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First Impressions
StarI
Member UncommonPosts: 987
Now that the gates are wide open and anyone with cash and a bag of hype is free to get a taste of it, I would love to hear first impressions from people who started on 26th/27th and onwards.
Let us know about your experience.
Comments
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
The good, the bad and the ugly in no particular order....
This isnt an open world map, there are roughly 800 zones. The zones are very well laid out for resources. Some of the mobs arent spaced very well. You get swarmed very easily at the lowest levels.
Each player can buy a private island which allows them to play safely. House, several buildings with no way to be attacked. This is in contrast to their conqurer the vast world. Now, players who hide on their own island cannot build the highest tier buildings. So, that is a good balance.
The graphics are good for what this is.
Plenty of resources are available, it was fun running around finding the next tier of resources.
The full loot drop is brutal. That is going to turn off a lot of players. Its not only 100% loot drop, but some of your items can be destroyed on drop. That is probably overkill.
Being a sandbox, they did well helping you get started, however, a little bit more of a nudge at the beginning is probably needed.
Paradox Gaming Network
Paradox YouTube Channel
Ashes 101
Regarding full loot, if you stay in the safe zones - which you should at least for the first couple of days to get used to the game - there is no full loot on death. If you die, you just lose a bit of durability on your items and can repair them.
If and when you graduate to PvP zones, there is one key piece of advice to follow: only wear gear that you can afford to lose and that you can replace easily. If you follow this, you should be fine.
The full loot system makes PvP much more trilling than in typical MMOs. Of course, this is not for everyone.
Korn42 is sugar coating way too much, but then I think he is part of the sandbox interactive team.
If you die, you lose a ton of durability. The degradation rate of everything is far too high and the repair charges are insane, even after they decreased them in the current alpha.
Everything about this game screams, "Yes, we pretend it is free-to-play, but we are going to force you to buy gold to survive."
For example, you luckily find seed needed to grow crops and feed your buildings. Yes, you have to feed your buildings food to keep them operating. You need to PAY to plant your own seeds on your own farm. Then you need to pay to cook your own food on your own cooking station. So, first you pay to build your farm, then you pay to build your cooking station, then you pay to plant your seed on your own farm then you pay to cook your own food on your own cooking station. Next, you have to keep finding new seed - seed which only comes from rare drops off mobs - because anything beyond Tier 2 crops don't give you enough seeds in your harvest to keep your fields going.
So, to find more seeds you have to go kill mobs/npcs and pay to repair after every 2-3 runs if you never die - pay HUGE amounts.
When you fight PvP or PvE all your equipment takes damage., even stuff you didn't use and have in your backpack. And guess what, youn eed to pay extortion fees to repair it all.
Get the idea? Albion Online is PAY, PAY, PAY.
The end result is this is an extremely boring and frustrating game that should not be attempted solo. If you are a small guild, forget it. The biggest guild wins. It's that simple. No let me amend that. the guild with the most paying subscribers wins.
This game is an overt display of avarice on the devs part. you have money - they want it.
Yes it is alpha, but so far I give it a 2.5/10. In order to fix the game, they need to change their underlying design principles.
Huge let down! How dare them! hehe
Anyway, I appreciate all the information everyone gives me! It reminds me quite a bit of UO from what I have read. Some may have found that boring and frustrating also, but it is still online after all these years. Hopefully folks still have that kind of patience.
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
Hi Tazilon,
you sound quite upset about the game in the current stage. I will try and explain our reasons for balancing the economy as we currently do. Please bear with us as we are still in alpha, everything balance related is subject to literally daily changes until we get it right. There will of course be times where we get it wrong as well. I can assure you that it is not "greed" as apart from founder's packs, people cannot even buy anything in the game yet.
Now, here is my response, cross-posted from our forums:
Silver spawn rate in starting zones
Based on feedback and data, this currently seems too low. This is due to the fact that the game is just starting out and there is still a very high average population in these zones. We are likely going to adjust silver spawn rates in those zones early next week.
Money sinks in the game
The reason why there is money sinks at various different places is that it allows us to collect valuable data on the economy and gives us the tools to fine tune at many different places as well. The reason why the economy overall needs the right amount of sinks is that otherwise, within a couple of weeks, everybody might be running around in the highest tier gear and get bored. Our goal is to keep the economy in balance, such that at any point in time, only very few players will be able to use the highest tiers. Sure, there can be some gear inflation, but it should be slow and balanced. We do not want to create a World of Warcraft type gear progression where even the best gear becomes almost obsolete within a few months time. We also do not want WoW type currency inflation (I believe there was a time where mounts were 50 gold, last time I played they were 5.000 gold, maybe they are much higher now)
Why does it cost silver to plant stuff?
We actually do not like the fact that the game currently charges you for planting. The reason why it is still in the game has to do with the role of food to pay for upkeep of guild territories and buildings. The other reason is that farmland - given that there is player islands - is essentially "unlimted" at the moment, more so if we release the game. If all of that is the case, then if seeds drop in abundance (which they need to) and planting does not cost anything, the value of growing food becomes 0 and food becomes infinite, making that entire system obsolete. That in turn would mean that you could upkeep a guild territory for almost free, which would mean that they would all be taken by now, which of course we do not want. Farming needs to cost silver because otherwise holding territory in the game would be free for guilds, which would be quite bad given that there is a limited amount of it, to be fought over. Also, guilds should not hold territory if they do not make proper use of it.
If planting however (or seeds, for that matter) have a monetary value, farming will temporarily bind some capital (as you will get the silver back when you sell the food), therefore being no longer fully "free", meaning that it will have value and therefore allow players to make money with it. Again, this is more important for the release of the game as opposed to the closed alpha right now, where it would be no issue is planting would cost 0. Another option for farming would be to make basic seeds available for silver at an NPC and have special seeds drop in limited amounts. If we did that, there would be no need to charge money for planting seeds.
All the best,
Korn
Its nothing like Eldevin .....at all