I am not a happy purchaser

Yea I'm pretty sure most of that's been touched on at some point in this debate. Most games barley let you play beta, alpha is super rare I know I sign up for a lot of them and this is the first pre-alpha I've seen. Give it time and many of the things your looking for will be available. I think the problem with people not responding to you is the chat system is still lunky. You will be able to buy you plots in game as well as the houses (a differing than on the add on store I bet). In uo you could make your own house design but it took many year for them to add that feature. Adding content takes along time.

Your right nows the time to post. But people like to impose their own agendas.

I think there will be tutorials but less hand holding than you might be useto. And I would expect this will be a more complicated game than your useto but that's not a bad thing have you seen what they have done to wow? It's a kiddie game now and they just hand out epic loot... don't get me wrong they did a lot of right things in that game. Uo blazed a trail for everyone my biggest fear is they stray to far from uo and try and compete with the monster that is wow.

 

It's important to keep in mind that the first time user experience exists only in the dev's minds and in internal play sessions. As players we haven't seen any of that experience yet. R12 will be the first look at what they envision what that will be. We'll see how the system will work, when it will fire, how it interacts with level progression, etc. There hasn't been any kind of first time user experience introduced into the game. The 'first time user experience' has relied on a player's previous gaming experience in other games to try and figure out what they should be doing, on player's reading about what's been added for systems into the current release, and on previous interaction with SotA releases. I think with R12 we'll see a real starting area to interact with, tutorials that introduce different systems but only when used the first time, and possibly a gated first time user experience where players can get those first 20 levels under their belt.

 

TheMadHermit's video illustrates how much can be crafted by players. I was fairly blown away by it. But you can't design your own house construction (well, probably unless you're willing to pay dearly to own a town).



As for tutorials, in pre-alpha that is not the norm, but they have given release instructions, in the forum and by email.

I was a bit confused what to do once I got in the game too. Right now, they appear to be relying solely on the forums and release information to inform people. In the release information, there is instruction on how to do the grand tour quests, where you ask a specific NPC where to go, in order to win a reward.

There is a player event forum in the Release 11 Events thread.

Pretty much, you have to read the forums. If you don't do that, you probably will be lost. I haven't read how to fight, so I'm lost on that and the card system. In my opinion, it should be intuitive, but it's not.

 

What an interesting thread. I loved reading it. I have a thought too lol.

So we have heard from the Devs at times that they have tried to implement some things promised and have found it more difficult to implement than at first thought. To come up with an idea is not the same as knowing it will work. That is just the first step. Perhaps some parts of the idea will be easy to implement, but others will go as a very nice idea but will take some time to implement, and perhaps have to be altered in some way to work.
It is not black and white at all not with this game. Perhaps some game designers would only mention things that they know they can implement, but our team had a dream and put that out to us.
Perhaps in the future they might do it differently and only mention things that they 'know' they can implement, but what fun is that? Brainstorming can be fun, and I do think it's great to hear most realize their hard work and commend them for their hard work.

I do not think we will get the exact game from their brainstorming ideas, we will most likely get some version of the game that is possible for them to put together, and that will come from blood, sweat, and tears, well to be dramatic, and of course from funding. **cheers to you all**. I have truly enjoyed reading this thread, and I know you all care very much as I do about this game and about the features each of us want to see in it. It will be what it will be in the end coming from feedback, devs, and funding obtained, which is the risk we are involved in.

I do wish for you all to get to enjoy whatever those aspects would be.

Also regarding first dates that was fun, it made me think about first dates lol, its been a while. *yikes* and I have a video I love about "I got a dream"

 

They have created an extensive Player Guide but they do no publicize it very well and it's not in a format that is easily digestible (i.e. nobody likes to read a 31 page document). We will see tutorials (in its most basic form) in R12, where first time actions will be given some explanation. Plus, they are fully well aware of the new user experience, which I would also agree with Caliya is generally not a very hand held one this early in the process...thus the 31 page doc and forum posts or ad-hoc videos.

As the game gets wider adoption beyond its niche audience who have been following the game for many months, if not years, they will need to change that first-time experience vs unleashing the firehose of features, skills, etc. on the average tester. We sort of saw this recently when they made the locked deck the default and lowered the initial # of skill points to play with so players aren't overwhelmed, which a lot of new users were.

This puts them in sort of a bind, since the veteran testers here don't want to be handheld or start over at Level 0 with each wipe. They need to give testers the option of character builds that start at Level 0, 20, 50, etc. so they don't have to grind through that new user experience.

Expect to see more guidance and hand holding to teach the game mechanics in the coming months. Looking forward to seeing how their tutorials work in R12 and how much it impacts the first time experience.

 

Yes it sounds like your the sort of dev who worked on Aliens colonial marines, I suggest you look at the backlash that caused. When you sell someone a product you a have a LEGAL responsibility to ensure that product a) matches what you as the developer, the marketers and even the store attendants say b) that it is fit for purpose and c) that it is free of defects. Now consumers have been really kind to software companies in general but they still fall under consumer laws and people and regulators are starting to remind them about this fact. For instance Apple and Steam have recently been "reminded" by the ACCC that saying "all sales are final" doesn't get them out of the Australian Consumer Law's right to a refund and even EA took notice of that and started giving refunds to Australian customers when Simshitty came out. If you really are a game dev then you might want to start thinking not just about what you want but what your customers have a right to expect

 

Except! its a crowd funded game....

 

Except that regulators consider things like kickstarter to be purchases (and therefore fall under consumer law) not investments and therefore under investment law
Except that kickstarter itself make promises made by the developers of a kickstarter project legally binding

 

Not to high jack this poor man thread further. But what specifically are you claiming is not being delivered? And what kinda proof do you have it won't be in game?

 

at this stage nothing at all (won't say I am not concerned by the single player and coop game but willing to wait for now), it was a response to someone else's comments which said that devs (any devs not just this game) could and should do as they like without any respect to there promises and that if you believe something someone says more fool you

edit to add: look at the post 2 above the one you quoted

 

I feel ya, I do, but that defeats the entire purpose of testing it from level 0.

Granted, they could also start doing some real Q&A with us, like making specific things to test each week (shortly on 24/7 release) because I can't imagine that the Q&A team they have is catching as much as a properly sized team (say US) could.

All the more reason to continually wipe people to test low hanging content, and also provide specific "level" entry points and spawn points to test content.

Otherwise I feel it will sit in an almost perma-BETA state for many, many, many, many months as they wait for everyone to randomly walk over the areas that need testing.

 

I understand the concern over the addon store. Although I don't see a problem with most items sold there, the sale of houses and lots does have me worried as there are a limited number of lots in the game, and I don't know what the advantage might be to having a house already set up when the game finally goes live. Perhaps it is mute point?

 

Well eventually probably soon after release the lots will be gone. The exception is they have added player owned towns so that will slow down that out of land point. But it's gonna happen buying a lot ahead of time. Via $$ ensures u a spot.

 

Let's be honest with ourselves. This isn't World of Warcraft or Arche Age or any of the other giant blockbuster games. Novia is a pretty big. I'm sure there's going to be lots available for everyone to build a house.

 

Definitely not for episode 1. Maybe 10-20% of the population will OWN a home.