I saw gameplay videos today for the first time and was really surprised how terrible everything looks and feels. They chasing depth neglecting things that can turn off a player immediately. Even fonts are horrendous and its not something that is hard to do well
It's always going to be a balance between attracting players and keeping players. You say they're neglecting things that can turn players off immediately while "chasing depth." Not every game has to bring in tens of thousands of players right off the bat. It's ok to build up a strong playerbase that actually sticks around because you have depth to your game.
I saw gameplay videos today for the first time and was really surprised how terrible everything looks and feels. They chasing depth neglecting things that can turn off a player immediately. Even fonts are horrendous and its not something that is hard to do well
For something so niche I don't think we could hope for something that look much better. I am ok with it, I am enjoying it right now so I guess it can only gets better before release.
Yeah it's playable for me as it is. I do hope they make the UI better looking, but the game itself will be ok as is because the gameplay carries it and they didn't make design choices that are purposely silly or childish. Repopulation isn't for everyone, but for those who want the features it has I would say it will be a solid game for years.
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
I have never backed a kick-starter game. I don't like the idea of paying for a game before it's ready or comes out. Finally, I relented and this is the ONLY game I have ever backed through crowd-funding and I will probably not do it again. It feels pre-alpha to me. I will check in on it from time to time but I don't see a lot of progress happening for a few years. I am still looking forward to the game and like what I see but I regret backing it this early.
You say the game feels like pre-alpha and to me it looks like pre-alpha. All of these types of games sound good on paper just like Darkfall and Mortal Online. I have no idea why anybody would back these games after they show actual gameplay. The videos are always painful to watch.
Originally posted by kilun
Here is my personal opinion.
Way to early to tell about actual launch, many decent things
crafting is to much. Why? SWG's complexity was right on the money, the whole different letter grades actually make it a not enjoyable process.
No present class skills and unlimited skill system. To me this is a turn off. Why not have a skill point cap with the ability to remove skills and regrind others? This worked wonderfully in the past.
No big enough. To make crafting and resources viable it needs more. To get around multiple worlds, it could of been simply different continents on a large world. Many options.
Here is my biggest complaint. Really the funniest part of Galaxies was the ability to make an economy. To make and economy it has to be simple at the core, yet complex at the end. Galaxies mastered that with different quality level of resource spawns. If you sat long enough you made the best ever.
With that you had an economy that evolved around social aspects and crafting at the core:
Resources needed mined, this lead to some players renting or utilizing mines for resources just to be bought by the crafters.
Resources needed farmed in the case of meats, hide, and occasionally bone.
Doctors made buffs needed to be utilized by combat professions using armor and weapons made by crafters that lasted roughly 2-3hrs on average.
Musicians and Dancers then provided more buffs those making money and a large social aspect was created.
All of that flowed in harmony together. Was it perfect? No, but it was damn near close to everyone needed to do their part. Galaxies at its peak was excellent before the CU and NGE. It was my favorite game to date. The CU cut off its legs and then the NGE destroyed it.
I'm not evening going to talk about how awesome Space combat was as a whole other part.
What I'm saying is this formula has yet to be copied. There is no reason not to copy it. What Repopulation did was copy bits and pieces of it, but make it more complex, and in the end so far that has left it with nothing resembling SWG as I thought it would.
Even most the weapon classes have been covered and yet the game is lacking. I hope Repopulation team figures out what they have is way to complex and a grind.
I am currently not digging it much for many reasons that I mentioned, but am holding out hope for a later release while spending a few hours a week on this game between matches in Hex atm.
The crafting is done in the way it is done so players can create their own recipies for gear which opens up another market for crafters i.e. "only I know how to create the gear for the build you are trying to play." Its actually quite ingenious. It really isn't that much of a grind after you figure this part and the quality part out.
As for the DR, dancer and "musican" stuff you are talking about in the rest of your post: there are similar things in repop: dancer, story tell, and crafting each, afaik, have these types of things in them.
Resource extraction works very similar to SWG but it also has automation in place akin to shadow bane.
Originally posted by mindw0rk
I saw gameplay videos today for the first time and was really surprised how terrible everything looks and feels. They chasing depth neglecting things that can turn off a player immediately. Even fonts are horrendous and its not something that is hard to do well
The UI is being redone to be fully customizeable as we speak. Its one of those "here is a functional UI for now, lets work on more important stuff in the meantime" type of things
we are already seeing its 'just an alpha' excuses. Which will then evolve to 'it is just a beta' and then 'it just released' to 'its only been few months' and so on. Anyone seeing the same pattern here?
I bought the game because of its close resemblance to SWG but the state it is in right now i don't see it releasing any time soon. Unless ofcourse they bring in a huge team to make things work out sooner. 2015 seems impossible right now.
But hey that is indie kickstarter MMOS for you.
No offence bud but your post is pretty pointless... How about you tell us why in your opinion the game is in a bad state?
I have not bought into this game so would be interested in your take on things... Give me/us some detail to debate...
I agree his post is senseless and this is why devs go through.... He stated unless you bring in a huge steam I laughed super hard... MMO's are hard to work on, but laying out the world and having a lot of the main functions is what is needed.
People are mostky whining that the graphics are dated and that the game is to hard, which a lot of us love that its not WOW and a clone...
Do they need work yes, and using that is not a excuse when people say ALPHA, because guess what come see ANY game in ALPHA form, guess what hats what it looks like..
I would love for you to see the game in early development when the characters are a BOX and AI is boxes.. You would have a heart attack!!
Do i need to be a film maker to criticise a movie? or a singer to criticise music? no then why every time a criticism comes up for a video game people come barging in with arguments such as 'you don't understand how development works or how many games have you made".
No shit sherlocks ofcourse i don't work in gaming industry. I am giving my point of view from a perspective of a tester and early customer.
Do i need to work in gaming industry to understand that 'man power' matters? for a small team it is always going to be an uphill task. That is why i stated that given the current state of game unless they bring in more hands on deck i really doubt this game is gonna see a release in 2015 let alone 2016. (and if it did release it will join up the never ending list of half baked broken releases'.
And yes game does look like and play like ALPHA hence my post that how many actually think that crucial stuff like animations and combat is going to change drastically at release that when people mention how bad combat and animation are people don't make excuses like 'hey it just release give it some time'.
I have seen this happening every single time from alpha to beta to release and beyond that. A company like Funcom is still struggling to fix animations in TSW and it has been out for years now. pr maybe they have completely given up..who knows.
we are already seeing its 'just an alpha' excuses. Which will then evolve to 'it is just a beta' and then 'it just released' to 'its only been few months' and so on. Anyone seeing the same pattern here?
I bought the game because of its close resemblance to SWG but the state it is in right now i don't see it releasing any time soon. Unless ofcourse they bring in a huge team to make things work out sooner. 2015 seems impossible right now.
But hey that is indie kickstarter MMOS for you.
No offence bud but your post is pretty pointless... How about you tell us why in your opinion the game is in a bad state?
I have not bought into this game so would be interested in your take on things... Give me/us some detail to debate...
I agree his post is senseless and this is why devs go through.... He stated unless you bring in a huge steam I laughed super hard... MMO's are hard to work on, but laying out the world and having a lot of the main functions is what is needed.
People are mostky whining that the graphics are dated and that the game is to hard, which a lot of us love that its not WOW and a clone...
Do they need work yes, and using that is not a excuse when people say ALPHA, because guess what come see ANY game in ALPHA form, guess what hats what it looks like..
I would love for you to see the game in early development when the characters are a BOX and AI is boxes.. You would have a heart attack!!
Do i need to be a film maker to criticise a movie? or a singer to criticise music? no then why every time a criticism comes up for a video game people come barging in with arguments such as 'you don't understand how development works or how many games have you made".
No shit sherlocks ofcourse i don't work in gaming industry. I am giving my point of view from a perspective of a tester and early customer.
Do i need to work in gaming industry to understand that 'man power' matters? for a small team it is always going to be an uphill task. That is why i stated that given the current state of game unless they bring in more hands on deck i really doubt this game is gonna see a release in 2015 let alone 2016. (and if it did release it will join up the never ending list of half baked broken releases'.
And yes game does look like and play like ALPHA hence my post that how many actually think that crucial stuff like animations and combat is going to change drastically at release that when people mention how bad combat and animation are people don't make excuses like 'hey it just release give it some time'.
I have seen this happening every single time from alpha to beta to release and beyond that. A company like Funcom is still struggling to fix animations in TSW and it has been out for years now. pr maybe they have completely given up..who knows.
Some people don't care about the look of the game as much as they care about the systems in the game working and actually being good. IMO, repop has the latter nailed. They don't have a permanent art term and part of their funding goals is to get the art quality higher; however, that isn't as important as all the other stuff they are working on. Rather have a crappy looking game than a barren one.
we are already seeing its 'just an alpha' excuses. Which will then evolve to 'it is just a beta' and then 'it just released' to 'its only been few months' and so on. Anyone seeing the same pattern here?
I bought the game because of its close resemblance to SWG but the state it is in right now i don't see it releasing any time soon. Unless ofcourse they bring in a huge team to make things work out sooner. 2015 seems impossible right now.
But hey that is indie kickstarter MMOS for you.
No offence bud but your post is pretty pointless... How about you tell us why in your opinion the game is in a bad state?
I have not bought into this game so would be interested in your take on things... Give me/us some detail to debate...
I agree his post is senseless and this is why devs go through.... He stated unless you bring in a huge steam I laughed super hard... MMO's are hard to work on, but laying out the world and having a lot of the main functions is what is needed.
People are mostky whining that the graphics are dated and that the game is to hard, which a lot of us love that its not WOW and a clone...
Do they need work yes, and using that is not a excuse when people say ALPHA, because guess what come see ANY game in ALPHA form, guess what hats what it looks like..
I would love for you to see the game in early development when the characters are a BOX and AI is boxes.. You would have a heart attack!!
Do i need to be a film maker to criticise a movie? or a singer to criticise music? no then why every time a criticism comes up for a video game people come barging in with arguments such as 'you don't understand how development works or how many games have you made".
No shit sherlocks ofcourse i don't work in gaming industry. I am giving my point of view from a perspective of a tester and early customer.
Do i need to work in gaming industry to understand that 'man power' matters? for a small team it is always going to be an uphill task. That is why i stated that given the current state of game unless they bring in more hands on deck i really doubt this game is gonna see a release in 2015 let alone 2016. (and if it did release it will join up the never ending list of half baked broken releases'.
And yes game does look like and play like ALPHA hence my post that how many actually think that crucial stuff like animations and combat is going to change drastically at release that when people mention how bad combat and animation are people don't make excuses like 'hey it just release give it some time'.
I have seen this happening every single time from alpha to beta to release and beyond that. A company like Funcom is still struggling to fix animations in TSW and it has been out for years now. pr maybe they have completely given up..who knows.
Some people don't care about the look of the game as much as they care about the systems in the game working and actually being good. IMO, repop has the latter nailed. They don't have a permanent art term and part of their funding goals is to get the art quality higher; however, that isn't as important as all the other stuff they are working on. Rather have a crappy looking game than a barren one.
I would like to believe that but looks do matter. it is not even about looks per say but more about the grey/brown ugly looking world and wonky to terrible animations and combat.
And i don't know why we have to chose between a crappy looking game or working features/system. it has become such a cliche with indie games. maybe someday some company will give us both.
Originally posted by Bigdaddyxwe are already seeing its 'just an alpha' excuses. Which will then evolve to 'it is just a beta' and then 'it just released' to 'its only been few months' and so on. Anyone seeing the same pattern here?I bought the game because of its close resemblance to SWG but the state it is in right now i don't see it releasing any time soon. Unless ofcourse they bring in a huge team to make things work out sooner. 2015 seems impossible right now.But hey that is indie kickstarter MMOS for you.
Ahhhhh, ignorance is bliss. If you had ever actually participated in an "Alpha", not like early access, but a real alpha then you'd have some appreciation for how current "Alpha" games actually play, like actually being playable. Like, at all. I remember playing alphas for games with things like big boxes labelled "Tree", transparent textures on the ground, falling through worlds, getting stuck inside mountains, getting stuck under mountains, walking through walls, and so many other great gameplay elements that are missing from today's Alphas. So you can call it an excuse, or you can consider yourself lucky. I guess it's all a matter of perspective.
Nothing to do with ignorance but more to do with being realistic. The real question is how much of leap can a game make from alpha to beta and then to release. Where all the excuses of 'its an alpha'.. 'but its just a beta'..'game just released'..'its been a year give it more time' become completely redundant.And i have played plenty of alpha and beta"s to know that games don't change much. at release.
This right here IS ignorant. Sorry. I'm not saying it's willful ignorance, but you have absolutely no idea about the software development lifecycle in any industry, let alone the gaming industry. I can say that quite confidently. If I were to make that same assertion then Landmark may as well have been written off because the optimization of their original alpha releases were ridiculous. You were literally having to play at 5 frames per second many times. Based on that same assertion, Landmark would never have PvP, or combat for that matter, since games don't change that much. Now, that being said, it's this type of attitude that makes me firmly believe that Early Access is something that won't be around a long time. It really does hinge on the ability of developers to make people understand the development process. This is, generally, done really poorly. SOE is pretty good at it and, actually, The Repop is pretty good at it, too, but I don't think anyone is really killing it yet. I don't think they know what info they should be giving out as of yet. The companies that are good at it are few and far between, though. Right now it's about education and transparency. The greater the education, the more appreciation you have for the transparency that many of these developers have. Otherwise, yeah, I can see why someone might think of it as excuses.
I don't agree with your example of landmark because the features you are talking about were planned to be added in later by the devs and were in discussion for a long time.
There is difference between adding pre decided set of features as time progresses and the already established core features.
Simply calling me ignorant twice without trying to understand what i am saying isn't doing you and me any good.
Look at animation and combat for example...i really doubt they are going to change at release. They will be more or less the same. Played way too many MMOS in alpha and beta to know this by now.
Going to have to side with CrazKanuk here. If, as you claim, you had that much experience in the testing cycle of games you would not have any issue whatsoever. Games (and software in general) will change by leaps and bounds from concept though testing and at release may not look at all like the first build of the game. That is pure fact. If you had ever legitimately tested any type of software you would know this. This is in fact common knowledge and the established 'norm' for software development.
So, your original post is based on ignorance, and none of your subsequent posts have gotten any better.
It is well beyond any Alpha I have ever played (meaning legit alphas, not early access money grab alphas) insomuch as you can actually see what the game will be like. Yes, the devs need to clean up the animations and about a million other things, but this is very normal, and to be expected and things will change a lot before release. Take this as a learning experience. Or don't, but it is hard to take you seriously if all you have are inaccurate statements based on supposition and fantasy.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
we are already seeing its 'just an alpha' excuses. Which will then evolve to 'it is just a beta' and then 'it just released' to 'its only been few months' and so on. Anyone seeing the same pattern here?
I bought the game because of its close resemblance to SWG but the state it is in right now i don't see it releasing any time soon. Unless ofcourse they bring in a huge team to make things work out sooner. 2015 seems impossible right now.
But hey that is indie kickstarter MMOS for you.
No offence bud but your post is pretty pointless... How about you tell us why in your opinion the game is in a bad state?
I have not bought into this game so would be interested in your take on things... Give me/us some detail to debate...
I agree his post is senseless and this is why devs go through.... He stated unless you bring in a huge steam I laughed super hard... MMO's are hard to work on, but laying out the world and having a lot of the main functions is what is needed.
People are mostky whining that the graphics are dated and that the game is to hard, which a lot of us love that its not WOW and a clone...
Do they need work yes, and using that is not a excuse when people say ALPHA, because guess what come see ANY game in ALPHA form, guess what hats what it looks like..
I would love for you to see the game in early development when the characters are a BOX and AI is boxes.. You would have a heart attack!!
Do i need to be a film maker to criticise a movie? or a singer to criticise music? no then why every time a criticism comes up for a video game people come barging in with arguments such as 'you don't understand how development works or how many games have you made".
No shit sherlocks ofcourse i don't work in gaming industry. I am giving my point of view from a perspective of a tester and early customer.
Do i need to work in gaming industry to understand that 'man power' matters? for a small team it is always going to be an uphill task. That is why i stated that given the current state of game unless they bring in more hands on deck i really doubt this game is gonna see a release in 2015 let alone 2016. (and if it did release it will join up the never ending list of half baked broken releases'.
And yes game does look like and play like ALPHA hence my post that how many actually think that crucial stuff like animations and combat is going to change drastically at release that when people mention how bad combat and animation are people don't make excuses like 'hey it just release give it some time'.
I have seen this happening every single time from alpha to beta to release and beyond that. A company like Funcom is still struggling to fix animations in TSW and it has been out for years now. pr maybe they have completely given up..who knows.
No, you don't have to be a professional critic, but you can't expect to present logical fallacies like this anecdotal evidence, and not catch flak for it.
Yes, I've heard these "excuses" used before at a point when serious changes shouldn't be made (late beta/launch), but the alpha testing stage, by definition, reserves them the right to claim things are still changing, because... its an alpha stage of development where everything is supposed to be subject to change.
Some people don't care about the look of the game as much as they care about the systems in the game working and actually being good. IMO, repop has the latter nailed. They don't have a permanent art term and part of their funding goals is to get the art quality higher; however, that isn't as important as all the other stuff they are working on. Rather have a crappy looking game than a barren one.
For the most part they seem to be nailing it, but I have some serious problems, hopefully the hardcore ruleset will fix them. The fact that the AH is global is a problem. What is the point of player vendors? They've talked about the possibility of making your nation into a neutral trade hub, but why would anybody do that if they can just press "T" and buy whatever they want from the AH?
I love what the Repop team is trying to achieve. I put down $150 to back this game over a year ago. Call me crazy or stupid but it is my money that I earned on my own and I have plenty to spend on stuff I like. If I was unemployed and receiving foodstamps or something then maybe it would be dumb, truth is I can afford it and glad I bought into it.
It is not my main game at the moment, I am waiting for it to be more polished and finished but I have no regrets in backing this team as they try to make a game that I very much want to play.
"I don't give a sh*t what other people say. I play what I like and I'll pay to do it too!" - SerialMMOist
I would like to believe that but looks do matter. it is not even about looks per say but more about the grey/brown ugly looking world and wonky to terrible animations and combat.
And i don't know why we have to chose between a crappy looking game or working features/system. it has become such a cliche with indie games. maybe someday some company will give us both.
I don't know where you've been but we deal with this because indies are the companies making games like this, where while they may not be pretty, they make up for that in game-play options. Going into a indie title and expecting top of the line GFX, animations and combat systems is looking in the wrong place for what you care about. IF you find those types of things to be of the highest importance, play AAA games it's as simple as that.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Some people don't care about the look of the game as much as they care about the systems in the game working and actually being good. IMO, repop has the latter nailed. They don't have a permanent art term and part of their funding goals is to get the art quality higher; however, that isn't as important as all the other stuff they are working on. Rather have a crappy looking game than a barren one.
For the most part they seem to be nailing it, but I have some serious problems, hopefully the hardcore ruleset will fix them. The fact that the AH is global is a problem. What is the point of player vendors? They've talked about the possibility of making your nation into a neutral trade hub, but why would anybody do that if they can just press "T" and buy whatever they want from the AH?
I feel like I just went 8 years back in time to the Darkfall forums.
I agree, I've always been a big proponent for localized banking and trade. It makes the entire world more meaningful permitted there isn't fast travel (which I hope there isn't, but I'm a casual follower of repop)
Way to early to tell about actual launch, many decent things
crafting is to much. Why? SWG's complexity was right on the money, the whole different letter grades actually make it a not enjoyable process.
No present class skills and unlimited skill system. To me this is a turn off. Why not have a skill point cap with the ability to remove skills and regrind others? This worked wonderfully in the past.
No big enough. To make crafting and resources viable it needs more. To get around multiple worlds, it could of been simply different continents on a large world. Many options.
Here is my biggest complaint. Really the funniest part of Galaxies was the ability to make an economy. To make and economy it has to be simple at the core, yet complex at the end. Galaxies mastered that with different quality level of resource spawns. If you sat long enough you made the best ever.
With that you had an economy that evolved around social aspects and crafting at the core:
Resources needed mined, this lead to some players renting or utilizing mines for resources just to be bought by the crafters.
Resources needed farmed in the case of meats, hide, and occasionally bone.
Doctors made buffs needed to be utilized by combat professions using armor and weapons made by crafters that lasted roughly 2-3hrs on average.
Musicians and Dancers then provided more buffs those making money and a large social aspect was created.
All of that flowed in harmony together. Was it perfect? No, but it was damn near close to everyone needed to do their part. Galaxies at its peak was excellent before the CU and NGE. It was my favorite game to date. The CU cut off its legs and then the NGE destroyed it.
I'm not evening going to talk about how awesome Space combat was as a whole other part.
What I'm saying is this formula has yet to be copied. There is no reason not to copy it. What Repopulation did was copy bits and pieces of it, but make it more complex, and in the end so far that has left it with nothing resembling SWG as I thought it would.
Even most the weapon classes have been covered and yet the game is lacking. I hope Repopulation team figures out what they have is way to complex and a grind.
I am currently not digging it much for many reasons that I mentioned, but am holding out hope for a later release while spending a few hours a week on this game between matches in Hex atm.
The Repopulation is supposed to be a game where players really cannot do everything solo. What they do will be dependent on something someone else is doing? And the idea behind the crafting system is that you really shouldn't be trying to do everything from start to finish but rather take something someone else started and complete it. The concept sounds nice, but who's going to want to take up crafting to crank out unfinished base components? That sounds boring. I don't think anyone in their right mind would want to take their "Main" and level it up for the sole purpose of making "parts". Unless it's a system that is going to encourage Alt accounts. We called them "Mules" in Anarchy Online.
Originally posted by Bigdaddyxwe are already seeing its 'just an alpha' excuses. Which will then evolve to 'it is just a beta' and then 'it just released' to 'its only been few months' and so on. Anyone seeing the same pattern here?I bought the game because of its close resemblance to SWG but the state it is in right now i don't see it releasing any time soon. Unless ofcourse they bring in a huge team to make things work out sooner. 2015 seems impossible right now.But hey that is indie kickstarter MMOS for you.
Ahhhhh, ignorance is bliss. If you had ever actually participated in an "Alpha", not like early access, but a real alpha then you'd have some appreciation for how current "Alpha" games actually play, like actually being playable. Like, at all. I remember playing alphas for games with things like big boxes labelled "Tree", transparent textures on the ground, falling through worlds, getting stuck inside mountains, getting stuck under mountains, walking through walls, and so many other great gameplay elements that are missing from today's Alphas. So you can call it an excuse, or you can consider yourself lucky. I guess it's all a matter of perspective.
Nothing to do with ignorance but more to do with being realistic. The real question is how much of leap can a game make from alpha to beta and then to release. Where all the excuses of 'its an alpha'.. 'but its just a beta'..'game just released'..'its been a year give it more time' become completely redundant.And i have played plenty of alpha and beta"s to know that games don't change much. at release.
This right here IS ignorant. Sorry. I'm not saying it's willful ignorance, but you have absolutely no idea about the software development lifecycle in any industry, let alone the gaming industry. I can say that quite confidently. If I were to make that same assertion then Landmark may as well have been written off because the optimization of their original alpha releases were ridiculous. You were literally having to play at 5 frames per second many times. Based on that same assertion, Landmark would never have PvP, or combat for that matter, since games don't change that much. Now, that being said, it's this type of attitude that makes me firmly believe that Early Access is something that won't be around a long time. It really does hinge on the ability of developers to make people understand the development process. This is, generally, done really poorly. SOE is pretty good at it and, actually, The Repop is pretty good at it, too, but I don't think anyone is really killing it yet. I don't think they know what info they should be giving out as of yet. The companies that are good at it are few and far between, though. Right now it's about education and transparency. The greater the education, the more appreciation you have for the transparency that many of these developers have. Otherwise, yeah, I can see why someone might think of it as excuses.
I don't agree with your example of landmark because the features you are talking about were planned to be added in later by the devs and were in discussion for a long time.
There is difference between adding pre decided set of features as time progresses and the already established core features.
Simply calling me ignorant twice without trying to understand what i am saying isn't doing you and me any good.
Look at animation and combat for example...i really doubt they are going to change at release. They will be more or less the same. Played way too many MMOS in alpha and beta to know this by now.
Going to have to side with CrazKanuk here. If, as you claim, you had that much experience in the testing cycle of games you would not have any issue whatsoever. Games (and software in general) will change by leaps and bounds from concept though testing and at release may not look at all like the first build of the game. That is pure fact. If you had ever legitimately tested any type of software you would know this. This is in fact common knowledge and the established 'norm' for software development.
So, your original post is based on ignorance, and none of your subsequent posts have gotten any better.
It is well beyond any Alpha I have ever played (meaning legit alphas, not early access money grab alphas) insomuch as you can actually see what the game will be like. Yes, the devs need to clean up the animations and about a million other things, but this is very normal, and to be expected and things will change a lot before release. Take this as a learning experience. Or don't, but it is hard to take you seriously if all you have are inaccurate statements based on supposition and fantasy.
Be my guest if you believe that Repop will change in leaps and bound in terms of animation and combat. When AAA MMOS have hard time doing it i have doubt for indi title like this one.
There is a reason why 'its just alpha'.. 'it is just beta'..'it just released' excuses never seem to end.
As far as my subsuquent posts not getting any better they never will unless ofcourse i praise repop to sky high. So i really don't care about that. My opinion is based on what i played in Alpha and not on some fantasy.
Be my guest if you believe that Repop will change in leaps and bound in terms of animation and combat. When AAA MMOS have hard time doing it i have doubt for indi title like this one.
Any real alpha or beta improves those things over time. I'm not talking about Archage alpha where the game had already been launched for years and was just being localized, or open beta where your just trying to sell the game to people before it comes out. But real tests, like there used to typically be, and like we're starting to see more of with the crowd funded titles.By the time most players get into testing though I think what your saying is true. But it doesn't really pertain to a game like this.
This game began with two programmers, outsourcing art. Then we slowly added in house artists. But the truth is that when you have a budget, it has to be spent on various parts of the game. And for an indie project with a scope as large as ours, a big part of what we needed to show is if we can develop the game. We've said throughout (and it's on the Early Access page as well) that some art are placeholders and much is a work in progress, the UI is slated for a complete revamp with the XML interface upcoming, etc. But art is something that while expensive, is also easy to outsource, or to get done simply with an increased budget. Art is something that you can plug into a game pretty easily, where code isn't. That's what Steam is doing for us. It's increasing our budget so we can work get everything polished and ready for launch.
Some people don't care about the look of the game as much as they care about the systems in the game working and actually being good. IMO, repop has the latter nailed. They don't have a permanent art term and part of their funding goals is to get the art quality higher; however, that isn't as important as all the other stuff they are working on. Rather have a crappy looking game than a barren one. For the most part they seem to be nailing it, but I have some serious problems, hopefully the hardcore ruleset will fix them. The fact that the AH is global is a problem. What is the point of player vendors? They've talked about the possibility of making your nation into a neutral trade hub, but why would anybody do that if they can just press "T" and buy whatever they want from the AH?
Originally posted by DullahanOriginally posted by HolophonistOriginally posted by xpiherSome people don't care about the look of the game as much as they care about the systems in the game working and actually being good. IMO, repop has the latter nailed. They don't have a permanent art term and part of their funding goals is to get the art quality higher; however, that isn't as important as all the other stuff they are working on. Rather have a crappy looking game than a barren one.
For the most part they seem to be nailing it, but I have some serious problems, hopefully the hardcore ruleset will fix them. The fact that the AH is global is a problem. What is the point of player vendors? They've talked about the possibility of making your nation into a neutral trade hub, but why would anybody do that if they can just press "T" and buy whatever they want from the AH?
I feel like I just went 8 years back in time to the Darkfall forums.I agree, I've always been a big proponent for localized banking and trade. It makes the entire world more meaningful permitted there isn't fast travel (which I hope there isn't, but I'm a casual follower of repop)
Have either of you read what the hardcore rule set entails? The break down
Gear destruction and loot upon death
Local banking
No instant teleportation with items
Originally posted by Bigdaddyx
Originally posted by xpiher
Originally posted by Bigdaddyx
Originally posted by Darkcrystal
Originally posted by Wolfhammer
Originally posted by Bigdaddyxwe are already seeing its 'just an alpha' excuses. Which will then evolve to 'it is just a beta' and then 'it just released' to 'its only been few months' and so on. Anyone seeing the same pattern here?I bought the game because of its close resemblance to SWG but the state it is in right now i don't see it releasing any time soon. Unless ofcourse they bring in a huge team to make things work out sooner. 2015 seems impossible right now.But hey that is indie kickstarter MMOS for you.
No offence bud but your post is pretty pointless... How about you tell us why in your opinion the game is in a bad state?I have not bought into this game so would be interested in your take on things... Give me/us some detail to debate...
I agree his post is senseless and this is why devs go through.... He stated unless you bring in a huge steam I laughed super hard... MMO's are hard to work on, but laying out the world and having a lot of the main functions is what is needed.People are mostky whining that the graphics are dated and that the game is to hard, which a lot of us love that its not WOW and a clone...Do they need work yes, and using that is not a excuse when people say ALPHA, because guess what come see ANY game in ALPHA form, guess what hats what it looks like..I would love for you to see the game in early development when the characters are a BOX and AI is boxes.. You would have a heart attack!!
Do i need to be a film maker to criticise a movie? or a singer to criticise music? no then why every time a criticism comes up for a video game people come barging in with arguments such as 'you don't understand how development works or how many games have you made".No shit sherlocks ofcourse i don't work in gaming industry. I am giving my point of view from a perspective of a tester and early customer.Do i need to work in gaming industry to understand that 'man power' matters? for a small team it is always going to be an uphill task. That is why i stated that given the current state of game unless they bring in more hands on deck i really doubt this game is gonna see a release in 2015 let alone 2016. (and if it did release it will join up the never ending list of half baked broken releases'.And yes game does look like and play like ALPHA hence my post that how many actually think that crucial stuff like animations and combat is going to change drastically at release that when people mention how bad combat and animation are people don't make excuses like 'hey it just release give it some time'.I have seen this happening every single time from alpha to beta to release and beyond that. A company like Funcom is still struggling to fix animations in TSW and it has been out for years now. pr maybe they have completely given up..who knows.
Some people don't care about the look of the game as much as they care about the systems in the game working and actually being good. IMO, repop has the latter nailed. They don't have a permanent art term and part of their funding goals is to get the art quality higher; however, that isn't as important as all the other stuff they are working on. Rather have a crappy looking game than a barren one.
I would like to believe that but looks do matter. it is not even about looks per say but more about the grey/brown ugly looking world and wonky to terrible animations and combat.And i don't know why we have to chose between a crappy looking game or working features/system. it has become such a cliche with indie games. maybe someday some company will give us both.
Considering AAA companies aren't making true sandboxes with territory control and only indy companies are doing it I can say without a doubt that I couldn't care less about graphics or animation quality. Hell, I played Haven and Hearth for a solid 4-5months
OP - What do you want then? A big budget polished game that will attempt nothing new because big devs are afraid or an indie making a game that is actually different?
Who cares if it doesn't look perfect right now? Atleast they are trying something different.
I played SWTOR in beta and it was pretty bad. They have improved that game quite a lot since then.
We either keep getting WoW clones or hope an indie dev comes along and makes an actual sandbox game.
Way to early to tell about actual launch, many decent things
crafting is to much. Why? SWG's complexity was right on the money, the whole different letter grades actually make it a not enjoyable process.
No present class skills and unlimited skill system. To me this is a turn off. Why not have a skill point cap with the ability to remove skills and regrind others? This worked wonderfully in the past.
No big enough. To make crafting and resources viable it needs more. To get around multiple worlds, it could of been simply different continents on a large world. Many options.
Here is my biggest complaint. Really the funniest part of Galaxies was the ability to make an economy. To make and economy it has to be simple at the core, yet complex at the end. Galaxies mastered that with different quality level of resource spawns. If you sat long enough you made the best ever.
With that you had an economy that evolved around social aspects and crafting at the core:
Resources needed mined, this lead to some players renting or utilizing mines for resources just to be bought by the crafters.
Resources needed farmed in the case of meats, hide, and occasionally bone.
Doctors made buffs needed to be utilized by combat professions using armor and weapons made by crafters that lasted roughly 2-3hrs on average.
Musicians and Dancers then provided more buffs those making money and a large social aspect was created.
All of that flowed in harmony together. Was it perfect? No, but it was damn near close to everyone needed to do their part. Galaxies at its peak was excellent before the CU and NGE. It was my favorite game to date. The CU cut off its legs and then the NGE destroyed it.
I'm not evening going to talk about how awesome Space combat was as a whole other part.
What I'm saying is this formula has yet to be copied. There is no reason not to copy it. What Repopulation did was copy bits and pieces of it, but make it more complex, and in the end so far that has left it with nothing resembling SWG as I thought it would.
Even most the weapon classes have been covered and yet the game is lacking. I hope Repopulation team figures out what they have is way to complex and a grind.
I am currently not digging it much for many reasons that I mentioned, but am holding out hope for a later release while spending a few hours a week on this game between matches in Hex atm.
The Repopulation is supposed to be a game where players really cannot do everything solo. What they do will be dependent on something someone else is doing? And the idea behind the crafting system is that you really shouldn't be trying to do everything from start to finish but rather take something someone else started and complete it. The concept sounds nice, but who's going to want to take up crafting to crank out unfinished base components? That sounds boring. I don't think anyone in their right mind would want to take their "Main" and level it up for the sole purpose of making "parts". Unless it's a system that is going to encourage Alt accounts. We called them "Mules" in Anarchy Online.
But you can do everything. You have unlimited skills, I see that as a problem.
Secondly, lets be real here. People will have multiple accounts to be self sufficient. This is a fact, not some illusion. If people are holding onto this illusion of people having to rely on each other that is what happens. A group of friends 4-5 will be able to make everything by each having 2-5 accounts, that is about the extent for the majority of the crowd that will be playing this game. The occasional solo player will be able to assist and find a niche part to craft possibly. It happened in SWG all the time.
I mentioned everything working in harmony. A thriving economy needs to happen because it is allowed to happen. Complexity and additional steps actually are counter productive.
First we are talking a niche genre already compared to the rest of the MMO world. SWG had around 300k at the peak. Eve is a different type of player so I will not add their numbers to the type looking for this kind of game.
That is our cap from around 2004-2005. Add in another 200k for new people looking for that number. Now take away 50% because The Repopilation doesn't even ring a bell or they care to play this type of game anymore, so we are left with 250k roughly max sub short of a freak WOW moment for max subs.
You want to make this as complexity by making an item need 4-5 different professions to make is just a bad idea. Streamline and combine. Make it simple. Make the quality based on resource quality and very slightly on the level of the crafter( i.e. the 12 point Armorsmith for example) Not on complex systems.
I'm not going to get into much more than that. The current system is to complex in the way it is done. Adding layers on layers is not complex. It is not viable for the majority of players.
Like I mentioned before you have players just doing Combat. That is all they want to do, but they have to be able to provide for the crafting machine in order to make new items. (Do items degrade in this game anyways? Because if they don't that is already an issue.)
we are already seeing its 'just an alpha' excuses. Which will then evolve to 'it is just a beta' and then 'it just released' to 'its only been few months' and so on. Anyone seeing the same pattern here?
I bought the game because of its close resemblance to SWG but the state it is in right now i don't see it releasing any time soon. Unless ofcourse they bring in a huge team to make things work out sooner. 2015 seems impossible right now.
But hey that is indie kickstarter MMOS for you.
Highlighted is the real source of the problem. Used to be alpha testing was actually alpha testing, now it's paid product testing. The old adage "it's alpha" no longer applies when customers are paying for a product/service.
Way to early to tell about actual launch, many decent things
crafting is to much. Why? SWG's complexity was right on the money, the whole different letter grades actually make it a not enjoyable process.
No present class skills and unlimited skill system. To me this is a turn off. Why not have a skill point cap with the ability to remove skills and regrind others? This worked wonderfully in the past.
No big enough. To make crafting and resources viable it needs more. To get around multiple worlds, it could of been simply different continents on a large world. Many options.
Here is my biggest complaint. Really the funniest part of Galaxies was the ability to make an economy. To make and economy it has to be simple at the core, yet complex at the end. Galaxies mastered that with different quality level of resource spawns. If you sat long enough you made the best ever.
With that you had an economy that evolved around social aspects and crafting at the core:
Resources needed mined, this lead to some players renting or utilizing mines for resources just to be bought by the crafters.
Resources needed farmed in the case of meats, hide, and occasionally bone.
Doctors made buffs needed to be utilized by combat professions using armor and weapons made by crafters that lasted roughly 2-3hrs on average.
Musicians and Dancers then provided more buffs those making money and a large social aspect was created.
All of that flowed in harmony together. Was it perfect? No, but it was damn near close to everyone needed to do their part. Galaxies at its peak was excellent before the CU and NGE. It was my favorite game to date. The CU cut off its legs and then the NGE destroyed it.
I'm not evening going to talk about how awesome Space combat was as a whole other part.
What I'm saying is this formula has yet to be copied. There is no reason not to copy it. What Repopulation did was copy bits and pieces of it, but make it more complex, and in the end so far that has left it with nothing resembling SWG as I thought it would.
Even most the weapon classes have been covered and yet the game is lacking. I hope Repopulation team figures out what they have is way to complex and a grind.
I am currently not digging it much for many reasons that I mentioned, but am holding out hope for a later release while spending a few hours a week on this game between matches in Hex atm.
The crafting is done in the way it is done so players can create their own recipies for gear which opens up another market for crafters i.e. "only I know how to create the gear for the build you are trying to play." Its actually quite ingenious. It really isn't that much of a grind after you figure this part and the quality part out.
As for the DR, dancer and "musican" stuff you are talking about in the rest of your post: there are similar things in repop: dancer, story tell, and crafting each, afaik, have these types of things in them.
Resource extraction works very similar to SWG but it also has automation in place akin to shadow bane.
I could craft as an Armorsmith recipes no other Armorsmiths could craft by way of saving specific resources the mass producers decided they didn't want to save. It made a killing on Ubese Armor and Padded Armor.
I know about the Story Telling, Dancer. I am liking that social aspect. I find the Cantinas currently to be lacking greatly though.
I find resource extraction to not working anything like SWG. SWG DID NOT HAVE NODES. I could survey and extract resources anywhere, to me this is a giant part they got wrong and places it in the fantasy realm not Sci-fi realm of game play. The Shadowbane part you refer to is also far off in the fact that the mines became attackable. This nodes seem to spawn "X" amount of resource in a given amount of time and afterward they go dead. They do not require power to run either. Just plant it done.
I do not understand why resource gathering was not just copied. It was an awesome system, but they chose to go with a whole different level of idea on "community buff" the whole node area for 30 minutes at a time. So we get to sit and grind nodes all day. Yeah. That'll be something one person does solo with 5 accounts.
we are already seeing its 'just an alpha' excuses. Which will then evolve to 'it is just a beta' and then 'it just released' to 'its only been few months' and so on. Anyone seeing the same pattern here?
I bought the game because of its close resemblance to SWG but the state it is in right now i don't see it releasing any time soon. Unless ofcourse they bring in a huge team to make things work out sooner. 2015 seems impossible right now.
But hey that is indie kickstarter MMOS for you.
Highlighted is the real source of the problem. Used to be alpha testing was actually alpha testing, now it's paid product testing. The old adage "it's alpha" no longer applies when customers are paying for a product/service.
Except it does apply and one should know verbatim that they purchased the right to test and contribute to the game both monetarily and with feedback. Alpha is alpha whether they allow players to participate or not. That is all paying for alpha is, and any further expectation of service is foolish.
Way to early to tell about actual launch, many decent things
crafting is to much. Why? SWG's complexity was right on the money, the whole different letter grades actually make it a not enjoyable process.
No present class skills and unlimited skill system. To me this is a turn off. Why not have a skill point cap with the ability to remove skills and regrind others? This worked wonderfully in the past.
No big enough. To make crafting and resources viable it needs more. To get around multiple worlds, it could of been simply different continents on a large world. Many options.
Here is my biggest complaint. Really the funniest part of Galaxies was the ability to make an economy. To make and economy it has to be simple at the core, yet complex at the end. Galaxies mastered that with different quality level of resource spawns. If you sat long enough you made the best ever.
With that you had an economy that evolved around social aspects and crafting at the core:
Resources needed mined, this lead to some players renting or utilizing mines for resources just to be bought by the crafters.
Resources needed farmed in the case of meats, hide, and occasionally bone.
Doctors made buffs needed to be utilized by combat professions using armor and weapons made by crafters that lasted roughly 2-3hrs on average.
Musicians and Dancers then provided more buffs those making money and a large social aspect was created.
All of that flowed in harmony together. Was it perfect? No, but it was damn near close to everyone needed to do their part. Galaxies at its peak was excellent before the CU and NGE. It was my favorite game to date. The CU cut off its legs and then the NGE destroyed it.
I'm not evening going to talk about how awesome Space combat was as a whole other part.
What I'm saying is this formula has yet to be copied. There is no reason not to copy it. What Repopulation did was copy bits and pieces of it, but make it more complex, and in the end so far that has left it with nothing resembling SWG as I thought it would.
Even most the weapon classes have been covered and yet the game is lacking. I hope Repopulation team figures out what they have is way to complex and a grind.
I am currently not digging it much for many reasons that I mentioned, but am holding out hope for a later release while spending a few hours a week on this game between matches in Hex atm.
The crafting is done in the way it is done so players can create their own recipies for gear which opens up another market for crafters i.e. "only I know how to create the gear for the build you are trying to play." Its actually quite ingenious. It really isn't that much of a grind after you figure this part and the quality part out.
As for the DR, dancer and "musican" stuff you are talking about in the rest of your post: there are similar things in repop: dancer, story tell, and crafting each, afaik, have these types of things in them.
Resource extraction works very similar to SWG but it also has automation in place akin to shadow bane.
I could craft as an Armorsmith recipes no other Armorsmiths could craft by way of saving specific resources the mass producers decided they didn't want to save. It made a killing on Ubese Armor and Padded Armor.
I know about the Story Telling, Dancer. I am liking that social aspect. I find the Cantinas currently to be lacking greatly though.
I find resource extraction to not working anything like SWG. SWG DID NOT HAVE NODES. I could survey and extract resources anywhere, to me this is a giant part they got wrong and places it in the fantasy realm not Sci-fi realm of game play. The Shadowbane part you refer to is also far off in the fact that the mines became attackable. This nodes seem to spawn "X" amount of resource in a given amount of time and afterward they go dead. They do not require power to run either. Just plant it done.
I do not understand why resource gathering was not just copied. It was an awesome system, but they chose to go with a whole different level of idea on "community buff" the whole node area for 30 minutes at a time. So we get to sit and grind nodes all day. Yeah. That'll be something one person does solo with 5 accounts.
Because unlike SWG this game has actual territory control. Where PvP is allowed on the normal server (2/3rd of the server) you can actually steal those resources as well. It sounds to me that you aren't taking the game as a whole into account. As to the cantaina complaint, give it time. People are still learning how the game works. There are people on the forums who are starting "entertainment" nations who plan on setting up these places. It just not done yet because the community is still developing.
They are in no way secretive about the current state of the game. JC has been here telling people this for months, as well as stating rather clearly they move pretty slowly, one goal "was" to get it to this state, to use the funds to expand the team. I don't know if that's still the plan or not, but again they've been pretty open about this.
The important thing is, what is in red above. This game will be F2P. There's no reason to pay for it unless you want to fund it's development. As well as deal with the issues they have. It's in an alpha state of development, whether you like it or not. That's early access for you...
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Way to early to tell about actual launch, many decent things
crafting is to much. Why? SWG's complexity was right on the money, the whole different letter grades actually make it a not enjoyable process.
No present class skills and unlimited skill system. To me this is a turn off. Why not have a skill point cap with the ability to remove skills and regrind others? This worked wonderfully in the past.
No big enough. To make crafting and resources viable it needs more. To get around multiple worlds, it could of been simply different continents on a large world. Many options.
Here is my biggest complaint. Really the funniest part of Galaxies was the ability to make an economy. To make and economy it has to be simple at the core, yet complex at the end. Galaxies mastered that with different quality level of resource spawns. If you sat long enough you made the best ever.
With that you had an economy that evolved around social aspects and crafting at the core:
Resources needed mined, this lead to some players renting or utilizing mines for resources just to be bought by the crafters.
Resources needed farmed in the case of meats, hide, and occasionally bone.
Doctors made buffs needed to be utilized by combat professions using armor and weapons made by crafters that lasted roughly 2-3hrs on average.
Musicians and Dancers then provided more buffs those making money and a large social aspect was created.
All of that flowed in harmony together. Was it perfect? No, but it was damn near close to everyone needed to do their part. Galaxies at its peak was excellent before the CU and NGE. It was my favorite game to date. The CU cut off its legs and then the NGE destroyed it.
I'm not evening going to talk about how awesome Space combat was as a whole other part.
What I'm saying is this formula has yet to be copied. There is no reason not to copy it. What Repopulation did was copy bits and pieces of it, but make it more complex, and in the end so far that has left it with nothing resembling SWG as I thought it would.
Even most the weapon classes have been covered and yet the game is lacking. I hope Repopulation team figures out what they have is way to complex and a grind.
I am currently not digging it much for many reasons that I mentioned, but am holding out hope for a later release while spending a few hours a week on this game between matches in Hex atm.
The Repopulation is supposed to be a game where players really cannot do everything solo. What they do will be dependent on something someone else is doing? And the idea behind the crafting system is that you really shouldn't be trying to do everything from start to finish but rather take something someone else started and complete it. The concept sounds nice, but who's going to want to take up crafting to crank out unfinished base components? That sounds boring. I don't think anyone in their right mind would want to take their "Main" and level it up for the sole purpose of making "parts". Unless it's a system that is going to encourage Alt accounts. We called them "Mules" in Anarchy Online.
But you can do everything. You have unlimited skills, I see that as a problem.
Secondly, lets be real here. People will have multiple accounts to be self sufficient. This is a fact, not some illusion. If people are holding onto this illusion of people having to rely on each other that is what happens. A group of friends 4-5 will be able to make everything by each having 2-5 accounts, that is about the extent for the majority of the crowd that will be playing this game. The occasional solo player will be able to assist and find a niche part to craft possibly. It happened in SWG all the time.
I mentioned everything working in harmony. A thriving economy needs to happen because it is allowed to happen. Complexity and additional steps actually are counter productive.
First we are talking a niche genre already compared to the rest of the MMO world. SWG had around 300k at the peak. Eve is a different type of player so I will not add their numbers to the type looking for this kind of game.
That is our cap from around 2004-2005. Add in another 200k for new people looking for that number. Now take away 50% because The Repopilation doesn't even ring a bell or they care to play this type of game anymore, so we are left with 250k roughly max sub short of a freak WOW moment for max subs.
You want to make this as complexity by making an item need 4-5 different professions to make is just a bad idea. Streamline and combine. Make it simple. Make the quality based on resource quality and very slightly on the level of the crafter( i.e. the 12 point Armorsmith for example) Not on complex systems.
I'm not going to get into much more than that. The current system is to complex in the way it is done. Adding layers on layers is not complex. It is not viable for the majority of players.
Like I mentioned before you have players just doing Combat. That is all they want to do, but they have to be able to provide for the crafting machine in order to make new items. (Do items degrade in this game anyways? Because if they don't that is already an issue.)
I wasn't necessarily arguing with you. In fact on some counts, I agree with you. When I said "Supposed to be, I was referring to the ideal. I know how reality differs. Players have ALWAYS taken up multiple accounts in games where interaction is encouraged in order to bypass dependency on other players. As I said, in Anarchy Online, we had "Mules" This game will not be an exception. I'd like to see if and how this game can be monetized around multiple accounts. Because then there is true incentive for the game to be developed in that way. Not saying this game will be like that (Not saying it wont either) But games that I've played were developed with multiple accounts in mind like EVE, Perpetuum, Anarchy Online and SWG have enough in common with this game for me to consider it. What will be different is how much the Devs believe players should play on one or more accounts.
My personal feeling is that if I need a second account to enjoy the game to it's fullest, something's wrong.
Comments
It's always going to be a balance between attracting players and keeping players. You say they're neglecting things that can turn players off immediately while "chasing depth." Not every game has to bring in tens of thousands of players right off the bat. It's ok to build up a strong playerbase that actually sticks around because you have depth to your game.
Yeah it's playable for me as it is. I do hope they make the UI better looking, but the game itself will be ok as is because the gameplay carries it and they didn't make design choices that are purposely silly or childish. Repopulation isn't for everyone, but for those who want the features it has I would say it will be a solid game for years.
Multi quoting is terrible on this site....
Games:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
The crafting is done in the way it is done so players can create their own recipies for gear which opens up another market for crafters i.e. "only I know how to create the gear for the build you are trying to play." Its actually quite ingenious. It really isn't that much of a grind after you figure this part and the quality part out.
As for the DR, dancer and "musican" stuff you are talking about in the rest of your post: there are similar things in repop: dancer, story tell, and crafting each, afaik, have these types of things in them.
Resource extraction works very similar to SWG but it also has automation in place akin to shadow bane.
The UI is being redone to be fully customizeable as we speak. Its one of those "here is a functional UI for now, lets work on more important stuff in the meantime" type of thingsGames:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
Do i need to be a film maker to criticise a movie? or a singer to criticise music? no then why every time a criticism comes up for a video game people come barging in with arguments such as 'you don't understand how development works or how many games have you made".
No shit sherlocks ofcourse i don't work in gaming industry. I am giving my point of view from a perspective of a tester and early customer.
Do i need to work in gaming industry to understand that 'man power' matters? for a small team it is always going to be an uphill task. That is why i stated that given the current state of game unless they bring in more hands on deck i really doubt this game is gonna see a release in 2015 let alone 2016. (and if it did release it will join up the never ending list of half baked broken releases'.
And yes game does look like and play like ALPHA hence my post that how many actually think that crucial stuff like animations and combat is going to change drastically at release that when people mention how bad combat and animation are people don't make excuses like 'hey it just release give it some time'.
I have seen this happening every single time from alpha to beta to release and beyond that. A company like Funcom is still struggling to fix animations in TSW and it has been out for years now. pr maybe they have completely given up..who knows.
Some people don't care about the look of the game as much as they care about the systems in the game working and actually being good. IMO, repop has the latter nailed. They don't have a permanent art term and part of their funding goals is to get the art quality higher; however, that isn't as important as all the other stuff they are working on. Rather have a crappy looking game than a barren one.
Games:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
I would like to believe that but looks do matter. it is not even about looks per say but more about the grey/brown ugly looking world and wonky to terrible animations and combat.
And i don't know why we have to chose between a crappy looking game or working features/system. it has become such a cliche with indie games. maybe someday some company will give us both.
Going to have to side with CrazKanuk here. If, as you claim, you had that much experience in the testing cycle of games you would not have any issue whatsoever. Games (and software in general) will change by leaps and bounds from concept though testing and at release may not look at all like the first build of the game. That is pure fact. If you had ever legitimately tested any type of software you would know this. This is in fact common knowledge and the established 'norm' for software development.
So, your original post is based on ignorance, and none of your subsequent posts have gotten any better.
It is well beyond any Alpha I have ever played (meaning legit alphas, not early access money grab alphas) insomuch as you can actually see what the game will be like. Yes, the devs need to clean up the animations and about a million other things, but this is very normal, and to be expected and things will change a lot before release. Take this as a learning experience. Or don't, but it is hard to take you seriously if all you have are inaccurate statements based on supposition and fantasy.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
No, you don't have to be a professional critic, but you can't expect to present logical fallacies like this anecdotal evidence, and not catch flak for it.
Yes, I've heard these "excuses" used before at a point when serious changes shouldn't be made (late beta/launch), but the alpha testing stage, by definition, reserves them the right to claim things are still changing, because... its an alpha stage of development where everything is supposed to be subject to change.
For the most part they seem to be nailing it, but I have some serious problems, hopefully the hardcore ruleset will fix them. The fact that the AH is global is a problem. What is the point of player vendors? They've talked about the possibility of making your nation into a neutral trade hub, but why would anybody do that if they can just press "T" and buy whatever they want from the AH?
I love what the Repop team is trying to achieve. I put down $150 to back this game over a year ago. Call me crazy or stupid but it is my money that I earned on my own and I have plenty to spend on stuff I like. If I was unemployed and receiving foodstamps or something then maybe it would be dumb, truth is I can afford it and glad I bought into it.
It is not my main game at the moment, I am waiting for it to be more polished and finished but I have no regrets in backing this team as they try to make a game that I very much want to play.
"I don't give a sh*t what other people say. I play what I like and I'll pay to do it too!" - SerialMMOist
I don't know where you've been but we deal with this because indies are the companies making games like this, where while they may not be pretty, they make up for that in game-play options. Going into a indie title and expecting top of the line GFX, animations and combat systems is looking in the wrong place for what you care about. IF you find those types of things to be of the highest importance, play AAA games it's as simple as that.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I feel like I just went 8 years back in time to the Darkfall forums.
I agree, I've always been a big proponent for localized banking and trade. It makes the entire world more meaningful permitted there isn't fast travel (which I hope there isn't, but I'm a casual follower of repop)
The Repopulation is supposed to be a game where players really cannot do everything solo. What they do will be dependent on something someone else is doing? And the idea behind the crafting system is that you really shouldn't be trying to do everything from start to finish but rather take something someone else started and complete it. The concept sounds nice, but who's going to want to take up crafting to crank out unfinished base components? That sounds boring. I don't think anyone in their right mind would want to take their "Main" and level it up for the sole purpose of making "parts". Unless it's a system that is going to encourage Alt accounts. We called them "Mules" in Anarchy Online.
Be my guest if you believe that Repop will change in leaps and bound in terms of animation and combat. When AAA MMOS have hard time doing it i have doubt for indi title like this one.
There is a reason why 'its just alpha'.. 'it is just beta'..'it just released' excuses never seem to end.
As far as my subsuquent posts not getting any better they never will unless ofcourse i praise repop to sky high. So i really don't care about that. My opinion is based on what i played in Alpha and not on some fantasy.
Any real alpha or beta improves those things over time. I'm not talking about Archage alpha where the game had already been launched for years and was just being localized, or open beta where your just trying to sell the game to people before it comes out. But real tests, like there used to typically be, and like we're starting to see more of with the crowd funded titles.By the time most players get into testing though I think what your saying is true. But it doesn't really pertain to a game like this.
This game began with two programmers, outsourcing art. Then we slowly added in house artists. But the truth is that when you have a budget, it has to be spent on various parts of the game. And for an indie project with a scope as large as ours, a big part of what we needed to show is if we can develop the game. We've said throughout (and it's on the Early Access page as well) that some art are placeholders and much is a work in progress, the UI is slated for a complete revamp with the XML interface upcoming, etc. But art is something that while expensive, is also easy to outsource, or to get done simply with an increased budget. Art is something that you can plug into a game pretty easily, where code isn't. That's what Steam is doing for us. It's increasing our budget so we can work get everything polished and ready for launch.
https://www.therepopulation.com - Sci Fi Sandbox.
Gear destruction and loot upon death
Local banking
No instant teleportation with items
Considering AAA companies aren't making true sandboxes with territory control and only indy companies are doing it I can say without a doubt that I couldn't care less about graphics or animation quality. Hell, I played Haven and Hearth for a solid 4-5months
Games:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
OP - What do you want then? A big budget polished game that will attempt nothing new because big devs are afraid or an indie making a game that is actually different?
Who cares if it doesn't look perfect right now? Atleast they are trying something different.
I played SWTOR in beta and it was pretty bad. They have improved that game quite a lot since then.
We either keep getting WoW clones or hope an indie dev comes along and makes an actual sandbox game.
But you can do everything. You have unlimited skills, I see that as a problem.
Secondly, lets be real here. People will have multiple accounts to be self sufficient. This is a fact, not some illusion. If people are holding onto this illusion of people having to rely on each other that is what happens. A group of friends 4-5 will be able to make everything by each having 2-5 accounts, that is about the extent for the majority of the crowd that will be playing this game. The occasional solo player will be able to assist and find a niche part to craft possibly. It happened in SWG all the time.
I mentioned everything working in harmony. A thriving economy needs to happen because it is allowed to happen. Complexity and additional steps actually are counter productive.
First we are talking a niche genre already compared to the rest of the MMO world. SWG had around 300k at the peak. Eve is a different type of player so I will not add their numbers to the type looking for this kind of game.
That is our cap from around 2004-2005. Add in another 200k for new people looking for that number. Now take away 50% because The Repopilation doesn't even ring a bell or they care to play this type of game anymore, so we are left with 250k roughly max sub short of a freak WOW moment for max subs.
You want to make this as complexity by making an item need 4-5 different professions to make is just a bad idea. Streamline and combine. Make it simple. Make the quality based on resource quality and very slightly on the level of the crafter( i.e. the 12 point Armorsmith for example) Not on complex systems.
I'm not going to get into much more than that. The current system is to complex in the way it is done. Adding layers on layers is not complex. It is not viable for the majority of players.
Like I mentioned before you have players just doing Combat. That is all they want to do, but they have to be able to provide for the crafting machine in order to make new items. (Do items degrade in this game anyways? Because if they don't that is already an issue.)
Highlighted is the real source of the problem. Used to be alpha testing was actually alpha testing, now it's paid product testing. The old adage "it's alpha" no longer applies when customers are paying for a product/service.
I could craft as an Armorsmith recipes no other Armorsmiths could craft by way of saving specific resources the mass producers decided they didn't want to save. It made a killing on Ubese Armor and Padded Armor.
I know about the Story Telling, Dancer. I am liking that social aspect. I find the Cantinas currently to be lacking greatly though.
I find resource extraction to not working anything like SWG. SWG DID NOT HAVE NODES. I could survey and extract resources anywhere, to me this is a giant part they got wrong and places it in the fantasy realm not Sci-fi realm of game play. The Shadowbane part you refer to is also far off in the fact that the mines became attackable. This nodes seem to spawn "X" amount of resource in a given amount of time and afterward they go dead. They do not require power to run either. Just plant it done.
I do not understand why resource gathering was not just copied. It was an awesome system, but they chose to go with a whole different level of idea on "community buff" the whole node area for 30 minutes at a time. So we get to sit and grind nodes all day. Yeah. That'll be something one person does solo with 5 accounts.
Except it does apply and one should know verbatim that they purchased the right to test and contribute to the game both monetarily and with feedback. Alpha is alpha whether they allow players to participate or not. That is all paying for alpha is, and any further expectation of service is foolish.
Because unlike SWG this game has actual territory control. Where PvP is allowed on the normal server (2/3rd of the server) you can actually steal those resources as well. It sounds to me that you aren't taking the game as a whole into account. As to the cantaina complaint, give it time. People are still learning how the game works. There are people on the forums who are starting "entertainment" nations who plan on setting up these places. It just not done yet because the community is still developing.
Games:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I wasn't necessarily arguing with you. In fact on some counts, I agree with you. When I said "Supposed to be, I was referring to the ideal. I know how reality differs. Players have ALWAYS taken up multiple accounts in games where interaction is encouraged in order to bypass dependency on other players. As I said, in Anarchy Online, we had "Mules" This game will not be an exception. I'd like to see if and how this game can be monetized around multiple accounts. Because then there is true incentive for the game to be developed in that way. Not saying this game will be like that (Not saying it wont either) But games that I've played were developed with multiple accounts in mind like EVE, Perpetuum, Anarchy Online and SWG have enough in common with this game for me to consider it. What will be different is how much the Devs believe players should play on one or more accounts.
My personal feeling is that if I need a second account to enjoy the game to it's fullest, something's wrong.