Dismiss Notice
This Section is READ ONLY - All Posts Are Archived

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

Discussion in 'Release 7 Feedback' started by smack, Jun 28, 2014.

?

What is your *overall* rating for this Pre-Alpha Release 7? (1=bad, 5=great)

  1. 1

    3.0%
  2. 2

    3.0%
  3. 3

    26.0%
  4. 4

    44.0%
  5. 5

    24.0%
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. smack

    smack Avatar

    Messages:
    7,077
    Likes Received:
    15,288
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Ok everyone, for those of you who've had a chance to playtest this Pre-Alpha Release 7, what is your *overall* rating?

    Here were the areas highlighted in the release notes for R7:

    3D Overworld Map System
    Player to Player secure trade
    Water Lots
    NPC Collision / Responsiveness
    Animals (stag and bear)
    Player Housing Built-in Lighting
    Scenes (player town islands, Graff Gem Mines)
    Crafting (new ingredients, recipe book enhancements)
    Lighting Fine-Tuning
    Character Faces and Skins
    64 Bit Build
    Promotional Trailer
    New Pledge Rewards, New Pledge Tiers
    Character Custimization Blend Shapes
    Player Property Permissions
    New Target Highlighting
    NPC Behaviors (schedules, using items)
    Borderless Window Mode
    NPC Names and Chat Tabs
    Scene Names (under compass)
    Containers on Player Lots
    Linux Stability
    New Player Houses
    Summoning Party
    Banking Infrastructure

    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).

    Note: This poll is designed to show trends of overall sentiment with each subsequent Release. It's not designed to rate it as a final game, but merely as a snapshot of the community's opinion at that point in the development cycle. Previous polls here: R1, R2, R3, R4, R5, R6.

    Thanks for voting and looking forward to your overall feedback!
     
  2. licemeat

    licemeat Avatar

    Messages:
    897
    Likes Received:
    2,825
    Trophy Points:
    105
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Cincinnati Oh
    I gave this a 5. I've played all the releases so far and usually give up after 20-60 minutes. This release has kept me playing all day. It's starting to feel like a real game!
     
  3. NRaas

    NRaas Avatar

    Messages:
    3,984
    Likes Received:
    5,841
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Glenraas
    Am definitely all "Squee!" about the waterfront lots, and the housing improvements in general. At this very moment, I'm just chilling on the mast of my ship enjoying the scenery of that pretty player-town island map.

    Thanks be for the /bank system. Saved me having to repurchase all my decorations after losing my lot claim so many times. Would have been nice it had worked the first time my house vanished, but was glad it worked the second time.

    Love the new scenes that were added. Graff mines was very fun, though the respawn rate was *insane* (In one area I would finish putting down the last Kobold just as the first respawned and joined the battle again).

    Overall, a fine release...

    Though more core game-play elements would be appreciated in the next iteration (where is the official FPO mode?). :)
     
    smack likes this.
  4. Ravicus Domdred

    Ravicus Domdred Avatar

    Messages:
    3,708
    Likes Received:
    9,037
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Location:
    Get In MY BELLY!
    Well, I havent finished playing it yet!!! I'm a wee bit on the slow side haha. I'll rate it when it shuts down!
     
    Time Lord and smack like this.
  5. docdoom77

    docdoom77 Avatar

    Messages:
    1,274
    Likes Received:
    3,381
    Trophy Points:
    125
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Latveria
    I gave it a 5. It did great at the things it was trying to do. There are lots of improvements I'm looking forward to, but I'd say it definitely met it's goals for R7. I did find it super buggy this morning, crashing all the time, but at all other times, it was fairly stable.

    The new map is looking great. I mean for just the first iteration, it's already pretty nice to look at.
     
    Brian and smack like this.
  6. PrimeRib

    PrimeRib Avatar

    Messages:
    3,017
    Likes Received:
    3,576
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    I give it an incomplete. It's just a long way from being in any way playable. Navigation is impossible. Everything is just clunky. There's really no goals.
     
    smack likes this.
  7. Andrew Knightowl

    Andrew Knightowl Avatar

    Messages:
    85
    Likes Received:
    137
    Trophy Points:
    8
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Eastern Shore Maryland
    I went with 5 >Seeing how Bug issues are fixed .How the team/players work with Unity too make Shroud of the Avatar.I have waited for years for someone too listen to us players when making a game <this alone gives it a 5 only imo :)
     
    Brian and smack like this.
  8. Lord_Darkmoon

    Lord_Darkmoon Avatar

    Messages:
    4,350
    Likes Received:
    14,680
    Trophy Points:
    153
    I went with 3, as much has been improved but still some things give me headaches.

    3D Overworld Map System - Great! Can't wait to see how it improves - BUT there needs to be another movement system.

    Player to Player secure trade - Haven't traded with other players

    Water Lots - Look very good!

    NPC Collision / Responsiveness - A bit better than in R6.

    Animals (stag and bear) - Looking much, MUCH better than in R6.

    Player Housing Built-in Lighting - Good BUT too few shadows.

    Scenes (player town islands, Graff Gem Mines) - The new scenes look really much better!

    Crafting (new ingredients, recipe book enhancements) - Didn't craft.

    Lighting Fine-Tuning - Hmm, didn't notic much of a difference compared to R6.

    Character Faces and Skins - Has this really changed?

    64 Bit Build - Very stable! Chris already mentioned the problem with the cloaks and longer loading times.

    Promotional Trailer - Indecided. I think there should have been more about the story. But it was great hearing the "Guardian" again ;)

    New Pledge Rewards, New Pledge Tiers - I'm ok with it.

    Character Custimization Blend Shapes - Very good, this is going in the right direction.

    Player Property Permissions - Didn't try it.

    New Target Highlighting - Hmmm, very indecided about that... I do not like such highlighting as I think they are in the same league as floating names, numbers and health bars and destroy immersion but I can't think of a better solution... Why did it work in Skyrim without highlighting?

    NPC Behaviors (schedules, using items) - Noticed NPCs turning on light. I think this is shaping up nicely.

    Borderless Window Mode - Didn't try it.

    NPC Names and Chat Tabs - I like it that you have to ask NPCs for their names but the chat tabs... you know my opinion about the current conversation system - I absolutely hate it!

    Scene Names (under compass) - Not neccessary imho. Didn't look at them at all.

    Containers on Player Lots - Didn't try it.

    Linux Stability - I'm not using Linux.

    New Player Houses - They look very good - BUT I do not like how housing is changing the nature of towns. Three or four lighthouses in one town? Come on!

    Summoning Party - Didn't try it.

    Banking Infrastructure - Didn't try it.
     
    Fox Cunning and smack like this.
  9. docdoom77

    docdoom77 Avatar

    Messages:
    1,274
    Likes Received:
    3,381
    Trophy Points:
    125
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Latveria

    I'd say so! You got the chance to completely customize the eyes. That's brand new. I love it. If we get some more options (nose, chin, etc) it's really going to shine. I'll be able to make exactly the avatar I want. A huge step in the right direction. I can't wait for more beards (I'd like a close trimmed goatee and a big bushy beard) and a truly shaven head (shiny, not stubbly).
     
    Jivalax Azon likes this.
  10. Dermott

    Dermott Avatar

    Messages:
    761
    Likes Received:
    1,346
    Trophy Points:
    105
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Florida
    R7 has been MUUUUCH better than R6, thus I give it a 5. R7 has at least solved the lag issues R6 was plagued with, at least for me, making adventuring and crafting playable again. That alone has been a BIG help. Instead of trying to average out, I'll just make notes on each little thing I particularly noted and remove those that didn't come up in my journeys.

    3D Overworld Map System: Interesting start. A bit laggy, but a LOT bigger than the cloth/parchment map previously used. I hope we get to rotate the map and get a compass as well. Seeing the day/night cycle on the overland map is a BIG help in keeping the time issue in hand.

    Player to Player secure trade: Used it a couple of times... seems to work fine.

    Water Lots: I placed near the entrance to Braemar. Water Lots don't really appeal to me, but glad they are available for those who want them.

    NPC Collision / Responsiveness: Seems to work ok. At least the NPCs aren't running around in circles as they were in R6.

    Animals (stag and bear): They looked fine to me.

    Scenes (player town islands, Graff Gem Mines): New sceneslook great. It really feels like the world is starting to flesh out nicely. Glad to see the entrances to the various dungeons aren't simply rehashed scenes with an opening, but are now their own scenes as well.

    Crafting (new ingredients, recipe book enhancements): I've done some basic gathering and crafting, but haven't really noticed these. I have noticed the "fail" (bug?) in that sometimes the crafting does not happen.

    Lighting Fine-Tuning: Lighting is getting better and better. I've noticed at least for me, I will tend to gravitate towards lighted areas because night is now dark enough to really affect the game. While some may find that part annoying, it's interesting to have that one aspect change your gaming behaviour in that if you don;t stay around where you can see things, you may end up getting yourself lost in some of these fairly large areas.
    Promotional Trailer: Watched it when it was posted. Awesome to have The Guardian doing the voiceover, but could be toned down just a tad IMO.
    New Target Highlighting: Looks MUCH better. Also glad to see emotes can now be targeted this way.

    NPC Behaviors (schedules, using items): Haven't noticed these yet.

    Borderless Window Mode: Works well and much nicer than having to recenter the window every time... long awaited.

    NPC Names and Chat Tabs
    : This one I thought was a bug that the NPCs "lost" their names, but after being told that it was as intended, I get it now... much like Ultima 6 where the character portrait would have "a villager" until you met them. Fair enough, but still odd with allnames turned on. Guess I got used to modern games in this manner.

    Scene Names (under compass): Helpful, but still waiting on the minimap personally.

    MUCH MUCH better release than R6 which was (aside from the original Multiplayer Release) the worst in terms of playability. Very happy with R7 and even happier with the extra time coming this next week!
     
  11. SmokerKGB

    SmokerKGB Avatar

    Messages:
    2,227
    Likes Received:
    2,805
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Pittsburg, CA
    Over all I gave it a five(5), they watched the boards and fixed really important stuff pretty fast, I was patched up to win 112 I think it was... Keep in mind I play in SPO, and only switched to OPO on occasions to see if it was lagy or what...

    Those are a lot of things to cover:

    3D Overworld Map System; I think it's great, looks a lot better, and I Love the Day cycle.

    Player to Player secure trade; I didn't get a chance to try it.

    Water Lots; They looked good, but I concentrated on my forest lot.

    NPC Collision / Responsiveness; I didn't notice any response at all, other than their vocal bark changed after you introduced yourself to them and asked their name. I was taking things from right under their nose, and they wouldn't react.

    Animals (stag and bear); the stags moved a lot better, and so did the sheep, but everything else seemed the same.

    Player Housing Built-in Lighting; I tried several style before picking the pavilion style, the lighting was better but there were no fixtures.

    Scenes (player town islands, Graff Gem Mines); The islands were way cool, and the three ferries were nice to see. The Graff Gem Mine was way cool too, but the Kobold re-spawned too fast and away's "ganked" me three at a time, their agro range is set way to far. Once I realized there wasn't any places to mine where they were, I just ran past them down the tunnel, to where the wasse were, they were kind of easy, once I made myself a two hand ax & plate armor. All the mining spots just gave me ore, once it gave me silver to, but no gems, and a few didn't work at all (one comes to mind had a rock ledge in front of it, so I jumped up on it, but it didn't help). For a Gem Mine, it sure was stingy, I made more gold off of Loot, if the yeild continues to be so laim, I might have to give up on mining. I can get ore & spider silk outside much easier.

    Crafting (new ingredients, recipe book enhancements); The recipe book is great for the beginner, and the new ingredients I didn't find the time to experiment with, so I don't know what they are used for? I actually don't like experimenting, I'd rather go buy some training or look on the wiki page.

    Lighting Fine-Tuning; It looked like it changed a bit or I maybe getting used to it, but it's looking fine to me (day/night needs to be longer).

    Character Faces and Skins; It worked before.

    64 Bit Build; It was really smooth, but crashed at time, so I took Chris's advice and went back to 32 bit for now, and reported to support.

    Promotional Trailer; It was sweeet...

    New Pledge Rewards, New Pledge Tiers; I like them.

    Character Custimization Blend Shapes; I Loved all the stuff I could do with the "eyes" reshaping them, looks really cool.

    Player Property Permissions; It said it didn't work, besides, I have no friends...

    New Target Highlighting; I liked it, but I'm getting confused, do I dbl click or highlight, then dbl click for looting or harvesting or skinning, it seems like it's different in every scene. Sometime I dbl click the ore node and sometimes I dbl ckick the tool in the bar, nothing was consistent. And the Kolbal hammers had a zero gold sell price, everything should sell for something if it's looted.

    NPC Behaviors (schedules, using items); It seemed to be working I watched them turn on/off the street lights.

    Borderless Window Mode; I didn't try it.

    NPC Names and Chat Tabs; It worked, but when your done, it should go too.

    Scene Names (under compass); I liked knowing where I was...

    Containers on Player Lots; Thank you, thank you, more deco's should work as containers like dressers & wardrobe cabinets, etc...

    Linux Stability; I don't use it.

    New Player Houses; looked really cool...

    Summoning Party; Didn't try it...

    Banking Infrastructure; It said it was empty, I should go back and take my house down and check it... WoW, I thought it would open another box, but it just transferred everything to my backpack, this could be a problem with weight limits and such...
     
  12. Floors

    Floors Avatar

    Messages:
    4,265
    Likes Received:
    6,621
    Trophy Points:
    165
    I had a lot of fun. The mac client was only mostly stable if the graphics cards settings had the shadows off and the settings on fastest or it would hang loading scenes.

    You could actually play with shadows on but as soon as you left the scene it would hang. If it was on custom it would hang on scene load or map load.

    But other than that, the game during game play was fine except small hitches that have always been there. I was able to interact with players and go on quests and parties together, great fun.

    There were some instancing issues that shouldn't have happened with parties where i got into an "empty instance" from my party or I would have to /zone to a player to be in their instance... I hope this works better going forward
     
    Lord Lonn Bimmer, SmokerKGB and smack like this.
  13. Gau2

    Gau2 Avatar

    Messages:
    56
    Likes Received:
    128
    Trophy Points:
    8
    Location:
    Arabia
    I went with 5, even after my amazing frustrations in the early patches...the 86% freeze, the 94% freeze, "change your graphics settings", getting booted every 3 mins, etc. Then I got mostly stable in the last patch, but couldn't enter any non town or dungeon hexes...period.

    But the game was FUN. Sure it is early, but it is progressing and FUN. I met lots of folks, killed skeletons and a Lich in a party once, played house, crafted a bunch, danced on a flagpole, did the wardrobe maze, climbed mountains, chilled in a treetop, mined some gems, died...VERY NICE. I am confident in the future and am happy. How about the enormity of the Castle Arena Basement. As much as I want a COLOSSEUM, that basement is a doosey ;-)

    DEVs: Why not let some of our TALENTED DECORATORS get some early access and decorate the NPC structures? If you guys don't have time to do it, why not use some of the community that would love to do it help? Would it really be that difficult? I loved seeing the basements, but empty rooms galore didn't do your hard work justice.

    Brian
     
  14. smack

    smack Avatar

    Messages:
    7,077
    Likes Received:
    15,288
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Thanks everyone for your feedback! Keep the votes coming! Despite the initial crashes and client instability, R7 is so far rating the highest, even beyond R1 with its excitement of an initial release. Kudos to the Dev team for working through Friday and Saturday to fix the major blocking issues for most players but we know there are some of you out there that are still blocked from playing, err, I mean testing :). Onward to R8!
     
    Kaisa, NRaas, Saosis and 1 other person like this.
  15. dp_dropout

    dp_dropout Avatar

    Messages:
    141
    Likes Received:
    408
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Gender:
    Male
    3 maximum.
    - Switched to 64 bit since I have 16 gigs of ram and crashed at least once every time I logged on. No issues in 32 bit.
    - Lots of lag spikes in Owl's Head.
    - Graphics looked the same. Shadows still too dark, some items in the shadow weren't affected by that same shadow and looked as if in daylight.
    - Char creation going in the right direction but still looks extremely stale and chars look sort of artificial and static.
    - Some housing tiers are extremely poorly designed compared to others. Also way too many different styles. That is actually a good thing, but not how it's looking during these alfa's. The mix of all the styles looks ridiculous and the amount of knight homes in forests and villages is unrealistic.

    Needs lots of work to get up to par.
     
    smack likes this.
  16. Doppelganger [MGT]

    Doppelganger [MGT] Avatar

    Messages:
    495
    Likes Received:
    1,199
    Trophy Points:
    55
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Tampa Bay, FL
    This is the first release in a long time that I have given a 4. I feel its the strongest release to date! That being said, there is still a long way to go of course. The overland map, while an improvement, needs much in the way of refinement. I really look forward to its improvements in navigation, visuals and use of system resources.

    Combat still has a very long way to go and is it just me, or is collision detection way off? I will run by a giant spider and get hit by it a second later. Either that spider has a long range whip, or there is a problem lol. Also, proper sound effects are still either missing or wrong. We have growling spiders, delayed hit audio in combat and virtually soundless water (that looks more like oil). The conversation box (chat window) is also still a bit fugly and clunky. I hope that gets addressed before release.

    All things considered, this was a great release though! Keep up the good forward progress devs :)
     
  17. Sierra

    Sierra Avatar

    Messages:
    123
    Likes Received:
    90
    Trophy Points:
    18
    Location:
    Germany
    My impression was that going with 64 bit release was a crash feast. I had a lot of login problems and crashes, so this droppes my vote. Otherwise I was impressed with some new levels, and related stuff. Despite of my low vote I had a lot of fun with the release though I think that there was not as much improvement as I would have liked on the "important" things like RPG elements and in-game content.

    Detailes:
    - The concept of the overland map does not really contribute to the atmosphere of having long ways to travel to unexplored regions. But there is perhaps room for improvement.
    - Crash and login problems were (this time) very disturbing
    - Crafting process seems smooth and well going now
    - Battle has not changed since last release and worked so far
    - Skills and Magic have not changed, no exp system yet
    - Chests work now and housing items could be placed without problems this time (Light problem and placing problems completly solved imho)
    - Questing was as expected and worked well
    - The new Islands are nicely layed out but tedious to walk and to keep orientation
    - Harvesting as usual, still no friend of the node concept but well - could not find fishing nodes though...?
    - Long loading times between scenes

    Well and first time I partied with someone... worked well so far though there were some bugs reported related to that.
    Oh and that new lich-lair entrance to the south is just awesome!
     
    smack and Brian like this.
  18. Sidorovich

    Sidorovich Avatar

    Messages:
    32
    Likes Received:
    58
    Trophy Points:
    8
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Czech Republic
    Lets say 4/5 because its first alpha release I played. But daamn i loved it! Never played any Ultima game. And I just love how fresh and different it feels from any other RPG/MMORPG. Also had no problem playing it, everything was pretty clear to me (after watching few of Mad Hermit videos ;)).


    With several different players I went trought mines, clink and both sewers.
    I followed the main quest, killed that named lich. (WE ARE FREE! Now where is Oracle?)
    Encountered some side quests along the way (helped the guildmaster lady find the egg).
    Found deep forest with satyr ruins (but there was no sign of lost husband I was searching for) .
    Another unfinished quest was finding that guy in Braemar (from lady in red). Villagers and guards told me he should be something like mayor that will give out quests in Braemar. But was he even there in R7?

    So yeah I think there was lot of thing to do! + housing and crafting. Cant wait for R8 and finished game!
     
    Gaelis, Kaisa, docdoom77 and 2 others like this.
  19. jrb9249

    jrb9249 Avatar

    Messages:
    21
    Likes Received:
    51
    Trophy Points:
    3

    Darn, I wish I had found a Lich! That does sound like fun. Well I still had a blast killing bandits, meeting other players, and checking out all the cool house designs.

    Quests
    The quests are difficult, but I LOVE that! I think it definitely encourages more social behavior, as opposed to most MMO's these days where no one even wants to talk to each other because they are just running around clicking NPC buttons and following the yellow quest markers. Although, I think if they are going to continue with this type of questing (which I hope they do), then they need to improve the NPC content. I mean, every NPC doesn't need to have a Siri-class lexicon, but more specific/accurate directions to quest locations (more landmarks might also help with this issue) would be appreciated. And if the NPC asks me to find her friend Joe Smith from Braemar, then have other NPC's ready to tell me if I'm close or not so I don't go walking around the entire world looking for the fella. However, I will say that by the end of the weekend, I was finding places and people much more easily . . . so perhaps I just need to get better at this new questing style.

    Magic Categories and Skills
    Moving along, the magic categories and skills are VERY COOL. I like the theme they follow--it feels more realistic somehow, like if magic were real then of course you would need to know "life" magic to heal people! The only other thing I hope for is that casting a spell or skill can be unsuccessful. Like when your chaos magic skill is at 80% then you can officially attempt to cast Summon Daemon, but it only has a 5% chance of success. At 85% you have about a 55% chance of success. Then 90% chaos --> 95% chance, etc. I'm sure the devs have better algorithms than that, but you get the idea.

    Overland Map
    I really DID NOT LIKE the overview map for traveling. It doesn't feel like an open world if I can't walk out of the town. Why not runes instead? (***Note: That's an honest question; I understand there may be a reason for this so please don't tear me a new one just for asking.) I always liked the idea of having a relatively easy recall spell, and a hard-to-cast mark spell. You had to work to mark your locations, but moving around was easy once you did. I think it would be cool to incorporate this somehow and tie it into the magic categories; Would recall and mark be part of air magic I wonder? Lunar magic maybe? Or would they add a new category for travel magic? Although, if they do, then I hope they come up with something more clever than travel magic.

    Leveling
    I know leveling hasn't been added yet, but I reiterate my earlier suggestion that we don't have levels per se, and instead use titles like Journeyman, Apprentice, Grandmaster, etc. to signify a player's skill level. Levels are an immersion-breaker.
     
    Kaisa, Brian and smack like this.
  20. Doppelganger [MGT]

    Doppelganger [MGT] Avatar

    Messages:
    495
    Likes Received:
    1,199
    Trophy Points:
    55
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Tampa Bay, FL
    While some discussion about the overland map is taking place, I thought I would mention this. Devs... speed up the navigation on the overland map! As it stands, it takes far too long to travel from one place to another on it. Please add that to the list of things to improve on the map :)
     
    Phredicon, Kaisa and docdoom77 like this.
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.