Blog #1 - May I have your attention, please!

NullPointer · 04-30-2009, 01:42 PM

Hey guys. My name's Sam Mullen and I'm the project lead for Class of Heroes, which, as you may know, is a 1st person dungeon crawler coming out in June for the PSP. I've decided to start a series of quasi-blog entries here on the forums to give everyone more information about what Class of Heroes is about and open up discussion about the game. I'd love to try to answer any questions the fans or those interested in the game may have, so please post here and I’ll try to address your questions.

First off, I want to put the game into perspective by mentioning some of Atlus' other 1st person dungeon crawlers and what they mean for the players. Playing a dungeon crawler means different things to different people. First off, they are definitely a commitment. When you buy one of these games, you know it's going to be a 40-70 hour thing. Why play a game like that? Some just do it for the nostalgia of the old Wizardry-style games, while others simply dig the brutal gameplay, the satisfaction of character growth, and sense of accomplishment of finally beating that boss. Most fans of the genre have played Etrian Odyssey, and will agree that this game has defined the genre for modern players. From the map drawing, to the music by Koshiro, to the compelling character design, the game has a lot to offer. And recently, we put out The Dark Spire, and from what I can tell from the forums, you guys are responding to the games dark retro feel and quirkiness. Both of these games have specific things they offer to the player. For me, Etrian brings the music and character art, and Dark Spire just feels like a really awesome port of an early 90s RPG.

It’s all about what lies at the end of the hallway…

And now Class of Heroes. Being that it is loosely based on a previous Japan-only Wizardry series, it has everything you'd expect from a dungeon crawler. But, it also has a ton of stuff that you won't find anywhere else in the genre, such as a huge amount map layouts, intricate party relation system, and the highly flexible item alchemy system just to name a few. The game is big, and there's a certain amount of randomness in the game as well, so no two play-throughs are ever quite the same, even if you use the same characters. And to top it off, it's on the PSP, so all you PSP owners can finally get your dungeon crawling fix.

Let’s just leave it at that for now. We’ve got some interesting info coming down the pipe for this game, so stay tuned. Next time I’ll dive into actual student enrollment and talk about the kind of things you need to consider when creating characters and starting out. Let us hear your questions and we will answer them if we can.

Thanks everyone! And get those pre-orders in!

-Sam

getter77 · 04-30-2009, 02:07 PM

Thanks for this. This has inspired me to at last get into PSP game purchasing, and eventually a PSP itself to play on. Really hope it does well and we also get the sequel to the game due to come out in Japan in the near future. Questions...hmm:

-Any post game content in the form of special dungeons and the like for those that've gone the distance yet still hunger for a bit more before they try it all again with a different party?

-Pre-order goodies? The CD for Dark Spire is nifty. Perhaps a giant old school manual?

-Will the game have something equivalent to the Ironman Mode that Wizardry 8 had?

Oh yeah, and will there be instances where NPC's, perhaps unique ones, add themselves to the player's party for one reason or another? Again I think of Wizardry 8 in the form of the robot...

NullPointer · 04-30-2009, 04:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by getter77

-Any post game content in the form of special dungeons and the like for those that've gone the distance yet still hunger for a bit more before they try it all again with a different party?

The short answer is yes, there is an end-game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by getter77

-Pre-order goodies? The CD for Dark Spire is nifty. Perhaps a giant old school manual?

At first, we talked about making a pack-in strategy guide, but the sheer size of the game made it rather impossible. The Japanese guide is over 250 pages long. Spoils aren't free to make, so you guys are just going to have live without them on this one. Sorry!

Quote:

Originally Posted by getter77

-Will the game have something equivalent to the Ironman Mode that Wizardry 8 had?

The game has some brutal instant kill-forever stuff in it, as the comics demonstrate. But you can always just load a previous save.

Quote:

Originally Posted by getter77

- Oh yeah, and will there be instances where NPC's, perhaps unique ones, add themselves to the player's party for one reason or another? Again I think of Wizardry 8 in the form of the robot...

All playable characters are player created, but you can enlist students from other schools.

getter77 · 04-30-2009, 04:38 PM

-Yay most likely

-Can't always get a Spoil. We'll live. Though methinks a nifty Wiki style online thing could work as good or better down the line with players adding to it.

-Wow, what the...last I checked there were only 3 comics! :goes to dig for more in these post-Atlus hacked times: Should people elect to shoot for a more "hardcore"/Roguelike experience, how long does it take on average to generate a new party from scratch? Assume not obsessive min/maxing for instance.

-Yay.

Fresh ones:

-How exactly does the Evoker side of things work out? Like, does the Summon require a Party member space, is it static or can it gain power somehow or another, does it replace the Evoker in battle until defeated, etc. All the other Major descriptions seem pretty straightforward but that one invites a sense of mystery.

-Will all Double/Triple/etc Majoring combinations incur various penalties or will certain educational paths encourage it...or at least diminish some of said penalties?

-Will the encounter rate be fixed across all dungeons or can we expect some areas to be naturally more severe than others? Any player based methods of purposefully modifying the encounter rate in either direction?

-How will fleeing from combat work out if it is even possible to do so?

-Any esoteric "secrets" to this one versus some of the...unthinkable...notions in that direction in Dark Spire?

-Are you forced to enter into each area in a 6 person team or can you tempt fate and go with a smaller party? If so, is the exp and such modified to reflect less party members or is exp gained the same rate at solo versus a 6 strong team?

-How thick will the game's basic manual inside the case be?

Eggn0g · 05-01-2009, 08:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by getter77

-Can't always get a Spoil. We'll live. Though methinks a nifty Wiki style online thing could work as good or better down the line with players adding to it.

There's already a Japanese one, so it can be done.

Echoing the Evoker question - a few things I'm particuarly interested in...
- What are the limitations on Summoning? Can you do it only at specific times? In specific places? In battle?
- Do summoned creatures do a single, powerful attack, or do they stick around as a party member ala SMT?
- Are the creatures you summon ones you'd find in the dungeons or not?

Couple of other questions:
- How much of a hindrence would it be if one member of a party didn't get on well with the rest of the party (i.e. Diablons) - would it be a severe handicap throughout the game or just a minor pain in the arse?

- For skills/magic etc., is there an MP system like in Etrian Odyssey, or something else? I couldn't see any MP bars in the screenshots so I was a bit confused by that.

Oh, and this is my first post. Erm, hi!

Shikoku · 05-01-2009, 09:25 PM

I can't think of any good Q's right now except this:
What's with the character portraits with the blue uniforms opposed to the black?

I'd looked at the Japanese site way before Atlus ever picked this up, and there was an option for the races to change between standard black uniform and blue ones. Some of the characters in black looked better than the one sin blue and vice versa.

Jalopy · 05-02-2009, 08:25 AM

So, here's a rather long list of questions.

-There were supposedly changes/improvements made to the US edition of the game. Could you discuss, and reveal whether or not those changes are the basis for the JP re-release that was announced?

-Is there a quick way to exit the dungeon (spell, item, option) and does it become available early?

-Unlike EO and DS, there are several dungeons. Roughly how long are these dungeons compared to EO's floors and stratum? Can you unlock shortcuts in the larger ones so it is faster to get back into their depths, or just outright select a later floor to resume at?

-What sort of skill/ability learning system is there, if any? Do you only learn new spells and the like at set levels?

-How significant is the randomness in the game? The webpage says "To date, there are over 60 possible dungeon layouts to be charted, and many more that have yet to be discovered!" So will you encounter the same exact floor layouts several times through the game? Is dungeon randomization determined each time you step into a specific dungeon, or is it set once and for the rest of the playthrough? Am I fundamentally misunderstanding something about how the dungeons are implemented?

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-Elminage, please?

NullPointer · 05-04-2009, 08:46 AM

Thanks for all the questions guys. A lot of these questions I'm actually planning on addressing in future posts, so if you could just sit tight, I'll make sure I hit those topics. Your feedback is great and it's helping me plan out what I wanna talk about next.

There's a couple of questions here that I'd like to go ahead and address:

Quote:

-There were supposedly changes/improvements made to the US edition of the game. Could you discuss, and reveal whether or not those changes are the basis for the JP re-release that was announced?

Yes, there are a number of improvements we made to the US version. Some off the most obvious changes that were made to a couple of the menus. We identified a couple of common tasks that required excessive button presses to accomplish, and reworked the menus to reduce the number of buttons needed to accomplish these tasks. I can't remember specifics, but for example, we reduced a task like item swapping from an average of 14-16 buttons presses to like 7-9.

Amongst others, we made a few tweaks in game-play as well. For example, some of the super-hard late game bosses will drop special items now, where in the Japanese version they didn't drop anything.

Quote:

-How thick will the game's basic manual inside the case be?

Game's manual clocks in at 27 pages, and is chock full of charts and stuff. While roughly the same page count as the Japanese manual, text wise its quite a lot beefier, with more in depth explanations of how the dungeons work and a clearer explanation about changing Majors.

Relating back to the previous question, there were some aspects of the game, like assigning Majors, which required you to have the manual with you. For example, when assigning a Major, you had to memorize or look up the Major's stat requirements in the manual. We thought it'd be better to have the stat requirements actually display on screen in-game, so we made it so.

If I didn't answer your question here, it most likely means that the answer is going to be in a future post. Keep the questions coming and I'll have a full post for you later in the week.

getter77 · 05-04-2009, 10:42 AM

-Awesome stuff to hear on the manual and revealed ingame improvements thus far. So awesome.

Hmm...

-With as many dungeons as seems to be the case, can we look forward to a good and/or large variety of BGM or will there be a central dungeon theme moreso? Likewise, if there's any VA...is it being left in Japanese, dubbed in English, or some kinda mix?

-Is there any sort of monster scaling done in terms of the player getting stronger and/or revisiting earlier completed dungeons? Or is it like Dark Spire in that, as I understand it, the "quality" rises appropriately in early areas to prevent it from winding up a total waste.

-Is there an ETA on some more video for the game to help people see how things work out in the game/make a stronger case for it amongst the unsure? I've found the one clip on youtube that Atlus seems to have used to make the existing promo clip, the Acquire one, yet Atlus removed the bits that show some actual bits of combat and wandering for some bizarre reason---though less mysteriously they also removed the incessant narration in the Japanese clip.

-Is there a stat/ability/multiple major cap in the game? I would presume there's a level one.

-Within any given dungeon, can there be instances of "guest" monsters that would perhaps be more likely found in another themed dungeon or be something stronger than would usually be found in the dungeon as per the depth/floor one runs into it on?

-Does it share anything like the "nuanced" Casting options and such that Dark Spire has like Fast Casting, Empowered, etc?

-How do shops generate their inventory...random, fixed, etc? Do they replenish or add new random items from a fixed list or randomly in general when their stock of something is depleted? Or do they have infinite supplies of any given thing carried at a time?

-How big a variety can we expect to run into in terms of Status Conditions to be afflicted with? Any nifty/unorthodox ones aside from the usual Sleep, Confusion, Poison?

-In terms of bosses, are we talking under 10 total or dozens? Any secret/optional ones that exist in the world of Class of Heroes somewhere?

-Any missable content/dungeons/bosses etc that is unrecoverable if you go by it unawares or something until starting a game over again or some such?

-Clear save for the party after the credits roll or would a save just prior to credits rolling/last boss or dungeon of some sort be as far as it goes?

Eggn0g · 05-04-2009, 10:59 AM

lol, looks like my questions are gonna be answered in later blog posts

Speaking of which, how often is the blog gonna get updated?

Garlyle · 05-06-2009, 01:00 PM

"-Clear save for the party after the credits roll or would a save just prior to credits rolling/last boss or dungeon of some sort be as far as it goes?"

Can I just say one thing? It always makes me sad in EO games that I can't refight the final boss whenever I want. They were awesome fights and the fact I have to redo the whole game to get to it again if I've already started the aftergame makes me a sad panda.

Anyway, here's a question:

-What made Atlus decide to translate this particular game? Why this one instead of other possibilities in the genre? And has Atlus already begun to consider a translation of Ken to Mahou to Gakuen Mono 2? I'm actually curious about the whole process through which Atlus actually comes to the decision of "Hey, let's localize this completely obscure game almost nobody in North America will have heard of until we announce it".

ReaperX30 · 05-06-2009, 09:11 PM

You said that the japanese guide was over 250 pages long. I agree that it would be too costly to give as a spoil with the game but are you considering on having it translated to release it here. I really like to have the guide for games like this one. Not to have everything done for me but something to help if i'm stuck. I bought Oblivion guide with the game and the same for Fallout 3. It's not the same type of game you'll say but for help on party relations, maps or the item alchemy I think a guide would be usefull for Class of Heroes. I got the game pre-ordered on Amazon.ca and if a guide ever gets released you can be sure that I'll get it also.

By the way, not to get all soft on you but let me thank you for the spoils you give us with the great games you release and the fact that you make posts like this one to let us ask questions just shows that you care about the people who buy your games. I can't say the same about a lot of other game companies so thank you very much.

Eggn0g · 05-07-2009, 02:17 AM

I'm not too fussed about a guide myself - I'd rather work things out myself and check GameFAQs if I get really stuck.

Rednusander · 05-07-2009, 07:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ReaperX30

I really like to have the guide for games like this one. Not to have everything done for me but something to help if i'm stuck.

Don't worry buddy! If you get stuck, just post here. If you've been paying any attention to the Dark Spire forum, those guys have become their own little support group. Nobody wants you to have to dig through a FAQ for a single answer, and I'm sure that anything you run into, we'll have the answers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ReaperX30

By the way, not to get all soft on you but let me thank you for the spoils you give us with the great games you release and the fact that you make posts like this one to let us ask questions just shows that you care about the people who buy your games. I can't say the same about a lot of other game companies so thank you very much.

I'm sure I speak for the whole Atlus staff when I say you're welcome.

ThePortableGamer · 05-08-2009, 04:09 PM

Man, I really dig this game. I'm a lucky S.O.B who has gotten to play some of this game as part of my duties at ThePortableGamer.com. Obviously, I'm not able to talk about the game at all, in any way, except to say how much I'm enjoying it (a lot!) and how much I appreciate this forum, and Sam's posts here on it.

I do have to say, though, in regards to the manual discussion, that there are some fascinating ways (that were new to me as a gamer) the game taught me to be a better player, and why I kept dying at the beginning.

Sweet game. Sweet conversations. Sweet sweetness. Pre-order already!

Rahenna · 05-09-2009, 05:43 AM

Is this based on Wizardry X?

Foxkoun · 05-23-2009, 06:35 AM

I'm looking forward to this title, but curiously I don't see it on the pre-order list at game stores(EB, Gamestop) where I live.

I'd ask more question's, but with the release date so soon I'm itching to dive in head first.