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View Full Version : Clan TCD: First Impressions, Ideas, and a Review



thecrimsondawn
04-13-2017, 02:56 PM
Greetings, my name is Crimson, and I am a QA tester and founder of the clan "The Crimson Dawn". After reading about this gem of a game on a blog I ended up upon, I decided to see just what was up, and I must say I am quite pleased with what I am currently seeing. This is exactly the type of game the MMO community needs these days. I come with praise, but also a couple warnings that I have seen happen time and time again that can make great games fall flat on their face. I make it my responsibility to inform those with good intentions of any information I feel is relevant to their projects, so I will be posting a lengthy one here covering several key topics. Since this post is majoritively ideas, suggestions, and feedback, I have decided to post it under 'Support & Suggestions'


First Impressions

The very first thing a player experiences after making an account and downloading the client, is the launcher. The current launcher is very suitable for the alpha stage, offering several important options during the testing phase. There was no issue with any anti virus or firewall, and the patching went very smoothly. It goes without saying that before entering the launch, a new skin for the launcher and an improvement on the bars for patching will go a long way as far as eye candy and first impressions. I give very high marks for this at the current stage :)

The second thing a player experiences is character creation. 3d modals are definitely not cheap and time consuming to make, however the ones the players play as matter most of all, as they will be force to look at said avatar for most of their gaming life. That being said, the currently released modals and options are in the 'playable' range at beast, perfectly acceptable for alpha, but will need a great deal of improvement before the game goes into even beta. Looking at past examples, games that offered very few customization options suffer a sharp fall off of interest early on in their games life. There is a couple reasons for this, and I will point the ones that come to mind out. First off, players like aesthetics a lot. It does not matter who you are, if your plan is to make a bad ass 2 handed warrior with a scar, but the players only options is a petite frame with a clean face, it will kill the mood before it even starts. The second is not just related to options at creation, but how the 3d modal looks to begin with. If it looks hastily made, or without much depth, you loose more interest. The last example is uniqueness. Time and time again I see games come out where everyone and their mother looks exactly the same. They may have the same hair because most of the hair options are lack luster, or their armor is all the same because there is no variety, or one type of gear stands far above the rest. This is where I will share my first personal idea - [Add in far more cosmetic items. Please reference the MMO 'Ragnarok Online' for their success at using cosmetic items] Dye is a very good start, but that should only be the beginning. In a wonderful world like this, far more options need to be made. Dresses, suits, appearance changing items, hats, and so forth. Having some slight variation on weapons and musical instruments would also be a huge plus, but most of this can all be done much closer to launch, as this is all fluff.

After creating my avatar, the simple, yet elusive 'plot' hits you. A coy removal of your memories and a reason why you have no skills. This gets good marks from me as the idea is solid. After starting however, and after nearly a full week playing, I have not seen anything related to the plot what so ever. While this gives me a great freedom to do whatever I want in the world, it also gives me no direction at all. There is no real feeling that someone is using me either. A couple quests added to draw players to the objective of finding out what happened to them, and how to get revenge (or perhaps join, or whatever) would be a good addition, but again, this is only a look at the first week of game play.

Tutorial Island - I have quite a bit to share about this. To start with, it teaches you to use sword and unarmed and how to wear gear. This is good, but there is a flaw to look at. When the game goes live, you will have huge numbers of players loading into the starting area every few moments. The loot that will need to be collected will be on a waiting list (unless it does not despawn upon acquire for other players) objects needed to complete the quests will become much harder to find, and if spawns are boosted by the number of players in a zone, then it will be overwhelming for some players. My advice is [during beta, have a series of starting islands on virtual servers with a channel system in place so players can still play with their friends should they be separated.] It will also help a little with the issue I will post out next.

Item dropping - This could pose a problem, but it can be fixed very easily if it has not been already. Each object on the ground takes a small amount of data, data that is referenced any time someone comes into visual range. Right now, we would be lucky to see 40 or 50 objects on the whole of the island on the ground, but when you have several hundred players playing, and many of them are dumping stuff on the ground, its going to cause a major strain on the server, leading up to even crashes. Simply adjusting items dropped to have a despawn timer, as well as a max objects dropped at once script in place where the oldest items vanish should help a lot with this.

Water Physics - Im sure this is already well known, but the water physics for the starting island are horrible compared to the water sources on the mainland. I can walk under the water without the game triggering that I am under the water, if using the mouse, you sink to the bottom before starting to move to the clicked destination, and the looks could use some sprucing up too. [Changing it so you float instead of sink when no action is taken in the water will help with the functionality a lot.]

Puzzles and Side Quests - I was discussing this game with a good programing friend of mine, and he pointed out something I would like to share. For me, discovering the world is fun. The last game I got to really explore before everyone knew stuff was World of Warcraft before the expansions. However, after that, it was no longer about exploration because everyone already knew about stuff, and every part of the world was just another part of a quest. This will happen here too in time, but it can be prolonged with some clever changes. Create a rotating database of riddles, numbers, puzzles, or whatever the many puzzle related aspects of the game have, and have them switch up daily. If the number of combinations are large enough, it will prevent players from always asking for the answer in chat instead of looking for it themselves. This doubles as a way for players to reuse the fire shrines, and this could give perhaps, lore exp or something each time.

Spoon Quest - As a solo player, it took me a long time to find 2 spoons. If it took me a long time to find 2 spoons, how hard will it be for several hundred players to each find 2 spoons without a number of them becoming frustrated? This is just some foresight into a potential series of negative reviews at launch. It does not have to be easy, but I found maybe 3 spawn locations in the whole island for them. Adding a couple more, or speeding up the respawn time should fix this. Could also opt for a set location seeing how its a starting area that the spoons are always at as well.

Fist, Sword, and Bow - Played around with these a bit. Currently, unarmed feels vastly more powerful then sword in nearly every way. I am a little concerned about this imbalance, but this is alpha, and there will be a great many balance changes before launch, so this is mostly just a balance review.

Weapon Skills - This is an entire suggestion [Change it so when you pick up a weapon you can start learning to fight with it without the need for a training. Make it so you need reputation to learn advanced or rare skills with said weapon instead.] There is no reason I should not be able to pick up a hammer, or a staff, or a dagger, and not be able to start learning to fight with these weapons from use. This will also help players jump right into the builds they want instead of needing to travel across the world to find a trainer for the weapon they want to wield.

Special Effects - Not sure how the server will handle it, but making special attacks exciting to use and flashy to look at seems to be a thing a great many players enjoy right now. Special effects are remarkably more easy to make then 3d modal animations, and these two could be updated at the same time.

Foraging - Currently, I feel the system needs a major change. I will break each one I have experienced into subgroups, and I will add in one I have not experienced based off of the current pattern being used.
>Lumber: There are trees everywhere, but lumber spawns are not. Players should be able to take an axe or a saw to a tree with a long loading bar (speeding up depending on skill level, tool quality, and type of wood being gathered) to gather wood. This matters more if you plan to add in player housing where houses need to be built by the players themselves. This would require a lot of hand placement and a whole lot of game object IDs being removed and/or replaced with ones that can be gathered, but I feel this would make the game more immersive. Further more, once a tree has been cut town, those with a high garden skill and those skilled at music could help speed the regrowth of the felled trees.
>Fruit Finding random apples on the ground under trees is nice, but they really should drop from apple trees, just as each type of fruit should come from their respective plant type. This may be asking too much as this is a major change, but an expansion on the whole garden system can make this work, and make it worthwhile.
>Mining I always loved UO where you could find a mine in the middle of nowhere and start to mine it, but players could kill you and take your mule. I feel that the answer to a good ore system lies somewhere between that, and exhaustible ore veins that surveyors need to hunt for a fresh vein for players to mine. Sadly, this would require a world much more vast in size then what we currently have. As this is one aspect of the game I have not experienced yet, this is only sharing my thoughts.
>Fishing Fishing with your hands may work for crabs, but we really need a fishing pole or net, or a boat that works, or something along those lines. I think WOW has the right idea for a fishing system, but a mini game can accompany it easy enough.
>Gardening Currently, I like the garden system, however that does not mean I dont feel it could evolve in many directions that better fit how the rest of the game changes. Several things I have talked about prior to this reflect on a change to the garden system, so I will not bring any ideas to the table here, as all other factors will need to be brought to a discussion before they can be refined into a working concept.


Ahh...it seems I have run out of time posting this, so I will need to make another post later. Again, these are just early reviews and observations. Overall I am greatly pleased with how the game is turning out, and I wish to spend my time to help iron out some of the ripples that the game will come across so we have as smooth a development and launch as possible. :)

Keep up the good work!

~Crimson

ANT3RA
04-13-2017, 07:17 PM
Who are you? The name Crimson doesn't give us much...

Do you have any "official" reviews online? Do you have any links to blogs or reviews I could read?

You really did write this piece like you are some sort of authority on game development. For what I have read here a number of things are evident.

You state that you are a QA tester. Are you self appointed? Have you ever developed any games or have a breadth of knowledge with alpha and beta phases to claim that title?

Firstly, unless English is not your first language, and you struggle with it, spell check and grammar check are your friends. Some things like "modals" instead of models and "beast" instead of best will alienate your audience and they will switch off at paragraph number two. I know I did, and returned to the thread 30 minutes later.

Secondly have you done any research into the core aspects of the creation of this game? The limitations faced? This is the Unity engine. Some things are just no possible.

You have been playing for a week. Really? This is your basis for a review, initial or otherwise? There is no QA to be had with a weeks full of content. Did you leave Serbule at all, or experience crafting? Did you go beast mode at any stage?

[Add in far more cosmetic items. Please reference the MMO 'Ragnarok Online' for their success at using cosmetic items]

You mention Ragnarok Online...You do realise that is made by Gravity, a listed company worth over a hundred million dollars. Is has the backing of a number of other major developers. This project is one man with a vision and a like-minded community of financial backers.

"Spoon Quest - As a solo player, it took me a long time to find 2 spoons." - This explains a lot and sums up this post, and your self proclaimed experience as a QA Tester.

I could pick your post apart, and believe me, it will be by someone in the community. You raise many points which have no basis or are simply trivial. You have clearly not done any research into PG.

You mentioned Ultima Online, World of Warcraft and Ragnarok Online. They are all titles with major financial backers. This project unfortunately cannot compete on that scale and the intention of the developers was never to do so.

If I come off as being snarky. You are correct, I am. I was triggered by your blatant ignorance to what PG is and what it cannot be and claiming you are a QA Tester with some validity. Opinions and the sharing of ideas and suggestions is fine and encouraged, but claiming you are some sort of authority on the subject is another thing.

BetaNotus
04-13-2017, 07:50 PM
You have been playing for a week. Really? This is your basis for a review, initial or otherwise? There is no QA to be had with a weeks full of content. Did you leave Serbule at all, or experience crafting? Did you go beast mode at any stage?

Well this looks to be a helpful and constructive comment.

Anyways, I expect the developers will find this to be valuable feedback. It’s always great to hear the experiences of a new player, and it can expose some shortcomings in the new-player experience. Personally, I didn’t see a potential issue with spoons, but this feedback changes my view. Perhaps a room in the dungeon could contain plates and spoons, to tie into the storage theme of the first floor. This could provide more chances to find them before the island is left by a character.

The loot bags you can collect to leave Anagoge are specific to each character. There are a few other items around the game that can only be looted once by each character. It has been mentioned by a dev that an alternative path to leave the island will also be added, inside the dungeon.

Dropped items, and items spawned in the world, actually can despawn. If you ever encounter a PVP-Punch in Serbule, you will eventually see older tombstones despawn as new ones are created.

I’ve seen many of those suggestions for changes to Foraging before, but the tree thing is new to me. It might be interesting if Druids & Bards could actually grow temporary trees in garden areas, perhaps granting a small pile of wood to each player involved in the time-consuming ritual. I could see this providing relief to animal players unable to collect wood.

Citan
04-13-2017, 08:59 PM
ANT3RA - don't attack people that offer feedback, even if you don't like their credentials or whatever. A week is long enough to give first-impression feedback, and I've read it with that in mind, and yes, it's very useful.

There's NEVER a need to "counter" first-impressions feedback. For instance, to the point of the spoon quest, there are actually two "instanced" spoons on the island that can be picked up by every player (along with various random spawn spots for non-instanced spoons), so there are always at least enough spoons to complete the quest no matter how many people are on the island. But thecrimsondawn didn't find them quickly, so maybe there needs to be another instanced spoon or two. It's a matter of reading between the lines sometimes -- I may not take a newbie's advice on how to fix problems, but I do especially want to hear what the problems are!

Crissa
04-13-2017, 09:03 PM
...And as far as I know, you can learn the skill for the weapons that spawn on Anagoge...?

ANT3RA
04-13-2017, 09:18 PM
Citan

Noted.

Khaylara
04-14-2017, 03:16 AM
Sorry but I do think the game review is slightly uninformed (if we look at it as a review and not as a new player's first impressions). I couldn't help but notice that the OP missed some of the newbie island experiences or some features entirely. There's no mention of archery, psychology or alchemy when related to the tutorial. Another example "Change it so when you pick up a weapon you can start learning to fight with it without the need for a training."-This is exactly how it is now, I can only assume OP missed it somehow. Learning skills IS reputation based, unless the NPCs like you they will not offer to train you. We do have fishing rods later in the game (sorry, spoilers).

Yes, characters look pretty bad and there's not enough in the way of cosmetic items but I thought everyone understands the difference between an indie game and a big title game developed by a multi million dollars company. Even with crowdfunding games one can not compare P:G with 70 k and Crowfall with 11 million.

The personal impressions I won't debate, a matter of taste. For example I like the loader actually but I can understand others might not.

I think that OP missed some important aspects of the game though and basing their review mostly on the "looks" if that makes sense. Not my intention to counter first impressions and I get they are important as feedback but some of the points OP made could've been clarified only by asking some questions ingame on the Help channel:)

PS @Beta I think those items already exist in the Anagoge dungeon (I might be wrong but i remember seeing plates there). I didn't see any mention of the dungeon though.
PPS One thing I do agree with but I'm not sure it's easy to code. The puzzles and coordinates required on Anagoge, they could be player specific to stop people from getting the answers in chat. Although some of us keep repeating "Don't give away stuff on Global or Help" some players feel they are being helpful by giving puzzles and riddles answers. It's really important for a new player to do these things by themselves and suss out if the game is their cup of tea or not. It would be a pretty dull experience for a player who doesn't like reading NPCs dialogues or written notes or discovering tips on rundown shelves. Not everyone is into that and it's better people find out early how they need to play this game in order to enjoy it and decide if it's for them or not.

Tsugumori
04-14-2017, 05:36 AM
Weapon Skills - This is an entire suggestion [Change it so when you pick up a weapon you can start learning to fight with it without the need for a training. Make it so you need reputation to learn advanced or rare skills with said weapon instead.] There is no reason I should not be able to pick up a hammer, or a staff, or a dagger, and not be able to start learning to fight with these weapons from use. This will also help players jump right into the builds they want instead of needing to travel across the world to find a trainer for the weapon they want to wield.

>Mining I always loved UO where you could find a mine in the middle of nowhere and start to mine it, but players could kill you and take your mule. I feel that the answer to a good ore system lies somewhere between that, and exhaustible ore veins that surveyors need to hunt for a fresh vein for players to mine. Sadly, this would require a world much more vast in size then what we currently have. As this is one aspect of the game I have not experienced yet, this is only sharing my thoughts.



Not a big fan of the take on combat skills. You had been talking about the 'puzzles/riddles/side quests' and how you like exploring/adventuring, its the same premise. You want to explore and discover things but want to casually step over that getting some of the combat skills is in the same vein, it takes exploring to find out where these are if you decide to go it alone without help.

"Learn a skill set for a weapon you pick up". Why this is bad:
- People could buy weapon sets from shops and learn every combat skill
- A large part of the game is about doing things for NPCs in exchange for knowledge (xp) / items / money
- Why should players be able to "jump right into their builds" without having to work for them

In terms of the mining point, confused as to why you made a point about it before having experienced it. While I would agree the maps aren't huge once you get a few speed mods going, but without any of those it takes a considerable amount of time to travel anywhere. There are mining nodes in certain caves and on some maps, once you get there I'd like to read your thoughts on the system as is.

(Due to previous comments I did heavily edit this - I would just ask that Crimson shows a bit more class in their next post. I would agree with antera that the QA tester seems like a paper crown that was homemade but the post was thorough so the claim was backed up to a point.)

(Just a P.S. - [I]"...I wish to spend my time to help iron out some of the ripples that the game will come across so we have as smooth a development and launch as possible." You're coming in to an established community, what you may consider a flaw could just be your opinion, do keep that in mind and be objective. Don't just comment as a means of self satisfaction, that doesn't serve a purpose.)

Eachna
04-25-2017, 05:17 AM
Another example "Change it so when you pick up a weapon you can start learning to fight with it without the need for a training."-This is exactly how it is now,

I read that to mean that you could pick up something like the Hammer skill without having to talk to the trainer first. Before I earned favor with the 'right' trainer I couldn't use Hammer attacks or wield a hammer. This is a little silly. There's no special training to picking up a lump of metal with a handle and swinging it around. I (the real Eachna) could self-train *AT LEAST A LITTLE BIT* by simply picking up a fighting hammer and swinging it at a target like a punching bag or fighting dummy. I wouldn't be any good and I would likely strain something, but I could do it.

Unlike something like fire magic. No matter how much I stare at the annoying flock of cockatoos across the street I can't make them burst into flames. That makes it a lot more tolerable that I would need some sort of instruction to make stuff spontaneously combust in the game.

I think it would be kind neat if you could pick up the first 10-15 levels of basic weapons by wielding them and then getting the xp. Going past that could still require befriending the correct trainer. It would give players a chance to experiment with the different melee weapons and find one they like.

Not every physical weapon skill. Skills like battle chemistry would still be gated. I mean weapon skills like Shield and Hammer and Knife Fighting. The ones that are just a lump of metal that you physically swing in the air (or toss or hide behind).

ShieldBreaker
04-25-2017, 09:31 AM
...
I think it would be kind neat if you could pick up the first 10-15 levels of basic weapons by wielding them and then getting the xp. Going past that could still require befriending the correct trainer. It would give players a chance to experiment with the different melee weapons and find one they like.
...

I could kind of see this idea working if you at the same time stripped away some of the usual bonuses of leveling up. Not the health and power, but the new abilities. So basically without training you are forever stuck with the first basic attack. Or maybe a new sidebar ability that has an ultra weak attack. For shield it be Wild Emergency Bash, like Emergency Bash only much weaker. For hammer, wild swing, a weak crushing attack. Somehow I just don't want to see the system change so much that you can just have the item and go. Or maybe a huge inaccuracy penalty, You can try using a knife or shield as a weapon, but your going to miss most often till you get proper training.

Tagamogi
04-25-2017, 10:51 AM
I read that to mean that you could pick up something like the Hammer skill without having to talk to the trainer first. Before I earned favor with the 'right' trainer I couldn't use Hammer attacks or wield a hammer. This is a little silly. There's no special training to picking up a lump of metal with a handle and swinging it around. I (the real Eachna) could self-train *AT LEAST A LITTLE BIT* by simply picking up a fighting hammer and swinging it at a target like a punching bag or fighting dummy. I wouldn't be any good and I would likely strain something, but I could do it.

...

Not every physical weapon skill. Skills like battle chemistry would still be gated. I mean weapon skills like Shield and Hammer and Knife Fighting. The ones that are just a lump of metal that you physically swing in the air (or toss or hide behind).

The game lets you hold a shield in your hand for the armor bonus though, without knowing the shield skill. It seems reasonable to me that if you want to learn how to do more advanced stuff with the shield, like how to bash someone over the head with it without dropping everything or falling over your own feet, you'd need training.

Somewhat similarly, the game lets you hold most weapons, just not attack with them unless you know the skill. Arguably, it seems much simpler to me to hit someone with a club than with a shield, but I don't think it's totally unreasonable to say that you need special basic training with a weapon before you can use it in combat without injuring yourself.