Some new player first play session feedback...

Greetings,

I'm a very experienced MMO and game player overall, with a long background in Ultima games.

Version (2.24.17):

I play in both OSX and Windows. Here is what I experienced:

ISLE OF STORMS

Possible Bug in OSX Version:

• Clicking the Oracle was rather difficult. Even when the circle seemed to be placed correctly, clicking to start a conversation was very hard. I don't mean it took me three of four tries... more like it took me 10 or 15 tries before it worked.

Possible Bugs on Windows Version:

• I was playing the Windows version. Installed via Steam and launched with the option for windowed fullscreen. I had a period of confusion right after I entered Isle of Storms when my mouse worked fine but my keyboard wouldn't work at all. I had to Alt-Tab in and out a few times before the keyboard started functioning.

Other Notes:

• The font size of the while text in the middle of the screen and in chat bubbles is a bit small. It could be enlarged somewhat, or maybe the size made configurable?
• The location of "More" in the chat window is sometimes a bit confusing, especially when a mass of white text is also broken up by some brown text (The Oracle is a great example of this.)
• I don't mind most loading screens, but the loading screen to look into the mirror leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I think it would be better to avoid having a loading screen that early, if at all possible.
• It was hard for me to determine how much of the current Oracle conversation was placeholder and how much might be final. Going from my experience with similar conversations in previous Lord British games, I found the Oracle conversation somewhat unfulfilling. It seemed too brief and it seemed like it didn't matter at all because I could override it. I'd suggest filling this out a bit. I know it isn't supposed to be critical to what happens to you in the game, but I think it needs to be a bit more important.
• There was one time I logged out after talking to the Oracle and on my way up the hill. When I logged back in, I was by the mirror. When I approached the Oracle again, she said I had already chosen my path. This was a bit confusing.
  
• During my initial play session, while still trying to figure our the interface, I was presented with a pop-up dialog that said "...this instance will be closed in 60 minutes, no new players will be matched to it...". I was asked to choose if I wanted to switch or not. Now, I play a ton of online games, so this didn't worry me... but I can see how this dialog could be extremely confusing to someone new to online games. I'd suggest suppressing this kind of thing while on the Isle of Storms.

on to BLOOD RIVER MASSACRE...

 

BLOOD RIVER MASSACRE

• Wow, a bit of a depressing scene. But I did like it.
• I'm not sure I really "completed" this area. I talked to an elvish girl, who mentioned a dagger, then we found the dagger in the lorekeepers hut. Then we got out the gate and it closed behind us. I have this suspicion I missed something though because my temporary companion seems to think we need more clues.
• Overall, I found this scene fascinating and I loved the setup for the reason for the battle and war.

Some suggested improvements:

• The watchers are a bit annoying sometimes.
• I died once thru falling. Didn't seem that far to me, but maybe I am confused by the scale of the setting. I think I was on the second floor, maybe I was higher? I'd love an option other than death for short falls, maybe slower movement (like a limp) for a while?
• I ran into some elves on the bridge and managed to beat them by basically randomly hitting buttons. I'd have liked to receive a little more info on how combat works before running into them.
• My short combat with the Elves filled my chat window up with tons of combat junk. I really think the default tabs should separate meaningful conversations from combat spam, especially considering how often I seem to need to go back and look at old conversations.

Note on the current dev build:

• I saw the development note that this Path of Truth isn't done and I should take the boat to Solotown if I wanted something more polished... but the boat which is "Under the Bridge" seems absent? I looked absolutely everywhere all over the river.

no boat... so off to OVERLAND MAP...

 

@Ragthor

Greetings Outlander and Welcome to Sotaland
Seems like the last time I did Blood RIver you actually clicked a wagon to get to Soltown. I's been a while though, maybe that's changed. If you haven't found it yet.. here's a link to the discord channel
https://discord.gg/WVNUq
uhh I think.. In any case.. if you see somebody with a purple title that says Hospitaller.. they can be helpful figuring things out. Feel free to friend me (hit the F key and add friend) Dakota Solazur

 

Some time on the OVERLAND MAP

• I visited (completely by accident) the player town of Welcome Center. Then, after running thru some other towns, figured out the ferry system and ended up in En Nox. Just exploring now really. Kind of interesting.

Some suggestions

• From the point of view of a new player, it would help a ton if the ferry routes could be seen visually on the map when I have them selected. Maybe a glowing line thru the water showing where it heads? The fact that every ferry causes the map to black out then come back makes it very hard to figure out where you just went. This is even worse when a ferry causes you to instance into some town...
• Speaking of which, I'd love to have some kind of indication if selecting a ferry while in the overland map is going to move me to a new spot on the overland map, or is it going to instance me into a town somewhere else on the map.

I'd pay real money for a nice cloth map of this world, like we got in the original Ultima's

...so off to more time on the OVERLAND MAP...

 

Sotamap.com is your friend

 

• Cool. That does help a lot. Thanks!

After a quick death thru BRIGHTBONE PASS, I continue the long way toward Soltown. Wow, look at all the quests. And lots of animals named something other than "cat"

Turns out I do have an item for Stanley, devs must have given that to us so we can follow this path. Looking forward to it.

 

what's your in game name?

 

Welcome to the game Ragthor! I hope you'll have alot of fun. There's some really great people around who can help you in-game or out There are nice guilds as well.

 

Selenia. Signature added.

 

It's a performance issue (and the game performs better on Windows, so it's less obvious). In many situations it's possible to hit the E key instead of double clicking.

What is your screen resolution? I suspect this text is a fixed size in pixels, so it will look smaller on higher resolution screens.

I've not done the scene for a couple of months so I'm not sure if they removed the boat and updated the dialogue, but the boat has never been under the bridge (as noted a few times).

I think it should be that boats without a sail take you to new spots, boats with a sail take you into scene/town.