Thoughts about the upcoming "expansion".
 

I'm concerned about the upcoming expansion pack. You wonder why? Because it isn't an expansion pack; it's a sequel.
If I haven't missunderstood what I've read, then our current characters will be rendered useless; instead of being able to continue playing your current characters in an expansion, you'll be forced to play as Amelie (sure, she's was a cute little girl in KB:L, but that's about it) in a completely new sequel.
I'd rather level my mage to level 50 (and of course experience the rest of the content), rather than have to start all over again from level 1 with a character that isn't very customizable (I think you'll be able to choose her class, however).

I wanted an expansion that would add new content to KB: L... not a stand-alone sequel!

/end_complaint

I feel ya there. Doesn't sound like an expansion to me either. I'm not too worried about leveling up from scratch again, since the whole process is going to be somewhat different, or at least more complex. But I'm seriously wondering why they didn't choose to expand the original instead. It would've allowed those who don't want to level up again to continue playing for an additional 20 or so levels, and they could've added additional content for the levels 1-30 as well, making the game more interesting to those that don't mind leveling up a new character. Plus they wouldn't have needed to discard any of the content from the original, but rather combine it with the new, ending up creating something much bigger that what the sequel is bound to be alone, even if it would've included the recycled core game. I for one would love to play a new character and see how it works with both the old and the new content.

Regardless, I'm still looking forward to this 'expansion'. Just feels like they're throwing away a lot of potential by not directly expanding or continuing the original. :|

I wish I could say the same :(

I think hero would be far too powerful starting from 30. Even if enemy stacks were made stronger, mages could still kill most stacks without taking any losses. A big part of the game is finding useful spells and artifacts, a large part of the fun would be lost I think. What I would really like is a map editor. There are endless possibilities for scenarios.

You got a very good point there! However, I'm still dissapointed about the fact that you'll only have one character option; that's not RPGish at all!

I'd be surprised if they don't put in the option to play a boy also before the game comes out. Keep in mind it's still a work in progress.

I disagree, I normally don't like expansions too much. I prefer playing sequels that use the same engine, just like this game seems to be.

You still have 3 classes (mage, warrior, paladin), but you'll always be Emily (basically, you can play Emily the mage, Emily the warrior or Emily the paladin). If you feel like you should have a choice of playing a 'man', just think that women couldn't play a 'woman' in the original game, so it's just fair for them :)

Yeah, there's really no difference between the original game and this expansion in this regard, other than that now your appearance doesn't change.

I love the fact that it will be a whole new campaign. 10 more hours of gameplay than the original? I can hardly wait. :cool:

A person that doesn't like expansions?! How?! Why?!

If we were to choose between three different female portraits (as with the males in the current game), I wouln't have been dissapointed. But now, we're forced to play a character that already has a history and past (it's hard to come up with an own background-story when you're playing such a character, isn't it?), and that has a preset name! Not to mention that the family-system will be replaced with a "henchmen-system". Where's the RPGishness? :(

I agree with almost everything the OP said. 20 more levels and 10 hours longer campaign, will not make me buy the expansion. I was hoping you could continue with your character from the original game, but oh well.

Good thing is that they still have time to add/reveal more features of the expansion. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

I prefer sequels to expansions. Once I finish a game, I prefer it to be game over, end of story. My character is almost a God at the end of the game, already defeated like 100 dragons in one battle, what else can there be? go to a map where there are stacks of 200 dragons grazing on the road?
Give me a fresh new story, new classes, new units, new and modified spells and abilities, etc. But starting from scratch, I find the first levels a lot of fun because you have to try and manage with the little you have. At high level you pretty much use the same strategy and units for everything.

I can understand the point of view, but I kinda think it's a bit short-sighted to look at it in that way. When you're done with the sequel, and there won't be more, if you want to play the game again, you are forced to either play with the old content, or the new. Wouldn't you rather play a new game with everything thus far, rather than have to go and play each half of the content individually again? I rarely play games through twice, for similar reasons, but I'm always hoping that the developers would try to make games with as high replayability value as possible. Replayability equals longer life, which equals better or at least prolonged sales, which in turn increases chances of even more additional games/content.

And technically, it would be possible to make a sequel that goes together with the original, effectively being an expansion. For example, you could allow the player to choose whether to play on the new continents, or the original... or jump between them. Those that only want a new story and new maps can choose to only play through the new continents. Developers could balance the experience income and everything to allow full leveling with the new continents alone... while still allowing those that want to experience 'the best of both worlds' to choose to play with the old content simultaneously as well.

This all is just my point of view, of course. No offense meant to anyone. ;)

I know what you mean Hitman, but if the player was able to take their level 30 leader into the expansion, either the stacks would have to be ridiculously large or the hitpoints ridiculously high. Plus the player has already upgraded his rune trees/spellbook/ragebox.

I personally love the low levels in a game. IMO Darion is actually the most fun area in KB - so I am happy for what is basically a whole new game with the same engine.

The expansion sounds great. I wonder if the items selection will be increased much though. Anyway, looking forward to it. I will definitely get the english version when it comes up.

Matter of balancing the old content to fit with the new. Converting a few numbers wouldn't be uncalled for either, as the game is going to have updates/changes in those anyways.

Oh well, even if the player couldn't continue with the old character, my point is that it would altogether make a much bigger and more lasting experience to stack everything together.

They should have done it like 'Titan Quest' Did, you could import your character from the Original into 'TQ: Immortal Throne' and the monsters would still kick your ass even if you were invincible on the later stages of the previous game, it was very interesting too.
KB and TQ are neck and neck as both are great games to me.
In TQ you may not have had the spirits of rage to hep you in a tight situation but you could summon the 'Liche King'! and he kicked ass!:)

The title of the game tells me that aint gonna happen.

They still may ad-hoc rename it to "Armored Whatever"

But back to topic:

I would prefer that the difficulty would be changeable directly during gameplay -> like old Centurion, Dungeon Lords...
Reasons are to be found in this forum, and there are plenty (basically, the game experience/knowledge may dramatically change during playing it - and either you get bored for too easy battles, or you start cheating for too hard battles, or you restart after 6 hours of gameplay, just for the reason you don't have a place where you could accumulate XP/ artefacts... even if you always can change your units - strategy, if you wrongly up-leveled, you would always be few steps behind...)
This could be even options... for instance Warlords Battlecry allow you to start in HARDCORE mode - if you die, you lost your character... so even this expansion could have something like "stuck difficulty" -> which is only useful if you want compare you results on forums... or there are competitions... but still quite useless if there are cheats everywhere :)

Players who do not like to grab for cheats, but also are not the masters of all games strategies, could possibly welcome to have a movable difficulty bar...
And this bar could be advanced - have more sub-bars:
Neutral units 1: x0.25.... x10.0 /strength in Leadership
Neutral units 2: No hero.... equal Hero.... double level Hero /attached to each normal-random neutral unit
Neutral units 3: If hero set to YES -> No artefacts... normal artefacts... legend artefacts... legend artefacts in all slots / equipment of enemy hero
Neutral units 4: If hero set to YES -> No spell book... random spells of low level... random spells of higher level... all spells and maxed... have all magic skills and spells /no comment
Neutral units 5: no henchman... normal henchman... maxed and equipped henchman... have also random spirit
Pre-defined battles: x0.25...x20.0 /strength in Leadership set by developers
Battlefield: No random armies... Neutral random armies... hostile random armies... hostile devices (will attack only player - not random target)... 2x strong and hostile random armies and devices /game may place on each battle field armies that were not seen before + devices that may attack only human player - curse statue, or help only PC units - healing statue... there will be hidden mines - triggerable only by human player units)