First Impressions

Ok, this is my first release I have played a little of in a long time....

I have to say the overall look of the game is great....here is a list of some things I liked and thought about:

1) Character creation is good, lots of options.

2) Graphics on the highest setting run great for me and look great. It starts you out at the fastest setting so it is kind of offputing.

3) Combat system - love it...at first I was lost trying to figure out how to do a deck but really it is simple once you click around a bit. Obviously will need to be cleaned up a bit to make it more useable. I have to admit I didn't spend much time getting to know the glyphs so I was just using skills quite quickly...I think with a little practice I will know most of them...for instance I knew all my shield moves after a couple of battles.

4) Overland map - looks fantastic...has come a long way. A few things about it though...shadows seem off as they are huge across the map...maybe the sun angle to the map has to be changed in order to fix that? movement seems like you can go any where you like with some areas not passable, which for other then obvious things like rivers and stuff that doesn't make sense....I assume a map pass will be done were areas like high mountains etc will be out of bounds. The big crossed swords for pvp is very out of place however. Also, I think jump should be disabled on the map. There is no way that I can see to tell when you enter a new hex?

5) Scenes...did a couple cities, a forest tile and a dungeon...all looked great. The forest looked like a forest...I think if you got rid of some of the roads and made just a full forest tile you could get away with a few tiles like that to represent a forest.

6) In the dungeon I saw minerals to mine...I put my crafting equipment in the quick task bar...and it couldn't mine the crytsals....because when I clicked on them with the quick bar or by having the tool on my guy he would walk into the wall and stand there...no dice.

7) UI - I think there may be too many screens of things...it was overwhelming...there seemed to be a new window for everything....and ones that you think should be linked together didn't seem to be...I could be missing something.

For instance: When I open my deck builder a list of all my skills should be listed in the same window or off to the side so I don't have to open another window to design it...it feels clunky the way it is now.

8) The respawn rate of spiders in one scene I was in was like 30 seconds later...kinda seemed odd..

9) I saw one human player while on...but he ran by pretty quick. Admittedly I didn't go in any pvp zones so that may be it.

All in all...it looks good...obviously not user friendly yet...but it didn't take me long to figure it out. I didn't do any crafting yet will check that out later.

 

Ok a couple more:

Ravensmoor....looks awesome....I don't have any idea how I got there from the owlsnest dungeon, but it looks neat....

Why is there no trails when you walk through water? it looks weird that there is no reaction from the water to your character walking through it.

 

There is a strange pause in my game when ever I loot something....its disconcerting.

Also, capes....are they going to change? At the moment they look like they were washed in a bath of starch.....and they clip everything.

 

We are going to completely replace the water and it will get disturbed when you move through it, have splashes at all edges, etc.

We are also waiting on Unity 5 to get better cloth simulation for the cloaks

 

And robes!

I think Unity 5 actually bills itself as the "Robe Champion of Game Development".

 

Awesome...it does look really good however....ravensmoor was very impressive.

 

That's awesome news!

 

Thats cool chris, not sure if you know but I have only been able to play a couple of releases at the beginning at then this release. It has come such a long way.


Combat is going to be good, I can tell...just a bit to many screens to hop through to set up your deck...should be able to have the deck screen open and that it....maybe some inventory as well....

Ravensmoor looked very cool though.

 

Please tell me the new beards are place holders.

 

It looks fine in parts but textures such as stones in roads etc still look realily ropey even on Fantastic. Hopefully it'll improve. I guess the big sticking point for me is equipment not showing but maybe that is to come. The 64 bit version was totally unstable for me.

But overall it seems promising for a pre-alpha.

 

Two "little" things i don't like:

1. The Going-Animation is a bit too slow and doesn't look fine for me. (dont wanted to say ugly
2. Turning round the Avatar is also too slow. it takes seconds to turn him, especially while walking or running... i mostly run into all kind of Objects.
Shalineh