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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
PAX east - About the gameplay
ArchivedUser
Guest
Hi everyone,
So if you like me is not able to be at PAX east, you will be able to find a video with some gamplay right here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMEuS892UlE
It is great to see the improvement on the graphics and the environment and see examples of how parties can compliment each other (especially interesting with the cleric disspelling the poison). Also it is nice to see that the combo meter have not made a return.
I have some points that I would like to point out from what I have seen.
Music: Excellent music that helps with enthralling you in a world like yours, it is very befitting to the setting when out an exploring. I can't wait to hear more variation in form of battle music, tavern music or more specific music for when you are in and out of the villages. It helps to set the mood and is a powerful tool in your game.
Graphics and Design: Little hard to see in the video, it looks a little too saturated which can make it difficult to make out things. We have seen in your previous videos that things have looked better, so it is probably youtube that is having a bad day. Other than that it is a beautiful setting, right from coming out the village and seeing the giant statue and the spikey pillars of corruption to the misty poison fox lying in wait at the cave. It gives an uneasy feeling walking out the safe boundaries of the village because the diversity between inside and outside the village is so vast, which is great.
I hope that the choices you make in design of the dwarven kingdom resemble that of Dragon Age: Origin, with the many deep roads and the city itself. I do not personally experience the suspense of disbelief with the current design of dwarven architecture. This dungeon that you present does not appear to be fitting into a living (or once living) world. When you walk in to a dwarven fortress you would perhaps expect to find clues as to how the dwarven races lived or find old mining facilities. I cannot imagine this world having been alive and that someone built it. When what separates you from the rest of the MMO's is - and i quote "A living and dynamic world" - it would be befitting that your setting is also matching those claims.
Combat: The combat itself have seen improvement since the removal of the combo meter, but it appears there is still remnants of the combo system. It appears that you have to have some sort of timing to execute the third hit in your auto attack chain? I am not certain if this is the case, but I would suggest to just make a system like Guild Wars 2 where you have to hit an enemy within a relatively short time limit to continue your auto attack chain of three different attacks.
The combat feels a lot more fluent when the complete auto attack chain hits rather than hitting twice and then having to wait for a longer duration to restart the auto attack chain. The auto attack chain should always complete if the players wants to, and not let it be decided by combo timing.
Still I would hope that the combat developes to be of the Action Combat type. I feel that Tab Targetting is an older combat system that a new subscription based MMO should not offer.
Other: I am overall pleased with the communication that the Intrepid team offer. They are quite active given the games early stage and appear to also be using Discord actively.
It is great to see a company so open about their development and being able to make fun of their own mistakes and bugs. Intrepid could have chosen to cut the segment clearly showing a player bugging into a horse, but chose to keep it and even gave an explanation as to why you would not see horses this time around.
Looking forward to be seeing more!
What do you guys think of the new gameplay video they showcased? ups and downs
So if you like me is not able to be at PAX east, you will be able to find a video with some gamplay right here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMEuS892UlEIt is great to see the improvement on the graphics and the environment and see examples of how parties can compliment each other (especially interesting with the cleric disspelling the poison). Also it is nice to see that the combo meter have not made a return.
I have some points that I would like to point out from what I have seen.
Music: Excellent music that helps with enthralling you in a world like yours, it is very befitting to the setting when out an exploring. I can't wait to hear more variation in form of battle music, tavern music or more specific music for when you are in and out of the villages. It helps to set the mood and is a powerful tool in your game.
Graphics and Design: Little hard to see in the video, it looks a little too saturated which can make it difficult to make out things. We have seen in your previous videos that things have looked better, so it is probably youtube that is having a bad day. Other than that it is a beautiful setting, right from coming out the village and seeing the giant statue and the spikey pillars of corruption to the misty poison fox lying in wait at the cave. It gives an uneasy feeling walking out the safe boundaries of the village because the diversity between inside and outside the village is so vast, which is great.
I hope that the choices you make in design of the dwarven kingdom resemble that of Dragon Age: Origin, with the many deep roads and the city itself. I do not personally experience the suspense of disbelief with the current design of dwarven architecture. This dungeon that you present does not appear to be fitting into a living (or once living) world. When you walk in to a dwarven fortress you would perhaps expect to find clues as to how the dwarven races lived or find old mining facilities. I cannot imagine this world having been alive and that someone built it. When what separates you from the rest of the MMO's is - and i quote "A living and dynamic world" - it would be befitting that your setting is also matching those claims.
Combat: The combat itself have seen improvement since the removal of the combo meter, but it appears there is still remnants of the combo system. It appears that you have to have some sort of timing to execute the third hit in your auto attack chain? I am not certain if this is the case, but I would suggest to just make a system like Guild Wars 2 where you have to hit an enemy within a relatively short time limit to continue your auto attack chain of three different attacks.
The combat feels a lot more fluent when the complete auto attack chain hits rather than hitting twice and then having to wait for a longer duration to restart the auto attack chain. The auto attack chain should always complete if the players wants to, and not let it be decided by combo timing.
Still I would hope that the combat developes to be of the Action Combat type. I feel that Tab Targetting is an older combat system that a new subscription based MMO should not offer.
Other: I am overall pleased with the communication that the Intrepid team offer. They are quite active given the games early stage and appear to also be using Discord actively.
It is great to see a company so open about their development and being able to make fun of their own mistakes and bugs. Intrepid could have chosen to cut the segment clearly showing a player bugging into a horse, but chose to keep it and even gave an explanation as to why you would not see horses this time around.
Looking forward to be seeing more!
What do you guys think of the new gameplay video they showcased? ups and downs
0
Comments
It's glad to see you again since the previous PAX
- Skills animations is not ideal, it is clear that some skills looks beautiful ... but hugely. This worry, especially in mass battles.
- Sry for terrible Eng -
In fine, GJ and TY
First, in the Dev panel they expressed how it would be a mix of action combat and tab targeting, they said you can choose how you want to play it. So one would assume if you want full action combat(like myself) you could do that. The skill tree will be advanced so you can choose how you would like your play style.
Second, I would like to point out the fire attacks specifically and how I enjoyed the explosion behind them. I would like you to notice the fire attacks and notice how your field of view would be blocked from the attacks and how you would not be able to see the enemy for a split second. Which I think is great and more realistic towards how a real fire attack would be(if we had such a thing). The graphics on the fire alone blew me away and I am excited to see what they have in store for us in the future.
Third, as far as the dungeon I think of lord of the rings and the Hobbit movie. How grandiose it was and I got the same feeling with this dungeon. I had no problem on how it was presented.
Fourth, I am curious about the portal at the end? was that Pax exclusive or? That is a form of fast travel which we were told would be very little to none. So is that a normal thing that will be in AOC or?
Thanks for reading.
Sgtfire
For your 4th point, the portal at the end was indeed part of the PAX experience. There is meant to be little or no porting or fast travel in game. Making everyone at the end of every demo run back to the city to turn in would have been a huge waste of time they didn't have. The only fast travel mechanics we have confirmed is the possibility of zoi waystations built once a scientific node reaches metropolis stage. It would be an option that the city mayor would have to select to build, giving up a possible more enticing option.
It is here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/248065689. Fast forward to about 2:41:00 or so.
In this same Q&A, they say that the graphics and such are in a very unpolished state still, that that is typical for a game at this stage in the development cycle, and that we can expect to see much more graphical polish in the future. That's fair enough, but I would like to agree with the feedback offered in this thread that what we are seeing is perhaps a bit too flashy. (Also in this Q&A, the devs say they pay attention to feedback, and their desire for feedback is the main reason for being so open in their development process.) So, my feedback based on what we have seen: if every ability is a massive explosion of multicolored light and particle effects, then every fight will turn into a continuously exploding ball of particle effect soup, and that is concerning. Having played certain other MMO's that went down that road, I would say that while it may sound cool in theory, a steady diet of particle-effect soup gets old fast.
I would point out as well that in the gameplay clips we have seen, they have groups of like five people, but max group size in the final game will be eight. Eight people each spamming massive explosion spells constantly will be even worse.
Do you have a link for the audio one specifically?
Thank you so much! I've been trying to find that for a while now.
http://www.aocwiki.net/PAX_EAST_2018_Sunday_Steven_Q
All that aside, the game looks freaking beautiful Mike Bacon is wizard at environmental design. I mean if you pay attention to certain parts of the game play when you do certain abilities it actually kicks up dust from the ground if you're in a dirt like environment, that's insane.