Pillars of Garendall is a huge (200mb+) epic fantasy role playing game created using the (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/news/upcoming/coldstone_betashots.html")Coldstone game engine(/url). You'll need a sharp-edged blade and a heart of steel to make it through this classic action-oriented role playing game.

Don your weather-worn adventuring boots, and gather up your courage as you journey into the kingdom of Garendall, where Gidolan Keep lays under seige. Huge monsters, all tooth, claw, and muscle are assaulting the capitol city, threatening to crush the very heart of the kingdom in their malignant grasp.

As the dark beasts scale the castle ramparts, their heads towering over even the tallest buildings in Garendall, the sound of steel being drawn against improbable odds and valiant battle cries fill the night air. As the brave Royal Guard attempts to fend off the invaders, or grimly to just delay them with the sacrifice of their lives, Queen Adriana beseeches you:

"My valiant friend, it is a time of crisis, and we have to do something! Our city seems to be lost, and our people doomed. We need all the help possible to resist this wave of destruction that has crashes against our city -- ride with all haste to Fantrima and Berglum to warn the people and rally our troops. Ride now!"

Your heart, moved by the queen's stoic resolve, causes you to blurt out "On my honor and your glory, I accept!" And with that, your life is forever changed...

Want to know more? Check out the (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/news/upcoming/pog_betashots.html")Pillars of Garendall betashots page(/url)

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Andrew Welch / el Presidente / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience.

Fiiinallllly!

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Apple Computer - The name of microsoft's research and development division
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Make sure you visit the Coldstone Hotline Server run by GlueBubble. The IP is:
65.4.86.190

I must be missing something. The information and screenshots of this game confirm the worries I had about coldstone... It looks like you're essentially making Diablo clone #12. Specifically, hasn't everything you're doing in this game already been done before, by a company with a heck of a lot more money to be put into it? I guess the same thing could have been said about Mechwarrior/Avara by someone who's never played the latter, and they couldn't have been more wrong... but that kind of game is so open in terms of what the developer can do with it, while this type of game seems so much more confined. It looks like it's more statistics oriented, like most 2D RPG games are, but are there any other major differences? Or is it just a (comparatively) low budget Diablo clone?

(Yes, of course I'm largely just playing devil's advocate in this post, but I think I'm bringing up some good questions nevertheless...)

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Where do you (did you) get the Pillars of Garendall beta1???

You don't.

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Apple Computer - The name of microsoft's research and development division
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Make sure you visit the Coldstone Hotline Server run by GlueBubble. The IP is:
65.4.86.190

Quote

Originally posted by khedron:
**It looks like it's more statistics oriented, like most 2D RPG games are, but are there any other major differences? Or is it just a (comparatively) low budget Diablo clone?

**

Actually, it reminds be a good bit of Zelda more than Diablo -- Diablo is basically the old Unix game Rogue with a nice (ok, extremely nice) graphical frontend.

Pillars of Garendall actually has a storyline, plot, etc.

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Andrew Welch / el Presidente / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience.

Are all coldstone games limited to this style of gameplay? While I would like to do a few titles in this manner, I would hope that it would not stop there. With so many people using Coldstone, it's important to have different styles and features to choose from to improve variety.
~Saphfire

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Quote

Originally posted by saphfire:
**Are all coldstone games limited to this style of gameplay? While I would like to do a few titles in this manner, I would hope that it would not stop there. With so many people using Coldstone, it's important to have different styles and features to choose from to improve variety.
~Saphfire

**

Some things will be (for now, at least) fixed, such as the combat system -- however, a great deal of variety is certainly allowed for using the engine. Heck, you could make a game where the main "character" is a space ship, and you can fly around in space.

You could make a Myst-like game very easily -- you could make an educational program -- and on.

Certainly there are limitations -- that's the way it goes, you can't design something that is as once both infinitely flexible and also approachable.

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Andrew Welch / el Presidente / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience.

So what exactly IS the combat system, that hasn't been answered completely yet. The only thing said was that it's real-time. Real-time isn't bad if it's executed correctly. Will it be a hack and slash like Diablo? Will it be a mix like Baldur's Gate? Or will it be strategy based, like console RPGs (I hope so)? Can you release expansion packs to allow different forms of combat, or the hard-coding of the game or editor? I realize you cannot please everyone, and to make a good editor, you must limit yourself. But, if things are just cut and dry, it is nothing more than a GAME editor (like the Exile editors) with your own pictures and self-compilation, not the full featured RPG editor that everyone on this board has been hoping for and glorifying. Please put my fears to rest. Is all this secrecy REALLY needed?

~Saphfire

BTW, I love the graphics on PoG. What program did you use? Is the character a 3D model, or a flat pic rendered that way? If he's flat, did you make a 3D one first and export it as flat, or did you make him in a 2D environment? How many directions can he face? How many frames of animation?

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(This message has been edited by saphfire (edited 02-25-2001).)

Quote

Originally posted by saphfire:
**But, if things are just cut and dry, it is nothing more than a GAME editor (like the Exile editors) with your own pictures and self-compilation, not the full featured RPG editor that everyone on this board has been hoping for and glorifying. Please put my fears to rest. Is all this secrecy REALLY needed?
**

I think your expectations of a "full featured RPG editor" are unrealistic. Regardless of what is included in Coldstone, you or someone else will be disappointed by the lack of something.

No, Coldstone will not allow you to make any kind of game you want; there will be some restrictions. Future versions of Coldstone may expand on the feature set available to you.

However, Coldstone is significantly more flexible than anything else available -- not only is is much easier to use than edtitors for Exile/Reamlz, etc., but it is also much more powerful and flexible in terms of what you can do with it.

Much of this won't be evident to you until you learn the inner workings of Coldstone.

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Andrew Welch / el Presidente / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience.

Quote

Originally posted by saphfire:
**BTW, I love the graphics on PoG. What program did you use? Is the character a 3D model, or a flat pic rendered that way? If he's flat, did you make a 3D one first and export it as flat, or did you make him in a 2D environment? How many directions can he face? How many frames of animation?

**

some of that stuff is answered in the ColdStone progress logs ((url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/webboard/Forum18/HTML/000009.html")here(/url)).

I'll answer what I can remember from having read them/the web board, but you should read the logs yourself for better answeres to all your questions:

1.) all the characters/maps are rendered graphics created from 3D models.
2.) I'm fairly certain that you can use most of the common cross-platform + application-independent formats: pict, jpegs, bitmaps, etc... (somebody correct me if this is inacurrate)
3.) characters will have 8 directions of movement

as for your other questions, I either can't remember the answers, or I never knew them.

(edited for spelling)
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Do not follow me for I may not lead. Do not lead for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me, either. Just leave me the hell alone.
-Jedi

(This message has been edited by jmitchell (edited 02-25-2001).)