Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Early Player Experience with Artisan System - First Impressions
Jesana
Member, Alpha Two
in Artisanship
Recording this while it's fresh for me before I go search out explanations, guides, and help from external sources - the early player experience with the artisan system from perspective as someone who has never played the game before. Some of these issues are absolutely because I don't know the systems and where to go, but that's the point - as a new player, you don't.
1. The initial quest to introduce the artisan system feels way too early. I'm barely figuring out how combat works, how the questing system is set up, etc. This feeds into an overall "there are too many quests and nothing is explained well" feeling at first. Overwhelming.
2. I was frustrated that after having completed the Sweat Off Your Brow quest that I couldn't go out and gather herbs in the surrounding area. A bit more direction in where we go to get started in herbalism in particular would be helpful.
3. Fishing sucks at the moment. Fishing is usually one of my favorite crafting/gathering activities in mmos and this one is terrible. No mini-game, no fish catching animations, just hit the button and walk away from the computer. This isn't fun at all. I am hoping there is a fleshed out fishing system in the works. Please don't let this be what is planned for final form.
4. The crafting station windows, while complex, looked pretty easy to understand. I'm not sure if that would be true if you were a total newbie at mmos, but having played a few others, this looked decent.
5. Tree cutting animations are really nice. Probably the best animations I've seen so far related to the artisan system.
1. The initial quest to introduce the artisan system feels way too early. I'm barely figuring out how combat works, how the questing system is set up, etc. This feeds into an overall "there are too many quests and nothing is explained well" feeling at first. Overwhelming.
2. I was frustrated that after having completed the Sweat Off Your Brow quest that I couldn't go out and gather herbs in the surrounding area. A bit more direction in where we go to get started in herbalism in particular would be helpful.
3. Fishing sucks at the moment. Fishing is usually one of my favorite crafting/gathering activities in mmos and this one is terrible. No mini-game, no fish catching animations, just hit the button and walk away from the computer. This isn't fun at all. I am hoping there is a fleshed out fishing system in the works. Please don't let this be what is planned for final form.
4. The crafting station windows, while complex, looked pretty easy to understand. I'm not sure if that would be true if you were a total newbie at mmos, but having played a few others, this looked decent.
5. Tree cutting animations are really nice. Probably the best animations I've seen so far related to the artisan system.
2
Comments
This is a big one for me. I too love fishing in games, I think it would really cool to have a whole section of the game for fishing.
As far as how to fix this --> I agree that there needs to be updated animations for fishing. I like the suggestion for adding in a mini game, I think that would make the waiting aspect a little more bearable and the mini game itself does not have to be super complex. The devs on this game are smart and I am sure they could get crafty with a fishing mini game, but even if it is something as simple as a quick little circle where you have to hit space at the right time and if you miss the quality of the fish diminishes.
Fishing games are quite simple. Have a good 20-50 different types of fish with varying rarity, make obtaining the rare fish useful (for crafting food, or maybe have a legendary fish that gives a weapon or armor a unique enchantment), and most importantly make fishing fun (add a mini game or two, make it so you have to pay attention while fishing). This could be further developed by making the water ripple in certain areas so you have to aim for a spot. To cast farther maybe you have to craft a rare fishing pole or farm a certain monster for a material to make a certain kind of fishing line for the legendary fish.
These are just a few suggestions as to how to fix the fishing problem in the game. I hope the devs see this lol. The game has come a long way and I am proud to be able to provide my feedback on this first portion of the alpha.
I'm already planning to delete and restart my character to test and Intrepid haven't let me down yet.
Fishing is just barely implemented at this stage. Steven has said that it will be a very robust system with different types of fishing (inland water, coastal water, deep sea) there will be mini-games associated and there will be fishing nodes. But none of this is in game at the moment, I believe he said it will start coming into the game in phase 3. I too love fishing in games and am just waiting to see where it goes. The plans sound good and I have high hopes.
Regarding Fishing I would like to see "fixed" that you don't really see if everything is still OK while you are in between animations. I am often wondering whether my guy is still fishing or whether I did something or something happened that made it stop. Some indicator somewhere that "fishing is still going on" would help. If this already exists then I have missed it so far.
As to the processing professions ... what's up with the jobs limited to a fixed number. I have 19 things to process but I can only do 10? Can't even do 20 and overpay for fuel, no I need to do a job of 10, then 5 and then 4 times 1 (I think). And I cannot even queue them up!
I really would like a 2nd queue option so I can queue up say 2 types of lumber or stone at the same time. Due to the fact you can only process specific job sizes I rather feel for now 4 or 5 queues is more sensible. Or at least let me queue more of the same job I already started... This isn't as much of a thing for items (say oak) that I can easily amass, but with harder-to-find ressources (say copper) that also drop in different rarities (which I also cannot combine in a job) I end up having to make a frustratingly high amount of consecutive processing jobs.