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Initial Thoughts
Slapshot1188
Member LegendaryPosts: 16,983
So I spent quite a few hours playing Alpha today. These are my initial thoughts:
1. First thing you see obviously is graphics and my friends initial comment was "Wow.. back to the launch of EQ!!". Now, that said... a few hours later we found that the game defaults to the LOWEST setting for some reason. We turned them way up and it got better. Still needs work, but better than default. They really should not default to bottom settings.
2. The game is trying VERY hard to be fantasy EVE. It's very complex, but there is no guidance in game. You accrue XP over time.. whether in or out of game. You spend that XP on "Feats" or skills. Classes (and levels within those) have feat requirements. So you need to have feats X, Y Z, A, B, C to become a level 1 fighter. OK. That's fine. The game does tell you that. The problem is that those feats are spread over 3 different trainers. But that's not all, some feats have pre-requisits. So you can't train Skill Y in the above example, without previously training Skill F (Even though F is not listed as a requirement for Fighter level 1. Many, many times there was simply too much text on the tooltips and you could not read what the pre-req was. I frequently had to ask in chat. In summary after 1 day.. the skill system is promising in it's depth, but it's not ready for primetime yet. It needs a lot more than 2 weeks (till EE and subs start) to be fleshed out.
3. The game has no AH yet.. it's promised to come, but it's a KEY part of the game. See.. there are no vendors. Players must make items or find them on rare drops. How rare? Well I have over 350 total kills and I got a total of 3 armor pieces to drop. I chainmail and 2 robes. Crafting seems very detailed and complex but I did not try it.
4. The "tutorial" is a joke. It must have been thrown in 10 minutes before the build. It's pointless and frustrating.
5. Lots of bugs.. lots. Stealth would make ME appear transparent on my screen, but my friend could see me as though normal. just moving slower. Even if not grouped. I think it has to do with graphic settings because other people said it looked like stealth.... This is OK for an Alpha, but get me stuck and have to die to release when I'm paying a sub (2 weeks) and that's a whole other animal.
6. Overall, for an alpha and a sandbox its promising. The problem is that the devs appear to be set on forcing Early Enrollment and the start of subs (and promise of no wipes) in 2 weeks. To me, that seems suicidal. This game needs time to develop. It's light years ahead of games like Mortal Online, but if they insist on soft launching so quickly they are going to face many of the same issues as that failed game. It won't happen, but the best thing the devs could do would be to push the Early Enrollment 4-6 months and shift into a true beta for a few months... to actually build and test systems and work out bugs. The thought of launching a game based around territory control... without territory control seems the very definition of launching a half baked game. (and even when it's first in will only be some silly War of the Towers game).
Well, that was day one. I will play some more tomorrow.. maybe that says something.. maybe not. But at this point I likely will NOT be activating my subs if they force Early Enrollment on schedule in 2 weeks.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Comments
They promised to put in an AH before EE starts and nothing else you listed sounds like a major problem to me. Their idea has always been to create a playable but very rough game for EE launch and then build on that foundation. There are going to be bugs and lack of polish at EE launch. It would be foolish to expect otherwise.
Very happy the skill system is very complex, that is one thing I've been really hoping for from this game.
I am happy about a complex skill system as well.. I was huge EQ fan for many years it was the start of my MMO life lol.
I've been keeping my eye on Pathfinder and what the OP has posted has just made my mind up, this is going to be a game that I will WANT to play.
AH not yet in-game, bah who needs one when you can create your own as we did in EQ1, and whats more it was alot more fun that way, real haggling for starters, having to travel to that one location in the world where all the sellers congregated added a huge amount of realism to the game, not having an AH actually improved the game for me and many others in EQ1.
Graphics, well yes I must admit I do like my graphics and things have moved along alot since EQ1 in that department, I would have been disappointed if they had taken a step backwards with Pathfinder.
As for it being a complex game, thats something I can also live with.
I do like the sound of rare drops being rare, I remember fondly finding a cracked staff on a skeleton in EQ1 and knowing I'd hit the jackpot
, knowing that things are going to rarely drop in the game creates a different feeling when something does actually drop for you, it gave it a sense of real worth.
All in all OP I think Pathfinder is still on the right track, looking forward to it's release.
Also should have added another major item:
Combat is broken. Utterly and totally. Melee get destroyed. If you started as a melee character you would literally go for the first hour of game before you could find a lone mob to kill (plenty will be found in packs of 3, 4 or even 12!). On the flip side, ranged and magic make the game a no brainer. Mobs have very small leash areas and walk back to their spawn spot oblivious to the arrows you fire into their backs. Having only played the game for maybe 90 minutes I was soloing multiple red con mobs. I wasn't even a "Fighter 1" yet. I was a classless nobody who had a bow and no armor. My friend who tried a melee character (in another corner of the world because you randomly spawn) gave up after an hour and rerolled.
Can that be fixed? ABSOLUTELY. This is not the kiss of death... but since THERE IS NO WIPE once EE starts, it's a really silly idea to launch the game when the most basic foundation is so broken.
Again, I think the game could develop into something very worthwhile. It's just WAY too raw. It is literally launching into a sub model with only 7 (or so) Alpha Weekends + 2 weeks of continual Alpha from version 8 to launch. I will load it up again this afternoon and see if any other notable items come to mind.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
There are two issues related to this:
1. The point is that the AH has not been tested but will be put into a live game (or very close to it as less than 2 weeks remain till subs start)
2. I believe the plan for launch is that your sub pays for experience for ONE character. You will not have enough XP for a while to develop your adventurer skills and crafting ones. People in prior Alpha tests had accelerated XP gain, now it's 100XP per hour. This will make it hard for people without Destiny's twin to "create your own" equipment. I'm OK because I have a Crowdforger Buddy acct so I have 2 accts with destiny's twin (allows 2 characters on 1 acct to gain XP) People who don't have Destiny's twin will have a hard time. Now this could develop into a good thing as you will rely on others to really make an economy but that will really depend on a mechanism for buying and selling (Auction house.. or some other undisclosed type of store front). I have not tried the crafting but I created a second character last night to let his XP gain overnight and will try it today.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
OK well that's more of a problem. I agree with you, they need to get the game functional before they launch EE. Hopefully they realize this as well. My biggest fear with the way they're doing it is that someone finds an exploit bug which screws up the economy. They've already shown that they aren't afraid to delay EE if the game isn't ready so hopefully that continues. Sure it's gonna make some trolls yell about "fail!" and "vaporware!" but that is much less of a problem than the game actually launching in a broken state.
Thanks OP for sharing your feedback. I plan to get in end of month if the gods be good...
I like the sound of fantasy-eve personally. I think if they can get the core gameloop to function properly, then it "may" be more palatable to pay a sub in these early crude days. Either way, the great design ideas has it's own credit and implementation and open world interactions increase per month will ideally be enough for a small crowd to get going.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
Agree with some of what the OP says.
Thing is that it's way way way to early for charging a sub on this lol There is just too many basic things that need to be fixed work on or outright added to even think about paying for this at this point.
Also they really need to fix their forum/website, it is 56k modem slow. This should be something really basic that should have been resolved right off the bat, how can you have an alpha, ask for feedback yet have such rinky dink forums that take 5min to refresh/open.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
Auction house and early enrollment.
Visual aesthetics are among the most challenging, time consuming, and expensive luxuries a big budget theme-park game enjoys. I urge the new player to take the state of the visuals in stride. They aren't all that bad and in some respects are quite good, but the artists themselves will have all the time they need to bring the quality up to AAA standards or better if the game plays well otherwise.
What is required is that the aesthetics are workable at this point. If we waited for perfection we would wait a very long time. Do not allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. Instead allow the good to be the staunch ally of perfection.
I very much wish to urge folks to prioritize their values better, for the good of the game. If it doesn't play well the best graphics in the world won't save it, but if the game does play well we have all the time in the world for an artistic masterpiece to evolve.
To dream, perhaps to be.