R3 thoughts

Here we go again! After a month of waiting, back in The Vale!

Graphics

It is me or do they just keep getting better? Looks like the Display Options are starting to really make a difference. I have mine cranked as high as possible (8xAA, etc) and seeing the difference. Everything is nice and crisp. Get in close to the tree leaves and OMG! they have DETAIL! They're not just green blobs kind of shaped like leaves... they look like leaves!!! Once the real environmental effects and weather get into the game it's going to be jaw-dropping, even considering the whole "It's Unity and thus not as good as other engines" argument that has been made.

Character models are looking decent, although still rather limited. Had to take some time in SPO to find things so that I no longer looked like a Newb. After the first evening, it looks like people are starting to create their own unique looks. Also, the gold trim on the Sigil Cloaks and the lighting/shadowing effects on the character in motion are a sight to pay attention to. The play of light and shadow adds a LOT of detail.

Music

Well done all around. Kudos to the Bards of the Poet's Circle Guild. The music is not as intrusive as the "toss in" tune of R1 and having a cycling playlist makes it even better. My advice here to the Devs is to put in a small band or minstrel in the taverns to add to the atmosphere... or make sure musical instruments are equipable for players to do just that.

Crafting

THANK YOU for the extra functionality of the Recipe book. That alone saves so much trouble. However, players should not be forced onto an external wiki site (it should be by option) to find the recipes. Salting them into the world via books, quests, and NPC instruction should be looked into. There is a tiny issue with the Take All option in List View that has been reported. While it is not an issue while characters get wiped for the early testing, it's one that does NOT need to reach Beta or Final. However, it IS helpful at this point to make sure players can "make" enough raw material to work with.

Multiplayer

MPO is rather laggy, and yes, I know about Display settings to help. However, seeing other SotA players and hanging out has been amazing. Even without a significant "game" behind it, people are having FUN! I believe I saw one person in another thread mention the idea of separate chat windows for NPC conversations. This would be helpful as it is odd seeing players trying to interact with NPCs in MPO and it ending up in Local chat.

Lag though remains the biggest issue. It took dropping to SPO to make the jumps to get to certain areas to hang out as certain commands and movements (such as jumping) became very poorly responsive.

Technical

Biggest thing here for me is that I'm waiting for Windowed Fullscreen (due to multi-monitors) so I can run in 1920x1080 on my center monitor.

Also, and this is a "way later on" type of thing, but the ability to customize the UI and Fonts used (such as Overhead names) will be a big plus. Also an AllNames macro to display the names of characters within a certain radius like in UO which will bring up the names for a few seconds then fade them back out will be nice, because sometimes you DON'T want all the extra names spamming the screen.

Overall

Aside from the lag in MPO, I think the Team has to be happy with the progress so far, I know I am. I know there's a LOT missing and a LOT more to go, but I am keeping my thoughts and opinions limited to what each Release is addressing.

 

My R3 crafting thoughts.....I hope this is the right place to put them

I've been milling/carpentry so far and I am not allowed to stack wood on the milling station and cut the pile in one action. I have to drop individual wood logs onto the table and click craft, it would be much better to be able to drop the stack of wood onto the milling table and click craft as one lot.......I understand there are many recipes for things in the game so quantity on the table is probably preventing this stack

SO can we have a 'double click the recipe from your book be able to select how many you want made'

Thx Sota peeps, love it

 

Hate to rain on your parade....but what MMO in the past 10 years have you been playing that the leaves look like blobs? Leaves and environment are pretty simple textures.

And when it comes to textures themselves in this game. I would say most are sub par. I know we are in alpha, but I thought textures would be nailed down early in development, make them easily usable later, as the game further develops. The character skins are horrible. The hair textures are bad. The building textures are pretty basic but sufficient . As well as the environment textures. The moon is joke, simply a drawn picture floating across the sky at night. The armor and clothing textures look very amateur made. The cloaks are often cutting into the clothing they are supposed to cover.The birds flying by are lauphable. They fly in one direction and the bird textures are facing a different direction than they are flying. Hopefully we do see a major texture improvement as things progress.

Gameplay could be amazing...but if with dated graphics. It is often a turn off for many gamers.

And before the bashing starts....I have put my money into this game just as the rest of you have. More than just the basic to get into testing. So I'm well invested in the game too. I'm just pointing out the obvious that many don't want to or choose not to see about the games look so far.

 

@mmoredfalcon,

The dev team has already said the textures are going to improve later on. They've acknowledged the lack of a hair texture, for instance... no need to speculate on this. That will come in time..

When you say dated, are you talking about graphics quality or graphics tech? For me, I care about the visuals, but I care more about whether it looks good aesthetically than whether the tech behind it is dated. There are a lot of new games that use modern tech but look horrible, and a lot of old games that use outdated tech that look beautiful.

 

I think grahpics now are great, and will improve over time. Just be patient, you have to take a look at the screens in the "R3 Group Shot Challenge".

 

Personally the graphics tech don't bother me. You're right, some new games using all the newest tech look like garbage. While some of the older games look better using older graphics tech. But either way, whatever they use, the visuals need to be more appealing. If the Dev team is already working on it, great! I'll look forward to seeing the improvements. But I will probably keep harping on the visuals until we see these improvements. Wouldn't be the first time I have seen a game where the 'Devs are aware and working on it.' and it becomes an issue tossed to the backburner.

 

I think the quality of textures are probably about as good as they're going to get. They might get a tweak here and there, and now it's more up to optimization and display settings as to how detailed they will be for the end user (obviously someone using an ultra-high end video card with the options set as high as they will go will see a better game than someone with a budget or outdated card with the settings on low/fastest). Next will be the addition of environmental effects, some of which are already in.

Most of the current environmental effects in the game can really be seen in Braemar which makes the village look rather amazing, if small for this Release.

 

Yeah I think that for the most part the graphics look great. There are definitely still some issues though. I laughed when I saw the birds flying and characters still look pretty bad. But to be fair I think in this release they do look a little better then they did in R2. I do think people need to have realistic expectations as well. SOTA has neither a big budget or a big dev team. So while I am sure textures and graphics will improve a little before release I would not be expecting any huge changes.