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Just WAIT.. A warning to you
daeandor
Member UncommonPosts: 2,695
Don't even try it yet, the game needs a good month or 2 before it will be ready. This is not to say it is going to be horrible, but it is currently a frustrating experience most of the time. If you must come play, be prepared to see weak graphics and animation, long periods of chat lag and serverside latency, inability to log into the game, pre-EQ release era UI, unfriendly command structure, poor documentation, etc.
To the fanboys that will say everything is great, forget it, even you know you are lying through your teeth. Don't tell me how hard the devs are working, I am not criticising them. I understand they are few and the issues are many. Redbedlam is trying, but I still suggest waiting to anyone considering the game.
Comments
Having paid for a game I can not really play, I'm not upset. I have high hopes for RV becoming the game the devs dreamed of, and understand the bugs don't crop up until the public gets in. RedBedlam prepared themselves for this with the limited release, so only hundreds of players are upset instead of thousands or tens of thousands.
If you must buy it opening week because you're like us and want to get in on the ground floor, don't get upset if you CTD or can't connect.
If you must have a playable game with no bugs, keep an eye on these forums and the official RV forums. If you have no patience for bugs and CTD's save yourself the agrivation for now.
There are only 10 types of people in this world, those that understand binary and those that don't
Yeah, I am getting on more consistantly today, but the "tracking bug" is really bugging me. I don't know how many times I have gotten stuck somewhere ("Invalid move") and just logged out. Sadly, I also got the sesterices (sp?) problem where you cannot access VERM and therefore am stuck with no cash.
Right now I am just crossing my fingers. I still say 1 month minimum before this game is genuinely playable. Well, less than 1 month now since it released on last Sunday.
I've sunk a good ten hours into the game so far on both factions, so I'm somewhat qualified to give some impressions here. I'll do my best to be honest and unbiased.
Registration: A bit wonky. You may think you haven't paid for the game, but give it a few minutes and see if you can log into the forums. If you are registered you should see 7 forums. I had to check my online credit card statement to be sure I had been charged. But once you are charged you're good to go.
Character Creation: If you like skill based systems you'll like it. In the sake of realism your character will not start out as a powerhouse by any means. You can choose a pittiance of skills at start. What is confusing is that you can also buy skills from trainers. Whether the starting skills or bought skills begin give you the greater starting number I'm unsure of. You can choose from a small pallete of faces and adjust things like strength, stamina, etc. There are also features like skin tone and body shape (ectomorph, mesomorph etc.) that you can choose from but which aren't implemented yet.
Starting Out: The interface is clunky, no nice way to put it. Not unlearnable, but certainly not intuitive. Most functions are via command line. To select an object you put your cursor over it, hit space, hit enter, then move the newly created cursor to the chat line and type commands. Or something like that, it still confuses my brain.
You'll find your avatar in one of two starting locations, either as a barbarian indentured servant or Roman slave. You are given a series of tasks from your Master/Elder. These are supposed to act as a sort of tutorial, and in and of itself it isn't bad. The problem is that the Master, NPC, or whomever else you need to talk to to finish these mini-quests often gets 'locked up' for one reason or another.
There is no in-game map (but there is a direction sense skill), so welcome back to the EQ days of memorizing the citys! The architecture is fairly interesting and balanced, but more reference points (or street signs!) would be a welcome addition.
Playing: The first few days the lag was unbearable. I have seen the RV team make great strides in this area. In fact, every day the game gets better. The community is, for the most part, very helpful. Making use of the chat functions is difficult to do at first though for the reasons outlined above.
There are still bugs. I have been 'teleported' twice for example. There are still game play elements I don't agree with: the nights are very dark. Giving newbies torches would be a godsend. Your character can get cold, thirsty, and hungry, but there are no instructions on how to alleviate these conditions though you do figure it out (well, I never figured out the 'cold' one). When making your character DO NOT skimp on stamina. At lowest stamina setting you run for maybe a minute then have to rest a minute or two before continuing. The stamina/run settings should probably be tweaked since, while realism is nice, sitting around huffing and puffing while just walking around town is a serious downer. Your stats are supposed to improve the more you use them, but on this I am unclear. They haven't changed for me that I can tell, even with sprinting every chance I get.
The graphics are not strong, but not asstasstic either. Think 1999-2000.
I have only touched on crafting, but it is supposed to be more of a team game than individual one. If you like micro-management (and I know plenty who do), you'll probably dig it. Personally it sounds too laborious to me.
Support: Forum and email support is awesome. These devs love their game, of that there is no doubt. Game support is solely in the form of other players and a rather skimp wiki. You'll be asking LOTS of questions on the forums about subjects we really take for granted in a more highly polished MMORPG. There is a lot of ambiguity about almost all gameplay elements, and as noted the Byzantine GUI doesn't make self-education an easy venture.
The Pros: It is getting better, and quite rapidly. No hyperbole, every time I log in the lag is better and there is more in the world. The graphics will probably never get better. But this isn't really a game for the graphic whore side of you. This is an indie MMORPG, perhaps the first truly successful one given the very limited resources of the dev team, and if you want to see a game grow from the ground up it's a fascinating experience. It's also quite interesting to see the different 'Lord of the Flys' social structures take root. If you are a serious MMORPG afficiando, I strongly reccoment getting an account (there are no subscription fees, so once you got the game you can log in as often as you like), even if it's just to spend 5 minutes a day in the world for the first month or so till the game gets more streamlined.
Thats the best reveiw I can give you from my limited experience. I play about 30 minutes a day, mainly just doing a quest or dicking around, and I enjoy it.
...Pika
To the poster above I made a few corrections to your posts as I felt some things were left out or left unexplained.
view corrections here
As for the tracking and lag issue a patch will be coming out around the end of the week, maybe a bit later, and that should properly address the issue along with some others.