Your thoughts and concerns for Release 2

Ok, so far I haven't crafted anything and that is the point , that and learning the controls. Jumping.

But as I started going through the moongate to Kingsport and ran around there until it got dark. I had some candles in my pack from an Owlshead chest and I could not equip them. I think it should be mandatory for every character to have a torch in there backpack. It was fun running around Kingsport but I still didn't find any torch.

Second first thought, when you open chests or your backpack they take up a large portion of the screen and I wish you could drag them off screen where you cannot see then or a least halfway. There is an invisible barrier that leaves you with limited option to place your opened chest or backpack.

And one obvious control that needs to be implemented is a climb option for the latters.
Not sure if the dev team will have time for it by release but jumping on those boats in Kingsport or buying a boat from a vendor and being able to sail them around the sea would be pretty sweet.

Are there any PUBLIC crafting stations? I am so confused by the vendors and how each town is set up. Where are the Shops? The town layouts aren't making sense to me.

 

In Owl's Head (the first town, not the one by the sea) there is a public crafting area - go past Michael, the first guard at the bridge, continue up the road to town, turn right into the market area, and the crafting area is just past the next corner.

 

@Lum is there somebody who can teach us some crafting recipes? or is there a recipe list so we can test stuff or do we have to do it all by trial and error?

 

Here's some work that's been done...
http://sotawiki.net/sota/Category:Tailoring

also the R2 release notes have some recipes. Be careful, numbers must be exact on the table.

 

i can not for the life of me find any crafting materials in kingsport, i've checked about 10 chests already lol

anyone help a brotha out?

 

In Owlshead near the simple minded person from release 1 there was that other vendor next door. It has stations and chests with materials there. Making the recipes you're on your own. I have no idea. "r" will give you a recipe list after you make an item. this isn't fun.

 

Go back to Owls Head. I know for sure there is a crafting station there. It's an area on a raised covered platform. There are several crafting tables set up there. There are chests with supplies to get you started. Double click the table to interact with it. You need to drop the exact amounts onto the table and the correct tools. (Ctrl click or Shift click to break up stacks) When you have the right combination the Craft button will light up. Once successful you can hit R to open a book that will show your different crafts. Under the specific craft you will see recipes. This way you can have a log of what it takes to make what. Everything is trial and error at this point!

Mal

 

found them, thanks

 

Thoughts... Jumping was a very smart decision. It feels so much better and natural in a videogame to not be stuck to the ground. The running faster has made the "slippery" feel dissipate. It might be slightly too fast.... like instead of 50%..maybe do 47%. I don't like ghosting through the npcs or animals. I hope it is tuned like UO where your stamina determined if you could pass by(through) someone. Lots of graphical fixes like the neck and such..looks very good. This is shaping up nicely. Good work!

 

Okay so my thoughts on R2 so far:

- The plot is becoming pretty neat. We finally get some information about the source of the undead, hints about the mainland and the oracle, the first Ambiguous Moral Situation that I wanted to investigate (the charming Anton and his meatpie metaphors!), and a big, interesting mystery in the whereabouts of Lord British. I really, really like this last part--the idea that your first job is always "Find Lord British and ask him what the big problem is these days" is so ingrained in me from the Ultima games that the idea that Lord British is missing (as with U5) is always really unsettling. There's like maybe 2% of the plot in the game already and I'm already kind of hooked and interested in the different mysteries. Great job!

- Technical stuff drains a lot of the fun from this release. Beyond figuring out the story and marveling at fun visuals (Kingsport looks great--really moody, interesting class division of the town with the docks and the marketplace, wonderful little pilings and coves. Give yer scene planners a hand!), I kind of got irritated more than I feel I should have, even at pre-alpha. Three problems: (a) crafting, (b) conversation, and (c) camera agh. (Plus I guess (d), the game every half hour or so suddenly jumping back to load "Scene x%, Plots x%, Player x%" and then dumping me back at the title screen, but I think that's maybe just net issues on my end?)

(a) Crafting. Basic things--clicking and dragging stuff from my fussily organized inventory to the crafting tables--were so wonky in terms of performance that the idea of figuring out recipes by trial and error just seemed totally not appealing. I tried to do it without spoilers, but it just got so frustrating--I'd drag a hunk of ore halfway across my backpack, the mouse would pick up a container gump stacked beneath and change focus to that, and I'd have to fuss around with windows so I could resume dragging the ore and tools to the table, only to sit there with a bunch of stuff in front of me and no indication of what to do.

I really missed the UO double click on a tool system, or some indication of what these tools might do. Trying to turn a log into boards shouldn't be hard, and it's weird that the recipe I thought was sort of obvious (saw + logs) was wrong (logs + cubit measure?) Making matters weirder, I even HAD a cubit measure on the table at the time, figuring it might be necessary, but the fact that the saw was there meant that I couldn't make boards. I feel like it should fail a little more gracefully--maybe if you have TOO MUCH in terms of material or tools, the recipe still works, but only the actual components get stored in your recipe book for later reference? I guess there are problems with that, clearly, but right now it feels too much like figuring out a text parser adventure to be fun, and the weird technical stuff with the basic action of clicking and dragging just gets completely in the way. It was the same in R1, but at that point you essentially didn't need to click and drag stuff beyond decorating and trying on fancy armor--with crafting, it's just like a terrible repetitive chore, and the flaws get really annoying really fast.

(b) Conversation. This is better for sure than R1, but it could be better still. I mean it's never going to pass a Turing Test or anything, but I feel like characters should at least recognize when they've already told you about a topic and not repeat the same speech? If I'm responding to Anton telling me about the Broken Anchor not being smugglers with something like "So okay, you're not smugglers, but what's your connection to the bandits?", I feel like it'd be okay for him to give a canned "second response" about smugglers connected to his "first response" speech about bandits: like "As I said, we're absolutely not smugglers. There are many fools who spread rumors connecting us to the bandits--" I mean I'm super willing to suspend disbelief, but having the same long speech repeated twice really gets me, and I feel like there'd be a way to get around it.

This is the good part of conversation, though. The BAD PART--and I'm pretty sure this is a change from R1--is the fact that you now lose focus on the chat window whenever you say something, and have to press enter to re-enable? This isn't how it behaved in R1, right? It really, really gets to me--I learned quickly to start hitting ENTER twice as a matter of course when I said anything (or else watch my character run around if I happened to say anything containing a WASD, bags and recipe books popping open, etc.), but then that trips you up when you leave a conversation. I feel like it'd be legit to just have focus, by default, remain on the chat window until you actually say a pretty recognizable "Bye" or some variant, or just click to change focus.

The background conversations in the market in Kingsport drove me insane. I finally just stopped talking to anyone and tried to avoid that area altogether, rather than hear the same shopper or fisherman say "Your prices are very reasonable, not like the Broken Anchor's! I am glad you are here!" or whatever-have-you thirty times a minute. I guess it'd make sense to have them say it, but maybe it doesn't need to be logged in the chat window? Maybe if you're targeting someone to talk, there shouldn't be background chatter in the window? I don't know what'd be best--I do know that it's just really miserable to walk through these market areas and suddenly have your chat window fill up with a bunch of repetitive messages, making it impossible to hold a conversation with, say, a merchant you want to speak to.

(c) Camera. This is just awful in any building. I don't know what can be done about it--I just routinely found myself going down stairs with the camera like stuck in the floor above or something, running out of frame, etc etc. Related is the fact that I guess I have a terrible computer because it just runs at a hideously low rate--maybe 3, 4fps sometimes in Kingsport--with the camera zooming in and out wildly at every frame. It got to the point where I was just trying to avoid areas that I thought would give me camera trouble, psyching myself up to go find NPCs like Anton (who I wanted to meet but who lived in plainly camera-unfriendly buildings)

This kinda bummed me out most because I KNOW I KNOW IT'S PRE-ALPHA and I KNOW it'll get better! I just had such a great time with R1 that I was sad, with all the new stuff in this one (including great little new details like the Tesla boxes, the seashore in Kingsport, the Castle That Isn't There, etc etc) not to be able to just experience more of it because I was fighting the UI and the performance issues the whole time, and because the conversation engine (easily best part of R1 by a mile) had this kind of critical flaw w/r/t losing focus.

I'm still going to play it every chance I get (you've already basically killed my productivity for the past like four hours and I expect more to come) before end of R2, make no mistake! I just like being in New Britannia a lot so far and can't wait to see the final game, really explore these mysteries, immerse myself in the first really compelling RPG I've seen in years (even at this crazily early stage.) But I hope, I hope, I hope that the crafting and conversation's going to get better, and I hope I'm not going to have to like--get a new computer to run this.

Right now it's like I'm actively loving it in spite of its flaws, which are a lot more flaw-ish than in R1 for sure.

(Oh, POSITIVE POSTSCRIPT, btw: I love how you implemented jumping. It really feels neat, encouraging planned jumps rather than just leaping around willy-nilly, and it got interesting in Kingsport to try to figure out if I could find a way to get on top of some of the craggy, horrible rocks. This is something I'd do IRL, so I appreciate the chance to do it in-game, and it feels pretty much like jumping should feel in a game that isn't just About Platforming: not a completely casual action, something that requires a little bit of thought to do.)

 

if you leave a table, with tools/items on it, sometimes they are consumed. and also I pick up an item and then decide not to place it in my pack it also disappears and is consumed

 

You ask,
well i seen fish i want to fish, lots of water want to swim. jumping is clumsy, but i can get use to it i guess.way better then just a month ago. characters are still butt ugly.houses are way small for the most part , that is one of the big draws to the game . deco , well lets say we had a hell of lot more almost 20 years ago in Ultima, still no map to know where you headed. As for the npcs, if anything they all seems to have gotten dumber, i got just as much info from the sheep. I still hate the big chat window that fills a large part of my screen, even when i make it as small as possible. Think it would be to much to ask for the over head chat, or the option.Run speed was greatly improved.I am really hoping to see a lot better creatures in game. If the developers can't draw [steal] from other games and improve on them for ours.I loved old Ultima, and want to see at least as good as what they had 20 years ago. Maps, well so far there not period, hell there not even good. my kids could do as well.
I know this isn't a finished product, or completely fleshed out,But i was expecting a lot more from Richard G.and his team.After all they have been around a long time, and not new kids on the block.
If they need more money, put more in the store that's in game trade items.
In short I want to see, as good or a lot better content,features,and game mechanics, then was in Ultima almost 20 years ago.

This is just my openion, not a troll.

 

So far, I'm really loving it.

My one BIG request in regards to crafting... too much clicking and dragging! I totally get it for the 'exploratory', find-recipes phase, but once it's in your book, you should be able to click the name or icon in the book and it will make the recipe you click (with a delay timer, say 1-3 seconds per ingredient item in the recipe). This way you can also talk/rp with crafting and not wear your arm to exhaustion just to make a single finished item.

 

I'm glad people like Anton. He was the NPC I had the most fun writing. FireLotus is responsible for many of the NPCs in Kingsport as well and her bard in the tavern especially is great. Ask the bard about the prophecy for a special "treat"....

We have some thoughts about giving the NPCs more of a "memory" and you should see some progress in that regard with R3.

 

I'd have to agree NirAntae, making something over and over again is dull and not fun. Doing it when you have to select multiple objects and carefully click and drag them is even worse.

I didn't notice any camera or UI issues that glambourine did other than the chat box, there is an option to make it so it is always up and deselect the option so it isn't and you have to hit enter. I think the R1 version was better.
I also had an issue where I was stuck in the chat box, I couldn't move or do anything else because wasd just appeared in the box. this was after enabling the option so you don't have to hit enter to bring it up and after i disabled the option it still didn't go away. I had to exit the game to get it work right.


So far I really enjoy the discover process of crafting, that is good.

 

Playing on a Mac here.

The framerate: Dropping frames -issue seems to have something to do with certain effects, like the blue electric effect on the tower. Every time you look at it, or at its' general direction, framerate goes haywire.

Moving: I love the fact that you can jump! There should be an option for a camera that turns automatically to the way the character turns. Way too much hassle with the mouse now.

The inventory: it was always the part i liked less in Ultima VII. Though I like the "list" -back bag, a tiled back bag would be much nicer to the eye.

Characters and chat: Active characters should have an effect on top of them, not the ring on the ground. The ring gets obscured by objects (see the tavern keeper), so you have no idea if the person is active or not. Also not sure about the floating speech bubbles. They seem... Huge.

To Glambourine: I think there's an option in the gameplay -menu to make the conversation stay active even after enter/return.

 

Yeah, the writing in Kingsport is pretty neat generally, aside from the market (and there, it's not that anyone's saying anything bad; it's just they're all saying it at once right in your chat window)! A lot more character than Owl's Head, where you've got Bentham and a lot of more standard Medieval Types.

I avoided the bard just because of the aforementioned Market Confusion, but I'll go back and check him out!

 

So far I am loving the game, the details are wonderful, especially the lighting.

The jumping is a fun additive, but I'm thinking it might get annoying once it goes multiplayer with people hopping everywhere in town instead of walking.

I like the conversation with the npcs, I found a couple quests and it really will make the game much more difficult with no 'hand holding' from the game, but I like that. For me it gives me reason to talk to the npcs and see if they have anything of value to add, and it's going to take some time to try to remember where people and places are. I was able to regularly find the house I planted and that's about it.

The citizen houses are pretty small, but I don't really care and that it is because 1) it gives you a big yard to play with and 2) it's like when you began at UO and got your first 7x7 house, it was cramped as heck, but it was yours. Some décor wont fit in it but you work with what you have, I'm happy I have a house to begin with. The larger houses make me wish that the 'leave house' option from UO was available so I don't have to find my way back out, hahaha.

There seem to be fewer glitches than with R1, I wasn't falling through floors in houses this time. Occasionally the chests would not open unless you found the sweet spot to stand. There were also a couple occasions where an npc would be standing on top of a barrel, and once I walked -into- a dresser, so I played hide and seek with the npcs

I tried both types of the inventory system, I like both for certain circumstances. The bag is good when there isn't too much in there and you aren't searching for something small. The list is good when you want to find something specific that is small, so it's great for trying to find ingredients for crafting, though I do agree with the statement I saw that it would be much easier in he list if it stacked and had numbers by the items with more than one.

Speaking of crafting I couldn't get a chance to try it yet, I cant figure out how to do it, I found like every type of crafting there is, but I don't have recipes to know how to make anything.

Overall though, great job! I already love this game and it is still only a skeleton of the finished product!

 

Everything glambourine said. Absolutely agree

 

Ditto