Ok so here's my feedback. I'm ignoring some stuff that is basically just bugs or unfinished.
The good:
Gfx, engine, general concept, world, theming, music
The bad:
Some EQ nostalgia design decisions (Full inv and eqp loot on death, complete lack of tooltips or game engine transparency, ridiculous starting inventory size are personal examples), lack of compass or any direction finding or dead reckoning that I could find, how vertical movement works (Minecraft layer pop, swimming)
The ugly:
UI/UX is really bad and needs a lot of work. It's exhausting trying to play the game.
and of course
"Body Type"
Because it isn't 2023 if you don't know how biology works.
Overall, it's enjoyable but I think you can evoke the spirit of an old school MMO with concepts like punishment for death, skills that level on use, no encyclopedia or exclamation points, etc. without making it unapproachably "old". Some of the design decisions here are just copy EQ #nochanges but it's been 25 years. I want a restomod classic car, not an actual classic car.
I also worry about the success of a group focused game that's closely aligned with a core group of older players that don't have the same amount of time to just idle in tunnels or cities or whatever.
A game to watch to see where it goes.
haha. Fun to see a review. A lot of what you are getting at is very fair and some is assumptions based on where we are at. I think the game belies how truly early we are. Most base systems have been built "EQ" even though the end goal may be our own interpretation or entirely different. We're just starting to bring in our unique flavor with the Collectibles, Crafting, highly scripted Quests and Abilities, Classes, and other elements to the world design. A lot of what you describe as "old" is total fair and will 100% be revamped. Like how does a non-EQ person know to get the Abilities? Or how much sense does medding spells like this make to modern player? We have ideas and will be working on all of that as well. We are also all older and have varying degrees of different responsibilities. We have a focus on finding was to streamline the experience while not eroding the core tenent of a large apathetic world.Ok so here's my feedback. I'm ignoring some stuff that is basically just bugs or unfinished.
The good:
Gfx, engine, general concept, world, theming, music
The bad:
Some EQ nostalgia design decisions (Full inv and eqp loot on death, complete lack of tooltips or game engine transparency, ridiculous starting inventory size are personal examples), lack of compass or any direction finding or dead reckoning that I could find, how vertical movement works (Minecraft layer pop, swimming)
The ugly:
UI/UX is really bad and needs a lot of work. It's exhausting trying to play the game.
and of course
"Body Type"
Because it isn't 2023 if you don't know how biology works.
Overall, it's enjoyable but I think you can evoke the spirit of an old school MMO with concepts like punishment for death, skills that level on use, no encyclopedia or exclamation points, etc. without making it unapproachably "old". Some of the design decisions here are just copy EQ #nochanges but it's been 25 years. I want a restomod classic car, not an actual classic car.
I also worry about the success of a group focused game that's closely aligned with a core group of older players that don't have the same amount of time to just idle in tunnels or cities or whatever.
A game to watch to see where it goes.
FYI - If you didn't know, many of us are in or actively contribute (and all have fan projects) to Lantern including sharing the same lead artist
Yea would like to try once there's a persistent server for just game testing
Tooltips are for pussies. Kthx.Ok so here's my feedback. I'm ignoring some stuff that is basically just bugs or unfinished.
The good:
Gfx, engine, general concept, world, theming, music
The bad:
Some EQ nostalgia design decisions (Full inv and eqp loot on death, complete lack of tooltips or game engine transparency, ridiculous starting inventory size are personal examples), lack of compass or any direction finding or dead reckoning that I could find, how vertical movement works (Minecraft layer pop, swimming)
The ugly:
UI/UX is really bad and needs a lot of work. It's exhausting trying to play the game.
and of course
"Body Type"
Because it isn't 2023 if you don't know how biology works.
Overall, it's enjoyable but I think you can evoke the spirit of an old school MMO with concepts like punishment for death, skills that level on use, no encyclopedia or exclamation points, etc. without making it unapproachably "old". Some of the design decisions here are just copy EQ #nochanges but it's been 25 years. I want a restomod classic car, not an actual classic car.
I also worry about the success of a group focused game that's closely aligned with a core group of older players that don't have the same amount of time to just idle in tunnels or cities or whatever.
A game to watch to see where it goes.
Spell Scrolls hover tooltips, Spells in Book, and Abilities window have lore-grounded descriptions like that, but there are certainly some missing or yet-to-be-done so perhaps you encountered one like that. We fully understand people want transparency and information. We also have a desire to present a more intimate experience forcing people to slow down and pay more attention. We totally understand that's not for everyone and we will tweak to the appropriate levels, but we've much rather start too opaque then to start with a WoW tooltips with all the algorithms spelled out. Of course people so inclined might research and share that information and meta-seek, but we also think we can offer a compelling experience to a base that's not interested and would rather approach the world from an exploration lens.
Love that so much. Couple of my favorite dungeons. We're really excited to show off our big first dungeon. Currently we have no building dyanmics and don't intend to ever support free-building, but we have lots of ideas for "dynamic pockets" or layers that can be used for gating / horizontal progression, and be enriched by the classes. Many abilities require or are augmented by the presence of certain voxel types. In the future, the voxels themselves may react to the Abilities in turn. Of course, as you touched on in your follow-up very astutely, lots of technical hurdles to consider while getting even to the simplest of "destructible wall" style implementation. Will be a fun (voxel) bridge to work across!
Yea I agree, I think there is a happy medium where you can be descriptive without doing the ratings or scores nonsense. I do compare it to something like DnD where it's like ok str is how much damage you do and an average human is 8-10, so dang 16 is pretty strong. It doesn't need to say "increases weapon damage by 8.7%".
Well I am a career developer 10+ years deep in the game now. I would be happy to assist in this in whatever way I could, when I could.
