) Offer us new, nice system to categorize our inventory. extra slots just for keys would be pretty nice. If there was a button above every column, that would automaticaly equip everything in it replacing it with current wearing, that would be cool (i wear different sets od equipment for different situations and switching every single piece gets kinda annoying..)
more types/uses of items - like: sure, this root is cool when mixed into a potion with this crap, but what if i eat it raw? whoaa! it gave me +1 speed buff! and so on. Everything in book I what buffs is neither alchemic or magical, nothing is actually natural - think about eschalon enviroment, guys! or do you wan to have book III postapocalyptic? just imagine how many health potions warrior drinks per a game and how much spare gases their mixing must release. nasty!9) More ways to enchant items This kinda speaks for itself. It would be nice to make your own equipment by yourself.
10) Randomize ehnacements of dropped/found items should make the game alot more interesting. in book I, i have enchanted liliths sword to +3 and i knew that i am not gonna get better. This was kinda sad, though. After a little traveling i have bought twice the same rings and kept finding them in the stores and that made me realise that no further selling & buing fun is going to happen.
11) Move the "ceiling" of levels moderately and spread it all over the game. We all hope for as big game as possible and we all want to be supermen at the end
Those things should keep it oldschool & increase playability & enjoyability. Its obvious that i am missing some things, but im sure that another people will say so
General suggestions:
1) Involve people. Make contests for background stories, dialogues & quests. That will help you developing the game, get alot of refreshing ideas and, of course, help us getting the game sooner.
2) Release sources or make simple editor. Eschalons gamesystem is just beautifull and looks very easily modable. If that spreads, it will make your sales rise moderately. Later you could also involve the best projects sticking the story and make official addons that will sell also.
A lot of your work could be done by your admirors.
![Officer [Gold Rank]](./images/ranks/officer3.png "Officer [Gold Rank]")
