[POLL] What is your *overall* rating for this Pre-Alpha Release 7? (UNOFFICIAL)

I gave it a 3, but only because I had one too many crashes, and in particular, the issue loading at 94% and then stopping, which several people apparently had.

The negative - Player run towns with an enormous amount of items creating lots of lag. I don't know what others experienced, but for the most part, I tried to stay away from places
like Valemark. (I crashed at one point when approaching the maze). I find it peculiar that the lag happened as I was running in the 64 bit mode with windows 7 pro and 32 gigs of memory ram with 4 gigs of video ram. Should have handled it. Of course, I ran it in 32 bit mode for a bit and ran into similar issues.

The positive - 3D world map. I like the new look, although it still would be nice to be able to identify hexes outside of towns/villages and other 'points of interest'.
The new Island player zones were awesome. Really nicely done.
The animals are starting to look more realistic. Thumbs up to the artist that worked on them. Of course, I could also say the same for the NPC's.

The new player target highlights threw me off at first. I didn't really know what to make of them. But I do admit, it makes it easier to identify friend from foe.

There are a number of things I didn't try out such as player secure trading, so I really can't comment on them.

All of the new scenes in the game were outstanding. I really liked the Graff mines and the two hidden areas that you needed to hammer through in order to get at the
nice gems. Would love to see some of those levers actually do something in that mine.


Just one comment outside of the overall review. I really wish there was some control over the type of buildings one can place in certain areas. Seeing 3 to 4 lighthouses in Kingsport, in a row, had me shaking my head.
One should not be able to place a lighthouse on a stream/river.

 

Myself I do not understand why we are not available to run around freely, as of now when you leave town or a scene as they call it you automatically go into the overland map.

I want to be able to run around freely and activate the overland map when I want to travel faster or long distances.

As the game works now it is not a sandbox open world.
The whole world is instanced, but they call this scenes, I don't like it at all, very disappointed and I hope this changes.

 

Salut,

I gave it 4 beacause the Linux version is really better than previous releases. The worst was R5.
Except one big crash, I was able to play, to craft & to follow a quest. The immersion was great!
This release is definetly the best since R2 (Linux version started on R2).

The new 3D map is quite nice but I agree with Lord Bannor on his concern about having to reach a point before being able to cross the map.
Another thing about the map. Why the zoom-in is activated by default? It would be better to see more of the map by default (zoom-out) and then, if needed, doing a zoom-in.

I d'like to add that for an Alpha release, this one is already better than some "polished" games I Played before.

I realy liked this one and I expect you, Portalarium guys & girls, will keep going on that way.

Merci,
Debcool

 

I wouldn't count on that. The game is "instanced" to scenes for multiple reasons. One of them being the budget of the game and another is that they can exchange scenes "on the fly". So for example a piece of the moon is crashing down somewhere and then they just exchange this scene and do not have the alter the whole world.

But I hope that we will be able to move around more freely on the overland map. Right now we automatically move from the middle of one hex to the next with some odd pathfinding. I hope that this changes.

 

Overall, R7 was solid.

One thing that's really bothered me lately is that I can't just go explore many of the dungeons by myself with bad gear. I know how this sounds, but hey it's pre-alpha. Maybe I just want to see the sights and sounds and generally test the areas? Do I really need to go make plate mail and get a big freakin sword and then team up with several other people just to kill skeletons? What was the point of that?

So to bypass that, I mainly just ran around the dungeons as much as I could - ignoring all the overpowered monsters. Once you kill them there's not a lot of replay appeal. I'm not complaining about that, just the fact that I would've like to have seen more of R7 without going through all the motions of getting gear and friends to systematically kill everything with a red name.

I'm not sure when it makes sense to add more depth - probably when they actually attempt to balance the combat. But if the game is designed not to have depth...maybe allowing me to travel more than a few feet into a dungeon by myself wouldn't be such a bad thing.

 

Performance was so much better in game this release than last. Normally it all runs well for me, but R6 it didnt. I was expecting the same this release, but it ran a lot better for me.
The load times have been increased a great deal it feels. I can live with this if it helps the performance in game? Is there more loading to memory of things in that scene rather than trying to update on the fly?

However i did suffer a fair few crashes and trouble getting into game, especially on multiplayer. This is something i have never had before so again im sure its just a wrinkle.

Combat was somehow subtly different. I didn't see any notes stating any work was done on it but it definitely felt cleaner and a bit more polished somehow.

Lighting and graphics seemed more right this release. The game looks good as far as im concerned. Characters still need work though, but the additions of character creation elements was a great start. The emote animations and such are top notch, i just feel the character movement in general play just needs a slight tweak.

The over-world map was a plus for me. I was a supporter of and still am the cloth map ( in some form in game please), but i loved the first showing of the new one. It makes the island feel a lot larger and definitely increases immersion even in this early stage. The performance here was less than stellar but that's nothing but a wrinkle i imagine. I hope more map scrolling options and zooming etc will be added.

I enjoyed visiting Valemark and doing the Welcome quest, meeting new people, the mazes there were amazing and obviously took a lot of work and planning. I have seen some great house and yard decorations as well on my travels.
Had great fun at the FireLotus Tavern, listening to Avatar radio. That's a must for every release i think!
In fact i have been listening non stop to Avatar radio since, they have some great DJ's and i cant fault the playlists at all.

Loved the new Knight Marshall house...who doesnt!
And the new Lord Marshall im wanting to see asap. It looks superb and i like the open plan, with no doors. I have seen a number of post with people wanting doors on, i don't personally. But would it be possible to choose on this or all buildings if we want doors showing or not?

Even with a few performance issues this release felt like a step up to me. A few wrinkles to iron out, but i could feel everything coming together.
Now all we need is a great combat system, player run economy, farming and the like and for me at least i will be very happy.

 

I personally strongly dislike being forced to party, I want to adventure through the world sometimes on my own, sometimes with others, but "exploring" is easier if you don't both want to go different directions.

 

I gave the game 4 stars and overall I was impressed. This was the first time ingame for me so everything is new to me

3D Overworld Map System - While I liked the overworld map system, I do not like the fact that that is the ONLY way to travel from city to city. Cannot use roads to travel to them and all travel is off the Map system.
Player to Player secure trade - Works great and had no issue with them
Water Lots - Looked very nice and enjoyed how clean it was visually.
NPC Collision / Responsiveness - Worked out well
Animals (stag and bear) - Stag was hard to target manually, but other than that.. Both looked great and was able to harvest resources from them.
Player Housing Built-in Lighting - Housing lighting was great and would like to be able to purchase / add more Chandeliers?
Scenes (player town islands, Graff Gem Mines) - Again I was blown away at how clean the graphics were and loved the fact that you need some type of lighting to move in mines.
Crafting (new ingredients, recipe book enhancements) - Enjoyed the new crafting system and waiting to have access to the rest of the items you can make.
Lighting Fine-Tuning - Not much here.
Character Faces and Skins - Wish there was more options as far as the faces as well as skins. Cannot wait to see the game when you can dye your clothes/items
64 Bit Build - Other than issues when zoning, nothing to report on this.
Promotional Trailer
New Pledge Rewards, New Pledge Tiers - First time playing so looking forward to this option
Character Custimization Blend Shapes - Nothing to add here.
Player Property Permissions - Worked well for those I tested.
New Target Highlighting - Was VERY tough to manually click on Stags in some of the zone/hexes. Other than that was pretty easy.
NPC Behaviors (schedules, using items) - Did not test this yet. Mainly was trying to learn about game, housing, crafting, etc.
Borderless Window Mode - Worked great. Hope SLI is an option in the future.
NPC Names and Chat Tabs - Chat tabs were a pain to deal with... Every conversation opened a new tab and I was lost initially because I did not know "N" toggled the overhead names
Scene Names (under compass) - Worked great.
Containers on Player Lots - Would like to be able to stack chests on top of each other like we were able to in UO. Made it easier to use one room to hold items in.
Linux Stability - Played using Win 7 Ultimate.
New Player Houses - Did not try
Summoning Party - Did not try.
Banking Infrastructure - Again did not try because this was first time in game.

Again I am VERY impressed with the "Pre Alpha" phase the game is in and I hope in the future releases the game will allow more people in the same zone/hex because I enjoyed meeting people or helping them out when I was in cities / towns in UO. Looking forward to R8 at the end of the month!

 

smack said: ↑

Ok everyone, for those of you who've had a chance to playtest this Pre-Alpha Release 7, what is your *overall* rating?​

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Here were the areas highlighted in the release notes for R7::: I GAVE IT 5 I Had a lot more to do, and I still have more I didn't get to do​

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3D Overworld Map System* Really nice great improvement​

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Player to Player secure trade* Didn't use​

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Water Lots* Started to look good, but too close together wouldn't want a houseboat in between 2 lighthouses​

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NPC Collision / Responsiveness* Didn't notice any​

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Animals (stag and bear)* Looked Great​

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Player Housing Built-in Lighting* Yes really nice​

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Scenes (player town islands, Graff Gem Mines)* Had a really FUN time​

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Crafting (new ingredients, recipe book enhancements)* Didn't have opportunity to use new ingredients, but overall action seemed smoother.​

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Lighting Fine-Tuning* Like part of the housing lights all lighting seems better, I was thinking it was due to the 64 bit build however.​

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Character Faces and Skins* I would like to see this as part that can be done separate from trying to get out there and find a "Lot" definitely a work in progress​

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64 Bit Build* Flawless for me, however on the last day I was having [crashing] with launch and a couple during game.​

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Promotional Trailer* Good Good​

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New Pledge Rewards, New Pledge Tiers* Came at the right time I was planning an upgrade at the same time. I just ended up spending more then initially planned, but well spent no buyer remorse. ​

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Character Custimization Blend Shapes* Elves? Not for me​

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Player Property Permissions* Great Idea​

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New Target Highlighting* Good but a little extreme, don't really know how else how to explain it. Seems good when in a battle but I was having a problem moving my cursor around my home. It would catch on items and move things. ie: I moved accidentally an item from roof to the ground and had no idea I did...​

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NPC Behaviors (schedules, using items)* Good didn't have any issues to think of​

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Borderless Window Mode* That was nice I never used {Full Screen} so for screen shots there was no border​

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NPC Names and Chat Tabs* Had a hard time getting rid of NPC tabs a lot of times I would X it out and it would come back. I didn't go around and talk to all the NPC's just to have their names appear​

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Scene Names (under compass)* AWESOME maybe a different color would be cool​

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Containers on Player Lots* That was a bonus from before, last time I made chest was tiny and didn't work. This time wish I could find a "hand saw.."​

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Linux Stability** no comment​

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New Player Houses* Nice to have so many choices waiting for Lord Marshal***​

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Summoning Party* didn't use sounds like a nice option​

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Banking Infrastructure* I didn't know it was in effect yet?​

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Feel free to break out your ratings to those categories above or any others and elaborate in the comments below (or link to a thread you may have started already).​

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Thanks for voting and looking forward to your overall feedback!​

 

Lord Bannor, maybe you dont understand, but we explained to you.

I also will love an open world without two scales system (that have nothing to do with sandbox or not, but I also preffer that style), but that will not happend, that was clear since the first day. First of all they dont have the resources. I think we all must concentrate the critics in other points.

For me the game is starting to look really well. Now they need to do it bigger and start to improve all the adventure system, especially with the combat and pvp, and to work more with the animations. Well, and better performance and less loading times.

I could not play too much in the R7, but I vote "4". I will write a little longer critic in other moment.

 

HI Eriador,

I do understand, I understood it from the first reply in another thread.
The post you quoted is 4 days old now.

I agree the game looks very good for being pre alpha, and the instanced world is my only concern/disappointment.
But maybe it will turn out great in the end, who knows?

 

So if you understand everything is clear here!

This "flame" is already very old. It was the most polemic point of the game since the first day. But RG and the team believe that they can do it well with a two scale map and anyway "we" don't have the resources to change that fact... But that doesn't mean that this must be a cheap solution.

For now I'm pretty happy with the change from the pop-up map to the real 3D map. And actually I'm much more used to the overworld map that before. I think that one of the point that make us disappointed with the map is that is just a different system from all we played online. Some facts of the game were there since the first day (the overlord, the not full pvp-loot...) we can like or not, but these are the rules of the SotA world. I also think that we sue to concentrate much more in what "we don't like" that "we like".

But to help more I think we should add ideas about how to improve and make the map better and more interesting (as we already did before), because to say "I just don't like it" probably will not change nothing. What can turn out great the map for you? Well for example I could love to have a "treasure hunting" skill there.

 

I wasn't involved in the game prior R7, not playing and not reading the forums. I brought up the overworld map because I only became aware of it during the R7 testing, I was not trying to bring up an old and thoroughly discussed "flame" again. It was genuinely complete news to me.
Afterwards I fully understand that this has already been up for much discussion so lets leave it at that.

Agreed, id love treasure hunting, and also to fish for message in a bottle like in UO would had been awesome.

 

Yes I also tried to bring back the concept of "message in a bottle". But unsuccessfully.

 

I didn't try to play the game last time, nor the time before, because I simply couldn't stay logged in longer than 0-10 minutes at a time & spent more time staring at loading screens longer than playing.

My PC was only 2.5 years old, was perfect for playing all modern games (Skyrim, Dragon Age, Assassin's Creed, ESO, etc). I think my surge protector wasn't that great, and the motherboard needed replacing after a terrible lightning storm moved through the area.

So I bought a brand new gaming PC a couple weeks ago (custom built, as usual). Thinking it would do better, I decided to give R7 a go.

There is absolutely no difference for me. I can stay logged into single player for several minutes, but only if I don't do anything, like click on my pack. Forget multiplayer. I crash just coming close to Owl's Head (not even by the tavern, I can't make it that far).

I will say that I'm impressed with improvements I was able to see. The NPC dialog is more fun. Highlighting NPCs is good, so you know who you're talking to & vice versa. The animations of talking (waving hands, etc) was kind of nice.

But that's about all I had the patience to do. I just won't keep trying when most of the time is loading screens after crashing constantly.