Thoughts on Owl's Head and the Pre-Alpha game thus far.

I don't want to sound like a pain* or anything. I like what I see. The animals are annoying.

I think they have a lot to work on. Things I liked about Ultima Online. You can interact with everything.

One thing I could not do was get drunk. Or there are no instruments to play. There is no jump button, you can't sit down on chairs or even sit on the ground if you want too.

Some basic things here. I don't want to be a critical jerk but I realize this is Pre-Alpha but I can't even get drunk?
Was hoping to drink a few beers at least. Not sure what else

Anyone else have anything they wanted to do but could not?

*Edited for content* ~FireLotus

 

Yea, log on.

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I think this release is more about testing critical systems necessary for smooth gameplay. Pretty sure you getting drunk does not fall in to that category. It has already been stated that there will be no "jump" button. And musical instruments are not slated to be implemented until a later release.

 

we need jumping and running, and an implementation of stamina! But i too must get drunk game looks pretty smooth! Keep up the good work, Who will win the MMO war of next year! SoA or that other game that spent 300 mil on development?

 

I found a workaround. Get some lake front brewery riverwest stein or your local favorite brew and drink. Then go login to SOTA lol.
This is a alpha so it has predefined goals if you havn't reviewed them go take a look at the main page and help test those goals. Then keep adding constructive feedback.

Often people demand the final game in alpha/beta testing which is not realistic and not what the tests are for. Looks like you have a sense of humor so help with constructive feedback.

 

Actually this isn't an alpha. It is release 1. Alpha comes after release 4.

 

The game is really, really dark. I just had to go afk during the night cycle. Anything but outside, during the day needs a huge brightness boost.

 

Torches FTW!!

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Sounds like a monitor adjustment may be needed.

Played it on two different systems without gamme issues:

Quadro 2000 with 2x2k HPLP2475w montiors
Gtx770 with 24" 2k low-end samsung + Cintiq (even the cintiq looked fine)

How old is your monitor?

 

Whoops, wrong button.... So did anyone beat the game yet.

 

Prime Rib, I understand your feeling of darkness, but hey, its night! Find a few torches, candles and braziers they really do make a difference. I set 2 on each floor of a house and things are very much better. It makes sense...after all it is dark outside so the house needs light. Also during the day your home is covered no real direct sunlight so lighting would also have to be used. These homes do not have a huge amount of windows so natural lighting is not gonna cut it.
I also don't like dark games, but finding light sources was worth while now my house is nice and bright all the time.

 

My first impression can be described thus:

Jiub: Well not even last night's storm could wake you. I heard them say we've reached Owl's Head. Maybe they'll let us go.

 

I'm sure the monitor plays a role. The problem is glare. It's fine if I'm playing and it's midnight here. It games which to the low contrast thing, I usually just crank the gamma to infinity and it's fine. But I'd rather not have the effect.

I haven't found torches (or anything else I could pick up) but I'll look for that.

 

Look for chests which contain all sorts of things they are scattered around the town.

 

Also in the settings choose beautiful for graphics if you can. Made a big difference.

 

Personally I don't like the animations at all, they are very clumsy. Also moving around and always clicking the right button to rotate the camera is really unconvinient. It is just a pre-alpha so no need to complain here yet.. but I'm perhaps slightly underwhelmed at the moment.

P.S it reminds me of runescape for some reason.

 

Obviously, a long way to go.

I'm having fun, though.

Probably the absolute best thing about the game right now? The fact that when I login, there are no big exclamation marks everywhere, no big arrows on my screen telling me where to go, it's just a living, breathing world where I'm free to do just about anything. I've spent 90% of my time playing around with house decoration. I have no desire to quest and kill because I don't have to.

I'm happy just wandering around and finding items to decorate with.

 

I kinda love this, despite the many, many problems still evident. Two reasons:

(1) The general look of the world. It's really, really smart: once you realize how the town's laid out logically, the different levels of walls and defense around, and the neat wilderness you can wander off into by following the river before entering the main gate--it just feels like a real environment in a way that I've kind of given up expecting from games. In some ways it reminded me of the first time playing Morrowind, how it was just so neat to go smoke skooma with Caius Cosades at your hideous crash pad in Balmora and then go walking along the bridge in the rain, thinking about what guilds to join or whatever, feeling within the world. Already SotA feels more immersive than that to me somehow, even if it's just something dumb like walking around looking at different houses for sale, thinking about where I might want to live, or just dragging a bunch of grave markers and miscellaneous junk into places and arranging it fussily. Maybe I'm just like an Ultima nerd or something but I really, really dig it already.


(Here in my filthy grave-house. Ignore that I'm stuck in the wall)

(2) The conversation engine. Obviously this is just messed up beyond belief right now: I can't tell you how many conversations I had like this:

Peasant: Something must be done about the bandits! Everything is terrible!
Avatar: Terrible? What do you mean?
Peasant: . . . if you say so.

I feel like NPCs at least need to be able to recognize whether or not you're throwing their own words back at them. But even given this: it's just kind of great, and works kinda well enough where I felt like it was worth it, more often than not, to try to have real conversations with people, finding natural-language ways to work keywords in, to do some kind of basic roleplaying. I haven't felt that impulse in an MMO in I can't tell you how long, and the fact that it works as well as it does already, without even really seeing the raw data that's presumably now being collected re: how we're all actually attempting to interact with these NPCs, is really cheery.



I'm distinctly depressed that I can't go collect red sashes and gross ectoplasm for poor Lord Enmar, or that I can't figure out what's even going on in Kingsport. It's REALLY GOOD I THINK. More, more!

 

By the way, does it ever get dark in the Release 1? I remember reading a preview of the release 1 and the writer was talking about the lighting and how beautifully it is implemented in the game. Does it get dark (I mean nightime)?

 

nice positive reply post !