R4 observations

All options author's own. Author is not the word of god, the people, or any other anthropomorphised social construct.

Note: I didn't get much play time in on R3, so it's in R4 that I'm encountering many of its additions for the first time, too.

Combat: surprisingly fun, if only because darting in and out to avoid blows made me feel like I had super-sharp reflexes. I'm sure this will be fixed as the combat system improves to reveal me to be the slug-nerved plodder I really am. However, once I'd worked out how to strike things, given the minimal nature of the animations, thumping elves made me damnably happy.

Elves: ooh, are elves going to be our local answer to orcs? The happy woodland folk aren't quite what their PR department would have us believe, are they?

Crafting: I hate doing it a bit less now I've switched to a list inventory and have a recipe book to refer to, but I'd really like to just be able to click on a recipe in the book (once I know it and am at the right station with the right components) to create X number of said item. While I know people who love their crafting, I just want to be able to knock together essentials and get on with questing. It's similar to my preference for Ultima VI's fire-and-forget spellcasting over the in-advance reagant mixing of IV. Similarly, much as I like Minecraft (in small doses), don't expect to see me doing much mining, forestry and such unless a quest demands it. I could get behind the notion of reagent gathering, mind you.

NPC interaction: still obviously in development, but I'm nonetheless a fan of keyword interaction. It does feel a little busy when I'm trying to chat to an NPC who's being crowded by other players, though. Maybe some kind of personal conversation threading would help?

Trading: click-to-trade works nicely for me; I take slightly too long to sign my name at point of purchase, though.

MMO elements: I don't do much social gaming these days, but it was genuinely fun hanging out with other players. In the future it might be nice to have designated areas when In Character and Out Of Character interaction are respectively encouraged. Obviously, there's not much to build our notions of our characters' selves on right now. Oh, and diving in the river en masse after Lord British was unduly entertaining. Being able to swim was refreshing, too. Anyway, good people make for good interaction. I hope to find and friend more of the Ultima Dragons I know in-game soon.

Quests: there are some! (Sort of.) I'd like to be able to kill off or run away with those Red Sash people. Nestor seems fun. I've not found the start points for most of the other things that look like obvious quests yet.

Towns: too many player lots; they make the areas sprawling and more difficult to navigate than they ought to be. More integral NPC environments would be great. The player castle-style buildings look too much like something that might be important to the plot/game. A Pavlovian response honed by years of gaming draws me to castles, and I'm always a bit sad when it's just someone else's property that I can't really do anything with or talk to anyone in.

Map: I really like the Catan-board look of it (although the semi-3D effect on the line drawings didn't do it for me as much). I don't like double-click automatically opening the hex you're on (no matter where you click) or the slow pace at which your counter moves. Or the inability to WASD it around. I know a two-scale map has always been the plan and don't have a problem with that, but it might be cool if some adjacent hexes had some exits linked where it was logical. Fast travel would be good, given the clunky movement of my meeple/pennant/counter/whatever.

Timescale: Pre-Alpha R4 looks reasonably encouraging to me but, like others, I'm concerned by the release schedule relative to how unfinished everything still feels. October as a release date is all well and good, but if the game's not ready to ship, then it shouldn't. I'd rather wait until 2015 than play a supposedly finished product that isn't.

Personal: I'm currently debating with myself whether to upgrade my pledge to the lowest property-owning tier. My main motivation there (in addition to supporting the project) is that, although I don't really have much interest in decorating my pad or any of that stuff, having somewhere to hole up, lick my wounds and keep my crap would be massively useful. I'm concerned that all I'd use it for would be a glorified backpack, but equally, I don't want to end up stuck on the road with only what I can carry because I forgot to pay my rent on standard player housing. I guess I'll have to keep contemplating.

Um. Yeah. Some thinking, splurged right out on the screen for you. If you made it this far, you probably deserve some kind of commemorative trinket.

Xaronzon Dragon out

 

Sounds like you had a good time! Here's to many more. Cheers

 

If you like what you see so far, my advice is "go for it".
If the game turns out like we all hope for, having a rent free house will probably be really neat.

 

Nice write up...enjoyed reading it.

 

Really Nice write up. Constructive without being over critical as the game is still in early stages and has further to go. The points you raise I agree with completely and the main point is that I would rather wait like yourself till 2015 than play a game in October 2014 that looks and plays like an unfinished game.

 

One thing to keep in mind, what we are seeing isn't where they are at with production...just what they have put out there. I'm willing to be they have the full combat in multiple internal versions that just isn't ready to let out yet. This same idea spreads to other areas as well.

I do think it will be delayed, which is a good thing. Many will have a heart attack and cry foul but it is better to make sure things work instead of releasing something bad.

 

Thanks chaps. Having taken a while to contemplate it in light of the latest release, I've upgraded.
Dev+ goodies, here I come! (I've been looking for an excuse to get to grips with Unity anyway.)

Quick addendum: although I didn't have any trouble crafting a sword in single player and carrying it across to multiplayer, and although weapons were available to purchase, the idea of starting kit mooted elsewhere is a pretty good one, IMO.