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First time player feedback.

Discussion in 'Release 18 Feedback' started by Mortam, Jun 14, 2015.

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  1. Mortam

    Mortam Avatar

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    This is going to be a bit long, so please bear with me.

    I have played many MMOs over the past 14 years, my first one being Anarchy Online. I became interested in Sota recently as many MMOs today seem lacking in some way.I have played Sota for a few hours, and I know it is still in Pre-Alpha and that many, (most?), parts of the game will change before release. I wanted to give some feedback on the first few hours of game play as it currently stands (R18).

    Character creation.
    I was okay with this as an alpha version. Quality was okay, with decent character models for the budget.

    First few minutes in game.
    Wow, this was well done and good quality for Alpha. Nice environment and plenty of hints for new players.

    NPCs.
    At first I was okay typing to NPCs, but after a while it was obvious that they only know a handful of words. I understand that typing to NPCs is the goal for immersion, but after a while it just became annoying, and I found myself just clicking words to move the conversation. I know you don't want people just clicking through dialogs, like people do in most MMOs today, but it just happened anyway. I showed my wife, (a long time MMO player also), and she said she hated having to type to NPCs in EQ1. If she is your target audience, you lost her already.
    Conclusion: NPCs need to know a lot more phrases, or you may as well have chat bubbles, with click options for dialog.

    Quest.
    I see that you are trying to make quest more "interesting", by not giving us a quest name, locations, or direct objectives. This is neat, and I understand you are trying to make quests more of a puzzle to be solved instead of "go to x and do y". What will actually happen is people will simply follow a wiki-guide if they can't figure it out in a timely manner. We just aren't in the 90's anymore, and people WILL use the web to solve it. People do it now even with easy quests in other game. Make it harder, and it becomes a necessity.
    Conclusion:You are going to spend a lot of time building puzzle-quests, that people will just look up and complete by-the-numbers. Give us enough information to do the quests in-game. It keeps the player in the game and is more enjoyable.

    Game world.
    Very nice looking for alpha. I find it a bit confusing where I am at times, not having a map for all the zones,(can we get more maps later?) I would like an option for the game to automatically open the map for the zone I am in, if I have it. I like the world map, where I can walk to the different zones.Day/night cycle is pretty cool, not used to true dark in an MMO :)

    Mobs.
    Good models so far, from what I have seen. I like that some mobs run away, you don't see that much in modern MMOs. I would like other options to highlight targets apart from outline.

    Combat.
    It's okay. I haven't gone too deep into the skill system yet. I will test this more before I can give true feedback. Looks promising.

    So these are my first impressions of Sota. I am sure there is much I haven't seen or am not aware of. The game does have promise, and i will keep trying it out, but I worry that some systems are being designed to be difficult/convoluted just for the sake of it. The number one reason to play a game is for fun. If a feature is annoying, or not really working out, then it should be changed, even if this might go against the original vision of the game. Nostalgia always looks through rose tinted glasses, and some designs where changed along the way because they needed to be.

    Thank you to the Devs for all your hard work and taking the risks you have. I truly want you to succeed with Sota, just remember, keep it fun.
     
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  2. Wintermute of CoF

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    I'll admit this is mostly what I've done so far, "a forest to the North" when there are at least three forests to the North is too much ground to cover. I also find it annoying that you have to click through 20 pages of the journal every time you open it to get to the information recorded about your latest quest.
     
  3. Mastese

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    Good feedback Mortam. I enjoyed reading your perspective, especially knowing you've got a respectful amount of qualifying experience.

    I would like to like the dialogue system, but I find myself typing the bare minimum...if I engage in conversation at all. My old standbys are simply "Name" and "Work". To get me to immerse myself in it would require some serious enhancement to the underlying engine. With the right amount of development, open conversation could be an enjoyable experience. Without it, it remains a detractor bordering nussaince.
     
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  4. Jordizzle

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    Good feedback! Welcome to SOTA! The things you mentioned about questing are the things that separate this game from theme park games though. Yes people who choose to take the easy routes will look up guides on the internet, that's unavoidable. The way I see it is if people are going to do that any way, then nothing needs to be
    changed. Rather then making the game easier for people who are going to "cheat" any way.. Continue making it hard for the people who won't.
     
  5. FrostII

    FrostII Bug Hunter

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    You would concede, would you not, that the OP does have a point regarding the large percentage of people who spend time here on this forum and can't help but see the new post pop up with a video or guide to the current quest. I think it's a little harsh to consider reading these posts "cheating"...
    However, if anyone considers that cheating, then most certainly do NOT read those posts.
    If others DO take that shortcut, how does that impact someone else's gameplay in any manner?
     
  6. Sold and gone

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    It does impact it in a major way if you want to actually play the game in multi player without hints and using your brain. If you want to craft and not look up the recipes it will take a great while to discover the recipes as intended by the game, but in the rush to keep up with the jones's and get the steam crafting achievements first people do not want to think, they just want to mindlessly drone in an in game cartoon skype. In addition your vendors get stocked slower if you play within game mechanics and as intended do to taking longer to learn and discover the crafting recipes. You will fail in trying to keep up with the min/maxers. You are practically forced to use the websites if you want to compete. There is something just not right about that. But you are right, it is the "today's gamer" that does that. Using your brain and actually playing the game has fallen by the wayside.
     
  7. FrostII

    FrostII Bug Hunter

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    Well, that's certainly one way to look at it, Sir... It does not, however, change the fact that - once someone "discovers" where a quest guide is and shares that information - then the fun of "discovery" is already gone for everyone.... Ie, some dewd already found it - so it's no longer "discoverable"... See how that works?

    I know what you're saying, but frankly, I don't think the larger portion of the player base sees it like you do. I suspect that they probably don't have time to......... ;)
     
  8. Bowen Bloodgood

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    There's nothing new under the sun here folks. Walkthroughs for games have existed long before websites have and I suspect people will still have this discussion when we're all old and grey. It's called the Law of Least Effort. :)
     
  9. Sold and gone

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    Why does the game not make spoilers then? What is the point really in all honesty of making a game, going through all the trouble of designing and making detailed quests and crafting systems if no one takes the time to discover them. Its a really sad revelation when people that buy the game, and put thousands of dollars into it, and do not want to take the time to play it, they just want to log in and chat, look up the easiest way to do things, and basically exploit the system. I know its not the true meaning of exploit but it is using outside sources to bypass game content. I do agree with you that I am in the minority of people that think this way, but that does not necessarily mean I am wrong.
     
  10. Sold and gone

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    at least they were published by the game companies and you had to pay for them. Also you had to wait a fair bit before they were available lol. The law of least effort is also very similar to laziness.
     
  11. Quenton

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    Quality feedback. Personally agree with just about all of it as well.

    I notice a lot of zones don't add icons to your compass; obviously this'll be fixed later. I think that's a particularly amazing feature to have in lieu of not having bought the (mini-)map for that area yet. Maps are important enough to carry around a lot of them all the time that it'd be great if they could be weightless, or maybe 0.01 instead of 0.1. It is paper (papyrus?) after all. Maybe make a "map case" weigh 1.
    But the compass pointers are really essential. I felt like even Ardoris doesn't have enough of these yet, which is saying something.

    Not sure what kind of other outline mobs could get? Might be room for improvement, but what are you thinking?
    I used to jot down notes for quests in exactly the same way as what's in the journal, but what's there is a mess. It needs some sort of cleanup.
    I do like easy-mode in my games, and if I had any idea where to look to solve the oracle quests, I'd have checked by now, because I don't know where to begin with two of them.
     
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  12. Bowen Bloodgood

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    I take it you never spent much time on BBSs? :)
     
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    I don't even know what BBSs are/is? hrm
     
  14. Sir_Hemlock

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    Agree with this. I wish people would stop turning every natural process into a drama.
     
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    I am sorry, I am not trying to start drama. I guess I was raised in a different era when we had to actually think while playing games. It started even before computers and the gaming systems. We where taught that we should solve problems with our minds. It indeed is evolution of sorts, I can agree with this, but it is also de evolution of sorts also, when you use your brain less and rely on other things to get results for you. I guess its just personal to me, but in my opinion I think its important even though its a dying breed.
     
  16. Bowen Bloodgood

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    BBS or Bulletin Board System.. is basically the precursor to the internet. Think of it as hosting your own website on your home computer and people would use a modem to connect directly to your computer.

    If you had multiple phone lines then you could have multiple people connected at once. Pretty much all BBSs had forums. Many also shared files which usually included games both offline and games you could play on the system.

    Eventually networks developed where BBSes would connect to each other during nightly maintenance and sync files.

    Of course you could find walkthroughs if you knew which BBS to log into. :)
     
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    ya, that was something that I did not have or have access to on the farm growing up. I never even had a computer till after college lol.
     
  18. Bowen Bloodgood

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    Law of least effort is not era specific and unfortunately it's more than just being lazy. We simply have a natural tendency to not expend more energy than necessary to achieve desired results. Those us who would rather not take the 'easy' way I dare say desire different results. Such as the satisfaction of accomplishment.

    I think it's more a matter of different goals and expectations. Though I won't deny laziness factors in there somewhere for some people. It's just today there are more tools than back in the day. People haven't changed one little bit.
     
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  19. Bowen Bloodgood

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    You poor.. pour man.

    *cough* I had my first computer when I was 8. ;) *cough*
     
  20. Sir_Hemlock

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    Sorry you misunderstood, but i actually agree 100% with you too. :p Everything you wrote that i quoted here, i agree with and feel the same way about. Regards.
     
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