A Noob's First Impressions of SoTA

A friend of mine kindly gifted me a SoTA account so we could run around together, kill stuff, and get that sweet, sweet loot. He and I played UO for years when it first came out and the best part of that fantastic LB game was logging on with your pals and going out to craft, kill baddies, all the good RPG stuff, which I imagine is what LB and his team are shooting for as they hammer out SoTA.

Here are my first impressions, understanding this is pre-alpha, and my opinions may have been expressed elsewhere, discussed, etc.

THE GOOD

Over the course of two nights of play, me and my pal were able to meet up, buy armor and weapons, and go forth to slay. We successfully dueled other noobs. Gathered NPC quests via interesting conversations, completed quests. Explored caves, sewers, and other dark places. Died many times. Talked a lot about how a noob character might make a living out of the available areas to farm. Tested farming theories. Spent all of the gold on better weapons, repair kits, random stuff. Generally had an awesome time despite a few bugs that broke party and put us in separate instances of the same area.

THE BAD

SoTA is an instancy instance of an instance-based game. Everything is an instance. Too much time moving from instanced town to instanced town. Way too many load screens. The overworld map is really just a place to move your verrrrry sloooooow guy from one instance to the next. There is no feeling of size or travel, just a really slow moving cursor decorated with a model of the player character, with no available skills or any other purpose than to move super slowly over the map.

That said, switching from over-the-shoulder third-person, a la WoW and most other MMO games, and then to an isometric overworld is jarring. If the overworld travel were more like entering a functional ARPG like Torchlight or Diablo, where you journeyed overworld and fought battles with baddies ON THE MAP, for me that would work.

THE UGLY

The biggest detracting quality of the game for me as a player is that I don't know what SoTA IS. I get the feeling this game is trying to be too many things at once. Right now, it is a single player game while also an MMO having a standard third-person HUD and also an overworld map system a la Zelda 2 that allows you to move from instance to instance. The game in its present state seems to draw from all subgenres of the RPG video game landscape while not laying claim to any certain style of its own.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

Cut back on the instancing. The overworld should be expansive and highly interactive, with its own special purposes. Make the gameplay isometric or third-person or first-person. Don't switch viewpoints. If you must use multiple viewpoints, at least make combat available/necessary in both views.

TL;DR This game is functionally good; would be better if it was more seamless and focused on a specific gameplay style.

 

Wow great comments and many have stated a lot of the same ideas, remember this is ALPHA phase Glad you liked it.

 

Well, instancing is quite a big issue and I spend lot of times loading maps. I do not like that.
Overworld should be more interactive with random encounters and who knows what.

As for ismoetric/third-person/first-person - I think all modes should be supported in the game, though it would be nice if the switch on the map was not so big and if the game remembered the view you have used last.

 

Welcome neves!

 

I have to agree, I love how well the game functions in the alpha stage but I do wish it was an open world. It feels like I'm running around a cage. In one area you run a few steps and it closes up. I want to explore the mountains on the horizon, but from what I've seen this is not that kind of game. I do hope they broaden things up alot.

 

Add runebooks so we can recall around like UO? What is the downside to this?

Not saying they wouldn't consider it and it may even be up in the air, but I know myself don't want to spend half of the time I get to play running from place to place.. Runebooks were a great thing in UO obviously.

 

Nice summary. The way you described the overworld map and instances I have to agree with

 

We bid ye welcome

 

Welcome. It's always interesting to read first impressions, thanks for contributing.

The overworld has no other functions but to travelling around. More interaction is planned, such as getting pulled into an instance by mobs.
I think that many agree with you about instancing. Perhaps larger areas to explore would change things for better.

 

Although I want to see a lot more interaction on the overland map, I really know I do not want a diablo/torchlight feel to it at all.