I expected a feedback thread and I wrote down a lot of things. I hope it's still welcome here. I'll answer the questions first:
Whatâs the first thing you plan to do when Alpha Two servers go live? Share your game plan with us!
Getting a feel for the game pace and tone. I hope for a slow rythm, a humble beggining that inspires you makes progression on your character exciting.
What systems do you interact with most in other MMORPGs that you play? If those systems are present in the launch of Alpha Two, will you be testing them?
PvE content and professions I'd say. And I'll try everything of course. Another thing I love but I can't interact with because it doesn't usually exist is all the naval stuff. I hope it comes to A2 soon.
Now the feedback I wrote:
* ALL TIMESTAMPS REFER TO THE 4K VIDEO ON YOUTUBE.
IMMERSION / TONE / FEEL:
- I love the level 1 outfits, very humble and rudimentary like they should be.
- Exception: the cleric staff is a bit too fancy.
- I like that you start only with 1 ability at level 1. I could agree on 2 but not more.
- I don't like that you receive an uncommon and a rare item so early in your adventure, even if it's not gear and not really relevant. It sets a certain tone for the game that I don't like.
- NPCs talking to you from far away with those chat bubbles is cool.
- The fact that people can fall from the Lionhold bridge holes and players below could see it is amazing.
- A couple or three more NPCs in Lionhold doing their activities or walking around not paying attention to you would be nice.
- An example of that would be someone washing their clothes using the small flow of water in the middle of the town.
- Camps like 33:18 could be improved by not being empty.
GAMEPLAY:
- Aggro range still way too short / inexistent.
- I really dislike that you interact with things with a keybind instead of your mouse in tab-target mode. I think interacting with the mouse and having the cursor change depending on what you're hovering has a lot more benefits and feels better overall.
- Jokes apart, the jumping puzzle should be easier for a new player's spawn. Not the best moment to build silly frustration so early into the game.
- Very happy that the player is taught the various systems via quests/hints instead a more railroaded experience or a tutorial.
GRAPHICS / ANIMATIONS / ART:
- Both the ruins and Lionhold look amazing.
- There is way too much wind for an interior. Specially noticeable in NPCs' capes.
- The lightning transition when entering and exiting the ruins looks on point.
- In contrast to that, there is a high amount of lightning bugs and popping.
- Waterfalls look very good.
- The rocks the goblins are throwing in the distance at 15:20 have very weird trajectories sometimes.
- Multiple graphic artifacts on the floor from minute 15:20 onwards.
- Some goblins on the way down to Lionhold are floating when doing the crouch animation (17:59).
- Several shaking NPCs (examples at 23:45, 24:14, 27:30).
- Floating and freezing NPC at 27:05. Also a lightning bug.
UI:
- Nameplates of NPCs and Players should be differently colored. At the moment they are all green.
- The book icon above quest givers is enough information to notice them. The effect on their names I feel it's unnecessary and a bit too flashy.
- Health numbers on targets are not centered in the Y axis.
- Speech bubbles look clean.
- Commission board doesn't. A lot of stuff in little space.
- Last part of the storage hint 2/3 at 27:25 could be wrongly interpreted as "if I visit that node once, then the cargo in it is accesible from anywhere". Not a good thing for a new player to believe. I suggest finding a better wording. "Without first traveling" is the potentially confusing part.
AUDIO:
- The adaptative combat music is great but it keeps going ham for too long after the combat has ended.
- I'm okay with AI voiceovers. A bit worried about they sounding stupid in another languages. It's pretty common that non-english AI voices sound way worse.
Feedback I currently have for what we were shown during the most recent livestream:
The Eastern part of the map looks far more populated with content than the Western part.
AI voices sound really bad. If they're only there as a placeholder whilst they are allegedly improved upon then it would be far better for the voices to just not be there until they're ready. Hearing one of the NPCs say "meself" was, as a Briton, disgusting (I'm sorry, but it really did make me cringe, lol).
I know this was also already mentioned on stream, but just to note it here; NPCs having coloured hair is very immersion breaking. If a player chooses to have coloured hair then this is very different because it will more than likely fit with the philosophy of the creation of that character which the player has made, whether they have coloured hair for a joke or because it actually looks cool and part of the aesthetic. NPCs having coloured hair just feels very random and instead of adding to the fantasy, actually takes away from it.
Things that I plan to do in the launch of Alpha 2:
RDM as many players as I can (until I get bored) to test the corruption system.
Explore as much as I can.
Try to break Character Creation.
Contribute as much as I can to gathering resources for a node.
Try out and get to know all the different classes.
Test fall damage.
Explore all options for socialising with random players I meet whilst playing.
PvE as much as I can.
Thanks for keeping up with the monthly streams, and I look forward to playing the A2!
Just want to say, that jumping over a gap is not a jumping puzzle and I really don't know what got into your mind to show this part for 5 minutes of a 30 minutes gameplay video. Besides that it was interesting.
The thing iam forward to is experiencing the nodes.
Whatâs the first thing you plan to do when Alpha Two servers go live? Share your game plan with us! Testing whether or not the Bard is for me. I never play support classes but the bard's mana utility being their unique feature speaks to me. But I cant tell how well they can do content alone (IE when my friends are offline) or how they would function in a game where a pure DPS looks at me funny and I cant do anything on it.
Whatâs something youâd like to see the community achieve together during Alpha Two testing?
Might sound weird but if the Devs put in a really hard boss like the old new world Bear boss that was there. Something that they put in and aren't going to tune but just say "have at it, we made it stupid hard for giggles" and watch the community game out how to kill it.
Which system stands out the most to you, and why?
Corruption. I might just be overthinking things but corruption and how it acts will decide my class choice come launch. If I cant run for more than an hour without someone trying to kill me and my class isnt designed well for dealing with that situation I wont role that class. I know balancing is around 8v8s and you should play with groups most of the time but sometimes you dont want to be around other people.
And if the class I love has to use ever cooldown to kill someone 4 levels below you because it is built around groups not fighting one individual, AND corruption isnt enough of a deterrent to stop constant ganks, I will play a class that can handle corruption.
Might be a leap of logic on my hand, but if corruption doesnt stop players from constantly trying to kill me because corruption is a joke, I will play a class that will have to deal with the threat of players always attacking me.
What systems do you interact with most in other MMORPGs that you play? If those systems are present in the launch of Alpha Two, will you be testing them?
PVP and raiding. And yes I will try both.
Honestly the Lawless zones are the most concerning to me. I enjoy PVP quite a bit when it's done right, but limiting end game materials to a forced PVP zone will lead to large guilds gatekeeping entrances and cause significant problems. Of course anything can be gatekept like this but forcing PVP makes it to where the system that's supposed to be in place for stuff exactly like this is completely irrelevant.
Creating lawless zones like this will just turn these areas into "kill every player on sight" and completely ruin the risk versus reward gameplay you're going for.
When Alpha 2 servers go live, I want to enjoy the character creator to the max and see how far I can test my ability to create multiple different presets of people. Ever since I saw Asmongold created in the character creator, I'm beyond excited to see who/what else can be created!
I also fully intend to break the game as much as I can, in any and every way. Yeah, that sounds awful when I word it like that haha, but one of my absolute favorite things to do as a software developer is routinely test the ever-living hell out of software to find any unforeseen hiccups. Creatively thinking outside of the box in very unusual ways to discover dupes or any glitches possible so we can have a much cleaner road to launch is my goal.
Community wise, I do want to see how well players interact when it comes to raid-wide groups against world bosses, and also the PVP/caravan system.
Other than that, I want to have fun of course, and hopefully find a nice guild to settle down with while I pursue my own personal goals in-game. ^^
Am really looking forward to testing all of the options in the Character Creator.
Wanting to help balance the time/rewards ratios on getting local rewards, such as outfits. Will be looking for clipping and rewards set at too high of a cost.
Will look forward to giving input on how good/bad the inventory system turns out to be. It's a fairly unique idea thus far, just not sure how practical it'll turn out. There's always the bag-in-a-bag collection of bugs that often plague early-development MMOs.
Certainly going to poke at the communications-systems, as well. Will be sending some in-game mails and - if it's live for A2 - looking for how well the in-game voice will function.
Going to poke at commissions and the bulletin boards.
0
KrystalKittenMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Whatâs the first thing you plan to do when Alpha Two servers go live? Share your game plan with us!
I want to GM Farming and Culinary. So more then likely anything to expand my storage and get money cause those are goldsinks
Whatâs something youâd like to see the community achieve together during Alpha Two testing?
Which system stands out the most to you, and why?
Getting a node to highest level. I like seeing communitys come together and working together for a common goal
What systems do you interact with most in other MMORPGs that you play? If those systems are present in the launch of Alpha Two, will you be testing them?
Crafting/gathering.
OH YEA!!!!
Very high level but for testing for first phase:
1. Code load and install times
2. Character configuration settings feedback (character selection issues, design thoughts, anomalies, etc)
3. Server access times and issues
4. User settings - ability to choose angles, motion sickness, audio selections, check for adequate customizable settings, etc
5. Realm issues, explore the realm and interact with everything.
6. Expecting a server load test somewhere in here
Most of my interaction with MMORPGs is in PVE...group activities, raids, dungeons. Also, the player experience and ecosystem in a game is important..NPC dialog, economy, environmental interaction, player-to-player communications. I plan to provide feedback in all of these areas if needed. I am very excited about the caravan capability where one can defend or raid a live caravan. I am hoping there are some aspects of being able to camouflage or use concealing tactics in caravan movement as a way to inject tracking techniques for the raid party...in other words, the ability to raid a caravan will depend on the ability to improve skills in tracking.
Whatâs the first thing you plan to do when Alpha Two servers go live? Share your game plan with us!
First is going to try and get on the same server as my friends so we can play together, because I won't be playing when I'm not able to play with my friends
From there the game plan is to play together, try most likely the Bard first and just test everything that we come across
For me I'm going to be focusing most on testing the classes and the gameplay, especially the hybrid combat mode (fingers crossed that we will be able to play it already)
Whatâs something youâd like to see the community achieve together during Alpha Two testing?
I'd like to see people help testing and improving the game the way that Intrepid is hoping for
And I'm hoping to see that people are not getting upset over an alpha being an alpha and not a finished game
Which system stands out the most to you, and why?
The different combat systems, classical tab-target and hybrid, simply because I personally love action combat and anything that feels less static and more like flowing, intuitive and engaging combat, I'mn conviced that a hybrid system can achieve that if executed well
What systems do you interact with most in other MMORPGs that you play?
Classic PvE and PvP content in combination with a classic holy trinity. I just love playing together with other people to achieve something, while being part of - and filling a role in a group, so that it truly feels like everyone is adding to the experience
If those systems are present in the launch of Alpha Two, will you be testing them?
Absolutely yes, since it's the backbone of MMORPGs for me to be able to make those experiences and create memories with others. So anything that falls into that category for me, whether it's dungeons, PvP, Caravans or all the others, I'm excited to try and test everything and see if I can get that feeling back that I've been missing the past few years
Whatâs the first thing you plan to do when Alpha Two servers go live? Share your game plan with us!
1. Interact with the community and creating a guild will be very important for myself.
2. Complete all the quests and objectives
3. Max out my skills in Alchemy, cooking ect
Whatâs something youâd like to see the community achieve together during Alpha Two testing?
Collaborate on a boss or mission where guilds have to come together to conquer
Which system stands out the most to you, and why?
The levelling experience, this is the part of the games that brings you in. After that the world is your oyster.
What systems do you interact with most in other MMORPGs that you play? If those systems are present in the launch of Alpha Two, will you be testing them?
The guild system is the part I will be interacting with a lot. The hardest part is keeping the solo player and the group player engaged with guild mechanics.
I'm sure that I'll spend quit a bit of time with the character creator to start with. The look of my character means a lot to me. UI customization as well since I'm used to certain things in certain places. I'll be checking out the Ranger and Mage first as i tend to like ranged dps. For the weapons i specifically want to take a good look at the differences between the short and long bow. Are the trades in range, hit, speed etc. different enough. Or are they so close that the speed of the short just overwhelms using the long (i realize this is a balance issue and may not be there yet) After that I'm a crafter/gatherer/explorer, so yah I'll be getting into the professions and figuring out what feels good and exploring while i gather. Granted Rogue is my preferred class to explore but I'll make due and wait patiently till it comes online later.
I signed on 4 years ago and its finally almost here... Look forward to seeing you all in Verra soon!!
Amar
Comments
Whatâs the first thing you plan to do when Alpha Two servers go live? Share your game plan with us!
Getting a feel for the game pace and tone. I hope for a slow rythm, a humble beggining that inspires you makes progression on your character exciting.
What systems do you interact with most in other MMORPGs that you play? If those systems are present in the launch of Alpha Two, will you be testing them?
PvE content and professions I'd say. And I'll try everything of course. Another thing I love but I can't interact with because it doesn't usually exist is all the naval stuff. I hope it comes to A2 soon.
Now the feedback I wrote:
* ALL TIMESTAMPS REFER TO THE 4K VIDEO ON YOUTUBE.
IMMERSION / TONE / FEEL:
- I love the level 1 outfits, very humble and rudimentary like they should be.
- Exception: the cleric staff is a bit too fancy.
- I like that you start only with 1 ability at level 1. I could agree on 2 but not more.
- I don't like that you receive an uncommon and a rare item so early in your adventure, even if it's not gear and not really relevant. It sets a certain tone for the game that I don't like.
- NPCs talking to you from far away with those chat bubbles is cool.
- The fact that people can fall from the Lionhold bridge holes and players below could see it is amazing.
- A couple or three more NPCs in Lionhold doing their activities or walking around not paying attention to you would be nice.
- An example of that would be someone washing their clothes using the small flow of water in the middle of the town.
- Camps like 33:18 could be improved by not being empty.
GAMEPLAY:
- Aggro range still way too short / inexistent.
- I really dislike that you interact with things with a keybind instead of your mouse in tab-target mode. I think interacting with the mouse and having the cursor change depending on what you're hovering has a lot more benefits and feels better overall.
- Jokes apart, the jumping puzzle should be easier for a new player's spawn. Not the best moment to build silly frustration so early into the game.
- Very happy that the player is taught the various systems via quests/hints instead a more railroaded experience or a tutorial.
GRAPHICS / ANIMATIONS / ART:
- Both the ruins and Lionhold look amazing.
- There is way too much wind for an interior. Specially noticeable in NPCs' capes.
- The lightning transition when entering and exiting the ruins looks on point.
- In contrast to that, there is a high amount of lightning bugs and popping.
- Waterfalls look very good.
- The rocks the goblins are throwing in the distance at 15:20 have very weird trajectories sometimes.
- Multiple graphic artifacts on the floor from minute 15:20 onwards.
- Some goblins on the way down to Lionhold are floating when doing the crouch animation (17:59).
- Several shaking NPCs (examples at 23:45, 24:14, 27:30).
- Floating and freezing NPC at 27:05. Also a lightning bug.
UI:
- Nameplates of NPCs and Players should be differently colored. At the moment they are all green.
- The book icon above quest givers is enough information to notice them. The effect on their names I feel it's unnecessary and a bit too flashy.
- Health numbers on targets are not centered in the Y axis.
- Speech bubbles look clean.
- Commission board doesn't. A lot of stuff in little space.
- Last part of the storage hint 2/3 at 27:25 could be wrongly interpreted as "if I visit that node once, then the cargo in it is accesible from anywhere". Not a good thing for a new player to believe. I suggest finding a better wording. "Without first traveling" is the potentially confusing part.
AUDIO:
- The adaptative combat music is great but it keeps going ham for too long after the combat has ended.
- I'm okay with AI voiceovers. A bit worried about they sounding stupid in another languages. It's pretty common that non-english AI voices sound way worse.
Things that I plan to do in the launch of Alpha 2:
Thanks for keeping up with the monthly streams, and I look forward to playing the A2!
The thing iam forward to is experiencing the nodes.
Testing whether or not the Bard is for me. I never play support classes but the bard's mana utility being their unique feature speaks to me. But I cant tell how well they can do content alone (IE when my friends are offline) or how they would function in a game where a pure DPS looks at me funny and I cant do anything on it.
Whatâs something youâd like to see the community achieve together during Alpha Two testing?
Might sound weird but if the Devs put in a really hard boss like the old new world Bear boss that was there. Something that they put in and aren't going to tune but just say "have at it, we made it stupid hard for giggles" and watch the community game out how to kill it.
Which system stands out the most to you, and why?
Corruption. I might just be overthinking things but corruption and how it acts will decide my class choice come launch. If I cant run for more than an hour without someone trying to kill me and my class isnt designed well for dealing with that situation I wont role that class. I know balancing is around 8v8s and you should play with groups most of the time but sometimes you dont want to be around other people.
And if the class I love has to use ever cooldown to kill someone 4 levels below you because it is built around groups not fighting one individual, AND corruption isnt enough of a deterrent to stop constant ganks, I will play a class that can handle corruption.
Might be a leap of logic on my hand, but if corruption doesnt stop players from constantly trying to kill me because corruption is a joke, I will play a class that will have to deal with the threat of players always attacking me.
What systems do you interact with most in other MMORPGs that you play? If those systems are present in the launch of Alpha Two, will you be testing them?
PVP and raiding. And yes I will try both.
Creating lawless zones like this will just turn these areas into "kill every player on sight" and completely ruin the risk versus reward gameplay you're going for.
I also fully intend to break the game as much as I can, in any and every way. Yeah, that sounds awful when I word it like that haha, but one of my absolute favorite things to do as a software developer is routinely test the ever-living hell out of software to find any unforeseen hiccups. Creatively thinking outside of the box in very unusual ways to discover dupes or any glitches possible so we can have a much cleaner road to launch is my goal.
Community wise, I do want to see how well players interact when it comes to raid-wide groups against world bosses, and also the PVP/caravan system.
Other than that, I want to have fun of course, and hopefully find a nice guild to settle down with while I pursue my own personal goals in-game. ^^
Click here to visit Snow elf's Twitch channel
Wanting to help balance the time/rewards ratios on getting local rewards, such as outfits. Will be looking for clipping and rewards set at too high of a cost.
Will look forward to giving input on how good/bad the inventory system turns out to be. It's a fairly unique idea thus far, just not sure how practical it'll turn out. There's always the bag-in-a-bag collection of bugs that often plague early-development MMOs.
Certainly going to poke at the communications-systems, as well. Will be sending some in-game mails and - if it's live for A2 - looking for how well the in-game voice will function.
Going to poke at commissions and the bulletin boards.
I want to GM Farming and Culinary. So more then likely anything to expand my storage and get money cause those are goldsinks
Whatâs something youâd like to see the community achieve together during Alpha Two testing?
Which system stands out the most to you, and why?
Getting a node to highest level. I like seeing communitys come together and working together for a common goal
What systems do you interact with most in other MMORPGs that you play? If those systems are present in the launch of Alpha Two, will you be testing them?
Crafting/gathering.
OH YEA!!!!
1. Code load and install times
2. Character configuration settings feedback (character selection issues, design thoughts, anomalies, etc)
3. Server access times and issues
4. User settings - ability to choose angles, motion sickness, audio selections, check for adequate customizable settings, etc
5. Realm issues, explore the realm and interact with everything.
6. Expecting a server load test somewhere in here
Most of my interaction with MMORPGs is in PVE...group activities, raids, dungeons. Also, the player experience and ecosystem in a game is important..NPC dialog, economy, environmental interaction, player-to-player communications. I plan to provide feedback in all of these areas if needed. I am very excited about the caravan capability where one can defend or raid a live caravan. I am hoping there are some aspects of being able to camouflage or use concealing tactics in caravan movement as a way to inject tracking techniques for the raid party...in other words, the ability to raid a caravan will depend on the ability to improve skills in tracking.
Very excited about alpha testing this game!
First is going to try and get on the same server as my friends so we can play together, because I won't be playing when I'm not able to play with my friends
From there the game plan is to play together, try most likely the Bard first and just test everything that we come across
For me I'm going to be focusing most on testing the classes and the gameplay, especially the hybrid combat mode (fingers crossed that we will be able to play it already)
Whatâs something youâd like to see the community achieve together during Alpha Two testing?
I'd like to see people help testing and improving the game the way that Intrepid is hoping for
And I'm hoping to see that people are not getting upset over an alpha being an alpha and not a finished game
Which system stands out the most to you, and why?
The different combat systems, classical tab-target and hybrid, simply because I personally love action combat and anything that feels less static and more like flowing, intuitive and engaging combat, I'mn conviced that a hybrid system can achieve that if executed well
What systems do you interact with most in other MMORPGs that you play?
Classic PvE and PvP content in combination with a classic holy trinity. I just love playing together with other people to achieve something, while being part of - and filling a role in a group, so that it truly feels like everyone is adding to the experience
If those systems are present in the launch of Alpha Two, will you be testing them?
Absolutely yes, since it's the backbone of MMORPGs for me to be able to make those experiences and create memories with others. So anything that falls into that category for me, whether it's dungeons, PvP, Caravans or all the others, I'm excited to try and test everything and see if I can get that feeling back that I've been missing the past few years
Once I load in I'll probably find the nearest shore and walk around the continent. I want to see it before it gets noded.
1. Interact with the community and creating a guild will be very important for myself.
2. Complete all the quests and objectives
3. Max out my skills in Alchemy, cooking ect
Whatâs something youâd like to see the community achieve together during Alpha Two testing?
Collaborate on a boss or mission where guilds have to come together to conquer
Which system stands out the most to you, and why?
The levelling experience, this is the part of the games that brings you in. After that the world is your oyster.
What systems do you interact with most in other MMORPGs that you play? If those systems are present in the launch of Alpha Two, will you be testing them?
The guild system is the part I will be interacting with a lot. The hardest part is keeping the solo player and the group player engaged with guild mechanics.
I signed on 4 years ago and its finally almost here... Look forward to seeing you all in Verra soon!!
Amar