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General discussionVictor Vran: Developer Q&A Highlights(122 posts)(122 posts)
(122 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted August 01, 2015
We're done! For now...

The Q&A is finished! Thanks everyone for joining in, being great, hanging out, and a huge thanks to the awesome team behind Victor Vran.

There have been fantastic questions, in-depth answers, and some great news as well! There's plenty to take in - if you missed the main event, read up a sample below or just see the full thread. Stay tuned for more Developer Q&As in the future!






JustMaku: Why’d you call the game Victor Vran? Is there significance behind the name? (Unless that’s a major spoiler.)

"Hmmm… There are several different answers, all of them containing a snippet of truth. We loved the sound of the name, we were gloating about the idea how the English-speaking voice actors and players would try to say it, Victor is meant to be victorious, Vran means several things in several different languages that we all wanted to add to the background of the character… The rest is spoilers, my good chap!"

Selsius: Can we expect more weapons (greatswords, fist weapons)? I know one DLC with a spell book is coming.

"We definitely want to bring more weapons to Victor Vran and we have many ideas. The Tome (a spell caster type weapon) will be the first addition to Victor Vran's arsenal. The expansion will also add new weapons, but we will talk about them a bit further down the line. But we also want to hear what weapons and play styles you, the players, want to see in Victor Vran.”

stubbie: Any plans to implement a hardcore difficulty setting?

“We have "hard" mode already, in which you have all 5 Hexes turned on from the start of the game. Also, all monsters are slightly, sadistically stronger than their 5-Hex-versions. Of course, we aren't heartless and we allowed you to accept defeat by manually deactivating the hardcore mode for your character PERMANENTLY.
And if you don't feel challenged enough, we have an achievement to complete the story without dying even once. Do this in hardcore mode, please.”

gunshellmav: Would you say there are any books or stories that influenced the development of this game? If so, what are they?

“Too many. Not only books and stories, but also movies and TV series. Also, poetry. Lots of it. Examples include "Supernatural", classics like Bram Stoker's "Dracula", things like Batman - and then enter Yeats and Poe, even a bit of Nietzsche. As you can see, it's all over the place. So were we!”







Our guests:

BOYAN (Lead Designer, BoyanD): “My love for games got me into game journalism and later I co-wrote the second Bulgarian tabletop roleplaying systems.”
-- Worked mainly on combat, monster design and bosses for Victor Vran
-- Also worked on the Tropico series, Omerta, The First Templar & more
-- He’s a huge fan of Guild Wars, board games, and card games

MOMCHIL (Designer, uncle_quenchy): “I create content that would make the average gamer cry in frustration and throw his PC out of the window”
-- Loves his job in game design
-- One of his favorite games is Bad Rats. Least favorite is sports.
Post edited July 27, 2015 by Konrad
Posted July 27, 2015
Are there any "roguelike-zones" in Victor Vran, where the map randomly changes every time time visited from the player?
Post edited July 27, 2015 by Pixelion
Posted July 27, 2015
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Chainyk: What about transmutation
currentrly it's poor
i want to craft craft craft....
Sure we cannot compare to Minecraft but still, our transmutation system is far from "poor". Honestly, the one main reason is that Victor Vran doesn't need it. Our game is 3E - explore, explode, enjoy. Like a Michael Bay movie. There's no place for creation in a MB's movies, only screams and explosions.

Transmutation is not called crafting for a reason - it's not there to allow you to create an airplane with sticks and stones. It's there to allow you to customize your tools of the trade. Sure, you can loot a legendary item, but is it right for your build? If not, you can transmute the correct weapon with the correct stats, right the way you want it. Play more, try it yourself!
Post edited July 27, 2015 by uncle_quenchy
Posted July 27, 2015
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gunshellmav: Would you say there are any books or stories that influenced the development of this game? If so, what are they?
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uncle_quenchy: Too many. Not all of them are directly related to the story or setting, as we were inspired by the way certain artifacts conveyed their messages to their audience. By "artifacts" I mean not only books and stories, but also movies and TV series. Also, poetry. Lots of it.

Examples include "Supernatural", classics like Bram Stoker's "Dracula", things like Batman - and then enter Yeats and Poe, even a bit of Nietzsche. As you can see, it's all over the place. So were we!
Loved your answer. Thank you for responding!
Posted July 27, 2015
Are you happy with the way the game's localizations turned out? Could you share some more info on the way you handled localization on this project?
Posted July 27, 2015
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Selsius: Hello,

Have you some news about the Japan localization ?

Can we expect more weapons (Great sword / fists ...) ?. I know 1 dlc come with spell book.

Is the number of futur dlc already fixed ? Can we expect more dlc (to cover the lack of PvP content for example)

Cheers,

Selsius
Hey Selsius,

We're currently in talks with publishing partners to bring Victor Vran to Japan with its own Japanese localization. Unfortunately the process is taking more time than we expected but we are still working on it. As soon as we have more solid information we will share it.

We definitely want to bring more weapons to Victor Vran and we have many ideas. The Tome (a spell caster type weapon) will be the first addition to Victor Vran's arsenal. It is a mid ranged weapon that has a unique resource that allows it to reset its special attacks on use so you can spam powerful spells into the enemy ranks.

The expansion will also add new weapons but we will talk about them a bit further down the line.

But we also want to hear what weapons and play styles you, the players, want to see in Victor Vran.

As for the DLCs the number is not fixed. If there's interest we will continue updating and adding to Victor Vran. There are even some things arriving sooner than you think. This weeks update will bring an small tweak to the Transmutation UI, showing you icons for all recipes in the base transmutation UI a small quality of life feature but it definitely helps a lot.
Posted July 27, 2015
What are the diferences aside dificulty, betwen elite challenges and Treasure hunts in terms of being optional and offline/online, and singleplay/multiplayer. From what i read treasure hunts only work if logged online but can be played in singleplay or multilpayer.
Also not sure why, but treasure hunts remind me of daily quests in wow, wich i havent played for a few years.
Post edited July 27, 2015 by darkangelz
Posted July 27, 2015
What were your biggest influences (or those of the concept artists) in terms of aesthetic (and as a knock - on, atmospheric) development during the early days of the projects concepting, and are there any major pitfalls that uncovered - either in terms of having done character "X" only to find out it felt like you were plagiarising another IP, or perhaps certain gameplay or quest elements drastically changed due to one artist going "Hey! This wont work!!!"

?
Posted July 27, 2015
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BoyanD: 1. The Gift of Gear grants a medkit unlimited consumable. We didn't want people to abuse this by creating multiple characters and transmuting a Superior Medkit. However you can share your gear with other characters through Private Stash.

Also I'd like to point again that we'll change the Gift of Gear in the next update so it drops without the need to go online.
Well, thanks for considering and fixing this, paying attention to the community. I'll now definitely purchase your game at some point.
Post edited July 27, 2015 by Lobuno
Posted July 27, 2015
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whystler2012: Hello!

Could you briefly outline key differences between this game, and other ARPG's like Torchlight 2, Diablo 3 and Van Helsing? What makes this game unique?
First of all, we are cooler. Play the game 100 hours, prove me wrong.
Then, we have this jumping. One could say, "how good is it?" I'd tell that man - "sir, it makes you over 9000% better" Jump-smash your enemies to knock them back and voila - now your super-slow weapon becomes way more viable. Being chased by 200 enemies? Jump from the opposite wall and over their heads, then turn around and give them hell. You're annoyed for not being able to reach the bottom of that first Diablo 3 dungeon? Well, jump right there. Voila. Now your gameplay had become twice less annoying.

Then, this kind of combat that depends on reflexes and quick thinking. Words fail to describe the things you can do relying only on your skills as we managed to maximize their role in the game instead of relying purely on simple-minded gear checks. You don't have good weapons to kill that nasty, tough enemy - well, fear not, just dodge around him and deliver the right-timed attacks into it until it drops.

Speaking of which, the way our attacks work means that we want you to actually play your character instead of spamming those buttons. For example, the shotgun. Many players who didn't notice its mechanics say that it's gimped. But no, my good sir, no. Timing the rhythm of your attacks will make you deliver critical strikes every time. Killing an enemy with a shotgun resets the cooldown of your best shot skill and with the right timing you can make all enemies around you vulnerable and open for the inevitable death. It's all based on skill. But if you manage to do it, you will feel like a Grammaton cleric from Equilibrium.

All of this allows us to drop the class system. "Nooooo, I want my Barbarian! And my Paladin!". Fear not, dear player, you can have them. You can create almost any type of class using our flexible build system, consisting of weapons, outfit, demon powers and destiny cards. Yes, you can create that Barbarian/Paladin mix you always wanted. You can make a masked vigilante to bring divine justice to the evil-doers or be the gentleman who doesn't want to stain his suit with the blood of his enemies, vaporizing them with horrific demon powers.
Posted July 27, 2015
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andreiv72: a question for Boyan how did it compare working on victor vran compared to the first templar.

which is a great game to be brought to gog. please
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BoyanD: Fun fact - over 4 and half years ago when we started Victor Vran it was a 3rd person action adventure. But then we began to experiment with the combat system allowing dozens of monsters (at that time only spiders) to swarm you at the same time.

At one point our lead level designer decided to do an experiment with the camera and pulled it up to an isometric view. That was were Victor Vran began to take its current form.
Whats it like to be working on a project that long. Especially when you have some of the classic development failures like Duke Nukem. Unlike that Lemon you have came out the other side quicker & with a good game.
Posted July 27, 2015
Why there isn't customization options ( I know there is some outfits but I am asking especially face etc.) Omerta hasn't that features too but your other game Tropico have avatar creation . It's a bit weird :S
Posted July 27, 2015
I've read forum posts saying that keys can't be remapped (I don't use WASD - I am used to using the arrow keys for movement), and the mouse cannot be inverted.

Is that correct? If no interface is there, can keys and mouse-invert be changed via editing a config file?
Posted July 27, 2015
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darkangelz: What are the diferences aside dificulty, betwen elite challenges and Treasure hunts in terms of being optional and offline/online, and singleplay/multiplayer. From what i read treasure hunts only work if logged online but can be played in singleplay or multilpayer.
Also not sure why, but treasure hunts remind me of daily quests in wow, wich i havent played for a few years.
Thank you for that question, my fingers were itching to write on that topic.

1. Let's compare the elite challenges to the treasure keys. As the man that did the Elite Challenges, I can assure you that they are the best part of the game, lad. You can trust me 100% there. Treasure keys are VERY optional. They are meant to serve as a community feature. Let's talk business - the rewards from the elite challenges are excellent. Also, you will be restarting the given maps so many times that your loot will be much more time-effective than doing any mere treasure hunt or bounty hunt. As I said, treasure keys are there to allow you to make a personal statement to the online community - either you can share them without gaining any benefit from that, thinking (foolishly) that other users are thankful - or you can hog them for yourself and gloat on the idea that you (and few other lucky bros) will be the only ones that will be able to take the reward.

2. Good old bragging - completing all challenges and elite challenges allow you to gain those awesome-looking stars on your map, make a screenshot with them and post it, etc. Also, there are achievements for this stuff. You want to show the others you're cooler? Do challenges. Everyone could dig in the dirty soil for treasures, but not everyone could slay 70 enemies with 5 active hexes without getting hit.

2. Now, on the more sensitive topic. Treasure keys can only be redeemed online. "Preposterous!" Not at all, my good sir, not at all. Once you redeem the key, you can immediately go off the grid, because the moment you do so, the treasure hunt is active and you can complete it all while being offline. The best way to do this without hanging around online is to get the keys from a friend. Our Steam users made a topic where they shared keys. Your community seems active and nice enough to do the same - so that users that don't mind being online on regular basis can share with the rest of you.
Posted July 27, 2015
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BoyanD: Fun fact - over 4 and half years ago when we started Victor Vran it was a 3rd person action adventure. But then we began to experiment with the combat system allowing dozens of monsters (at that time only spiders) to swarm you at the same time.

At one point our lead level designer decided to do an experiment with the camera and pulled it up to an isometric view. That was were Victor Vran began to take its current form.
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andreiv72: Whats it like to be working on a project that long. Especially when you have some of the classic development failures like Duke Nukem. Unlike that Lemon you have came out the other side quicker & with a good game.
It was an epic and somewhat tiresome affair but the entire team put so much love and effort into the game and I think that kept it going and becoming better and better after each iteration.

We are much more used to shorter projects 9 to 12 months and we had to complete several other projects putting Victor Vran on hold several times. In fact at one time only the lead programmer Ivo was actively working on Victor Vran. He would come to me and ask me about some design detail and I'd have to tell him "I'm swarmed with Tropico now, come back in 3 months :(" He went to his room (for some reason the programmers got split into two rooms - one for each project) and rewrote all the code. And that is why we have such an optimized game now :)

Seriously there were several moments when we'd lost hope that we would be able to publish our small pet project. All that changed with the release of Tropico 5 and we could focus on Victor Vran once again. The Early Access also gave us a great boost and kicked us into high gear. Thanks to it we were able to iterate on many mechanics and even add new ones to address problems we didn't know we have.
Post edited July 27, 2015 by BoyanD
Posted July 27, 2015
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CarrionCrow: No questions, just wanted to thank you for both the game and for bringing it here to GOG.
Enjoying it quite a bit, and as a bonus I now have a better idea of who to send frustration-fueled rants to once hard mode starts kicking my teeth in fully. =)
Oh, please do. Address them to Momchil. I will enjoy reading about your strife. Link related:

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LiMWZiMyQKw/hqdefault.jpg
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionVictor Vran: Developer Q&A Highlights(122 posts)(122 posts)
(122 posts)