Nightingale Legacy Portal
After having read the Twitter Behind the Scenes regarding the Origins of the Bound, i was disappointed. I would like to reassure the devs that there have been many games where humans have changed into something and become the enemies we're expected to kill. Most of us are fine with it. If this was truly your original idea, please return to it. It adds a level of darkness that is most welcome in this wonderful game of yours. It should also be noted that due to the games inherently complex crafting system, most of your player base is above the age where that kind of thing would be inappropriate anyway.
In closing, we love your original idea, please consider returning to it. :)
I could not agree more. Don't shy away from the unique story elements that you have. Every time you simplify the origins, the story, the lore, the crafting - every time you go more generic, I find myself disappointed.
You won't alienate people by keeping the darker elements of the story. You WILL alienate people if you're so afraid of offending people that you change everything unique about your setting, world, and story into more generic themes and match any of a dime a dozen games.
The only reason Nightingale has my attention at all is the fae style taken from The Gentlemen with the Thistledown Hair ideas from Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. I love this game to bits.
There are THOUSANDS of games with Tolkien fantasy out there - do you want to compete with them?
Or do you want to have a unique selling point that differentiates you?
Because the corruptions of humans a la Lost Hope is fae, growing Bound like orcs in a vat is Tolkien.
I don't promote your game to everyone I know because of re-heated Tolkien.
There was a stream of one of your programmers who said he was surprised the Victorian fashion was so popular. It is not just popular - it is your unique selling point. The fact you've failed to communicate that to your devs is scary to me. You want to be another survival game people move on to the next month? Or do you want to be the Gaspunk game that nails what we've been missing since Arcanum? Watch New Arc Line's release. You are in an underserviced niche. Don't hand it to someone else.
You've got staff who want to bash out a generic fantasy game and go home. Players will all leave if you let them call the shots and give us orcs grown in a vat.
The addition of the Lady in Red scholar's set to starting fashion choices shows someone in Inflexion gets it. Listen to that guy. Anything you do to make Nightingale more generic fantasy is a year off the life of the game. Nightingale is brilliant and should survive to be old and utterly insane like Conan Exiles. Exiles is a bad game with an unusual theme it sticks to it hard and that worked. Play to your strengths. You are a better developer than Funcom :)
The opportunities for interesting interactions with Puck once it becomes obvious Bound are corrupted humans and that he's saved you for a more sinister purpose is great. No-one needs more orcs. Tolkien himself got bored of orcs and said he'd do something more morally complex if he had his time again.
You have Pellucidic filigreed gold here, don't turn it to porridge. No orcs.
100%, please return to the Bound being humanity ensnared. Let us try to face this moral quandary, to fight through them in order to hopefully free them from the clutches of the Fae.
Thinking that such a moral element is a downside is false, human gamers have happily and easily destroys human and human-like NPC's en masse, be they soldiers, mutants, zombies, or otherwise.
You won't alienate people, the fact we have to fight the captured, tortured, enslaved remnants of humanity ADDS to the wonderful lore of the game, and the terrifying capacity of the Fae-like beings behind the Pale, the sheer level of malice, and the depth of their machinations.
Please, the fact that Bound are basically test tube babies is such a let down :/ Change it back.
Kind Regards,
Kahz.