Silvers first steps in SoTA

Greetings fellow Avatars.

First off I'd like to say that I realise this is pre-alpha. All my views/opinions/observations are just that, as I do not expect a perfect product or anything near a perfect product. Take the following as is intended, take it from the standpoint of someone that is excited in what the future holds for SoTA, and from someone who wants to help in this journey.

I did not see a general discussion space in the beta forum section. If this should be elsewhere please move this.

Following are my notes that I wrote as took my first steps in SoTA. I have not read any other posts, I wanted to add my own views without altering my perception of SoTA by others observations.

Character creation
When changing hair colour and style it did not change in the preview area, but after entering the game the
selection was in place.

SLI
not recognising 2nd gfx card.

Character Movement
The character model movement feels a bit forced/exaggerated or theatrical, as in theatre, a performance. It's not a flowing or a natural movement I would expect. Clothes clipping a bit, seeing skin through clothes.

Knight Benefactor House
Stairs in Knight Benefactor house - sticking/getting stuck a bit when trying to run up, have to strafe sideways a
bit to keep the forward movement going.

Viking house
Inside the colour palette isn't broad enough, the stairs and everything blends together too much so it
doesn't have the depth it needs.

Wizard tower
- How about have them sitting on the ground inactive until the owner of the house moves through the gate, then they rise at the owners approach with a slight blue glow underneath and the steps slightly shift and sway. If another player comes onto the property they stay planted on the ground unless the owner has set the steps to respond to anyone's approach. Also the owner could give friends a key or magical stone which lets the steps know they are a welcome guest.

Perhaps the blue glow under the steps could be a visual upgrade purchaseable ingame with ingame
currency. Like a paint and could be a player created effect. Created by someone who is skilled in the
arcane arts.

House portal - when entering the camera is behind the avatar, when the avatar reappears the camera is at the front. It would be better if the camera switches to look the same way the avatar is facing.

Map
I assume that there will be a map option by pressing M etc later on. If so I recommend that instead of players just having a map automatically that they first must purchase a map from a particular npc. This would be a basic map that has major locations, well troden roads, things of prominence. It does not display unused paths, caves, hidden or unapparent locations. Instead they can be discovered by the player. Also I recommend there be a cartography skill. If the player takes this skill they can move around and add their own details to their own map and make duplicates for other players to purchase.

Wilderness
Outside the township there are some shrubs which you cannot walk through. Instead of making them so you cannot pass through them you could make it so that you can pass through them but they slow your movement

Birds
The flocks of birds rock

Conversations
When using the scroll wheel to look through the text in the conversation window it zooms in and out from the Avatar. While moving the text the camera should stay fixed.
In the conversations you can see bold text which is highlighting important text. In my opinion this is taking something away from the conversation system. In my opinion do not make certain words bold to point them out as important conversation directing words. It just lessens the experience, let us explore the conversations without sign posts

NPC names
Don't show npc names in chat until they tell you their name.

Final Thoughts
It looks great. I like the art direction, the initial feel of the environment. I think the conversation system will end up being a work of art and I'm excited to see how that improves. The idea of having no quest log is something I was not sure about to start with, but with the conversation system the way it is I think it will feel natural to type responses and to pick up on tidbits of info and then to record my own notes of what I've found. Whether that is in a notepad on my desk or whether there's an in game notepad we can write in.

Keep it up! Looking forward to the next instalment!

*Salute*
Silvers

 

After some of my own internal musings last night from my experiences with this first build I started wondering about the conversation system where you have multiple npc's standing next to each other and you start to talk to one of them. From memory what happened was both npc's responded which could get rather cumbersome with trying to discuss certain topics.

Could a conversation locking system be the answer where you can (when you want to, i.e. multiple npc's next to each other) first target and lock onto your intended conversation target which makes any other close by npc's ignore you? Obviously if it's scripted that other npc's pipe up and add their thoughts to an on going conversation, then that would still happen.

Balrog & Sakuraba, thank you for the likes

 

I noticed this too and it was problematic. I think they're aware of this and will be improving the proximity logic to whatever to mitigate this. But you're right, they may end up just only responding if you have that NPC targeted either by clicking on them or hailing them.

 

@Vaultarn - You can click on an NPC and it will highlight them with a blue circle on the ground, thereby 'focusing' the conversation on them

 

Excellent!

Thanks for the heads up!

 

Unfortunately that did not work. I've been back in and selected the npc to talk to. The blue circle appeared but another npc close by responded.

 

This may have been advised, but I was unable to enter a building after opening the door.

 

Ok, maybe I just didn't notice the other guy's speech come up :\

I have that building bug as well. I'm guessing it's something to do with the step at the door.

 

Not worried really, thanks for your advice nonetheless