It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
I was very enthusiastic about Xsyon. Played during "beta", then bought TWO copies of the game before the first launch attempt. I had done plenty of research on the game, so I knew it's prior history, including the fact that it was supposed to be "ready for launch" a year ago (but that was postponed). I knew that the game only had basic systems implemented, so the limited content ingame came as no surprise.
Suffered through the appaling launches (both of them) and then set about enjoying the new world. It was fun at first.
However, as time went by, I slowly came to the realisation that the game had major issues, other than the obvious bugs and lack of content. The developer (and here I expressly use the singular) claimed that "80% of the systems" were ready, but just not "switched on". Hmmm... after launch a good deal of the systems that were ingame during the beta were suddenly switched off, because there were major lag issues. The dev claimed that the lag was being fixed, and it certainly improved steadily. However, the ingame population was also rapidly declining. No players, no lag, voila ! It was fixed !
The combat system was said to be a placeholder, and certainly looked like one. A paperweight was more exciting (and playable !) than combat in Xsyon. This will all be fixed by the "combat expert" that was recently hired to completely rebuild the combat mechanics and produce a system similar to "Mount & Blade". Big plans. So NG hired a random programmer on a short-term contract to do some coding, and he becomes the de facto combat expert. OK. This guy will single-handedly implement a complete new combat system in a month or two... really ? I never realised MMO games were that simple to build.
So wtf are the big dev houses spending their multi-million dollar budgets on exactly, if all it takes is a a few short-term contractors to code and a glorious list of bullet points outlining the game features ?
The agriculture system will soon be implemented ingame. However, there are no details available of how it will work, because the dev has not decided that yet. Translation: "I listed it as a game feature, but I've no idea at this point what it will do, or even how I'll be able to code it"...
The overarching impression I have of Xsyon at this stage is that it is "made up as it goes along". There are general guidelines as to what will happen ingame in future, but they are vague, and intentionally so, I believe. The dev never commits to any fixed direction, rather preferring to "develop the game according to what the players want". But that only happens if he happens to agree with the players, or if there is a massive whine campaign on the forums.
I actually requested a refund for both my game copies a month ago, and received it promptly. Kudo's to NG on that front. I don't believe that they are trying to scam anyone, just that they are massively over-ambitious in what they are trying to do.
Clearly there is a very large gulf between the "vision" of what Xsyon is supposed to be and what reality actually allows to happen during human lifespans...
Good luck Xsyon, I wish you all the best, but I fear for the worst.
Comments
Yeah......................... This game had so mad potinal to bad nun of that was tapped ...................This game if relased even a year from now could have been great just antoher game lauchned unfinshed and half done
Playing: Single player games |
Awaiting: Wild Star |Blade & Soul | The Repopulation | The Elder Scrolls online | ArcheAge | Firefall | Survarium | Bless | Black Desert |
Played: Guild Wars | Diablo 3 |The War Z | Runescape |World of Warcraft |Combat Arms |Perfect World | Rift | Fiesta | DC universe online | Aion | Age of Conan |Allods | Vindictus | The Secret World | Forge | Battle of the Immortals | Global Agenda| Cabal Online | Tera |
About the combat update.
Its not from scratch, the current combat system was a placeholder but with the right stuff set up for later updated combat. So when you say it only took 1.5 months to do the combat. Really its been in the works the whole time.
-MrDDT
That is not a positive.
Never said it was.
Just putting out the data. This revamp of combat has been planned for a while, its just been on the backburner. Also its still not in yet. Current combat is broken and a joke, but you can see where its coming from.
-MrDDT
Perhaps I misunderstood Jordi's posts relating to the "combat upgrade". Afaik the programmer who was going to develop the combat systems was only hired around 2 months ago. So is this programmer only going to put the finishing touches to the "existing, but not switched on" new improved combat system ?
It sounds vaguely familiar, but in the old days we would have called this "miracle patch" syndrome. Yeah, it's all done and ready, just not ingame...
The combat upgrade has been spoken about frequently since the heavy forum-whining about it started around launch time. If that means it was "in the works", then I agree with you. However, saying that you plan to do it does not equate to it being done already.
You still have faith in the Xsyon developer and his "team" of part-time coders. I have lost my faith. Success is not measured by good intentions, but by delivery of a working finished product.
EDIT: Seems as if we will be allowed t test this new combat system on the test server as of tomorrow. Everyone can login for this test, subscribers AND non-subscribers. The proof of the pudding...
The game needs more work than can be accomplished in several month's time...the new "combat revamp" might be nice one day, but they first need to focus on getting the game FUN to play...
15-30 minutes to load into the game...
constant desync/lag causing combat and/or interactions with others to be a complete joke...
and really no reason to log in (other than to socialize with the 10-20 people still around)...
I wanted desperately for this game to work out, but it's just ridiculous that they're charging ANYTHING for this at the moment.
"Going Against The Grain Should Be A Way Of Life"
Depends on the engine they are using. Combat in Unity 3D for a rpg takes less than a month to create in C#. To make it go online, perhaps maybe 1-3 months using Photon technology. As for Big World Tech, would be combat ready in a few weeks, maybe 3 months max if you wanted to make a dynamic combat system. Solely depends on how you intepret big commercial industries "developing" combat systems. They like to blow huge pockets of money on literally nothing. For 20 hours a week, a good modeler can get 1 model completely done and ready, yet some major studios claim it takes months to get ready. I like the lies people tell these days. I mean freelancers can spit out 5-6 models fully textured and game ready in the time it takes 1 geek hired by a commercial company to spit out a model. As for code, don't really want to go there. I favor art over code, but in C# and Python, C# for Unity and Python for Big World, I can get something as advance das combat or sandbox mechanics done in a few short months. As for a real mmog? It would take a year or more because of the sheer amount of modeling, artwork, advertising, and server structure. Yeah, they pay a bunch of developers a crap load of money when it takes 1 or even 2 people to create a good solid code.
I find it sad that commercial studios blow soo much money on nothing. Instead, spend the money to advertise and get those subscriptions they need to stay a float. But sadly, they pull the good old "I code from scratch so I'm pro, also I take 1 month to add details that Zbrush ads with a good alpha over 1 months time!".
ROFL...At this point in time they can't even keep the website up and stable! It's down about 30-40% of the time.
$15.00 a month for this is absurd...but the company apparently can't understand why people don't want to pay...
"Going Against The Grain Should Be A Way Of Life"
The game looked amazing but in reality all I did was find a scrap pile and macro scavenge.
The game sounded so right... even ni beta i was having fun... but after launch when they finally managed to fix the lag in my zone i started to paly again but i soon realised the only thing to do was collect junk and build stuff that you would use a couple of times to make some walls... Not only was that the onyl thing to really do, actually doing it was boring as hell... why they thought they would design a game around clicking a button each time u wanted to scavange some metal off the ground, or click each item every time u wanted to craft somthing is just crazy.. So yes after about a week of doing the same thing.. walk here click ... crappy animation.... click ... crappy animation... oh look i need food and water.. walk to water.. click .. crappy animation.. well you get it lol..
I just had an email saying my account has expired lol cant believe its been 2 months already.. Lucky the game was not expensive to buy so im not worried about that but itsnot somthing i would pay monthly for.
The website does seem to be having some serious issues these last 2 days. I think the forums and game live on the same server, so when game updates are patched in, the forums go offline while the game server is down... not very elegant, but it does reduce the operating overheads
One correction that really really really really really needs to happen is that people need to really really really really understand that there is NOT just one developer. I really have no idea how this rumor got started but if you look at the website under 'team' or 'developers' you will see its a full fledge team. NOT just one developer and hasnt been for a very long time.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
After Darkfall it was shame on them...
After Mortal Online it was shame on me...
Now I have learned and I will never buy an indy developed MMORPG again, they simply do not have the resources to build a solid game, no matter how high their motivations and goals are.
My gaming blog
As far as I know the engine is custom.
The many mmo's which look a like or the same,at least this has its own look and feel.
The whole gameplay had one MAJOR FLAW. Tribes! Yes allowing tribes from the start was the game's doom. People would share everything and do less exploration, less crafting(that was so wrong, to take away the feeling of accomplishment when creating your first objects!! )and most of all less "playing". If the game would NOT allow tribe creation from the start or even have a certain "friendship" mechanism to allow player relationships to evolve and then being able to come into a tribe...
That way everyone would have their share of grind/crafting/exploration , the company would have more time to fix/update the game...plus there would have been many political conflicts risen ingame(due to the difficulty of items aquisition). The way the game launched with 5-10 major tribes...all creating their villages withing days...was like a marathon that ended within the hour...
Shame
I was deceived and ripped-off by this Indie team a year ago, stuck my head in the door afterwards to only have it slammed on my head.
Let this pile of excrement die on the vine.
I don't see why we need to understand that. It doesn't change the game experience we had one way or another.
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
Because people keep talking about this 'one man dev team' despite the fact that there is a full list of developers you can find on the front page! It just makes people who say there is only 1 person on the dev team not look very smart. please whatever it takes, make it stop!
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
The more developers there are on this game, the worse it looks to me. There are huge, I mean HUGE, gaps in gameplay that shouldn't be in any game. For example:
- the combat system is a placeholder, not a "real" combat sysem
- armor, weapons, and buildings (everything you craft) have little or no effect on the game.
- there is no cooking, no farming, no herbalism, no alchemy.
- there are no mobs, no quests, no lore, nothing.
As I posted elsewhere, if this was a Monopoly game, all you could do is roll the die and move around the board. All the "game" systems are missing. How many developers does it take to get that far?
------------
2024: 47 years on the Net.
So, it maks a difference that there are 5-10 people to blame instead of one, that the game is unfun, unstable, largely unplayable and no where near worth $15/mo?
Broken crap is broken crap whether done by one person or committee.
Not counting the artists and the musician (no idea how long they have been contributing), ALL the actual programmers other than Jordi himself have been hired SINCE THE GAME LAUNCHED !
So all of them have to become familiar with the existing game code before they are truly going to be productive. Given that they are all Russian, I hope Jordi speaks fluent russian or has an excellent interpreter, or perhaps they are fluent in english ?
Before the launch of the game, it was Jordi as developer. The game is and always has been his baby. He hired some fixed-term contractors to do some of the coding in the previous years, but they apparently made such a mess that the original "launch" a year ago in 2010 was abandoned.
So, yes, there is a "full development team" as of about 1 month ago.
Over the last year I've been playing Xsyon more than any other game. It's had some genuine highs and I wish other games gave me the same building (and even terraforming ability).
Still, I agre that ultimately there is too much wrong, and too much still missing. I'm not sure I'm quite ready to give up on the game, but I'm not currently playing. It's just rather boring now.
I've really enjoyed Xsyon, too, but not logging in much at the moment either. I hope it grows into the game it can and should become, but it will take time.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
Tell the Bears, Squirrels, Coyote's, Racoons, and Pine Martens that they don't exist and therefore did not kill me.
You've not been inside of the game lately or you would have seen what Quality and Durability has done to crafting - One effect has made it far harder to macro skilling up a craft.
"ROFL...At this point in time they can't even keep the website up and stable! It's down about 30-40% of the time".
That's total BS - the server downtime is listed in the forums. I come online at odd hours and have seen few server problems.
"The game looked amazing but in reality all I did was find a scrap pile and macro scavenge". We don't want Macro'ers in Xyson.
I know there are problems with this game - But I also remember the problems from Eve Online, WOW, every SoE product and far too many others to name during their first year.
I wish this was good.
It really looks so charming and creative.