Adventuring With A Companion - Release 9 Thoughts

Thanks to winning the MMORPG.com competition, I was given a free code for a friend to come experience the game, and I wanted to write my experiences up here to guide the future development if possible.

The first thing that needs to be stated however is how difficult it has been to interest my friends who had yet to take the plunge without that free access. Many of the people I know via Ultima Online have already supported Shroud; A few are sitting on the fence waiting for release, but are sympathetic based upon the Dev Team's good name; But most are hesitant because of the confusing labyrinth of funding methods and no clear indication of how deeply they'll be able to go into the game at launch. The BIG one is housing; even those who understand the limited availability of space, as seen in UO, are put off by no one being able to clearly state how they would get a house, and which designs they could place if they simply buy the game later. It's something that, as someone who wants to share the wonderful community here with my friends, I've tripped up over again and again; they want to feel an MMO is more than a game, but could be an alternate virtual home for them. Describing that I can almost certainly give them private rooms in my own nudges them closer, but not being sure of one of their own keeps them still distant all the same...

The friend who came with me for R9 so far however is also utterly addicted to Archeage at the moment, which didn't help either, due to it also having a Beta weekend at the same time. With the power of The Freebie however I managed to lure him away for a few hours on Friday and today, and I'm hoping he'll leave his own thoughts as a complete newcomer to the lands below. But as his veteran tour guide, here's my perspective on finally adventuring with someone I've known in MMOs since 2001 ...

The first problem came up as soon as he began; I'd forgotten to patch so he decided to wander off from his starting zone by himself as I caught up. Not an issue as such, he knows which end of a sword he's supposed to hold onto by now... but as Friends Only Multiplayer isn't up yet, I didn't know how to find him before physically doing so; he'd got to Owls Head before I was in, and I realised I wouldn't be certain of zoning into the same instance as him when I caught up.

What you can do, I discovered later, is add him by Friend before even physically meeting him, via options if you know his exact name. But even so, once done there's no indication of where he is on the map, nor the compass, nor in any way on the screen.

This is a further issue because the draw distance for Names, especially on low end systems like mine, is pretty short. It turned out I did meet him in the same Owls Head, except I managed to lose him a number of times between the starting point and the Bridge. Even when partied, and leading him to meet Moo The Cow (that'd he'd heard so, so mooo'ch about from me) I had to double back a few times to be sure he was still with me. This continued for most of our time together.

SUGGESTION: City of Heroes allowed you to set waypoints, including to players, and it gave a distance to it on the screen and on the compass. To avoid destroying immersion, I suggest that there's a simple marker on the compass only at the top of the screen, which has the initials of anyone in party and a distance too them. Perhaps have it only there when an item, or other magical doodad is carried to maintain the fictional conceit if need be.

After saying hello to Moo The Cow, we went looking for housing; We eventually placed side by side in Kingsport... My companion readily took to the housing set up (claim plot, choose house type) without any need for suggestions, so that much is perhaps clear to newbies. In the end our own little community looked like this;



He especially liked the Rustic style I chose; the only issue he had was the lack of a grind-stone inside the Windmill when we looked there. I made him some chairs and a table, and likewise decoration was, once I told him the keys to rotate, pretty self explanatory. More on that later!

He logged out in his home, and again we were lucky to start in the same zone again today; we went wandering around cities, and we visited the lighthouses in Kingsport, but half way up one, my poor system (AMD x2 2.9ghz Athlon, ATI 4670 1gb, 4gb ram) froze due to something... I had to drop graphics down to lowest to escape the graphics lag there. Something to look at maybe?

Also something to look at; We did the friends thing of leaping off high places together, into the water from the Lighthouse first of all... he took massive damage from it (145 odd points I think) and died instantly... but I hit the water with a splash and took none at all, causing him to declare his hatred for me! This continued throughout the day, he'd die constantly where I'd survive. It's possibly because he had looted some armour from the chests about, where as I was in my spawning clothes?

SUGGESTION: Fall damage should be purely based upon height fallen, and thus consistent... except where Magic might be involved. Anything else raises eyebrows.

Below: A post water-impacting death Dahak waits in Kingsport and watches the sun rise



After this we paddled furiously in a small Skiff towards Ardoris, and invaded someone's house-frigate. My companion seemed particularly taken by the water wheel at the end of the aqueduct; if I may speak on that, I think that kind of decoration really adds to the character of a city, and I'd love to see more of it.

From there he felt brave enough to take on the basic combat. Here's where the adventure started to get squiffy!

I suggested some of the plains first of all; I explained how the map has (now hidden) hexes, and to double click on a spot. But, if you're not in a party, there would be no easy way now to indicate where to meet ahead of time.

Suggestion: Either allow the hexes on the map to be toggled on and off, with small map references on them, or some form of magic which causes a flare to light in the overworld map to allow people to know to meet there.

Also, Dahak noticed the oddly disparate sizing for the icons in a party (as did I), but one thing I spotted was that, unlike when you're on the same local map as each other, there's no way to tell if someone's in the local map or not on the overworld; observe below, Dahak is actually inside the local Foresty map at this point, but I can't see that... only where he is on the overworld map.



And I'm the tiny, TINY dot to his left! Ahh and those skinning knives we're talking about by the way?

SUGGESTION: Allow right click for auto-equip on tools, weapons etc.

So what did we do for our first hunt? Well like brave warriors we decided to brutalize wildlife that couldn't fight back. We went looking for a harmless sheep at first, but instead found some stags, only to discover that we couldn't quite catch them! And whilst they ran, we couldn't seem to land a blow on them either.



This may be an issue with the early code, or it may be intentional; we had the same issue with NPC elves later that had melee attacks, they couldn't be hurt until they stopped to fight. And Stags are fast. One issue then with the current Deck System is that you need to be watching the Deck constantly, which in a toe to toe fight might be controllable, but with something faster than you haring across open spaces, it was considerably tricky to find the "speed boost" powers to close the gap. I think in the above shot it's currently in slot 3?

Still eventually the Stag stopped, our powers started working correctly, and we managed to unchivalrously beat it silly, after which Dahak proceeded to bravely cut it's head off.

Night fell shortly after; and once more we both got lost from each other. What's more, Dahak fell out of the local zone as it was almost impossible to tell not only where we were in relation to each other, but also where the zone boundaries where. Using the start point as a gathering point, he suggested we stay put until we could see where we were going; I rummaged in my pack for a torch, whilst Dahak felt the inspiration of camping come upon him...



We later went to fight some Elves in the nearby mountainous regions... a bit of a mistake as they can actually fight back! And killed us both a few times. During these less than stellar showings, I tried to direct the healing potions I was carrying towards Dahak, without success.

SUGGESTION: Allow for easy hotkey redirection of targets, allow it for Potions, and give some graphical indication it has worked... for instance, a small green flare around the friendly when the potion is correctly used on them.

For our final adventure, Dahak suggested we go back to town and discover if he could mount his Stag Head. He understood the link between the crafting stations and crafting by now, but the fact you had to enter the recipe blind at first to get it threw him, until I linked to the Wiki and the fortunately coded trophy recipe. That we have a text book in our packs explaining things doesn't have quite the immediacy of a UI... I was effectively leading him at that point.

SUGGESTION: Allow the R9 (and future) books to be opened with a hotkey, and the front page to be clickable so you can "turn" to the chapter you want rather than the UO style "flip each page at a time*

Still, once made, he seemed delighted with the addition to his new home;



Which brought our adventure to a close for today... but brings my thread full circle; if anything is likely to tempt him into joining our realm in the future, a sense of home I suspect will be it. But Shroud really needs to think about explaining that more clearly for those who, unlike me, will have to chase one from scratch upon joining the world.

FINAL SUGGESTION THEN: Try and get a rough design document for the not yet backers done that we can share, saying something simple like ... "Yes, you absolutely can own your own home from in game currency; we will be using a few designs like this, this and this as purchasable homes you can have no matter what. You can decorate it with all the stuff you see other players using, and in all the ways you see them doing. There's a few limited home types for pre-launch backers, but they can sell it to you/Can't sell it to you if they want. In single player offline, you can own everything everywhere/own most things/own some things."

I know we can tell them that ourselves, but having the Devs behind it gives it so much more weight, especially if done in the form of a video with system mock up. Nothing fancy, just Lord British going to a House Vendor NPC, saying "This is roughly what would happen if you join at launch", he opens the purchase gump, gets his deed; "we've not decided on the cost yet, but you'd buy it with the in game gold, see?" and then buys his house "You can get at least all of these designs, and more to come", he buys a second one "You can own more than one type too". He chooses a rickety rustic design, and he wanders off and places it: "And now you too would be part of this community, just like all our other players". And just as he's showing how you can change house type on the plot, THE FLOOR ABOVE COLLAPSES ON HIS HEAD AND KILLS HIM. Because that's traditional

You see, I was lucky and I could give my friend a free weekend with Shroud. Very few other people can. Do something for the not yet settled with us, instead of those of us already committed, and I think we'll be able to convert so many more to making their homes here; including Dahak? Perhaps he'll say below! But either way, I do think the Devs have been more than generous enough to those who've already donated; I suggest the focus shifts to those who are still thinking about putting a foot in the door...

 

I enjoyed your story here it was well written.

My understanding of the housing system is that their will be the same housing all available to buy in game...it will be limited overall and how many there will be has not been stated....

The big advantage of the kickstarter/backer houses was the no tax...which other houses will have.

Keep posting stuff like this it was a good read.

 

Houses do not have tax. Lot deeds do . 3 parts :

A - land is in the world

B- we want that land to build on . We stake a claim, file it with the goverment, we get a deed... Pledge deeds have no taxes, store deeds do.

C- we have land. We need a house on it. We can have our neighbors come over and do a house raising party .., maybe we have 5 or 6 sears and roebuck blueprints and the materials we can make any one of those, or all. But the house is labor and materials to buy it.... Property taxes are tied to the land deed.

The house i. The store will not be buyable in game. Store housing is exclusive..., however a house that is JUST like it but painted green instead of blue might be obtainable in game.

Likewise some of the pledged houses may be exclusive.

 

What I meant to say in a more verbous manner

 

Being able to place bookmarks in books would be nice... as well as being able to visually see the thickness of the book, and then to be able to skip to any place in the book by clicking anywhere along the thickness... it would open to the page at to that exact point. I've seen this implemented somewhere before and it worked really well.

 

I too enjoyed your wonderful story Aron Swordmaster. Your pictures are terrific. Thanks

 

Well written review and good suggestions too Thanks for your effort Aron Swordmaster.

 

Thanks for the comments; I've been uploading all the shots I've taken below, so feel free to have a look

http://1drv.ms/XJbYBA

The graphics quality varies alot as I've had to change them in different zones and with each release; some are pure glamour shots, but testing with Dahak I had to run at Good or lower unfortunately as we went a fair few places that locked me up but he survived on his more recent system. The main one was half way up the lighthouse on the coast in Kingsport as mentioned...

Regarding the commentary on houses, if we the Alpha community are confused, imagine how difficult it is to explain to people outside! My understanding too is that it's the lot that's taxed, the house which is a purchase and "equipped" to the lot, and that at different levels of investment we get either a free, and tax free lot, and/or a house that is free and possibly unique, but trade-able if we want to sell it. Players can buy the lot, but taxed, and some houses from the game, but no one has any idea which. It's very, very messy and can't be easily overcome by letting people dream of property, because they can't easily see where the property will come from for them.

 

Its awesome u said this !

When i opened my first book in game i saw the ted bookmark and went "can i use it?!?" And then tried..

( no u cant for those who havent tried)

 

Just remember where I saw this!

On archive.org's online reader,
An example,

https://archive.org/stream/somefeudalcoatso00fost#page/306/mode/2up

You can click a page to go to the next page or previous page, but you can also click anywhere along the thickness of the book on either side, backwards and forwards.

This + bookmarks would be great.

Plus, if they want to make it more dynamic, they could have it so you drag the pages like this,
http://expositions.bnf.fr/livres/armorial/index.htm
Or otherwise it animates the page flip automatically when you click.