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Embers Adrift
Geeky
Member UncommonPosts: 446
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Geeky
Member UncommonPosts: 446
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Comments
This game takes what everquest made, a group based farming game, takes out raids, takes out high fantast, takes out quality of life (all of it) and says....here is the EQ game youve wanted for the last 22 years....
Only, combat is comparable in fidelity to EQ, you just punch with weapon in hand. There is no magic, its LOW FANTASY....which means your fighting animals and humans for enemies, every class is melee based, ect.
You only get a few skills, and the devs sell this as making the game more strategic, however, the only strategy is simple positioning and stamina management.
There is no compass, no mini map, no "your position" on the main map. You will need to memorize locations, dungeons will be a nightmare for many as you will need to memorize how to get around.
Death is dropped inventory and XP penalty. Thats fine, but good luck finding your dropped bag in a dungeon.
One of the biggest issues youll see in game, is that you cannot say anything in chat without a majority of the players jumping down your throat. I watched chat lambast a new player for asking about a compass, and then countering "how am i suppose to use to sky to navigate in dungeons?" by immediately telling them to go back to wow....sigh...one of these communities again....alright...never in my life have i seen a more sensitive and defensive community, nor a community so interested in driving new players out, considering no more than 1000 are likely playing overall....its just a horrible community that is going through its death spiral during launch weekend where they get super defensive and try to drive out anyone that isnt 1000% positive about anything in game.
Then theres the optimization. It looks like a 2005 game, with modern lighting, and runs using far more resources than it should. The game will struggle even on the most beastly rigs. Since its a unity game, settings are sparse, you cant turn down lighting effects at all, and i suspect them to be behind the massive GPU use.
So what is this game? Who is this game for? Well, its a game that seems to have only recently realized that a game called Pantheon exists to fill the void left by EQ1 never getting a proper sequel. I feel like they found out a few months ago, and raced to launch, far before they are even close to ready. Only a few zones and a couple dungeons exist, thats it.....no raids, no endgame, no vision or road map.
Its $29.99+$9,99/mo to play.
If this game survives its first month, it wont past pantheon. It seems like a cash grab on an unfinished game, that only seems to make sense if another more hyped, and more developed game wasnt on the horizon.
Having played the weekend, I just want to go back and play regular Everquest. Its better made, more interesting, runs better, and has a better, more friendly to new players, community. That about sums it up for me. I would have probably farmed out my full first month if it wasnt for the insufferable community, which alone would kill a group based "chat and farm" type game like this.
I love these types of games, but I cant see this game having more than a couple dozen die hards playing past the first month, granted, I dont think there is anything to do beyond a month of casual play as it stands anyway. For whatever reason, the developers decided to narrow the appeal of a game type that was already far too niche to support a major game....i just dont get that, unless they packed up an unfinished game and launched it, blaming lack of features for "hardcore no hand holding" and low fantasy because they didnt have magic stuff implimented yet, and they could get away with stock asset animals for their game...
best of luck, i cant see this game being around long unfortunately. Keep in mind this game launched, there are no more than like 10 youtube videos total for the game, like a combined 75 twitch viewers, and most people in game heard about it the day they jumped in.
Some QOL features are worth dying on a hill for.
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Honestly, for me, its the lack of high fantasy. I envisioned myself at level 50 a few months in the future, still grinding deer and bears in a field, using big attack and bigger attack, occasionally healing....at level 6 i thought, this is about it, this is how the game will be...sure i didnt have my regen skills...but still.
All around super boring experience, from a player who will legit Iskar Necro farm solo every day for months and love it, from someone who loved the stand and farm parties and misses them in other games.
The appeal to this games has to be one of the most narrow demographics in mmo history.....EQ1 fanatics who wished there was no QOL features, no high fantasy, and hates when players ask questions in chat.
I cant see this game having more than 500 players total past month one. In fact, I have never seen a mmorpg launch with so little fanfare and such a small crowd....
I will say, NONE of their hard stances on the game actually improve it. It really does appear they are using it to hide behind an unfinished and feature incomplete game.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Its all so confusing. They renamed the game after the guy running the game was fired, went silent, did a beta, and then surprise launched it seems. I had never heard of this game, or its prior iteration, before this weekend.
Yes, I feel stupid I payed when i saw it was a new EQ like mmo, and then read about all its "features" but you know what, I love a good grindy slow paced game.
Keep in mind there is no content past 30, no raids, no endgame. Theyve spun lack of endgame into "the real game starts right from the beginning" framed in a manner that "the real fun starts at lv1" instead of "we just dont have any content different from lv1, other than doing that with other people and maybe standing on the side or behind the mob based on your classes weapon preference"
Usually a game trying to do well will advertise, even if viral style where they just get people to post about it. But then why bother when its appealing to a super narrow segment of an already tiny niche market of EQ players who want another EQ....why wouldnt you try for all of the EQ community and offer things that might attract fresh blood to the mmorpg style. I think keeping so silent actually helped them draw in unsuspecting players who are really craving a modern EQ.
With that said, this style of MMORPG is underrated (when done well) and under served. It only has Eq1 to serve it and never got a real sequal, or attempt to remake it, since wow slipped in right after and set the stage for every mmo after.
So naturally im a bit bummed out after launch weekend, all i want to do is play some EQ magic class and farm. EQ looks and plays better, and that is a travesty.
On the bright side, all Pantheon has to do is be somewhat improved from EQ and it will be fine. This game was curiously worse than EQ.
I do think it will appeal to some people for a little while, for the sole reason its something different. People like me, can not play the same exact game forever. Sometimes people just need something different to change things up.
With that said. There is a cycle I noticed in Beta that people who initially liked the game went through. Generally the cycle people went through was.
1-5 were like its ok, lets see how it goes.
5-15 they were enjoying themselves, still have hope for more coming.
15-25 it was Mehh is there more?
25+ its was WTF is this POS. Why am I even playing this game.
For casuals its going to take up to a month to get to 20 to 25. Once that happens you will see the community turn on this game sharply. The exact same thing happened to NW when people hit 60. This game at level 25-35 is when that inflection point will happen you just watch. 99.9% of the people will never make 35 let alone 50. There is just no way.
All there is to do is just absent minded grinding. Takes no skill, you can watch TV while grinding because combat is so easy and slow that you don't even have to pay attention. You get 2 maybe 3 (depending on class) skills to use for quite a long time. There is no strategy to the skills, just wait till cooldown expires and press the hotkey again. Spawns and aggro ranges are too chaotic to be reliable for pulling in a group, so the only real option in a group is just run around and kill creatures you could even kill solo.
The zones are pretty bland, barely anything off the beaten path. The first 3 zones are literally just in a straight line running north and I believe that's about half the content released so far. The game is instanced, but the game doesn't even keep your group in the same instance. You can group in city in instance 1 then soon as you run out into zone, you're all in different instances. You can switch instances, but for a game that is supposed to be all about the group based combat, you'd think they could keep your group together...
The community...man...I wouldn't call it toxic, but it's extremely cult like. If you criticize anything about the game they will jump all over you, tell you it's not the game for you, leave, etc... The game won't be able to sustain itself for long. It will follow exact same path as Crowfall where the community acted same way. Only difference is it will happen much quicker because the game launched with less than 5% of the people that crowfall did.
The current buy 2 play / subscription model that they rant and rave about as if they're the first developers in modern history to think of doing that, will never work and a reason why most MMOs and especially niche MMOs do not follow that model. It's just not sustainable. It's basic math. A 12 person team getting paid MINIMUM wage (12 * $8 * 40 * 4) would take $15,360 just to pay the team members, that's 1536 monthly subscribers just to pay your team minimum wage. You still have payment processing fees, server costs, etc... Your not going to maintain that kind of player base in a niche MMO. That's why almost every single niche MMO has a cash shop that supports the game via a few whales that want to spend $1000's every month. You can hate cash shops all you want, but it's the only way your niche MMO is surviving.
Crafting...The most boring kind of crafting ever imagined. Literally as an outfitter you just skin animals all day, and then convert animal skins to leather and then use the leather to craft the same item 1000 times. It's pretty much your typical boring MMO crafting but made 100x more grindier because it's supposed to be a "challanging" mmo.
Everything being said, I predict the game will be up for 6 months tops before it's sold off, there's just no way this is sustainable.
I like chicken, I eat a lot of chicken. But sometimes I want turkey. I don't want turkey everyday, but sometimes having a little turkey on holidays is refreshing. It doesn't have to be the best turkey on the planet, it doesn't even have to be as good as chicken. What I don't want is a raw turkey or a burnt turkey, that is unacceptable.
Embers unfortunately is an undercooked turkey. It needed a lot more time and love before they served it.
Speaking of that, I think my wife does make the best turkey on the planet!
If you want to appeal to the Everquest veteran you need more than what is here I'm really sorry to say.
I do acknowledge that the raiding in P99 has gone to shit with a few guilds controlling it but if it is all about the journey you will have far more fun in P99 than you would in this game.
As for paying 30$ and 10$ sub I don't mind that at all. As long as I get my moneys worth its all good. so for 40$ I hope to get atleast 40 hours and will be happy.
Even their lead programmer, although I think he was clueless with his vision and in not being able to figure out what were the really fun old school features vs the tedious ones. He thought this game would have this huge niche of players waiting for it. 10k+ subs lol. I still think the dev had some programming talent. He could easily get a job making good money, so how long do people expect them to sit and waste time on this project without a return.
I think once they started seeing the open Beta World Breaker events pulling in only 100 people, it was time up. Investor & devs both probably will just launch and will move on.
Ive now explored 3 medium oval zones with the same biome and mostly the same animal and or human mobs.
Oh and ive finally figured out what combat this game reminds me of. It is SPOT ON combat to Anarchy Online. Like the animations and how your skills act where they all have an awkward load time you can move around during.
If pantheon exists i hope to god its at least tries to make this type of combat at least cool to watch...it can still be slow and boomer friendly....just like give me something cool to look at.
Ive thought this might be a good game to come back to in a year or two. Im pretty sure they already stated zero endgame no raids ect so its just fields mobs and a dungeon per zone they need to make...and if they can add a LOT more and make something interesting add depth to the grind...id come back. But this has to be the hardest sell game ive ever seen and ive been watching this stuff since it started.