Reputation is something I've been pondering on and off for the last few months. Good deeds giving you a positive reputation, killing innocents giving you a bad reputation. At first I disliked the idea, thinking it was another useless number that modern RPG's could do without. But then I changed my mind.
First we have to think about player choice. Whether it's allowed or not.
- There are games where you don't choose what your character says or does. What makes these games great is that they have the ability to tell a story about the main character. The game can show what your character says and does without the player interfering. In my mind I've always put most Japanese RPG's to this category.
- Then there are games where you get to choose what your character does. In a sense the character is an extension of the player. What matters in this kind of a game is the choices you make. Some say the choices have to be big, do I kill the king or do I spare him. Or the choices can be a grey area, do I spare the king's life, knowing it will kill the princess. I think Driftmoon falls into this category. It's always been very important to me in any roleplaying game that you can choose what to do. I always play a good guy, but being a good guy means nothing if the choice to be bad is not there.
That's why I've decided that having a reputation system is a good thing. It's a clear way of saying that whatever you do has a consequence in the world. It's overly simplified, but I don't think it has to be that complex. Of course it remains to be decided on what reputation actually does in Driftmoon. Usually in other games I've seen it affect relations to certain characters, you might get some quests depending on your reputation. And I think in Baldur's Gate it affected prices in shops. Please comment if you have any (good or not) ideas on what a reputation could affect in the game.
We want to thank all of our preorderers, and all those who have given us feedback - we value it greatly! I've just released the second version of our alpha build. Preorderers can access it on the secret download page. 
This release is mostly fixes and small features.
Changes in this version include the following (plus a few small things not mentioned here):
- New mountain wall / water edge physics. This fixes the bug where the spiders might walk over the mountains.
- Allow zooming in/out with the mouse wheel.
- Fix crash that happened if you had killed the leader spider but not the other, then saved and loaded.
- Followers will now follow in a formation.
- Changed text rendering method to work on a wider variety of platforms. Thanks Luminon!
- Tested to run on Linux through Wine. Thanks lindquist and unsfa!
- Scroll bars can be adjusted even if the mouse gets out of the bar area.
- Dialogue text is better lined on wide displays.
- Autosave on entering a map, and every 10 minutes.
- Quicksaving. F12 to save, F8 to load.
- Dragging objects should be about as powerful as pushing them by walking.
- Fixed skill saving, the Whirlwind skill was not saved. Thanks Iivo!
- Quick keys for weapon skills: F1-F7
- Combined quick slots with main inventory. Quickslot items in saved games will be moved (if you continue from a save made with the older version).
- The inventory now has a separate tab for messages. It can be used for any items, but all books and letters go there by default.
- Nicer looking tutorial markers and area border markers.
- Changed ranged combat to fire automatically, allowing you to control the movement.
- You can now kill any ants by precisely stepping on them. But why would anybody want to do that?
- Enhanced the minimap code to run smoother.
- People will not like when you steal their items. Some items will have marked owners, and they will watch out for thieves!
- Fixed infinite XP bug with Professor Dore.
- Fixed error log sending.
- It’s 20% off!
- There is no public demo yet, so the game is only available for preorderers. AND remember, we've come up with a completely new, brilliant adventure since the preview!
- You will receive regular builds of the ongoing progress of Driftmoon, plus the final version. This will also provide you with a better chance to voice out your own ideas on the direction of the game and the modding tools!
- With the alpha builds, you get full use of the up-to-date editor, to start making those beautiful mods you’ve been dreaming of!
Preorder Driftmoon for just €11.99! [easyfileshop id="1"]
This will get you the current version downloadable right away, and access to regular updates until the game is finished. You can pay with credit card or Paypal. You will receive an e-mail containing your personal license key that can be used to download all further Driftmoon versions.
Did I mention this awesome game we're making? I guess I must have talked about it a few times. I updated the Driftmoon page with new screenshots, so have a look! To those who have missed those rare occasions, here's a recap:
Driftmoon is an adventure-oriented RPG, with focus on storytelling, exploring and quests. Driftmoon takes up roleplaying from the days when dialogue and plot mattered, and grinding wasn’t the main point. In Driftmoon there are always plenty of things to find and people to meet, and instead of killing all of your enemies, you can sometimes talk your way through.
Features:
- Filled with personality, wit and goodwill!
- Explore the dungeons, wilderness and villages of Driftmoon, you never know what you might discover!
- Driftmoon isn’t an action RPG – you don’t kill creature after creature and collect a ton of loot. You don’t need to have catlike reflexes to be able to control the character. In Driftmoon you talk with the people you meet. You may make new friends, you may find quests to solve, or you may encounter a hostile cultist of Ixal.
- Driftmoon comes with the full editor tools used to create the game. We have our own easy scripting language, a great level editor, animation tools, the complete set!
- You can drag things around!
- Memorable and melodic music by the talented Gareth Meek.
AND if you haven't done it yet, you might want to order our newsletter.Here's something you might find interesting, bits of random gameplay from Driftmoon. We've been working nonstop all month to get the second level completed, I think it's finally ready. Now we're on to the third area!
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