Your pros & cons list

Now that we have had a taste of the game, what are some areas that you feel could use work? What are some areas you think have been done well? Here are some of my pros and cons based on what I have seen. Some of these I am sure are already being worked on or planned but I felt I should list them anyway.

Things I feel that have been done right:

• The environment for the most part.
• The music.
• The lighting.
• Ease and ability of the decoration system.
• True multi core support.
• NPC interaction.

Areas I think need work:

• Camera view. I would like to see a few more clicks out from the back of my avatar giving me a better surrounding view. I also would like to see the R mouse button not move your character. It should not interfere with character movement at all, only your view.
• Full screen "windowed" mode needs to be added. For me its a must.
• Sounds effects for destroying items needs work. Currently it sounds more like a gun shot then splintering wood imo.
• The ability to destroy chests after they have been emptied.
• A way to "lock down" decorations once you have them in place. Accidentally moving deco around becomes annoying.
• Jumping, swimming, and the ability to step off and over small objects/elevations should be added.
• Greater scaling in performance. From the lowest to the highest settings I did not see a great change in FPS. I believe the low end needs to scale further down for those people with less then high end systems.
• More ground vegetation. While walking around outside the walls I noticed that their was not a lot of bushes or other ground objects/cover.

All in all I am very happy with what I have seen. Keep up the good work!

 

+1

 

Lock down on Decos would be great. I also would like to have the ability to 'snap' to a grid to help line things up straight.

As for performance enhancements, that's for later in Alpha. Right now there won;t be much of a shift because they are testing core systems before they look at scalability.

 

The visuals were spectacular. Beyond my expectations, especially for this early. I wasn't crazy about the controls. I'm hoping this is just because it's alpha and they haven't refined it yet.

 

from the other thread:

Things that I love:

1. The Conversation System is Awesome! When I've some time tomorrow, I'll log on and ask all the questions I can think of, so they become hopefully implemented (btw. you better let your guards know, what a paladin is =p )

2. The Housing is excellent: It's a lot of fun to put all those candles, books, food, etc. on shelves, tables, ...

3. Entering Houses without Loading Times and Black Screen makes me very happy!

4. The town lives: The birds, the fireflies, the sheep, the people running around, the light through the trees, the asteroid belt, the Vulcano, etc.

Things from the Pre-Alpha, that could improve (I won't mention technical stuff here, since it's pre-alpha; so I expect some stuttering, low performances, glitches, etc.):

1. The Interface: I miss the option to turn left and right with q and e. Also I miss the option to run fwd when I press the left and right mouse button at the same time. Another idea would be walking through Double Click to a selected spot.

2. I'm missing something like automatically putting things into your main bag through double click or putting things into specific bags (by pressing Shift or Ctr+Number of the Bag+Leftclick). The whole dragging can get a bit tedious

3. Running from one side of the map to the other map takes quite a while. This could become tedious, when you have to run the same distances over and over and over again. Horses, magic, speed boots or speed potions could help (but you have to be careful with those since they could be abused in PvP)

4. I'm not the biggest fan of jumping in most RPGs since its all to often abused and results in annoying players jumping around all the time, but I liked the controlled jumping in Ultima 9, where you could jump and climb precise with your mouse cursor. In the Pre-Alpha, I wished sometimes, that I could get over some of the lower obstacles (fences, etc.) or climb down small walls

 

I was pleasantly surprised at how well the game worked in general and the level of beauty the game has altogether. I had trouble with the patcher, no big deal just re-downloaded the installer and it fixed it. I too would like some work done on the camera, it was a bit odd and hard to explain but I think pulling out some or going full on first person would have fixed many issues. Housing seems cramped and this may have been a camera thing but I felt very cramped when indoors, I found myself trying really hard to scroll in or out to get the right setting so I could see what I was doing inside houses.

Really very few negatives for me... I cant wait till we can interact with more of the game world...

 

I feel very similarly. Players jumping around everywhere is annoying and takes away from the experience however I feel that we should have the ability to jump over or onto small objects. Perhaps to have the best of both worlds jumping could have a high cost in stamina. A couple of jumps and your to tired to jump for a few moments. This might stop the jump spam but also still allow persons to use the ability where it is called for.

 

I am impressed.
I like where the these guys are heading!
I really like immersion and I am happy to trade FPS for this.
Even at this early stage some of the textures aren't bad!

Pros and Cons:

+love the street lanterns and the firefly's at night.
+loving the movement of the sun + moon throughout the day/night
+sun rise - wow! you have some talented lighting programmers
+fountains (lighting/distortion of the water looks excellent)
+loving the stone textures/floor/walls of some of the houses.
+flocks of birds (excellent)
+player character model is excellent
+running animation is solid
+realistic armours and weaponry (simple)
+movement of trees and flora is good (wind)
+cape flying up in the air when you run down stairs
+old school ultima backpack, chests, bags (excellent)
+portal in mages tower looks amazing and I like the sound
+cloud movement across the sky looks good!


-graphics out of whack (bread and cheese graphic take up a whole backpack)
-too bright, cartoonish, not realistic
-music is too bright and cheerful
-I really dislike the smashed moon at night.
-movement and camera ( I NEED to be able to hold W to run forward and move my mouse to look left and right while still running forward)

I agree with some sentiments above - NO JUMPING

 

Well, let the hate fly, because I'm not so forgiving about what I've seen so far. Unbelievable that this game is even a game. you all must have some pretty low expectations, because what I saw and played was nothing but utter garbage.

Visually its horrible, low grad textures.
FSAA turned on doesn't even look like its working I still see a ton of Jaggies all over the place.
Shadows in the game are bad, nothing good about them.
Char models are about as bad as I've seen, truthfully, NWN 1 has better char models especially when it comes to the plastic looking hair. even the char models look plastic in this game. Is this really the best you guys could come up with?
I see some of you saying the char models are excellent, Really? I don't get that comment at all.

I have a EVGA GTX 660Ti
Intel i7 4.6GHz
ASUS MB P8Z77
8GB RAM

I'm sorry, but I am not seeing anything great about these graphics at all. I have everything maxed out too.

The Backpack, okay I get it you all wanted to keep the look and feel of Ultima. but come on guys, this is the modern age, crap laying on top of each other no good way to organize it. items look to big over laying other items. Ugghh!!

Why is there no Jumping?
Key Remapping, I'm a left hander person, I do not use WASD, I use the Arrow keys, why do devs always assume that everyone uses WASD??
So the question begs, are we going to be able to remap these keys?

Movement is okay at best, but the interface really needs a lot of work.

I know this us a Pre Alpha, but I cant say that I'm impressed with anything I've seen so far. Richard Garrett, is this really the best you can do?

Really disappointed,

 

We must have been playing two different games.

2 x GTX 780 SLI
Intel i7 4770K CPU
Gigabyte Sniper-G5
16GB RAM

I play Skyrim with 4096x4096 textures all round at 2560x1440 and sometimes 7680x1440 and to me Shroud of the Avatar looks fine.
Neverwinter models were crap and the interface sucked badly.
I believe its pretty obvious shadows and textures have been left basic intentionally at this time.

 

I planted an apple seed in the ground. It started to sprout but I don't see any apples on it. This apple tree is terrible.

 

I +1 darks on points related to NPC, Textures and some graphics because it was brutally honest and realistic.

The lighting effects are stunning, but I agree most of the other textures don't look that good especially when looking really up close. Hopefully it will just be as simple as importing some user generated custom designs later on.

At this point, I don't view 'Owls Head' as what the actual game should be, just a sandbox area to start experimenting and hopefully finding out what is good and what isn't.

Right now though, I am having tons of fun with decorating homes...

 

Well from the beginning.

I think for a pre-Alpha this was a very successful and functional test. The whole point of this from what i read was a test of the servers to make sure people could log on and wouldn't be too many issues with character building, home decorating and basic movement.

Movement was ok. Not my favorite movement system but usually in any game i have played it takes time and you have to get used to it. As far as key mapping goes yes that would be nice but again this is pre-alpa lets worry about getting the basics then if you want to move things around after they work worry about it then.

Character building- there definitely needs to be more shape and color options but i believe they were pretty clear when they released this saying they were not where they were hoping to be, but what i can say is for the art they had to work with everything functioned as it should.

Houses and decoration- There were some bugs that i believe have been addressed where some of the surfaces didn't appear to have substance you could fall through floors or walk through some walls. In my opinion these are things that should not have been that hard to test even before this release but there was a large variety of houses to choose from and the whole point of a pre-alpha is trouble shooting it is out there so that the massive amount of people they allowed to play this rough version could get eyes on and hopefully see something they may have over looked and missed if that isn't something you are interested in maybe you shouldn't play until the finished version comes out . Programming on any level is not an easy task and we should be here to help not bitching because things aren't perfect.

Some of the decorating needs to have bugs addressed with placing items disappearing into space and also being able to move items that were left outside the house while inside the house. If any devs are reading this and it wasn't addressed in a bug report please PM me and i will try to explain better.

The boundaries seemed to be an issue, mainly with the wildlife. Sheep and stags were often seen to be walking sideways when they were either approaching a boundary or even walking through walls.

I don't know if it was already in planning and just not implemented for the pre-alpha but double-clicking items to place them in the bag was much better than the drag and drop system this can be very tedious and time consuming. There should also be an option to move all items at once from a chest or bag to another bag instead of one at a time.

The graphics were rough and I am hoping that they do improve with the later releases this day and age there are just so many games out there with amazing graphic systems functioning that i don't think it is a reasonable sacrifice to make to have a good story or play system with halfway graphics.

The interactions with the animals didn't feel right to me either. I like the fact that you can push them out of the way because i would hate to be trapped in a corner unable to move due to a sheep or something of that sort but at the same time pushing a sheep backwards with no resistance is not a good solution.

Buildings with double doors in my opinion should be able to open both doors by double clicking once not having to double click on each door especially if a single door isn't wide enough to readily fit through.

I liked some of the lighting effects but i do thing the intensity of the candles should be brighter even with the candles, in the night it was very difficult to see inside the houses.

Having some sort of alignment system for the items you are placing would be very useful trying to line up all the objects by eye with as touchy as the turn controls were was not an easy task.

That's all for now but i do plan on spending more time in the trial and proving more input if needed.

 

Well here's my list so far. And yes I totally get it's an alpha so I know a lot of things will be getting addressed.

Good Points

Animals and other critters - those flocks of birds are just a wonderful touch.
Fireflies - I'm glad someone else above noticed an appreciated them! But I love fireflies.
House decoration system is fantastic. Quick, easy and intuitive.
Everyone was calling me outlander, sera. But that's ok because I loved Morrowind.
Female avatar looks like an actual person.
I like the particle effect on the Tesla Tower.
Stone Ankhs.
NPC conversation system is one of my favourite things although the conversations need more fleshing out (I know they already said this). I much prefer this to the more "modern" pick one of three dialogue options approach.
No compass, question/exclamation marks, or quest pointers.
Many of the general design features gave me an ultima feel like the backpacks and paperdoll, etc.
Seamless world. No "loading" building interiors. Dark Souls was like this and the world design was better for it.

Bad Points (a lot of these will be visual because I'm a visual person and I know they are WiP)

No mouse look (I have noticed some people on here don't understand what some of us mean by mouse look so I can only recommend looking at some other games).
Related to the above - no invert mouse option.
No jumping - but even more annoying - you can't drop off ledges even those only a foot high.
Walking and animations are still a bit clunky (I know that is being worked on).
Related to the above - some of the female NPCs (the ones wearing a dress) looked like they'd fall over if they leaned any further back.
The world is too "bright" and over saturated. Like it's a permanent midsummer day. Basically it's not dreary enough for me.
Some texture and building styles just lack consistency. This is more noticeable on the earlier houses. And I'll never like those tower homes. They look like disney themed birthday cakes.
The lighting on my avatar made me look a little "plastic" - particularly noticeable on the hair.
Light sources (town lanterns, those big giant lights, etc), were still on and bright during the day. Also firefly particle affect still around during the day.
Windows look like they have no glass when you're inside a building.
The exploded moons look "off". Like it is fairly obvious they are a foreground item against the sky even with ambient obscurance.
Need more varied meadow flowers. =P
Cloth "armour". Just no. Also the "cloth boots" look like iron boots.
The scimitar looks like it was made by a smith who messed up forging the blade. =P
"Combat Dagger." What?
That black bar at the bottom with the mana and HP on it should be transparent I think.


That's about all that comes to mind right now! All in all for a "pre-alpha" I think it's very very promising. Obviously still a long way to go but I think if people keep in mind there is still another year of development to go then there is a lot to feel positive about.

 

Bugs and minor niggles notwithstanding here's my R1 list:

The Good
Plots and Homes
Decoration system
Music
Interactivity
Character creation
"Ultima-ish feel"

The Bad
No jumping
No automatic “mouse-look”
Inventory/Container management

The Ugly
NPC Interaction/Conversation system (I'm old school, but you're all crazy for wanting it this way.)

Indifferent
Graphics

In any case, kudos to the SotA team for what they've achieved so far.

 

Sorry, but lets agree to disagree, the Graphics in Skyrim are 10 times better then this games current graphics.

And if you had read my post better, you would have seen I acknowledged this is Pre Alpha, but some place in the back of my mind, I don't get a good feeling this is going to get much better. But lets all wait and see.

You cant be serious that you like what you are seeing with the char models, there is no way those models are anywhere near good. Take the hair for instance, zoom in and take a good look at how plastic looking your char look especially the hair. I feel like I was playing a char from off the toy shelf.

And Devs, please give us an option to kill the music on the launcher.

If you really want to compare graphics, go check out Lord of the Rings online, because that's where these graphics stand in comparison. and that game is what, 6 years old now? I know the devs can do better then this. I mean, I hope they can. if you guys don't like me being honest, okay, fine. but don't sit here and fool yourselves either that what you are seeing is anywhere acceptable. But lets see where this ends up, At least now the devs know how I feel and possibly many of you too if this game does live up to expectations.

 

Pros
Texturing on trees, mountains, ground, sky is awesome...
The seasons are obvious, the wind blowing etc are great effects
The music is awesome (especially the intro music)
Love the typing to NPCs...can't wait for common sense
The city instance is huge from what I can tell...Hopefully all hexes will be huge
Paintings are cool...hope there will be many more

Cons
Need to be able to fall off of ledges/jump (even if it requires damage or death) OPEN WORLD
Cabinets/drawers need to be openable and store/display things
Beds/Chairs placed need to be useable
Ability to put weapon away
Some voices would be immersive
Cannot resize items for your house...restrictive movement hard to get things straight
Cannot drop regular items on your house floor...Lockdowns coming?
Inventory items size is wrong...too big in most cases filling the bag quickly...smaller items in bag pls for organizational ease (like UO was)

I know this is just a test...but just bringing up some things for FYI.

 

Kuno, I know all to well what Pre Alpha means. I've been on some Alphas over the years. My point is, not once in the email that was sent to us about what to expect in this Pre Alpha did it ever say, hey the current graphics and textures are just place holders for now. Sorry dude, but it does not say that. so that leads me to believe what you see is what you are going to get. and get later down the road.

I have a lot of friends that work in this industry, with some high end company's, one friend who even owns his own game company, so I know all to well about Pre alphas and Betas. I've even made many Mods over the years, some high end mods that we hosted out own betas for. so yes I know how this works.

But hey, again I'm a patient person, so yea lets see where this one ends up. I hope I don't have to come here a year from now and say I told you so.

I do have hope for this game, but not a lot.

 

Darks, you acknowledged you know this game is in pre-alpha but I don't think you fully understand what that means. It's essentially the beginning stages of testing. Most players never get to be involved in a game this early in development and pretty much every issue you've mentioned are issues that are going to be worked on over time. However, the dev team is currently working on much more critical issues and core features first. Especially where graphics are concerned, they are typically things that are really implemented much later in the development stage, so give it time; it will get better.

I also understand some of your other issues such as WASD keymapping, backpacks, etc. The problem is the way you address your opinion. Dev team is certainly looking at feedback to make these things better; and they too will get better, but instead of being angry and upset about these things, approach them in the mind that you're looking to offer suggestions rather than being upset that they aren't yet features that are in the game already. They are totally looking into constructive feedback, just keep in mind that development is very early and that there aren't a whole lot of features they have planned added at this point. Everyone is simply testing bits and pieces to make sure things are working one at a time.

 

Actually, they have been saying this quite a bit. I'm not sure about in the newsletters, but in every video I've seen and in many places on this forum, they have said over and over that these are not the final graphics. With the amount of experience you claim to have with alpha testing, you should know this is typically how this works. Core elements always come first.