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Atlantica Online: Considering The Turn-based MMO, Part 3
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
Kim Tae Gon, Producer of Atlantica Online writes this second developer journal in our series for the game. In this journal, Kim tells us a little bit more about the company's decision to create a turn-based MMORPG.
We have heard comments about Atlantica's combat system like, "How can we play a MMORPG with a turn-based system? Won't turn-based be tedious and time consuming? Why did you choose an old-school style rather than the modern real-time action?"
We believed that a turn-based MMORPG could be fun, especially after considering the pros and cons of such a game, which I discussed in the last developer's journal.
Here are some of the issues that factored into our thinking as we tried to maximize the pros and minimize the cons during the development process.
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Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
Atlantica fails, sorry.
Any game that tells its players how much they are allowed to play in a day (Stamina) is crap. And no, I don't care that you can get minute amounts of Stamina back by pvping and teaming up with others or any other number of things that FORCE you to team up and FORCE you to PvP.
Either let your players play your game or gtfo.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
LOL ive been playing about 2 weeks and havent been forced to do anything.......The stamina system is different but you get used to it........I think they did alot of the things they did to fight bots and gold sellers.....
How far did you go in this game? Do tell.
Coming from a level 96 player at the moment - I personally believe this game is quite a great experience and I still anticipate for more content. It's addicting. Challenging. You merely only need 50 fame points from pvp BUT it's not required. It can be done in Sparring Hall a couple of times, then you'd be able to get into higher level dungeons to continue on your quests. Are you implying you don't like challenges? Stamina has not been an issue for most of us. It regens every 10 minutes without battles. Just auto-craft, share information on monsters and craft skill training. It's not that hard, really. As you get to higher level, some quests rewards you with more stamina along with other stuff. ;]
You are NOT FORCED to be teamed up in anything, BUT it's much better if you are in a party with someone for bonus exp. Many people team up for long-distance parties, even. I don't see what you're complainin' about. You merely haven't went that far in the game to experience much more so basically your opinion towards this review is irrevelant. My apologies
Sounds like communism has made its way to the MMO world.....
Awesome game, just it.
Craft system is fair, but I'm afraid that the "GM item give away" thing will ruin the economy of the servers, because only the players that are really ONLINE at the event get those items( and this is a good thing! ), but imagine this situation, 50 accounts logged from a farmer to get those items. The economy will collapse dragging down the prices. This fact makes easy to a "pro" farmer to get his trade money. Most of the items come, only if are lv 20 or above, but reach that level its pretty easy.
Besides these farmers fact, the game its great and I recommend it for a deeper look if you enjoy play Tactics Ogre, FF Tactics series, Shinning force or other turn based game. ( shinning force FTW!!! )
I wish to give my take on there combat system in hopes,they may one day improve it or outright change it.
First of all ,i have no problem with any sort of idea as long as it is challenging and i feel like i have control over the combat.The way Atlantica plays out it was more like luck based than anything challenging or turn based.I think the reason is because you are controlling too many players and your fighting more than one.It ends up not a real turn base system either because you have a time limit[can't remember what it was ]havn't played it in quite awhile,but i think it was around 20 secs but felt more like 15 secs.
There is too much guess work when deciding how much damage you need to deliver to kill a mob and whi is going to attack your guys,it was all a guessing game with not a lot of time for planning.All i ended up doing was button mashing or using the higher skills when they came up,because they meant auto more damage ,not much thinking there.
Over all the combat system is too easy and does not really play like a skillfull turn based system.The old system where by you have a group that fights one strong mob and you have a tank and control hate ,the healer controls there healing,the DD players know how to play there role and the whole combat goes down a ton more challenging and skillfull AND ORGANIZED.
IMO most every game has a LONG road to climb before they make a good challenging combat system.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I agree Stamina = Fail
And I played from the opening beta till CB2 when they added the stamina system.
All the stamina system has done is open the way for RMT by limiting the public's ability to farm for themselves,
Now what would have been 1 useless bot farming for mats everyone can get easily by just putting some time in farming we have 4 bots farming for something the community needs and jacking up prices.
Im only lv 57 atm but i have yet to encounter any issues with the stamina system. I have yet to get near 0 and that stems from up to 6+ hours of playing. You get a good amount of xp in quests. And the party system helps to keep the stamina from dropping too far down.
Giving away some presents (5) will give you one stamine point per. So at least in my case i have yet to find an issue with it.
Though i dont think its the best game ever, ive found it to be very fun, and i like the idea of different party compositions. I cant wait for the addition of new mercs along the way since that will make it much better imo.
I agree that the stamina system is a pain. Sure you can give away presents or do some teaching/share info or PVP to get back stamina but it doesn't give back much at all. Give away 5 presents and share 5 info and you get back 10 points max. You can't get any more that day from doing either of those activities and 10 stamina points is only 10 fights. After that, you're back to 0.
Combine that with the maximum daily limit of boxes being opened and the game gets to be pretty freaking frustrating. It got the the point that just to be able to open my material, equipment, and enchanting boxes I had to create alts and mail them the boxes to be opened then send the items back to my main.
The turn based fighting system was cool for 35 or 40 levels but after that it just came down to being boring and another grind. I got to 48 and found I was bored to tears most times so I levelled the last 2 to 50 and submitted for ndoors to buy my character back from me.
Sure the crafting system was interesting and had tons of crafting things to do but most things you craft are worth significantly less than the parts used to make them due to massive undercutting in the market. Combine that with massive point costs (500000) points to make items in late teens levels of crafting and it a combat system that ends up being same ol thing every fight and it gets very dull.....for me at least. YMMV.
It's 30 seconds with 9 mercs.
Either way, ttry PvPing. It takes a lot of skill and fast thinking to win and not just random hitting of abilities.
Ofcourse PvE is diffferent (Tho trying your best always works better then "random" button mashing) but in which MMO isn't that the case?
Overal I am really enjoying it. It cought me completely off guard too as I expected Korean Grind Fest 2956297654. Instead I got something that I've beeen playing extensively for longer then I play most P2P mmo's.
Why I won't play this game
(from the license agreement):
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Uh... Sorry... but I don't plan on checking the web site every day to make sure they aren't suddenly charging me $100.00/hour to play the game....
Considering the game is Free to Play, they'd need your billing info to charge you. So unless you buy stuff in the item mall, you would be safe.
Of course you would be correct 99.5% of the time. Maybe I'm a little over cautious because I'm the type of person that actually, always, reads agreements. I'm not sure why the lawyers felt the need to insert such an aggressive clause in the agreement since its highly unlikely the company would take legal action against the thousands of people currently playing the game for free.
I noticed they installed stuff on my computer even though I rejected the agreement. Hurmpf. IE, which I don't even use, popped up on its own and then quickly disappeared. On start-up, computer kept popping up a box saying it couldn't connect to the server and would I like to retry? Had to use system restore to get rid of the junk.
I went no further than the first two points because it became obvious that the point reason/premise to gaming was missed.
First of all,the reason the battles are not waiting for others is because it is designed for SOLO,so you are not waiting for anyone anyhow.IF it was based around grouping,then it would become skillfull and tactical to see how each player reacts to the mobs,it leads to different opportunities.
example..i am playing FFXI,i see my thief all of a sudden run behind the mob, i know right away that means SNEAK ATTACK, i can line up the weapon skill to match it depending on what Renkai i want.If there was a TANK in front of the THIEF as well i would know they are setting up a SATA,so i would help by lining up and taking hate.I know there is a lot of mindless players that just want games they can SPEED level ,for some reason they find fascination in that,but i also know there is a lot of gamers out there looking for tactics/challenge and team work,and INTERESTING battles.
Second point....they seem to be eluding to battle as being boring and DRAWN OUT.well guess what?why not make the combat INTERESTING and tactical so it does not feel boring and drawn out,there way of thinking is the EASY way out and very simplistic gaming.I would say that way of thinking caters to VERY young gamers ,like maybe the age group of sub 12.
I am sorry but i commend them for trying to be a little different,but they are thinking too much along the realms of F2P gaming.
I have not played this game in quite some time,but was it not also the game where you could just push an icon and it would AUTO run/walk you to your quest?I found that distracting as i got REAL lazy and ended up not learning any of the surroundings or maps.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
This game was a very pleasant surprise! Im enjoying every minute! And You know what is cool?...Its Free!
Since the producer is reluctant to give me this info I will ask it here....
Which "anti-cheat" (rolls eyes rolf) add-on program is deployed with this game.
I Have taken the stance that no game with craftware like HackShield/GameGuard/Punkbuster is installed on my family-PC.
I simple refuse my family computer to be at the mercy of some intrusive non-working anti-cheat root-kit-ish like add-on that usually breaks official or populair anti-virus/firewall software.
LineageII has it's crapware in the form of GameGuard (real cheaters use L2Walker I am told).
Rapplez used Hackshield but have changed to GameGaurd recently so I am guessing we will have Rappelzwalker soon too.
So lets hear it.
Can this game be played on a Vista x64 Machine?
Will it run in a VMware client?
Does it need administrative rights from the start to be able to install it at all? (Give-away that the game comes with root-kit-like software aka crapware)?
Does the game allow parental control to be deployed?
Can you play it on MacIntosh/*nix PC's?
Will the crapware be installed automatically when the game itself is removed from the computer or does it involve registry prunning?
Cheers,
L2Dominion2
Haha guess what TCOS uses? game guard.As a matter of fact TCOS is full of freeware.I agree that no game should respected that uses gameguard.I have NEVER seen it work once,it is always hacked EASILY.IMO it is only in these games as part of an insurance clause to prevent them from getting sued if players all start getting hacked and private information is stolen.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.