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f13.net General Forums => MMOG Discussion => Topic started by: UnSub on January 03, 2010, 04:51:20 AM



Title: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: UnSub on January 03, 2010, 04:51:20 AM
The indie MMO Love goes paid open beta Jan 7. (http://www.quelsolaar.com/)

Anyone been playing it? What is it?


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Goreschach on January 03, 2010, 07:19:55 AM
What exactly do the words 'paid open beta' mean when put together like that.


Those words do not fit together like that.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Kageru on January 03, 2010, 08:09:57 AM

Paid Beta = It's not finished and doesn't work that well but we need money.

They've certainly scooped the pool in the ugliest MMO award, and I regard "procedurally generated content" with deep suspicion.

But what the heck, good luck to them. I hope they find enough suckers customers to fund its no doubt infinite gestation period.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: raydeen on January 03, 2010, 08:10:18 AM
What exactly do the words 'paid open beta' mean when put together like that.

Warhammer Online?

/snark


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Venkman on January 03, 2010, 08:24:02 AM
What exactly do the words 'paid open beta' mean when put together like that.

They're finally formalizing what we've been doing for years.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: DayDream on January 03, 2010, 10:00:43 AM
I think they mean it's a developement style experiment, with a hype engine tacked on to recoup some investment.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Xanthippe on January 03, 2010, 10:06:55 AM
At first I thought this was the porn mmo, but it's not - whatever happened to that?


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: UnSub on January 03, 2010, 05:49:57 PM
It's paid open beta in that it costs 3 Euros to get in. It's a 1 man indie MMO so I can let that pass.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Ratman_tf on January 03, 2010, 07:02:29 PM
Quote
Love is played form a first person view, because you should see the world not yourself.

So they solved the problem of peripheral vision?  :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Endie on January 04, 2010, 07:34:46 AM
This is the game that was developed by the one guy, yes?


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: UnSub on January 04, 2010, 07:42:15 AM
Yes.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Jerrith on January 05, 2010, 05:33:11 AM
I paid and tried it out when the alpha first started.  Impressive for a single person, with a bunch of neat ideas / techniques that have actually been implemented.  Sadly, I get motion sickness within ~5 minutes of playing it, and just can't keep going.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Mrbloodworth on January 05, 2010, 05:35:14 AM
Not knocking this guys accomplishment, but I have never seen this as anything more than a bad shader someone made, and ran with it. It looks like one giant error.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Prospero on January 05, 2010, 09:45:58 AM
If you haven't watched the demo video you should. I'm definitely going to throw down for the beta.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Jamiko on January 05, 2010, 11:00:27 AM
I get motion sickness while playing too. It seemed interesting but I couldn't tolerate it.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Chinchilla on January 05, 2010, 02:20:14 PM
That is weird as all hell looking.  It looks like as if you are playing in a abstract art world on drugs.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Malakili on January 09, 2010, 05:16:10 AM
I decided to toss the 3 euros at this (it comes out to 4 USD and change depending on the day). 

I've only played a bit, and its definitely still pretty rough, but you can see what he's going for.  There are some obviously annoying things (like no sound yet), but I actually find the world pretty charming, and when I logged in, I found a settlement of players pretty easily (it directs you to a settlement automatically).  Apparently someone was telling me that for some reason the server was in a state where it wasn't spawning more tokens (the main items that are pretty much EVERYTHING in the game), so after running around a bit, I logged out.

I did get to edit the settlement i was in a little though.  Let me just put this bluntly, you could grief the hell out of people with this.  I'm hoping this game is just so far under the radar that it doesn't attract griefers though, because the vibe I'm getting from it is that it has a lot of potential.

The actual "meat" of the game is all about these settlements which players build.  The game seems to be PvE only, no PvP at all, and settlements of players work together to find tokens which can be used to add new stuff to your settlements, are items or weapons, etc.  There are enemy settlements as well (NPC), which you can attack, and such.  The gameplay video says that  NPCs will attack your settlements as well.

Anyway, anyone who wants to check out something different and is willing to spend a few bucks would probably do well getting in on this, but be well aware you are beta testing and this is NOT a finished product yet. 

The demo/gameplay video he made is here: http://www.quelsolaar.com/love/gameplay_video.html


Fake Edit:  Also, I did not experience motion sickness while playing, and I have been known to occasionally get it while playing games (though usually due to head bob in shooters, which this does not have).


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Severian on January 09, 2010, 10:48:17 AM
Here is a post with links (collected in September) to a bunch of different interviews with the dev: http://www.gaminglove.net/forums/showthread.php?t=20

You can also do an advanced search of those forums for user "Eskil" to find his posts.

I remember finding his Assembly 2009 Seminar (http://vimeo.com/channels/asmsummer2009seminars#6010060) interesting.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Numtini on January 09, 2010, 11:13:35 AM
I rather like small intimate interesting games, but is there any population here? I don't mind low levels, but the Underlight experience where you'd see at most a dozen people on Saturday nights and be the only person on the server most daytimes was a bit hard to take.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Malakili on January 09, 2010, 12:18:26 PM
I rather like small intimate interesting games, but is there any population here? I don't mind low levels, but the Underlight experience where you'd see at most a dozen people on Saturday nights and be the only person on the server most daytimes was a bit hard to take.

As of right now I haven't seen many people in game, usually only a handful.  The good news is that the game directs all the players to the same area automatically, so you will generally at least find some folks.  It is, of course, a paid open beta for an indy game almost no one has heard of, so it isn't exactly bustling.  Still, I've found people in their vent server, and on the fan forums, and in game.   As of right now, it is very beta, servers going up and down a lot,  etc.



Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Malakili on January 10, 2010, 04:34:18 PM
So, there is no NDA or anything like that for this game, would there be any interest if I were to live stream while playing this?  It wouldn't be much of a big deal for me to set it up, since I already have Livestream functioning from when Torchlight came out.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: gryeyes on January 10, 2010, 08:55:13 PM
This game is a myth.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Endie on January 12, 2010, 04:15:19 AM
This game is a myth.

I see what you did there.  Very subtle and very meta.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Draegan on January 12, 2010, 06:36:09 AM
I see what you did thar.   :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Malakili on January 14, 2010, 08:01:00 AM
Dev Interview: http://gaminglove.net/forums/showthread.php?t=841


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Jerrith on January 15, 2010, 05:26:47 AM
Quote
Gaming Love: In the patch notes, evil players are mentioned. What's that about?

Eskil Steenberg: It was a plan to let banned players join and lead AI settlements to make the AI more interesting and personal. The problem was the time it would take to implement, and how rare it would be to ever have it play out. I still plan to add something like that in the future.
Getting banned to unlock a new game mode?  That's, ah, interesting...


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Malakili on January 15, 2010, 06:01:56 AM
Yeah, I'm not sure what that is all about, it doesn't make a lot of sense in the context of what I've seen in the game so far.


Anyway, the game has actually been improving pretty much daily, and players have already made some really nice settlements in game (though they are often wiped clean due to the fact that changes are coming down the pipe literally every day).  The more I play the better my brain has gotten as parsing the graphics into actual objects, almost like I've gotten farther away from an impressionist painting.   

I know he mentioned in his interview that he would like not have a map, as exploration is important, but I've found I would really like one.  I think part of the problem is also the fact that because the servers have been reset so many times since I started playing, its re-procedurally generated the world a lot of times since I began, so I rarely have more than 1 or 2 play sessions in the same world, before the geography is totally changed, which means I never learn my way around very well.     

Definitely like it though.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Endie on January 15, 2010, 06:26:25 AM
Malakili, what do you do in game?  How would you sum it up in five sentences or less?


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Malakili on January 15, 2010, 06:56:37 AM
Malakili, what do you do in game?  How would you sum it up in five sentences or less?

Generally a play session goes a little something like this. (Adding at the end of posting: I realize a lot of what I typed might not make sense without a bit of knowledge about the game mechanics, so feel free to ask follow ups)

Log in.  If everything has been reset, I first make my way to the nearest settlement (which is always indicated by an arrow in the UI).  I talk to the other players there and see if they have any projects going (building something, is the AI attacking, etc).  I pick up a few key tokens from the settlement (usually a weapon upgrade and a radio have priority).  If there is nothing the settlement needs, I will pick a random direction and go explore until I come across 1) a token or 2) an AI settlement, after which I will fight the AI for a bit, and see if I can find anything useful to steal from them, and bring it back to my settlement.

A lot of time is spent planning too, as if you try to assault an AI settlement (and steal their tokens), you'll like die if you don't have a plan for disabling their defense system.  The pacing of the game is fairly slow because of this sort of "down time" but the actual combat/running speed, etc is rather high.

The game is meant to be played co-op, and thus working with other players is really important.  They've set up a Teamspeak server for people to talk on in game, and I have found my best experiences with the game have been when I have been on Teamspeak.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: jakonovski on January 21, 2010, 08:09:01 AM

I remember finding his Assembly 2009 Seminar (http://vimeo.com/channels/asmsummer2009seminars#6010060) interesting.

That is just awesome. He's describing exactly what's wrong with games development today and is actually building a solution. I think I'll become a fanboy.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Endie on January 21, 2010, 08:18:57 AM
Yeah I feel a lot of goodwill for the guy persnoally just because he has the willingness to follow through on the faults he sees.

And Malakili: I forgot to say thanks at the time but that was good of you to describe the gameplay like that, cheers.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Mrbloodworth on January 21, 2010, 08:37:47 AM

I remember finding his Assembly 2009 Seminar (http://vimeo.com/channels/asmsummer2009seminars#6010060) interesting.

That is just awesome. He's describing exactly what's wrong with games development today and is actually building a solution. I think I'll become a fanboy.

Like what? Having to work with others, or writing every single thing from scratch?

Sounds like most programmers I know already, most rather than understand what is already there, will opt to rewrite it all, causing the project to fail. There is already game middle ware that updates assets on the fly with the engine running.... and a whole school of thought on tool chains.

While his accomplishments are impressive, the output is still programmer art and logic. That's not usually consumable by average users.

I have noticed its the holy grail of programming to have a procedural program that can write procedural programs. The end result is always, procedural. There is a reason he has what looks like a broken shader obscuring the entire game frame by frame.

Case in point, in the first video, he asked how many programmers there were... because they are the only ones that will agree with him. Second he says that halo looks crappy...

 :ye_gods:

EIDT: Oh how awesome, he "Completely removed the need to UV map", bullshit, he found atlas mapping, one of the more useless projections.



Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: jakonovski on January 21, 2010, 09:02:14 AM
If I use quote the text field goes all wonky so I won't quote you.

The biggest thing he hit IMO was cost. You have hugely expensive development with diminishing returns so bad that games stagnate and become so formulaic that they might as well be procedurally generated. The dude single-handedly created a perfectly good MMO world where you can run around freely, yet in big bucks development you're still mostly running around in rooms connected by corridors, even if they're masked by graphical design. And if you do happen to get a sandbox, it's inevitably still just a potemkin village.

It can't be that hard to make better games, and I think that guy showed it isn't.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Mrbloodworth on January 21, 2010, 09:12:47 AM
You can keep the cost of anything down by removing the need of others with other skill sets, sure. Look at the end result. Its funny that his entire premises was to remove artists from the loop, completely, he even says it as one of his last comments before his time is up.

You get what you pay for I guess. Nothing he displayed was new, it was just assembled in a package. Just about everything he has shown, were tools or parts of tools for enabling artists... only, striped WAY down so that the output is so homogenized, you would be hard pressed to make anything but box man in box world with fuzzy shader.

I still think it is awesome what he has done, and I know its a programmers wet dream to not have to work with others, or work with artists in particular. The whole thing is like Relmcrafter for programmers though.... All output will look the same. But I suppose that can be a good thing?


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: jakonovski on January 21, 2010, 09:19:01 AM
I'd like to see what could be done with an actual dev team and a modest budget, using that guy's tools. The big idea being, don't spend your resources creating a high-def squad of roid raging space marines running through a giant worm's bowels, but build a world instead.  


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Malakili on January 21, 2010, 09:24:09 AM


Case in point, in the first video, he asked how many programmers there were... because they are the only ones that will agree with him. Second he says that halo looks crappy...




Well, I'm not really a programmer (anymore), but from a gamer standpoint,  I've found his game a lot more interesting to play and more innovative than 90% of the stuff that takes years and 10s of millions, so good on him for that.

Also, I don't know if it so much that halo looks crappy, its just that it looks...hum drum.   Halo (and others) seem to subscribe to the school of "make it look more like real life than anything before."  This will get you like, 5 minutes worth of interest as people look around and say "oooh" and then it'll be lost among the dozens of other games doign the same thing.  I think what he said about that sort of God of War style that everyone is doing now struck a chord with me, because it just doesn't interest me graphically in the least.

Interestingly though, I thought the game might be slightly more playable (though not as pretty) with the blur thing off.  One of my complaints about the game is that I feel like a lot of times things blur together and I can't tell exactly what I'm looking at without getting close to it.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Mrbloodworth on January 21, 2010, 09:28:42 AM
I'd like to see what could be done with an actual dev team and a modest budget, using that guy's tools. The big idea being, don't spend your resources creating a high-def squad of roid raging space marines running through a giant worm's bowels, but build a world instead.  

Me too. But I would like to point out this. (http://www.heroengine.com/) Its the same feature sets.

Malakili, game play design and art direction/design are not mutually exclusive. Unless you use this system!  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: jakonovski on January 21, 2010, 09:44:50 AM

Me too. But I would like to point out this. (http://www.heroengine.com/) Its the same feature sets.

Hey, the new Star Wars MMO engine. I wonder if Bioware is up to the task. Their games haven't changed at all in over a decade, so if it's just a WoW-KotOR hybrid, meh...



Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Mrbloodworth on January 21, 2010, 09:48:13 AM

Me too. But I would like to point out this. (http://www.heroengine.com/) Its the same feature sets.

Hey, the new Star Wars MMO engine. I wonder if Bioware is up to the task. Their games haven't changed at all in over a decade, so if it's just a WoW-KotOR hybrid, meh...



Again, game design. That's not related to the capability of the tools. I hear you can make even the most standard outhouse with a hammer, or you can make this (http://youngsaroundtheworld.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/wppa/2419.jpg).

I have played with the (love) editor, its highly unintuitive (alien webdings FTW?). But I am sure it is exactly how he thought Maya should have been, instead of taking the time to learn it, why not just recreate it "The right way"? That is the exact feeling I get from its design philosophy, and its a common one from programmers.



Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: jakonovski on January 21, 2010, 09:55:19 AM

Again, game design. That's not related to the capability of the tools. I hear you can make even the most standard outhouse with a hammer, or you can make this (http://youngsaroundtheworld.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/wppa/2419.jpg).

That's the thing, by letting a nutter like Eskil design a nice tool (apparent UI nonsense notwithstanding) you can then unleash proper designers to make full use of its capabilities instead of having those potemkin villages that you run through in a linear rollecoaster story game / MMO grind. I'm worried Bioware has gone the wrong way and spent all their money hiring voice actors and modeling one-off high-poly art that gets one glance in the game before you move on to the next spectacle.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: UnSub on January 21, 2010, 05:39:22 PM
Let's look at things this way:

Game design is cheap. Even good game design is cheap.

It's implementation that is expensive. There are already a few pre-existing MMO development engines that studios can work with, which possibly cuts down on the time to build the underlying bones, but to date there is nothing that cuts down on the really costly part of filling the game with content. Stuff exists to help populate the environment (e.g. SpeedTree) but that's not really content. Regardless of what Eskil has done, he still can't generate enough interesting content to fill his MMO's experience by waving the procedurally-generated magic wand.

The other expensive part of the process is revising that game design to fit with reality, especially the reality created by players.

I'll probably give Love a shot because ultimately I think the interesting stuff for MMOs is going to come out on the fringes. Or from Blizzard, who can do whatever the hell they want and still cover costs.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Malakili on January 21, 2010, 05:43:50 PM
Let's look at things this way:

Game design is cheap. Even good game design is cheap.

It's implementation that is expensive. There are already a few pre-existing MMO development engines that studios can work with, which possibly cuts down on the time to build the underlying bones, but to date there is nothing that cuts down on the really costly part of filling the game with content. Stuff exists to help populate the environment (e.g. SpeedTree) but that's not really content. Regardless of what Eskil has done, he still can't generate enough interesting content to fill his MMO's experience by waving the procedurally-generated magic wand.

The other expensive part of the process is revising that game design to fit with reality, especially the reality created by players.

I'll probably give Love a shot because ultimately I think the interesting stuff for MMOs is going to come out on the fringes. Or from Blizzard, who can do whatever the hell they want and still cover costs.

Depends on how you define it really.  It depends on what you consider "content" and how much is "enough."  Right now there is a good deal to do, and because the world is changing all the time, and the AI is constantly doing stuff, its never ending.  I mean, it isn't as varied as osmething like WoW, and probably isn't going to be the only game you play, but whatever.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Malakili on February 14, 2010, 05:27:10 PM
Release date of March 25.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Malakili on February 20, 2010, 06:53:55 AM
Pricing announced.  10 Euros/mo.  No box cost.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: tazelbain on March 28, 2010, 08:34:09 PM
So anyone?


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Quinton on March 28, 2010, 09:35:42 PM
What the hell, I'll pay 10euro and take a look.  AtlantaServer1 has the best latency (133MS) for me...

I'm Quinton in game.  Correction, I'm Gomeison -- apparently you get auto-assigned a generated name.  

I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing.  It looks kinda neat

wiki: http://www.loveinvers.es/wiki/getting-started

better wiki: http://www.gaminglove.net/wiki/Getting_started


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Malakili on March 29, 2010, 04:04:41 AM
What the hell, I'll pay 10euro and take a look.  AtlantaServer1 has the best latency (133MS) for me...

I'm Quinton in game.  Correction, I'm Gomeison -- apparently you get auto-assigned a generated name.  

I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing.  It looks kinda neat

wiki: http://www.loveinvers.es/wiki/getting-started

better wiki: http://www.gaminglove.net/wiki/Getting_started

If there is still a teamspeak server up, (should be able to find it on the gaming love forums if it is) I'd suggest getting on there, as people are pretty willing to help new players generally.  I haven't been playing recently, but I might give it another go.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Ghambit on March 29, 2010, 04:02:17 PM
This game intrigues me, but I kinda wish there was some sort of trial.  I guess given the fact there's limited server space via vouchers, that's not possible.
Does the game wipe every month?

I thought about DLing his "tools," but my mind exploded.  They arent exactly the easiest things to jump into.  The majority of devs. and hobbyists will still gravitate towards stuff like UE3, XNA, CS4, etc.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Amarr HM on March 29, 2010, 07:39:19 PM
This is really interesting stuff, he looks like he hasn't slept in over a year in his assembly seminar. But interesting approach.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Riggswolfe on March 30, 2010, 09:10:20 AM
I have to admit, the ideas sound interesting. However, the game is fugly, and something about the movement seems off. I could see myself getting nautious and I play FPS all the time. I think the camera is too loose or something.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Malakili on March 30, 2010, 10:54:43 AM
I have to admit, the ideas sound interesting. However, the game is fugly, and something about the movement seems off. I could see myself getting nautious and I play FPS all the time. I think the camera is too loose or something.

Ugly?  I actually like the look.  I guess thats the risk you run going for the very stylized impressionistic graphics though, probably a love it or hate thing.  Though I will admit it is sometimes difficult to see what is going on.  Still nice to look at though.  There are some odd movement mechanics, lie when you jump it seems like you can do flips and rolls, which feels a bit odd.

I'm not playing it though, Its the kind of game i'd want to have a consistent group to play with.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Riggswolfe on March 30, 2010, 11:17:24 AM
Ugly?  I actually like the look. 

In that video it looked smeared or something. Maybe it was just a low rez video.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Mrbloodworth on March 30, 2010, 12:00:38 PM
stylized impressionistic graphics Programmer art + Messed up shader trying to obscure it

FIFY.



Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Malakili on March 30, 2010, 12:09:06 PM
stylized impressionistic graphics Programmer art + Messed up shader trying to obscure it

FIFY.



Well yeah, not having a real artistic on the project is clearly hurting it, and I know Eskil thinks otherwise, but I still don't think it looks all that bad.  Again, my biggest problem with the graphics is not the look itself, but rather than sometimes its hard to tell what exactly you are looking at.

I know you do art for games though, so you are also probably pretty biased against him for some of his comments he made about how its his goal to remove artists from the game design process.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Mrbloodworth on March 30, 2010, 12:11:37 PM
Just a bit.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: schild on March 30, 2010, 12:13:56 PM
As much as I like everything about Love as an idea and one-off, it doesn't make Eskil any less insane than he actually is.

Which is Mountain Dew Insane Stupid To XXXTREME.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Ghambit on March 30, 2010, 12:16:04 PM
Is this really much different from something like Roblox or Minecraft?
And yah, I've been getting much enjoyment from reading this guy's blog.  All that time fooling with OpenGL hasnt been kind to his neurons.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Mrbloodworth on March 30, 2010, 12:22:56 PM
Only problems I have, I have already explained in the thread i think. Also, Minecraft, hes sounded by artists, that would be Wurms original client developer. Roblox sacrificed graphic support for networked physics, but still employs artists to create the different shirts and stuff, as well as supports user created content.

Only real thing is dislike is that, apparently, all the training, all the skills and all the talents and years of practice by those pesky artists stopped him from making THE ULTIMATE MMO.

sometimes its hard to tell what exactly you are looking at.

That, maybe could have been fixed by someone with a visual arts background. Alien webdings won over that though. Screw working with others man.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Malakili on March 30, 2010, 12:37:18 PM

That, maybe could have been fixed by someone with a visual arts background. Alien webdings won over that though. Screw working with others man.

I actually don't mind that too much.  Thats just a matter of learning a set of symbols, and a pretty small set for that matter.  I have more trouble with for instance, looking out at the game, and I think , is that a tree, a coiumn of rock, a tower, etc.  Especially at a distance.   I think years of playing Team Fortress 2 where they've gone out of their way to make everything exceptionally obvious and plain to see has made me bad at this in general in games though.

Still, I sympathize with the I want to do my own project my way mentality, working with other people DOES suck a lot of the time.  How many times have we all said stuff like that, hes actually doing it.  Of course, he is reminding us WHY we put up with it in the long run, which is mostly because no matter how talented you are, you can't be great at everything.




Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Ghambit on March 31, 2010, 10:23:27 AM
The game is stylistically interesting, but visually difficult to look at.  There's way too much blur and no matter how high your FPS is, it always feels like you're looking at a filmstrip, especially with the overuse of particle effects.  Objects are also too mashed up as Malak says and it's difficult to distinguish much of anything.  I like the design though, but it's unfortunate it was done in this manner tbh.

Eskil is usually in Teamspeak so if you login you can pick his brain while you play.  Lately the servers have been up and down so it's been tough to get any momentum going and the AI just rapes.

Anyways, the game is basically a co-op Tower Defense in a semi-persistent large world.  Actually, reminds me more of "Dungeon Defense" wherein you can build up defenses but you also have an avatar you control, with powers, etc.  Throw in destructibles/buildables and voila.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: iamacyborg on July 20, 2010, 01:36:50 AM
I'll preface this by saying that running a fansite for this game, I'm clearly biased. Also, I know this thread is old, but with an expansion currently being tested in the game, it's a good time for people to come back and see what's changed.


This game intrigues me, but I kinda wish there was some sort of trial.  I guess given the fact there's limited server space via vouchers, that's not possible.
Does the game wipe every month?

I thought about DLing his "tools," but my mind exploded.  They arent exactly the easiest things to jump into.  The majority of devs. and hobbyists will still gravitate towards stuff like UE3, XNA, CS4, etc.

There is a sort of trial, it's called a friend account. Basically, whenever you make an account, you also make a friend account. You can give the details to the account to someone and they'll be able to play at the same time as you do, without paying a penny.
I'm not too sure, I saw a live demo of his UV unwrapping tools just over a month ago, and it's definitely something that people will be looking into.

stylized impressionistic graphics Programmer art + Messed up shader trying to obscure it

FIFY.



The game art is actually pretty cool, you can see it in some of the earlier screenshots of the game, before it went into alpha. The shader's a point of contention for a lot of people, because it's a very clear stylistic choice on his part. Personally, I rather like it, but I can see why others might not.

As much as I like everything about Love as an idea and one-off, it doesn't make Eskil any less insane than he actually is.

Which is Mountain Dew Insane Stupid To XXXTREME.

Insane, but also frightfully intelligent. He definitely knows what he's about.



Anyway, the first expansion is currently being tested, which adds a lot of new stuff that seems to be improving the longevity of the game.

As far as the graphics thing, and I promise this is the only link I'll post to my site, a user created a mod for the game which removed the shader. Despite being low poly, the game looked very pretty. http://gaminglove.net/forums/f33/screenshots-without-blur-1116/
Unfortunately, that mod no longer works for the game, but the potential is there...

(http://lh6.ggpht.com/_36OkQvsYFb0/S8Tt7a90mBI/AAAAAAAABIc/eYPbK30cxkM/s1024/love-2010-04-13-16-04-23-83.jpg)


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Malakili on July 20, 2010, 06:06:45 AM
Thread necromancy!

I've actually been thinking about trying this again because I did like it when I tried the beta, but I didn't like that everything was resetting so often, it was sort of off putting.  It has a lot of the features that I talk about wanting an MMO to have, such as persistent building/editing of the game world, no leveling process, and so forth.  And while it was admittedly beta last time I played, it was just a little too rough around the edges to get me hooked.

Then again, with WW2O eating up my MMO time, this might have tow ait a bit.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: iamacyborg on July 20, 2010, 07:11:58 AM
The new expansion, Avail, adds some levelling, and some improved building options.

Basically, there are 6 new resources in the game, which can then be combined to create new effects, such as a localised fire, or acid which eats away the ground.
You can also use them to upgrade existing tokens, so for example, you can create a fire forcefield, which burns everything inside it (including players).

To be able to create those, you need to earn a title, by performing certain actions in the game (ie editing the ground, killing ai, routing power, etc). Once earnt, those titles give you some new abilities. Say, for example you've earnt the Routour title, you can now create in game requests for actions, which in the Routour's case is to provide buildings with power. You also get access to the advanced display screen, which allows you to progress in a particular material. The way in which you progress is then by placing requests and fulfilling other players requests, so it encourages people to play together.

It's a little annoying at the moment, because obviously everyone wants to be able to do everything now, but the system is working relatively well.

The next expansion after that is going to be great though.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: iamacyborg on September 03, 2010, 06:22:42 AM
Free weekend starting today. Keep an eye out on Eskil's Twitter for the announcement.



Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: UnSub on September 03, 2010, 06:24:18 AM
I was going to give Love a shot - the free part means I'll do it this weekend.  :grin:


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: UnSub on September 05, 2010, 01:00:36 AM
So, I downloaded it and entered the free area.

Lots of players running around yelling at each other in chat for doing things to the land that wrecked other things. A tutorial that told me things that didn't seem to work, or give any idea of what to do next. A world that was nothing but platforms of orange bridges, apparently because the AI had gone nuts and players claiming that server needed to be reset. Died in the water several times. Remained confused about what to do.

I didn't last long.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: jakonovski on September 05, 2010, 01:11:47 AM
I d/led. I load the game up, look at some titillating visuals for 30 seconds, and then the game crashes. Repeatedly.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Sir T on September 05, 2010, 06:01:47 PM
Free Love is overated and always leads to problems.   :grin:


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Severian on September 09, 2012, 07:38:48 AM
Necro...philia!

Free Love is now free-for-all (http://www.quelsolaar.com/love/index.html).


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Malakili on September 09, 2012, 07:44:40 AM
Hmm, I'll try this again for the low low price of free.   I liked it when I tried it last time, but not enough to keep paying 5 bucks a month.  So I'm intersted to see what the game is like now.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: ghost on September 17, 2012, 01:39:53 PM
I'm still not even sure what the "game" is for this one.  I'll surely be trying it out for the bargain bin prices.


Title: Re: Love (the MMO, but still may be fleeting)
Post by: Malakili on September 17, 2012, 02:17:26 PM
I'm still not even sure what the "game" is for this one.  I'll surely be trying it out for the bargain bin prices.

Its kind of minecrafty.  You start out without too much, but there are tools/skills/recipes in the world, not exactly sure of the nomenclature.  Finding them allows you to build new stuff for your settlement, like shields, and wind turbines to generate power for those shields, and weapons depots, and so on and so on.  There are NPC towns/bases as well, which generally have something nice if you can get in and steal it.  However, they are usually well defended by said NPCs and they will shoot you.  Also, they tend to be defended by shields and so forth that are powered at certain times of day (like, by solar panels, so you have to go in at night when the shields are down.)  Also, NPCs will sometimes attack your settlement.  There is no particular "point" to all of this but to try and make bigger and cooler bases, and so forth. 

The graphics are kind of eye-hurty depending on how you feel about them.  I actually think they look really nice in screenshots, but in practice it gets a little tiring to look at them.

Also, all this information is like 2 years old from when I played the beta, I get the impression he didn't drastically change things but continued to develop it in that direction, so I am sure there are some changes, some improvements, etc.