WE DID IT! 100% funded, revealing new stretch goals
over 5 years ago – Tue, Nov 13, 2018 at 12:30:39 AM

It’s a done deal!

We‘ve made it - earlier today we reached 100.000 € and we’re over the moon! Thanks a million to all our backers, many of you have been so supportive since the start. It’s really down to you that we got this far! Every single one of the 2166 backers from all over the world pushed us that little bit closer to the finishing line. You are the best! We’re so happy that we got the campaign funded 100% three days before it ends.

Now we‘re trying to make those stretch goals. The first one is a cooperation with the exceptionally talented cartographer Francesca Baerald for a digital and physical map of Argea. We’re not that far away from that one! If we reach the second stretch goal, the brilliant writers Casey Hollingshead and Scott Hamm will join our writing team.


The first new and third stretch goal is:

Listen to two of Kai's tracks here:

"Vista Point" from Gothic 3:

"Harbor City" from Risen 1:

If you want to know more about Kai and his fantastic music, please visit this Twitch channel and follow him on Twitter.

The next stretch goal is about a new character class in the game: THE MONK. Players will be able to choose the monk as a character class if we make it to 140.000€~$157,735USD  (if we fund it 140%). The monk will have his own unique unarmed combat moves, his greatest weapon will be his own body!

You'll find more information about the monk class here.

Once again - thanks to each and every one of you!

Pub Games and Voice Sets
over 5 years ago – Mon, Nov 12, 2018 at 12:57:31 AM

Pub Games

At sunset, you and your companions finally arrive in Bridgewater, a famous hub of trade and other, less honest forms of business. Milling amongst the crowds of merchants and citizens, beggars and cut-throats, you slowly wander through the town's narrow alleyways towards the Merry Hangman Inn, in a district of town known for its pleasures – many of them illicit. You enter the tavern in search for a hearty meal, a warm hearth, and some merry entertainment to lift up your spirits. 

As anticipated, you find the place is bursting with laughter, singing and cheer as you enter. The smell of good food and beer, and the sound of merry fiddles and happy folk songs out of tune, quickly overwhelm your senses. As some of your companions proceed directly to their rooms in the second floor, longing for a good bed after the strenuous journey, you manage to spot a small empty table in the far corner. When you finally make your way through the crowd of drunken patrons, the tavern maid brings you a battered pewter mug, and asks you with a smile: “Care for a Game?”

Games to spend your hard-earned coin on

Every adventurer needs some time to relax after a long day, and Realms Beyond offers you plenty of games to pass the time with when you return to town after an exhausting adventure. Cards, dice, pit-fighting and axe-throwing are just some of the many activities your adventurers can take part in, trying their luck or skill against NPCs and even wagering some money on their success.

If you’re on good terms with some tavernkeepers or have some coin to spare, who knows… they might even let you prove what you're made of in their underground fighting clubs (no arms, no armor, no spells – only fists and the cheering roars of the crowd). 

But be careful with your money – many an adventurer has lost the riches he gained during the day in the games of dice he chose to play at night. If you are clever, though, success at gambling is not only a matter of luck. A character with a high skill at bluffing will be an excellent card player, while a dexterous rogue with sleight of hand can attempt to cheat at dice. But beware! If caught cheating, you might be dragged into a fistfight, and once the guards arrive the cheater is the one who has to pay the fine.

You may even catch goblins playing a game of dice in the dungeon, and if you don’t attack them right away, you may even join in! They are, after all, not the smartest creatures nor the most vigilant guards.  

Voice Sets  

You have already heard the triumphant laughter of a wizard as he fries a horde of goblins with his fireball, but there will be many more occasions when your characters show their emotions or make a comment regarding the current events. Like in many other classic RPGs - Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment, Jagged Alliance 2, Wizardry 8, to mention just a few examples - you can pick one of many different voicesets for your character, covering a vast array of personalities.  

Whether your character is a lawful paladin or a chaotic barbarian, you can select the voice that fits him the best and hear him commenting on certain situations throughout the game. From a simple laugh, cough, or scoff to exclamations like "Bah, elves..." or "What a nice lady!", your characters will comment on combat events, conversations, or item interactions when appropriate.  

To achieve the best quality for these voice sets, we’re cooperating with professional voice actors like Stephen Chatfield. Stephen is not only a highly versatile and exceptionally talented voice actor but also a huge fan of table-top and computer role-playing games. We’re happy that he will contribute not only one but a handful of character voices for Realms Beyond. Exclusively for this update, Stephen recorded two samples of very different character voices to demonstrate the idea.

You’ll listen to a character with a lawful good mindset followed by a chaotic character, in different in-game situations.

 If you want to know more about Stephen's work, please visit his website.

Tools Preview, First Social Goal reached, Italian Version
over 5 years ago – Fri, Nov 09, 2018 at 12:48:29 AM

Tools

In today's update we will show you a little preview video of our editing tools, which will be shipped along with the game as mod tools, so you can create your own scenarios and campaigns.

Our map editor allows you to texture and modify the landscape, place objects and effects, set the lighting and place creatures and NPCs on the map. It's a powerful editor which gives you a lot of options, but the map building process is quick and easy to learn.

The dialogue editor is just as easy to use and just as powerful. Easily write different conversation nodes and connect them with a click of your mouse. Add conditions to the different dialogue options, making them only available to certain classes or races. Or make them dependent on the player character's gender, or a certain skill or stat. With the dialog editor's script calls, you can implement a large variety of condition checks, and you can have NPCs react in different ways to the player's dialogue choices. 

We use AngelScript as a scripting language, which is an object-oriented language based on the syntax of C++. This allows you to create all kinds of interesting scripts to spice up your campaign with the custom scenes you want it to have.

Realms Beyond provides you with powerful modding tools that are easy to learn and allow for quick and efficient mapping and dialogue scripting once you are familiar with them.

Have a look:

Social Goal reached

We have reached our first social goal! 506 people now follow our Facebook page and the fourth beer mug has been unlocked! We want to thank all our backers by including the Digital Art Book with many high res concept artworks of the game as a bonus.

Italian Version

We're overwhelmed by the interest of the Italian RPG community and the support of our Italian backers is tremendous. Therefore, we are happy to announce that we can finally confirm the Italian version of the game!

Once again, thanks to everyone supporting us! Stay tuned for new updates!

A Glimpse of Our World, Part 3: The Wildlands – Legacy of Virduris
over 5 years ago – Wed, Nov 07, 2018 at 11:05:02 PM

The Wildlands are one of the most turbulent and unstable areas in Argea. It is a region of numerous different cultures, as humans from all corners of the world came to settle there after the local kingdoms had collapsed and fallen. A land of opportunity, with the riches of the past and abundant natural resources rife for the taking. After centuries of conflict, collaboration, and consolidation, the Wildlands had become a relatively stable region attracting merchants, adventurers and researchers from all across Argea.

But the Great Cataclysm changed everything. Even though the region was spared from volcanic activity, massive earthquakes leveled the major cities and left the survivors with half-collapsed piles of rubble to live in. A large part of the population returned to the lands their ancestors had come from, leaving their ruined homes behind. But those who stayed were not left to rebuild in peace: from the south, orcish hordes pushed into the Wildlands, forcing the humans to take up arms and defend themselves.

This common threat could have united the people of the Wildlands, but instead the vacuum of power left by the collapse caused by the Great Cataclysm led to the rise of three pretender kings fighting over who gets to rule what’s left of this once-prosperous region. Amidst this chaos, the chieftains of the tribes of Pshent, who fled from the destruction of their homeland, have sworn to stay neutral. A difficult stance in a region consumed by a war with so many different sides.

To the southwest, at the border between the Wildlands and what used to be Pshent, only the city of Khuft remains as the last remnant of a once great kingdom. Threatened by the hordes of undead that overran their homeland, more and more Pshentians leave Khuft to seek a better fortune in the Wildlands. Yet all they do is trade one threat against another. 

Needless to say, adventurers and mercenaries will find many opportunities for employment in this region. Will you support one of the three pretender kings, help the tribes of Pshent protect their independence, or even join the orcish raiding parties as they push deeper into human lands?

Kalgerth is the strongest of the three pretenders, or at least that’s what he likes to claim. He is seated in the city of Antir, the only city in the Wildlands whose walls are still mostly intact. Holding it gives him more legitimacy than his rivals, but his claims to be the de-facto ruler of the Wildlands are just that – claims. He doesn’t even unite half the population under his rule, and he is too indecisive a ruler to bring more villages under his control. He may have the most solid base for kingship among all three pretenders, but unless he adopts a more bold strategy, his opponents may soon outmaneuver him.

 What Marek lacks in territory, he makes up for with a fierce army and ruthless command. He may not control as many villages as Kalgerth or Naraya, nor does he have a city as strong as Antir as the seat of his power, but he has plenty of swords and knows how to use them. He wages a ruthless guerrilla war against Kalgerth, ambushing patrols of his soldiers, and occupies villages so their population has no choice but to accept him as their rightful king. His methods may be effective, but they do not win him much support among the common populace.

Naraya is known for being an eccentric ruler who cares little about warfare and stays mostly out of the conflict between Kalgerth and Marek. Once, she had invited a cobbler from far Pyrrhenia to fashion sandals like Mirvala’s for her, but sent him away again when he didn’t bring her flowers as a gift. She considered it disrespectful of him to not arrive with a gift, and what better gift for a queen of her beauty than a beautiful bouquet of blooming flowers? Despite her eccentricity, her territory is prosperous, as neither Kalgerth nor Marek consider her a serious contender to their kingship. And yet she is far from weak, with well-equipped troops guarding her borders.

 The tribes of Pshent have declared their neutrality in the conflict, but chieftess Duniba knows it cannot last. She wants to unite the different tribes under one banner to defend their independence against the pretender kings, who want to win them over to their cause and involve them in pointless fighting. But the tribes are too reluctant, too adamant in their neutrality. She fears it may need a catastrophe to convince the other tribes of joining her cause, but she still hopes the people of Pshent will realize the need for a strong leadership before it is too late. Of course, she only wishes to lead for the good of her people, not for personal ambitions…

The Legacy of Virduris

As war-torn and chaotic as the Wildlands are today, they used to be home to one of the greatest civilizations of Argea in the past. The wizard-kings of Virduris, most prominently the legendary queen Mirvala, once ruled over a powerful kingdom that occupied the territory now known as the Wildlands. But their empire has fallen long ago, and now nothing but ruins and legends remain. Even the language of Virduris is lost to time. The many inscriptions left behind by the Virdurian people are nothing more but strange symbols on the walls to those who look at them today, the meaning behind them long forgotten.

The many ruins left by the old Virdurians offer plenty of opportunity for adventurers to find valuable relics of the past. Before the Great Cataclysm, researchers from Cormac, Pyrrhenia and Sabag-Hirar had excavated ancient Virdurian sites, but in their current unstable situation, the Wildlands are too dangerous for most scholars. Many Virdurian cities known from legends still haven’t been found, their secrets still buried deep underground.

The Wildlands offer countless opportunities for adventurers. Between the conflict of the pretender kings, the orcish incursions and the ancient Virdurian ruins, those who are brave enough to face the dangers of the Wildlands have plenty of choices.

Travelling the World: Camping and Survival
over 5 years ago – Tue, Nov 06, 2018 at 12:58:27 AM

 The world of Argea is vast and full of wonders. While exploring the world map, your group of companions will travel through lush forests, climb magnificent mountain ranges, trek through arid deserts and treacherous swamps, and even sail to long forgotten isles. Your adventures will carry you far and wide, either on the soles of your feet or on horse’s back.

But travel is not an easy task: your adventurers will get tired, hungry, thirsty, and fed up with the monotony of the road during a long journey. Your wizard will have to rest to restore his magical power, your cleric will have to meditate upon his faith; and most of all, after a long day of traveling your entire party wants to take off their sweaty clothes and heavy armor, sit down around the campfire, enjoy a hearty meal and end the day with a game of dice or cards while listening to their musically skilled companion play his lute. 

When you’re exhausted after days of travel but still far away from the nearest inn, when you’re lost in the freezing north and need to warm your cold limbs, when the heat of the desert makes you want to wait until nightfall to continue – you set up camp and allow your party to have some well-deserved rest. A campsite can be put up anywhere in the wilderness, but not every location offers the same comforts.

Aside from the elementary feature of resting to recover spells and heal wounds, in Realms Beyond your party members will be able to use the camping time to cook and eat, chat and play games to relax, go hunting and fishing, forage for berries, mushrooms and herbs, treat their wounds, craft potions or identify items, scribe scrolls, and even make music around the campfire. The chances of a successful hunt or finding ingredients in the wilderness depend on the environment, however – you won’t find many plants in the desert, and wildlife is more abundant in woodlands than on the plains.

Camping isn’t without its dangers, either. Hostile groups or natural predators might assault your camp while you sleep, and if you are ill-prepared for the weather, your characters might catch a cold or worse. But camping in the hostile wilderness is a necessary risk to take, because the longer you travel the more it tires out your characters and the more it consumes your adventuring supplies. Eventually, your party will become exhausted, your supplies will run out and you’ll risk starvation and dehydration. Camping lets you rest and take some time to gather food and water from your surroundings.

In order to make your camp a little safer and more comfortable, you can stock up on camping equipment in town before you set out into the wilderness. A kettle for cooking, blankets to keep you warm while you sleep, a boardgame and a musical instrument to serve as entertainment. Camping in Realms Beyond is a game of resource management: you have to weigh the dangers of resting in an unknown area (and risking an ambush, or worse) against the downsides of forcing your party to press on. It adds just one more issue to the list of things you will need to consider before leaving town and setting off to unknown territory.

The equipment and supplies you need to bring with you largely depend on the area you want to journey through. Proper footwear, warm cloaks and a couple of blankets are almost a necessity in the frozen wilderness of the north, and taking additional firewood along isn’t a bad idea, either. In the desert, you should take a few additional waterskins along, as water is scarce and the heat is parching. When and where to rest is always an important decision, too: in the desert, it might make more sense to rest during the day and travel during the night, when it is cooler. If your party is already tired but you know there’s a river a few miles ahead that would be perfect for fishing, it might make sense to press on to get a reliable opportunity to stock up your supplies.

Sometimes, however, you might also wish to rest while you’re exploring a dungeon. Your casters have spent all their magical energy and have no spell slots left, your fighters are wounded and you doubt you could make it through another fight. But resting in a hallway patrolled by monsters isn’t the best idea. Within dungeons, you can only rest at pre-determined resting spots placed in sensible locations by our level designers. These work in a similar way to Dark Sun: Shattered Lands and Knights of the Chalice. Some dungeons might not offer you a resting spot at all, forcing you to carefully manage your limited resources until you get through them. Others might offer you a resting spot close to the entrance, so you can rest before every encounter. This system of resting in dungeons allows us to craft varied and diverse dungeon experiences that all play differently.

Speaking of camping and harsh adventuring conditions, if you are a fan of classic hardcore Roguelikes please check Stoneshard!

An awesome open-world Roguelike RPG with tactical freedom, set in a grim medieval world that blends old school roguelike gameplay with great lore and modern ideas, a deep injury system, tons of skill-trees, character customization, tons of beautifully crafted enemies, and a stunning art-style! By our friends at Ink Stains Games.

That's all for today.

Thanks again for all your continued support, feedback and all those helpful and interesting comments.

See you soon, until the next update!