[POLL] What is your *overall* rating for this Pre-Alpha Release 9? (UNOFFICIAL)

Thanks and I won't give up. I want to see where this goes no matter what. It's just getting murkier as time goes on as to where all this is headed.

 

Have no fear, this game is so much more than guilds and PvP. Actually, we don't even have guild mechanics in the game yet

And yes, I do want to thank the community for the content they're creating for the game. And not just in-game assets, but community-hosted events too, of which I was able to participate in yesterday. A round of ale and many thanks to those players that put in the time and effort to create amazing gameplay experiences, even when there is barely a skeleton of a game for us to play in currently.

Now, I'll go back to pondering on the Island of Choices, the latest beautiful concept art by Stephen.

 

PvP (Team PvP - Virtue vs Chaos) It worked as intended (5). A test feature that will be relevant on tournaments/events. How that feature will be applied to history/quest is something to be seen.
Combat Systems (Reagents, Combos) It worked as intended (5). Suggestion: We need a clearer UI to cast a combo. Lets say the combo are on position 2 and 6. The deck system could detect the possibility of combo and move the glyph on the position 6 to position 3 and on top of them display the icon of the combo so you can click any of the 3 icons (position 2-3 and the one displayed on top). Maybe ill make a draw about it later.
Combat Skills (50 new skills, new Tactics line) Worked great (5), the goal was to introduce them and it was done. They have interesting effects, nice icons, good animations. Balanced?, of course they didn't and that is fine for now.
Scenes (Ardoris, Blackblade Pass) Nice new scenes, Ardoris was initially bugged for me but was addressed with a patch (4). I loved the improvements on the background landscape of the city. Suggestion: Owls head should have that kind of treatment so we can get the impression that the volcano is bigger and not so close to the city.
New Creatures (new mimic, ice elemental) I liked the elemental and ice path behind him. Suggestion: The last ice pikes maybe could go down slowly rather than disappear.
Intro Cinematic Very ultima fashioned. Liked a lot. A bang for the budget (5).
Character Customization (nose, ear, hair) Worked as intended with the announced hair styles (5)
Minimap System Great, worked as intended (5). Suggestion: Make the borders to look a it irregular so it can feel like more like a map an less like a radar. It would be nice to take notes on them.
Consumables (potions) Worked fine (5). Suggestion: I think maybe we must use items fixed rather than random, maybe another bar could represent a belt AKA diablo style for items?.
Books (premade e.g. instructions, Fire Lotus journals, etc) Worked fine (5). No comments.
Default Decks Needs work (3). It worked, but not as intended, i think. I think i have to do with the fact that you cant have decks with skills that you have not developed, so you had to give only one pre build set for players. If we had the chance to store decks independent of the skill tree you could provided several decks to player, simple ones and more complex ones named accordingly. And that was a BIG fault. The proposed deck wasn't easy to use. We have not progression in the game and little time to make experiments yet so it is indispensable to have alternatives to new and veteran testers .
Player Lot Item Limits Worked fine, i had very noticeable boost on performance.

Overall very buggy, i crashed a lot. But i understand that with the introduction of 50+ skills this would happened, because of the lack of previous mass test. In fact, THIS was such test ;P.

 

Well done write up...easy to read and easy to understand what your points were. Love it when I see posts like this.

 

Consider the silence broken. I share the same concerns about the Classic Ultima/Ultima Online balance. I strongly disliked Ultima Online. I love the Classic Ultimas. I'm starting to become concerned that the pro-PvP, UO-centric crowd is being heard more than the rest of us. I would like Portalarium to prove me wrong. Release 9 didn't do that -- quite the opposite, in fact. I stopped playing R9 altogether yesterday. It's just too much of what I dislike, with little to no progress on what I love.

 

Actually they are using PvP to test the combat system. The combat system is going to be useful in your single player experience. So they are focusing on combat, using PvP as the test. They are going to continue in R10 doing that too as they do a polish and refinement revision. So don't lose heart.

They said the story related stuff will be held off till much later anyway. Right now they are working on important game mechanics. The single player game will be better with a good combat system, don't you think?

EDIT: PvE does not test stuff as well as PvP. You can fight all the monsters with a second rate deck, but PvP requires that you optimize your deck. So I hope you feel more relaxed now as to why they are using this to test their systems.

 

I know what they're trying to do, yes. But PvE and PvP don't work the same way at a nuts-and-bolts level. I understand the team's goal, but the deck system (as it stands) made my PvE experience miserable. I'm sure that it's far more fun for people who are into fast-paced, clever-gimmick-based combat with other players. I'm not that guy. I feel I'm being herded into something I hate.

 

Well the deck system in R9 made my PvP experience miserable. So we are on both spectrum saying the same thing, "The deck system in R9 is miserable". IT isn't a PvP vs PvE thing.

 

I think you over estimate PvP. But there is a lot of things that need attention, not just combat. I would like to see the next one or two releases just concentrating on fixing what we have so far. Then move on. If it delays the release until late 2016 or even 2017 , so be it.

There are skills that need filling out. Crafting that needs fixing. Combat that needs a lot of care. As well as crashing that needs to be addressed. The game is starting to take on a rushed look in an effort to please us all, and it will be a mistake to rush this. The game we all want, including PvP, will take time to do right. We need to stop expecting so much so fast. One thing at a time, and done right.

Just my Opinion.

 

This has to be the first time a PvP advocate and a PvE advocate have agreed strongly on something... well, EVER. If Portalarium doesn't take note of that, nothing will get their attention! ;-)

 

I voted a 5 based on my experiences.

I had limited time this weekend so I mainly concentrated on what I needed to for my portion of the Welcome Quest.

Chopping down trees, going from hex to hex from the overhead map, going to the different cities, attacking monsters with the premade decks, crafting stations, item placement in a house, item exchanges, buying and selling goods - all worked with no bugs.

These did not work - I lost my chat window and could not bring it back up (not reproducible) and my failed bench sitting attempt resulted with the camera being locked (not reproducible).

I don't do much PvP and did not test that.

 

I so want to vote even though I could not play, just for the chance to win the 25 dollar gift

 

4/5 so far pretty much like R8, with even more combat and actually a bit more stable.

 

"My Vote Was a #4"

We had 7 releases that took steps to flesh out the world's look, some small crafting and some NPC interactions.
We've had 2 releases now in combat and I expect a 3rd or more into combat until our creation focus needs to make another change for another aspect to have it's presents known.
We had some crash issues from more players than before, otherwise I am satisfied with the progress as a parent watching it's "baby's first 8 steps".

Combat will step forward with each step, we saw in R8 the Mages take the forefront in battles and in this release we saw the Archers step forward... melee next? or armor?
There is an element I would also like to see make a step forward and that is in our game's single player online and offline surrogate NPC followers (which I don't want to see in the main MMO side of our game)...opinion...
I did find out that as our world grows that my connection issues on the weekend suck (Weekend internet clog of Thailand) and have hopes to better that myself or for our game to make some improvements to be more easily accessed by those with less than premo connections.
I did find that coupled with the effort this time around, I do find that we need more equipment and regs or whatever to start out with for the game's better testing.

With my connection issues and crashes, I didn't get a chance to keep my own housing, so some of you may have seen me inside or outside your houses staring at your Darkstarr Moondail... It's an odd test I'm doing and I wasn't there to fondle with your things But this is another aspect of the game that will need some attention sometime or another, which is the sky and the time it keeps.

I also noticed that some monsters were smart and others were dumb as a stump and not necessarily of different species.

Maybe if I had more time and better connection along with less crashes due to game glitches I would have been in the rating of #5, but until I can count the number of releases on all fingers and toes, "you won't find me in the #1 lowest ratings of it".
Take another step baby and I'll still catch you when you fall...
~Time Lord~

 

Unfortunatly i must agree to some points of this statement. Instead of focusing classic Ultimas the game becomes more and more some kind of UO with PvP promoted, which i think is the wrong way for SotA, but anyway this is my opinion. I do not stopped playing and will not quit, but i reduced my playtime because i do not see progress in classical Ultima elements.

 

YES! That's the point. He wants to make this a PvP vs PvE issue that's nonsense, and is only trying to shift the focus off of the real problem "the card system" off to a PvP vs PvE fight. Lets not fall for it.

 

Really? Combat took a step backwards in this release. If next release is the last release focusing on the combat system, then we have a serious problem. If the combat system isn't better in the next release, or it gets less fun then they may as well scrap it.

Combat is essential for a game like this. If the combat system fails the game fails PERIOD.

 

What does this even mean? You think he is some alterior motive here?

This black and white approach, 100% good or 100% bad...doesn't work for me...

I've commented on this with you many times that it will be a back and forth a bit on combat until they get it right. In testing, generally they swing the pendulum back and forth in areas to try and find the sweet spot.

 

Ok, I've spent more time on this now and will rate this as a 3.

-Like the layout of Ardoris. I have already commented on Ardoris earlier, so I won't repeat the details here. One comment I had missed earlier though about Ardoris is what looks like a community growing plot. If it is, then it looks
nice ( See image at the end of my post ).
-Still can't get used to the deck system. I tried the per-configured decks but I kept getting my butt kicked by low level creatures. I finally decided to go with locking down one of the elementals
to fight creatures. I would say that this still needs to be tweaked.
-Seem to be getting more crashes with this release, and some of them are difficult to repeat/replicate. Can't seem to pin some of these down. During one log in at Owls Head on Saturday, I would crash just by
double clicking a door, NPC or a highlight in the dialogue window. Sometimes it crashed, sometimes it didn't. Not happening today.
-Elementals following me would occasionally get stuck. However, there seems to be a mechanism in place where if I wander far enough away from the elemental, it will reappear beside you. It was the only
way I could get them 'unstuck'.
-BlackBlade pass. I get the feeling this in incomplete. I get the impression that it was to lead somewhere, but the exit is blocked off somewhere. The Slimes were interesting, and challenging when they replicated very quickly.
-Glad to see the item limits in for the houses.

I don't know what else to say, but not overly excited about this release, except for Ardoris. I enjoyed walking around that city.

Ardoris - Is this a community growing plot?

 

I'm waiting on the testing period to be over but I think a few of the extremely low numbers seem to be from people looking at a particular cause over the release as a whole. Also while there were new skills to test it's not like previous releases where there was a bunch of new areas (just Ardoris) or new systems or graphics updates so it doesn't seem like that big a difference from R8. That said I'm still going through it but probably in the 3 range.