Q: Could we have more info about the RPG part (story-wise)?
They key-phrase here is going to be - "real decisions".
Every character you'll encounter has a detailed branching storyline & character arc, and the choices you make are going to have big impact on them. I realize that the phrase "choice & consequence" has been over-abused by PR & marketing departments when it comes to RPG's, but in Dragon Commander we have the perfect opportunity to confront you with many moral, ethical, political & personal interesting situations, and we'll exploit that. The extent to which this goes will only be visible once gameplay footage is being shown of that, so you'll have to be a bit more patient before you can fully appreciate how the entire choice/consequence game will pan out.
I believe one of the images that was already released here on Facebook showed you part of a flowchart ? Well, that flowchart shows all the fundamental decisions you could make around one character, and there's plenty of these flowcharts.
Q: Do you already know how you will deal with the upgrades (upgrading dragon or whatever else)?
Currently (and this might still change) there's two upgrade trees.
One for your dragon, and one for your fleet.
To unlock parts of the tree, you'll need a mix of experience points, story unlocks & gold pieces.
Q: Can you elaborate a little bit on the game world itself?
I'm pretty sure that we will release a history of Rivellon at some point, which will put Dragon Commander in perspective, but not just yet. We want to make sure there are no logical errors in the world we're crafting and as the Divinity universe is starting to get rather big, that takes some time.
Q: When will be beta testing for Dragon Commander?
When the game is in Beta
. I would assume somewhere next year, and you can rest assured that we'll announce it when the time comes.
Q: How many factions will there be in the game?
We have four factions at the moment.
Q: What languages are definitely coming in the release version?
We can't confirm that yet but typically, the answer would be EFIGS, meaning English, French, Italian, German and Spanish. Polish & Russian should also be added to that list, and probably we'll be announcing some more next year. So, at the basic level, we're looking at 7 languages for the launch.
Q: Is there any show where people can try out the game, in the US or in Europe next year?
I think that'll probably be PAX East 2012, which happens in Boston in April of 2012.
Q: Is it true that on the dev team of the game, in addition to all the brilliant human developers, there is also a dog which will be the first-ever non-human to be listed at Moby Games in the game's credits?
I think there are already quite some dogs listed there
.
Q: Will ground combat be a feature? Will a non-dragon form in combat be a feature?
You'll always be combatting as a dragon. Ground combat - still TBD, sorry.
Q: Will I be able to kidnap another player's princess or horde princesses into a dungeon?
That's an interesting suggestion - it's not planned as the story tree would explode even more than it already has, but it is an interesting suggestion...
Q: If we are able to play as a female protagonist, can we steal a prince instead of a princess or both?
IF we do the gender change option, then it means we'll need quite a lot of adaptations in the storyline as we can't make the storyline gender-neutral like we more or less did in the past. That means that all of that is going to depend on when we're ready with implementing the male story-line.
Q: Will there be a zoomed out 'tactical mode' type camera for stepping back and seeing how the whole battle is going?
Definitely, and what's more, that part plays really well.
At some point will be releasing gameplay videos where you can see the tactical mode in action - from which you give orders to your fleet, purchase extra units, upgrade your base defenses, etc...
I personally was quite surprised by how well the tactical mode blended with the action mode.
Q: Are the controls going to be optimised for whichever platform(s) it's on? (It was nice how the PC/360 versions of Divinit 2 had interfaces that took advantage of the mouse and keyboard/360 controller.)
That's the plan. On PC we'll be supporting both mouse/keyboard and controller, and depending on which you choose, the interface will adapt.
Q: Is it going to be using the same sort of engine as Divinity 2?
No, this is our new engine, called "Den Engine" internally.
Q: And just for a lore question, will we be meeting any more full dragons like Patriarch?
I'm going to refrain from releasing any info about the storyline for the time being.
Q: Will this game be on PS3 or just PC /360?
We can only confirm PC at this time.
Q: Will we get to burninate civilians > (so totally not an evil genius)
No, though you'll get to burninate quite a lot of other lifeforms.
Q: When Dragon Commander is coming out?
When it is ready.