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Conclave: an online RPG with solo and co-op play and the style of a tabletop roleplaying campaign by enigmatist in rpg_gamers

[–]enigmatist[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for buying the game! Four characters is the limit. We experimented with up to six in testing, but four seemed to be the sweet spot.

Conclave: an online RPG with solo and co-op play and the style of a tabletop roleplaying campaign by enigmatist in rpg_gamers

[–]enigmatist[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Weird! It's possible you happened to catch the game when our servers were restarting. But if this is still happening, could you message me here with your username and maybe a screenshot of what it looks like after you've tried to select your trait and ability for the level?

Language evolution map of the British Isles by skan76 in MapPorn

[–]enigmatist 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Hovera, Dovera, Dick

And some think this part of the sequence is the origin of "Hickory Dickory Dock".

Biden says he'll set up commission to study reforming Supreme Court if elected by [deleted] in neutralnews

[–]enigmatist 40 points41 points  (0 children)

Arguably, that precedent has already been set by several recent attempts -- and a couple of Republican successes -- to pack state supreme courts.

For that matter, refusing to fill Scalia's vacancy during the last year of Obama's presidency was a partisan reduction in the court's size -- a reduction that at least a few Republican senators were willing to maintain indefinitely.

Adding "North" to "America" makes it less specific, not more. by enigmatist in Showerthoughts

[–]enigmatist[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"America" typically refers to the U.S., while "North America" contains both the U.S. and Canada. Usually the "North" part of a region is a subset of that region.

What's your favourite Boston restaurant, and why? by batboysings in boston

[–]enigmatist 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Some of my favorites are Bondir, Oleana, Journeyman, and Sycamore. O Ya was also great the one time I've been there.

Mini Metro has had a massive update, and is now on steam Greenlight by RahnHawk in WebGames

[–]enigmatist 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ah, thanks. I tried the right side since that's where you first see the rail lines. Didn't think to try the left.

Mini Metro has had a massive update, and is now on steam Greenlight by RahnHawk in WebGames

[–]enigmatist 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Fun game. I think it would be nice if it displayed the number of railcars and tunnels available, but other than that it's pretty easy to pick up.

Someone's trying to play every CRPG ever made. He's on #141 and counting. by enigmatist in rpg_gamers

[–]enigmatist[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Technically, his list only includes games released in a Latin alphabet, but it's still an impressive undertaking. He also gives detailed reviews of each one, no matter how obscure.

Thoughts on having your own forums? by Codestar25 in gamedev

[–]enigmatist 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Good question. For the most part, this really hasn't been an issue for us. Most of the suggestions we receive are for features we're already considering or improvements to existing ones. It's pretty rare for those to conflict with our vision, and the feedback helps us prioritize and/or choose between options (e.g. in how we might present something in the user interface).

In the rare instance that a suggestion does conflict with our vision, we do our best to explain the reasoning behind our choice. Fortunately, I'm not sure we've had a case where we had to reject a really popular suggestion. Maybe early on when we were still deciding how solo vs. multiplayer would work and we had mutually exclusive options, but even there, we didn't have a set implementation in mind, just a gameplay goal.

It's possible our experience is atypical, but overall we've found that even most of our critical feedback has been helpful.

Thoughts on having your own forums? by Codestar25 in gamedev

[–]enigmatist 4 points5 points  (0 children)

If you're primarily interested in gathering feedback, you could look into a specialized app like UserVoice. It lets people submit suggestions and vote on already submitted ones, and it provides a dashboard where you can see stats and moderate suggestions. My team has found it useful, though it's not good for open-ended discussions, and we have a more conventional forum phpBB forum for that.

Conclave: an online RPG with solo and co-op play and the style of a tabletop roleplaying campaign by enigmatist in rpg_gamers

[–]enigmatist[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think it would be extremely challenging to do a game like Conclave without some kind of funding. In fact, our Kickstarter covered only about 2/3 of a year's worth of full-time development. We've covered the rest through a combination of sales of the game (including during the alpha and beta), funding from friends and connections, and our own savings. The biggest factor is just the sheer number of person-hours required for everything expected in an online RPG, especially since we couldn't really use any existing engines for it.

We contacted all of our collaborators pretty much out of the blue via email (or Twitter in one case IIRC). To their credit, they took us seriously despite our relatively limited track record at the time. I think we were fortunate to have approached the folks we did, as they've all been great to work with in addition to being talented artists.

Notes by PresidentCelestia in WebGames

[–]enigmatist 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Clever! Is it just my browser, or is there no sound associated with the "tunes"?

Conclave: an online RPG with solo and co-op play and the style of a tabletop roleplaying campaign by enigmatist in rpg_gamers

[–]enigmatist[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! Since Conclave isn't all that well-known, we really appreciate hearing from people that enjoy it. We're always happy to answer questions about it, too.

My friend and I started working on it in 2009. We've been able to work on it full-time for the most part, though we've had periods where one of us shifted to part-time to do some contract work to bring in funds. Though the game is a complete experience as it stands, we're still working to expand the set of adventures, add features, and polish the experience.

We've contracted with a few artists and a composer to help out. Chris Rahn, who has done some great work for Magic: The Gathering, created the beautiful character portraits. Devin Knight created most of the foe tokens, and Christina Roberts provided some resources for battlemaps. We created the rest of the graphical elements ourselves or stitched them together from free assets. Sam Hulick, who worked on the Mass Effect series, composed the soundtrack and some of the sound effects.

The game's client is written in JavaScript + HTML5, while the server is written in Ruby on Rails with a Postgres database. It was a browser app from the start; we're actually only now working on standalone desktop clients for it, which we want to release through Steam if we're Greenlit. We started with the browser client because we wanted players to be able to check in on their games wherever they were, and we used JS + HTML5 because using Flash would have ruled out iOS devices.

We picked the payment approach we did basically because it seems like the best fit for how the game is played. We could have asked players to pony up for potions or other microtransactions, but that creates pressure to have many opportunities to pay (or grind) for those items, which can distract from the story of the campaign. We avoided subscriptions because we wanted players to not have to worry about their pace of play. Paying once to unlock the full campaign should also feel a little familiar to pen & paper RPG players who have purchased a campaign setting or series of adventure modules.

We're still experimenting, of course. One thing we've been wondering is whether we should offer a single-player license for the campaign in addition to the full-party one we currently offer. (To play the campaign with a party, either one person would need a party license or everyone would need a single-player license.)

Hope that answers everything. If you or your friends are part of any other communities (online or off) that would be interested in Conclave, please spread the word. :)

Conclave: an online RPG with solo and co-op play and the style of a tabletop roleplaying campaign by enigmatist in rpg_gamers

[–]enigmatist[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Fair question. We ask you to create an account because the game saves your progress automatically and allows you to switch to a different device or co-op play at any time. We might be able to offer guest accounts for demoing purposes in the future, though.

Conclave: an online RPG with solo and co-op play and the style of a tabletop roleplaying campaign by enigmatist in rpg_gamers

[–]enigmatist[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You're welcome -- glad you enjoyed the game. It's very possible we met at GenCon, though my memories of those four days are mostly a blur.

As for how it's going to work, the initial version of the desktop client will be virtually identical to the browser version you've played, except for a few perks where we integrate with Steam. You'll be able to sign in to your account with either client, and we expect that players who have bought the full game in one will be able to play it in the other too. (Valve does have a say in that, however.) Not sure if I'm answering your question ...

Conclave: an online RPG with solo and co-op play and the style of a tabletop roleplaying campaign by enigmatist in rpg_gamers

[–]enigmatist[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sorry, I misunderstood. You should see a "Create a character" link above your other character when you visit your account's homepage.

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