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R3 feelings from the mouth of a pessimist

Discussion in 'Release 3 Feedback' started by eon, Feb 20, 2014.

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  1. eon

    eon Avatar

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    Some of you might remember me from my first thread "My failed expectations on SOtA." talking about r1 and others for some of my several posts in the forum.

    Maybe you have noticed how "pessimist and negative" I am, some even tagged me as a troll (and I'm sure it wasn't just because my physical appearance D: !) but like I like to call it I'm mostly sceptic when I put my hopes and feels into something (its not really about the money...).

    Well now I just logged out after testing the R3 (haven't tried R2 so its maybe a bigger jump) and I must admit that some things bringed me back some hopes into this project, that doesn't mean that I was mistaken or that I'm retracting myself of what I said in my previous thread because that's what was on my mind at the moment after testing the R1.

    After convincing me hardly that this was no UO2 and with 0 expectations (not like when I tried r1) and knowing 100% that this wasn't a demo, i decided to log in and try it out and I was quite surprised I must say...

    First the character creation is not yet what I would call perfect but its getting there (at least now I can have some dual pony tails and a beard and not feel like a "pot head" with dreads in a fantasy world), tho it has a lot of work on it till I'm sure they consider it finished and I wish that in the future its 10x more customizable but it was good enough for an alpha.

    The graphics look definitely better and less lets say "pre-generated", kiddie or ripped out from an addon store and although they are far from ended they are acquiring some form so its good to see that. And at least the npcs now look less "chess figures".

    It was nice to see how many people was there and actually hailed a few people that I have seen here but what really and I repeat REALLY made me have some hopes back and that I actually enjoyed was the music, after a total devastation with the "Iolo" theme (the one from the main menu) that I totally dislike I found that the other tunes were quite great and very medieval/European folk like and I enjoyed them a lot, for me music can give and transmit more and give a better ambientation to the game than some cutting edge graphics.

    Guess I will keep track of this project after all, still being the skeptic guy I am and always with my feets on the ground but this might end up beeing something fun/nice to play (aheam, I hope that you make that happen portalarium!)

    Once again sorry for the long post and the bad grammar.
     
  2. enderandrew

    enderandrew Legend of the Hearth

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    Most players aren't used to seeing the curtain pulled back on game development so early, so I'm not sure everyone had fair expectations or reactions to the R1 release.

    We're still a long way from the proper full Episode 1 release (which I'm half-expecting to be late), and then we have a journey likely over the next 4-5 years for the next 4 Episodes.

    SotA is a baby learning to crawl. Someday it will fly.
     
  3. HoustonDragon

    HoustonDragon Avatar

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    I would have liked to see more character customization (more hairstyles, body markings, actual races, etc), but as pointed out, this is still pre-Alpha development. What we're getting to play is essentially a mocked up version of what the programmers themselves are using as a test client. It's also why we only have such limited time, as we are basically bug testing some things for them, so they can turn around and work on fixes.

    The shiny graphics, custom designs, well fleshed out gameplay, and various other features -are- coming; it just takes time to get to the finish line when the race car is still in the process of being assembled. :D
     
  4. Koldar

    Koldar Avatar

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    Moved to R3 Feedback sub forum.
     
  5. Abydos

    Abydos Avatar

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    U talk about Pre-Alpha !
     
  6. prospereau

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    Hey Eon, Housten and Ender, good to see you in game Eon and I'm pleased to see some sanity in this thread. I really think if there is one thing Portalarium need to do it's to be better at describing the game development process. I think the difficulty is, and I speak from experience and from being a product manager, that if you've worked in the game industry it probably doesn't occur to you that your customers don't *get* what you do. Portalarium need to get much better at this if they're going to head off a lot of this negativity.

    DF.
     
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  7. Link_of_Hyrule

    Link_of_Hyrule Avatar

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    Glad to hear you've gained a little hope. The Devs are amazing and I have so much faith in them they push patches and big fixes out like crazy and it's awesome how fast they've gotten things done in so short of time I have no doubt the final product will be amazing!

    Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
     
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  8. eon

    eon Avatar

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    That's actually what happened to me it seems.
     
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  9. Azur

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    I think if you remember that it is not finished and that we are seeing a game at a stage you wouldn't normally this will add some perspective. It is very difficult to judge where this will end up if you haven't seen other games at a similar level of completion to compare to.
     
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  10. Bodhbh Dearg

    Bodhbh Dearg Avatar

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    As a (former) programmer, I know how dangerous it is to show mock-ups, and how more dangerous it is to give early access for testing... People often don't get the "we still need to fix a lot, this is only to give an idea of where we're heading, and to let us test the UI" part...

    (PS: UI is not the same as GUI, and though related, totally different disciplines... These short trips in to New Britannia have very little to do with testing the GUI!)
     
  11. eon

    eon Avatar

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    As a "junior programmer" I still have a lot to learn ;I

    One of the things I've learned is that if you do "prototypes" for someone and show them regulary you'll get a lot of criticism like "Wow that's all you made IN ALL THAT TIME?", "Oh this isn't yet made? The button does nothing?! *clicking it like a madman*" etc instead of watching and apreciating what works plus keeping in mind it was a prototype and that behind all the visual things theres tons of code even if its just a damn button lol, most of times I'm sure its not a bad intention and its just lack of knowledge from part of the client so maybe this time I've been one of those moaning ignorant clients (which is totally normal because they hire you to do something they have no idea about as you might not have the knowledge to do his/her daily job, so don't take the "ignorant" things as an insult)...
     
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  12. Tarsilion

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    While I am sure that there are a number of people having issues with that, I have to say that I greatly dislike some of the conceptual choices made so far. This is what makes me sceptical personally, not the stage of development shown.
    Also, knowing how long it takes to do anything, there will have to be a lot more progress visible soon, or they will not make their October deadline. If I look back at all the games I have been alpha and beta testing over the years, many of the beta tests lasted longer than 6 months. This is supposedly only 8 months from release and still pre-alpha ...
     
  13. Bodhbh Dearg

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    The conceptual choices aside, please keep in mind they're only giving us access to the stuff they *want* us to test with... For all we know the battle parts are all done, but weren't exposed yet, because they wanted us to focus on testing multiplayer?...
    (I'm not saying that it is, just that we don't exactly know what *is* or is *not* done...)
     
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  14. eon

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    Maybe they are just showing us what they think they have mostly polished and the combat system is done but not very tested by their part?
     
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