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f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  The Gaming Graveyard  |  MMOG Discussion  |  Topic: EQ Next Landmark - It's Like Minecraft But Not™ 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
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Author Topic: EQ Next Landmark - It's Like Minecraft But Not™  (Read 332643 times)
Venkman
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Reply #175 on: February 13, 2014, 08:17:14 AM

Yea definitely. Before the Select tool, it's basically Minecraft with variable shapes. Not a bad things. Got some pretty fun things done just with blocks. But this really shines with Selection and Smooth. I haven't even gotten the line tool yet, but kinda not sure I'll need it.

Some things will be helped greatly by whatever they plan to do for Travel tools. But right now there's different expectations for what the "first launch" experience is, depending on the arriving player. Players are eager to do things that kinda aren't worth doing, but whether something is worth doing is contingent upon a slate of features not yet introduced.

Which is perfect for an Alpha usually, unless you invite the huddled masses who think purchase = fully playable.

It is playable. But if you want anything more than a Alpha-stage Minecraft Creative mode experience in your painfully distant Tier 1 plot, you may be frustrated smiley
Sky
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Reply #176 on: February 13, 2014, 09:23:19 AM

I'm not a fan of the smooth tool yet. They need to rename it the melt tool and then make a proper smooth tool.

As far as expectations and limited features, I'm obviously biased here but I'm ok with it. There's already a lot you can do and having a limited toolset and palette pushes creativity. The nice thing about alpha is that we will be seeing pretty regular improvements to the tools we're using as well as lots more stuff to play with.

It's already a lot easier for new players as so many people have fully upgraded crafting stations out for usage. Building your own is mostly just a convinience now. In the valley just below me, Nevermore has finally put in the full upgrades, so I'm not too rushed to finish mine up vs using the burled to build with or try to make a better 'top end' pick or something.

Falc, I don't know how to accept your friend request, I'm not ignoring it!
Venkman
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Reply #177 on: February 13, 2014, 09:26:23 AM

Yea totally. After I focused on Smooth Tool (which requires Tungsten Axe) it became easy to just jump from Claim to Claim availing myselves of their achievement. I was always polite enough to open and close doors if any, and always wanted to leave a note of thanks smiley Fun being immersed again. It's been too long...

As to that, I totally am feeling the long dormant energy farmer/home decorator vibe here. And I mistakenly looked up just how long it's been since we were all in SWG...  Get off my lawn!
Falconeer
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Reply #178 on: February 13, 2014, 09:45:40 AM

Oh no worries about the friend request. I intercepted a tweet a while ago where Georgeson said some social tools were working but some others weren't, so I tried the classic /friend add thing common to many SOE games but I had no idea if it did anything since there's no feedback on it. Even if you could accept the friendship (and you can't) we'd have no way to check each other's presence online anyway until they code in the right tools.

Sky
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Reply #179 on: February 13, 2014, 10:01:02 AM

Yea totally. After I focused on Smooth Tool (which requires Tungsten Axe) it became easy to just jump from Claim to Claim availing myselves of their achievement. I was always polite enough to open and close doors if any, and always wanted to leave a note of thanks smiley Fun being immersed again. It's been too long...

As to that, I totally am feeling the long dormant energy farmer/home decorator vibe here. And I mistakenly looked up just how long it's been since we were all in SWG...  Get off my lawn!
With a couple decent places being built around mine, it is starting to acquire something of a neighborhood feel, which is pretty nice. Then you have those few people that you should really call codes on because why the hell did you use the remove tool on your entire damned claim and then build the world's ugliest platform?

Ahem.

I will say that though I do have a fairly ugly rectangle (with stairs!) currently, at least I have been putzing around with a few things...I really like that I could just select my entire first building, template it and delete it, then heal up the claim to pristine and start over. There's some real power under the hood.
Venkman
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Reply #180 on: February 13, 2014, 11:05:22 AM

I finally saw some folks in chat channels last night. Like, first time ever. Then I realized how annoying it was to be in the middle of a nice vista with that soothing music all alone in the wilderness while my telepathy was picking up the thoughts of a planet smiley

Anyway, has anyone been active in the f13 channel? I feel like it's broken. Or maybe everyone in it also prefers the silence?
Nebu
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Reply #181 on: February 13, 2014, 11:06:57 AM

Anyway, has anyone been active in the f13 channel? I feel like it's broken. Or maybe everyone in it also prefers the silence?

Is this your first stint with an f13 group?  Every MMO I've played with f13 people has come complete with a silent chat channel.

"Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other."

-  Mark Twain
Venkman
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Reply #182 on: February 13, 2014, 11:08:05 AM

Yea it's uncommon for me to be in an f13-related group. Probably only a handful of times. But those times were a LOT of talking. My reference point is skewed smiley
Nebu
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Reply #183 on: February 13, 2014, 11:09:26 AM

Yea it's uncommon for me to be in an f13-related group. Probably only a handful of times. But those times were a LOT of talking. My reference point is skewed smiley

You must have had Sky, Lanty, and Signe around.  They skew the data.

"Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other."

-  Mark Twain
Falconeer
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Reply #184 on: February 13, 2014, 11:11:34 AM

The good thing about SOE games is that they usually have cross-server custom chats, so even if you are not in the same guild it's going to be easy to stay in touch. Totally harmless and kind of convenient. I haven't been online much lately due to real life issues and because I don't want to put too much effort on the alpha version, considering all the incoming wipes. But I tend to use shared chats a lot when I can. I am extremely friendly and chatty outside of these boards.

Sky
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Reply #185 on: February 13, 2014, 11:23:59 AM

Yea it's uncommon for me to be in an f13-related group. Probably only a handful of times. But those times were a LOT of talking. My reference point is skewed smiley

You must have had Sky, Lanty, and Signe around.  They skew the data.
How dare you! Just because it's true...

On the other hand, SWTOR keeps me busy enough I hardly ever talk in Bot Country!

In other news, this game has elevated to 'hey I can grab 15 minutes while I'm home on lunch and sketch in another layer of this tower...'  Ohhhhh, I see.
Kitsune
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Reply #186 on: February 13, 2014, 11:58:28 AM

Yeah, I probably misspoke when I complained that the lack of texture variety made things ugly.  I mean, it does, but it's the lack of edges and trim that is what's really setting me off.  Like brickwork around a window, or a wooden doorframe in a house instead of just a rectangular hole in a wall.  If they're adding stuff like windowsills and thresholds as props, players should be able to start making decent buildings.
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Reply #187 on: February 13, 2014, 12:18:15 PM

Sky
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Reply #188 on: February 13, 2014, 12:54:45 PM

There's an Inn just north of the gate of my island (Serenity/Highland) that's got some pretty bananas trim on it. Lacks props, but those are coming. As I said, templating is a pretty powerful thing, along with all the copy/paste type stuff. You can do a super intricate piece and then just iterate and tweak it to a big structure.

That's one reason I'm still plugging away even though I know wipes are coming, the better we can learn the tools with the most primitive options the cooler it is as each new thing gets put in. And with templates, it's not like we lose anything.
kaid
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Reply #189 on: February 13, 2014, 12:55:59 PM

Yeah, I probably misspoke when I complained that the lack of texture variety made things ugly.  I mean, it does, but it's the lack of edges and trim that is what's really setting me off.  Like brickwork around a window, or a wooden doorframe in a house instead of just a rectangular hole in a wall.  If they're adding stuff like windowsills and thresholds as props, players should be able to start making decent buildings.

Its also pretty easy to do the trim already like that manually its just that a lot of people are currently doing the macro level building and have not gotten around to the detail pass on their creations. I still need to do a lot of internal work on mine like adding bannisters redoing my stairs working to smooth edges and otherwise make it look less blocky.
Venkman
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Reply #190 on: February 13, 2014, 03:07:21 PM

Today's update. Servers down. Someday they'll give us notice ingame. Not expecting that soon though. I got booted, tried to log in, got told to create a new character, but then hit the forums just to be sure. Lovin' Alpha. It's like month 2 of SWG all over again!

Quote
• We found and fixed a number of issues that would allow props to spawn on your claim. If you have any left, you should now be able to delete them by using the selection volume and hitting the delete key (they should no longer respawn). This also shouldn’t happen on any newly placed claims moving forward.
• The 12 new materials should now ACTUALLY be available to build with. Sorry for the confusion, the data gnomes took a break and didn’t let us know.
• We have increased the availability of a Sapphire, Ruby, Obsidian and Alabaster and also made sure that they will spawn more often on the surface to make them easier to find. Happy hunting!
• Aquamarine and Iron/Aquamarine veins no longer appear on Tier 3 islands, please look for them on Tier 2 islands from now on.
• Fixed the color of rubies and sapphires in the world!
• We’ve also fixed a number of potential causes for the rollbacks some players have seen when servers come down. We’ll continue to monitor this and address any new issues that we find.
Senses
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Reply #191 on: February 13, 2014, 03:09:38 PM

The worst part about this game is that when I'm not playing I'm constantly designing and building in my head and I CANT TURN IT OFF.  My plot is looking good though.
Venkman
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Reply #192 on: February 13, 2014, 03:12:30 PM

Heh yea. One of youse folked talked earlier in this thread about how time-sinky this is. Very much a MC vibe for me. I spent an hour just trying to master arches, and thern another hour reorganizing my plot so much I am back to almost nothing on it. I literally have nothing to show for my effort except what's in my head, but unlike EQ1 sessions, I am concent with that. The heck?!

Also because the launcher bumped the sys requirements, did we know even the minimum requirement was a quad core processor?
Venkman
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Reply #193 on: February 13, 2014, 04:08:25 PM

Jeezus, I feel like it's 1998 again and I'm looking at my second ever MMO.

They just posted their roadmap. Normally this would queue cynical derision. But I'm playing the first part of what they're promising and actually believe it's possible.

Which just means the disappointment will be just so much sweeter  awesome, for real

Key takeaways, probably stuff ya all know. Nice to have some details on traveling (in both Phase One and Two), Caves just sound so cool, will be good to watch people camping decaying houses Claims again, and what they're talking about for water is pretty neat (I'm getting a From Dust vibe).

Only big things they don't detail on death penalty and combat.
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Reply #194 on: February 13, 2014, 04:15:57 PM

That roadmap deserves a copypaste! If you are not excited about this you are made of sandstone  awesome, for real

Quote
Hello there, Landmarkians!

As promised, here’s the “roadmap” of what we’re adding to the game, and more importantly, why we’re rolling things out in the order that we’re doing them.

NOTE: There are some categories of things that we are not including in this roadmap. Stuff like new materials, new props, new biomes, new recipes and design tweaks will be rolling out continuously and aren’t part of any single milestone. You should expect to see those changes like that coming in all the time.

ALSO NOTE: The “Phases” we describe below have almost nothing to do with whether we’re calling the game Alpha, Closed Beta, or Open Beta. Those “label milestones” will be determined almost entirely by how comfortable we are letting new groups of people into the game. So (for example), Closed Beta might arrive in the middle of Phase Two. (Again, that’s just an example…not a plan. ;)

And of course, everything you’re reading here is “time approximate”. We’re aiming at the timelines, but software development is…fraught with peril. It may take longer to get things done.

But as far as big stuff, here’s the list.

What is Phase One?

Phase One is what we’re working to accomplish in the following four weeks or so.

What’s the purpose of Phase One? It’s designed to do the following:
Let all you folks talk to each other easily. To form friends, groups, and above all to benefit from having other players around you.
To allow and support cooperative building.
To make building a better experience.
To make the world bigger.
That’s it. Doesn’t sound that ambitious does it? But it is a LOT of stuff coming your way in the next few weeks. Stuff that you may not even realize you’re missing until you see this list.

Phase One includes:
Better Communication

Claim Ratings : Bragging is fun. Getting comments and ratings from people that stop by your claim can also be fun. Having ratings lets us also add leaderboards and let the best of the creators in our community begin to surface. They’re also critical for our Player Studio presentation later on.
Chat: We’ll be improving chat with better channels, customized tabs, and more. Why? Because if you can’t communicate easily, you might as well be playing a single-player game.
----We’re also adding the ability to add links in chat so that you can designate a waypoint on the map and have it show up in chat for other people to click and see.
Key configs: Yes, you need to be able to customize your key mappings. Duh, right? It’s coming.
Voice over Internet : Yes, many folks use Teamspeak servers (or whatever is the flavor of the month). But not everyone has a server to join, and we’ve found that forcing people to use external voice servers often fragments the community severely. So that’s getting added also.
Socialization
Groups & Group Harvesting Bonus: Right now, when you harvest, it’s a race for those resources against other people. It’s almost a PvP-ish kind of feeling. We don’t want that. So the systems are changing so that it’s advantageous to group together when harvesting.
We’re also allowing groups so it’s easy to have a private chat channel and see each other on the map.
-----Friends: Self-explanatory, but you need a way to see who is online from the folks you know, as well as to be able to find their claims and see them on the map.
Twitch/Facebook/Twitter: Some of you will want to brag. Some of you want to stream. And to be honest, the more you folks do that, the bigger the game can become. So we’re trying to make it easy for you.
Moving around the world

In general, the dev team does not want to turn the game into “instant travel”. However, a large part of the game is oriented around being able to drop by and see someone’s claim and buildout. So we’re carefully adding some quick-travel options to make quick visits less onerous, but at the same time still encouraging exploration through the world so you get accidental discoveries as you go.

Plus, keep in mind that you’ll be digging deep now. Walking all the way back uphill to return to your claim may not be the joyous experience you think it might be. ;)

It’s almost certain that most of these options will be somewhat limited in usage by requiring either crafting of an item or requiring a certain amount of time to expire before reuse.
Teleport to Claim
Teleport to Hub
Teleport to Friend


Better Building
Unified Tools : We have way too many different ways to rotate, translate, and scale things. There should be a single system across all tools so that you can manipulate them all in the same ways, and those ways should be intuitive and easy to use.
New Smoothing Tool : The current smoothing tool is very powerful. It’s also persnickety and it requires non-intuitive things like “air buffers” around a column to smooth it properly. We can make it better, so we’re doing that.
Claim Permissions: Building by yourself is fun. Building something grandiose with other players is even more so. Permissions allow you to cooperate together on your claims.
More Space
Caves : The surface world is cool, but it’s only the top layer of what we promised. So caves are coming. Lots of spaces to mine through and explore. Why add them now? Because the resource tiers are *supposed* to be spread down through the crust of the world, not segregated on separate islands and spawning on the surface. You’re not playing the intended game yet, and we need to move the game closer to the real end-goal now.
Attached Claims: You’ll first be able to add a new claim onto any existing one (whether to the side, above, or below). This will be the first time we let you have more space to build.
Additional Claims : After Attached Claims are working well, and we have more server hardware in place, we’ll also be letting you establish more claims in different locations. It’s coming!
Claim Upkeep : Empty and abandoned claims are not cool. So we’re introducing Upkeep which is basically a small amount of in-game coin you have to spend to keep your claim from being repossessed into the world and made available to other players. (NOTE: If you don’t pay your upkeep all you lose is your spot in the world. All your resources, props, crafted items, etc., are saved in your inventory and your buildout is templatized and saved for you.)


Phase Two

Phase Two is scheduled to be done the in the four weeks AFTER Phase One is complete. And it includes some really big systems that will have huge impact on the game.

NOTE: These systems are being developed during Phase One. You just won’t *see* them until Phase Two because they’re too big to finish and test before March.

Socialization
Guilds: Bigger than a friends list, but essentially fulfilling the same role on a bigger scale. But now with a cool title and a few other perks.
SOEMote: You knew it was coming! We’re adding this in now because Landmark is a beautiful stage for the folks that like to roleplay or machinma. SOEmote will be hugely useful for them. (And don’t forget the voice shifting tech so you don’t have to sound like you on VoiP!)
New Naming mechanism with account handle: Now you can be any name you want. No longer do we require unique names for your character. (No name reservations!)
Player Studio: You can finally submit your templates to the Player Studio (part of the overall Marketplace). This means that your creativity and work on your claims can be turned into real cash…if other players will buy your creations. This system is extremely interesting and will merit its own document soon because it’s heavy on socialization elements. It’s going to be fun.
Ley Lines & Movement
Think of these as mini-hubs on the Islands. They let you micro-jump between ley line positions, and then explore the area from that hub. (You still have to go to the main hub to transfer between islands and worlds.) There are several advantages to this, not all related to ease of travel. (For example: Real estate around these micro-hubs is more desirable, adding yet another type of claim to seek out.)
-----Ley Line use will require in-game coin or resources.
New movement methods: Methods of gliding, flying, etc. will be added to the game via items that you can craft and find.
Risk & Danger
Health: Yup…you can die now. But you can actually increase your health by finding increase items while adventuring through the world.
Death Penalty: Yes, death will have teeth. Try not to die.
Revive: Standing up after you fall down is always useful.
Graveyards: When you die, you’ll need a place to respawn unless you Revive.
BASIC combat: This is the first of many steps that will lead us to the eventual combat style we want. This first step is extremely basic as we prototype systems. But things will try to kill you.
Buffs: If you can die, there need to be ways to avoid that damage and death. You’ll be able to craft (or find) various mechanisms to make yourself tougher.
NOTE: For both combat and buffs, your combat abilities and defenses will all be tied to items and potions, so there will be much item and crafting progression involved in getting ready for those things. Future rollouts beyond this initial offering will make the whole system more robust and do so pretty rapidly.

New things to do
Plant harvesting: Expect great things. ‘Nuff said for now.
Tree harvesting revamp: Again…great…things. More details as we get closer.
Water: The likely progression of water coming into the game will be:
-----Oceans: These are static bodies of water surrounding the islands. When oceans show up, we can start doing interesting things with our coastlines and real estate choices will be a lot more interesting.
-----Lakes: Lakes are different than oceans because they can appear at many altitudes. They are still static bodies of water, but again, they add more desirable real estate choices for claims.
-----Running (dynamic) water: This is the piece that will come in last. This is the rivers and waterfalls that everyone wants. It adds more real estate choices, but it also creates a lot of gameplay as you folks can start diverting water to do all kinds of interesting things on your claims.
-----NOTE: The dynamic nature of water is a big system that still has a lot of R&D to overcome before we can be absolutely certain of when it will arrive. We’ll keep you informed as we progress.
Journal: There’s a lot to keep track of in this game. All the crafting choices, your resources, and we’re going to be adding a lot more achievements (see below). When we do that, you need a mechanism to keep it all straight and to help you organize what *you* want to do. The Journal is a cool interface designed to let you do just that.
Achievements: Achievements are the “quest-like” equivalent within Landmark. There’s a ton of things to collect and do in the world, and the achievements system allows you to be recognized for that effort, as well as hinting at what you can do to become more powerful or capable.
Salvage: Remember all those picks you discarded on your way to Rubicite and beyond? Well…you can reclaim part of those resources now. You can also “remake” a crafting result so that you don’t have to be quite as disappointed that your brand new axe you finally got to make is “Inferior”.
Treasure Chests: This is a generic term to represent loot and surprises that you can find as you explore through the caves system below ground.
Unlocking recipes: Right now, all recipes are available at crafting tables as soon as you make them. When this system goes into the game, you’ll need to find those recipes before you can make them at the crafting tables.
Claim Chests: More storage! Your vault is stuffed to the gills and you’re carrying as much as you can on your back. Time to make chests! You’ll be able to craft chests and store them on various claims as supplemental storage.


Phase Three – Everything after Phase Two

There are a LOT more systems to come after March. All the huge stuff like PvP, advanced combat, better AI, interesting physics features, plus a whole host of “possibles” and “must haves” that we’ll narrow in on as we get more of Phase 1 & 2 complete.

However, we’ll update the roadmap as we finish each of the Phases we list above, so you’ll always know what’s coming and when.

In Summary

Hopefully, this TL; DR roadmap has helped set your expectations as to what you can expect to see in the game soon, as well as giving you an overview of what the game will become so that your suggestions can be more in tune with what we’re planning already.

Once again, THANK YOU for participating in Alpha, and thank you for your opinions. This process has been amazing to us (the dev team) already and we think it’s going to grow into something even better as time goes on! Please let us know what you think on the forums!

~Dave Georgeson, Director of Development




 EDIT: Formatting.
« Last Edit: February 13, 2014, 04:26:07 PM by Falconeer »

Signe
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Reply #195 on: February 13, 2014, 05:22:09 PM

There's an f13 channel?  There's channels?  Death?  Huh? 

My Sig Image: hath rid itself of this mortal coil.
Lakov_Sanite
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Reply #196 on: February 13, 2014, 05:34:06 PM

I do not understand paying $60 for an early alpha.  Also can someone explain how this is tied to eqnext? Will both be free to play?

~a horrific, dark simulacrum that glares balefully at us, with evil intent.
Threash
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Reply #197 on: February 13, 2014, 06:21:11 PM

I do not understand paying $60 for an early alpha.  Also can someone explain how this is tied to eqnext? Will both be free to play?

What's hard to understand about "pay money, have fun"?

I am the .00000001428%
Numtini
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Reply #198 on: February 13, 2014, 06:33:20 PM

More value here than 250+ for Hex.

If you can read this, you're on a board populated by misogynist assholes.
Venkman
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Reply #199 on: February 13, 2014, 06:48:49 PM

There's an f13 channel?  There's channels?  Death?  Huh? 

"/join f13". It's a custom channel. Death isn't in yet but will come in time. Along with the things that can kill you. And your ability to fight them. And reasons to do so smiley

I do not understand paying $60 for an early alpha.  Also can someone explain how this is tied to eqnext? Will both be free to play?
Depends. If you were excited enough to eventually buy it anyway, paying now or later makes little difference. For me, i wouldn't be surprised if everything we're mastering now is obsolete by open beta. They specifically say even in their roadmap that we're not playing the game they designed.

So on the one hand, we paid $60 to play an early alpha of a very incomplete game. But it's playable and fun and has an Minecraft 2.0 feel.
On the other hand though, we could be proven complete suckers in April if they turn around and NGE it into some sort of competitive resource rather with PvP zone control nor shit smiley

But heck, I've already put more hours into this $60 purchase than I have in many others (certainly more than CoD2 or Assassins Creed 3  awesome, for real). So they can change whatever and I won't feel like I wasted my dough.
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Reply #200 on: February 13, 2014, 08:54:36 PM

More value here than 250+ for Hex.
That depends on how you define "value."
Sky
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Reply #201 on: February 13, 2014, 09:19:16 PM

Servers down. Someday they'll give us notice ingame. Not expecting that soon though.
There was a fifteen minute warning in the main chat tab.

Not a fan of a few of the more mmo elements being added, but they seem to be pretty resistent to the 'hardcore' tards with patches and design direction so far, so I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

I don't see at all how diverting rivers will end well.
Threash
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Reply #202 on: February 13, 2014, 09:22:45 PM

Could be the same thing that brought down Gw2 wow and lol tonight.

I am the .00000001428%
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Reply #203 on: February 13, 2014, 09:31:34 PM

Reading that roadmap has me really excited. I might just take the plunge this weekend if I've a lot of free time. The big thing about the $100 pack is the early access to beta, right? Do any of those items or outfits do anything important? Basically, talk me into or out of the extra $40 between the 2 alpha packs.

"i can't be a star citizen. they won't even give me a star green card"
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Reply #204 on: February 13, 2014, 09:38:20 PM

Reading that roadmap has me really excited. I might just take the plunge this weekend if I've a lot of free time. The big thing about the $100 pack is the early access to beta, right? Do any of those items or outfits do anything important? Basically, talk me into or out of the extra $40 between the 2 alpha packs.

The vault is really the nicest thing I can see (I'm not buying in until I can get the $100 level and not care about the money).
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Reply #205 on: February 14, 2014, 12:12:59 AM

After UO and SWG I really thought early access for early placement would have made a HUGE difference. After playing ths closed Alpha, I am pretty sure it won't matter in the slightest. There will be so many instances that there will always be cool available spots. And nothing seems to indicate that having a spot in one of the oldest/earliest instances will make any difference. So yeah, unless something new comes up, I'd say there aren't any reasons to get the Trailblazer pack. The vault is amazing, yes, but unless they change that you can use any vault you come across no matter who's the owner, so chances are your neighbours will let you use theirs. Definitely not worth the additional 40$.

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Reply #206 on: February 14, 2014, 09:37:36 AM

Save your money for open beta.  None of the packages are worth it and these guys are too starry-eyed-in-love with the IDEA of the game.

Movevement controls are currently terrible
     * No sidestep. This should have been the third movement command added. Since you rotate in place when placing items you can't just sidestep to make sure things align. Run speed is very slow.
     * You get caught in your own mines because the voxels are so small, even if you mine at an angle vs straight down.  This requires you to create that grappling hook.

Camera is terrible and you struggle with it a lot.  
     * 1st person is far too close and narrow-focused
     * 3rd person options are unfavorable because your head obscures everything
     * Zoom & pan controls are Shift+mousewheel, which is counterintuitive

Build Tools are a struggle to begin learning.  How about replacing the mandatory "attaboy, we're all building this game!" cheerleader video with a quick overview of "this is how you build."  It is, after all, a build game you're charging money for.  The lack of tutorial or handholding early-on is going to build ill will if it begins to spread beyond the hyped-up early adopters.  

Yeah it's an alpha, doesn't matter you're charging for it. QOL features need to get in quickly.

General Comments:
 
Build tools, why are you gating build tools in a building game?  This is silly. Harvesting tools, sure, not the builds. Why becomes obvious at the next step, though.

There are many features missing and the path is obviously still around current MMO thinking: content is gated behind a grind.  Items become more important than players.  You will have all the MMO features you hate in other games in this one.  Tab-target, hotbutton combat, grinds for equipment and limited bag space.  Don't gloss over or ignore it when the +crafting, +harvesting items are already in game, the interface is all hotbuttons and even minor exploration of the interface shows your character has stats and attributes, including combat stats.

Yeah, so does Minecraft.  Along with Levels and HPs.  So when these are used as 'hates' against DIKUs I always have a good chuckle.
« Last Edit: February 14, 2014, 09:39:53 AM by Merusk »

The past cannot be changed. The future is yet within your power.
Rendakor
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10131


Reply #207 on: February 14, 2014, 10:34:42 AM

I don't hate DIKUs or hotbars. However, no side strafing is kind of a deal breaker. If they patch that in soon maybe I'll give them money.

"i can't be a star citizen. they won't even give me a star green card"
Sky
Terracotta Army
Posts: 32117

I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.


Reply #208 on: February 14, 2014, 10:53:29 AM

these guys are too starry-eyed-in-love with the IDEA of the game.
At least you're not dismissing the opinions of others. It's not like we're painting some rosy picture, we're aware of the issues. But it's a hell of a lot of fun regardless.

Strafing? Right click + A and D like every other game ever made. Or are you one of five people who use keys for that? Do you mouse press your hotbar, too?

Run speed? Craft +runspeed items. You can also use the grappling hook to spideyman it across the terrain. Given the issues with loading in streaming assets, it's not really worth the runspeed items, though.

Small mines? Get better tools. This is rarely an issue for me after two days in, and at worst you have to cut a little second channel. In minecraft you have to cut a two-high passage, so I don't see the issue there. With better tools, it's a one pass tunnel which is an improvement over minecraft.

Camera 1st/3rd issues, I'll give you those but they're known issues that will be worked on.

Shift-mousewheel to zoom is due to the building tools using the mousewheel extensively, it's much better this way.

Tutorials? A) they exist, though the best are fan made. B) put on your big boy pants, this is a for-real alpha which means you might not be spoonfed information on a golden path. There are very basic tutorial videos in the game directory, and much better ones on the forum.

It's an alpha and it indeed does not matter they're charging for it. You should know what you're getting into, you're not some newb to this. Don't want to deal with broken shit, incomplete and missing features, and no hand-holding? Don't pay to play a goddamned alpha, ffs.

Build tool gating. It's a pretty short time until you have all the tools unlocked and then you also have a nice stash of building materials. If they hand you all the tools right off the bat, you'll still have to go dig materials. It guides that early phase of exploration and harvesting.
Rendakor
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10131


Reply #209 on: February 14, 2014, 11:06:05 AM

I turn with Q and E (realistically, with the mouse) and strafe with A and D. Having to hold right click to do so seems incredibly strange, and unfamiliar/unpleasant controls are a reason for me to hold off. Can you invert the mouse?

"i can't be a star citizen. they won't even give me a star green card"
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