Cybsled
Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
- 16,676
- 13,160
I see where you are coming from in terms of queues or lagged servers, but if a game is hot shit...
- 1
Pax Dei
- Thread starter Srathor
- Start date
I see where you are coming from in terms of queues or lagged servers, but if a game is hot shit...
Kaines
Potato Supreme
- 17,172
- 46,981
Qhue
Tranny Chaser
- 7,511
- 4,462
It's very unpolished. I was intrigued by the notion of mystery and interconnectedness, but in reality it's just a bunch of people grinding trade skills or gang/rushing monsters using one of the worst combat systems I've seen.
When a wolf chased me while I was wearing some threadbare clothes it was exciting. I then went about assembling a suit of chainmail and leather,.a shield,.and a big sword and went back to the wolf...and he promptly ripped my nutsack off in one chomp.
If you do best monsters you are rewarded with materials necessary to make magical items that give you spells. Exceptionally boring spells.
When a wolf chased me while I was wearing some threadbare clothes it was exciting. I then went about assembling a suit of chainmail and leather,.a shield,.and a big sword and went back to the wolf...and he promptly ripped my nutsack off in one chomp.
If you do best monsters you are rewarded with materials necessary to make magical items that give you spells. Exceptionally boring spells.
- 3
Mao
Trakanon Raider
- 606
- 1,458
TLDR Its good if you want to support this concept like a Kickstarter, but if you want to play an actual game and not a crafting and building demo, let this one cook.
Early Alpha is a good way to describe this. I was thinking this is more a crowd funding attempt than it feels like a solid early access, which makes me a little worried about the financial state of the game if they are needing to drop this expensive of an early access now.
Still, I have enjoyed it, but I am rather well known amongst my friends for spelunking into random survival games and this lands right in my wheelhouse.
I think it has a lot of potential, but that is still quite some way away. What they do have seems to be pretty solid and match the vision/description of what they want, but large chunks of the game are still missing. Combat is apparently little more than the default Unreal Engine stuff. There is a clan system that is nominally in place that allows cooperative building and resourcing, but there are no guild security or access levels which is super important in this style of game. Anyone can take or destroy anything apparently. There is also no real game loop outside of grinding crafting skills. No mechanics to support an economy or diplomacy or any other sorts of player made interaction.
IIRC the developers have a background from EvE Online and you can kinda see the intention to make something that is almost a medieval fantasy version of that. The devs lean towards all player built structures and economy. A safe outer area with an inner always on pvp zones with better end resources for harvesting. There are ruins and dungeons around to farm higher end stuff that would prolly be analogous to deadspace complexes.
It is also not a solo friendly game. The crafting grind is heavy and the requirements to unlock higher tier recipes and such seem rather onerous and apparently are only going to get worse as I delve deeper into the trees, as well as requiring stuff from other professions. Again, I feel this is sorta a push similar to EvE to either have a large enough clan to do it all in house, or to force a player economy of trading resources.
Problem is they are talking about player owned stalls for the market solution, which will most likely fail miserably. Eve has NPC stations with market listings you can see from some distance away. If Pax Dei has a bunch of individual stalls littered about that are limited in location by the land plot system and you have to go up to them physically to view their contents and pricing, its mostly going to be a waste. The major clan in each area will prolly just set up a market and that is where most everyone will go unless they get some tip to buy elsewhere or just come across a stall by happenstance. So selling to the major clan and them relisting is prolly the best you can expect. Hey, maybe it will be realistic feudalism. Get to work serf.
The plot system is the other big conundrum I see. You can only build on a small plot you claim, and they have suggested that once they go live you will pay a subscription based on the number of plots your account holds. Not necessarily pay to win since you can fit everything you need (least, so far) on one plot it will offer advantages for market stalls and other things. The big one will be though, the way clans build their big castles is by placing all their plots next to each other and then anyone from the clan can build on them. So what happens when Bob dies and stops paying his sub? Do you suddenly lose your plot of land in the middle of your castle and all the building on it? Currently when you unclaim a plot all buildings are gone. This seems like it could be a bit of a problem later as the game goes on.
So lot of potential and they seem to have a clear vision and goal of what they want their game to be, however it is a long way to get there and its going to be some time before I would consider this a game with a sustainable gameplay loop.
Early Alpha is a good way to describe this. I was thinking this is more a crowd funding attempt than it feels like a solid early access, which makes me a little worried about the financial state of the game if they are needing to drop this expensive of an early access now.
Still, I have enjoyed it, but I am rather well known amongst my friends for spelunking into random survival games and this lands right in my wheelhouse.
I think it has a lot of potential, but that is still quite some way away. What they do have seems to be pretty solid and match the vision/description of what they want, but large chunks of the game are still missing. Combat is apparently little more than the default Unreal Engine stuff. There is a clan system that is nominally in place that allows cooperative building and resourcing, but there are no guild security or access levels which is super important in this style of game. Anyone can take or destroy anything apparently. There is also no real game loop outside of grinding crafting skills. No mechanics to support an economy or diplomacy or any other sorts of player made interaction.
IIRC the developers have a background from EvE Online and you can kinda see the intention to make something that is almost a medieval fantasy version of that. The devs lean towards all player built structures and economy. A safe outer area with an inner always on pvp zones with better end resources for harvesting. There are ruins and dungeons around to farm higher end stuff that would prolly be analogous to deadspace complexes.
It is also not a solo friendly game. The crafting grind is heavy and the requirements to unlock higher tier recipes and such seem rather onerous and apparently are only going to get worse as I delve deeper into the trees, as well as requiring stuff from other professions. Again, I feel this is sorta a push similar to EvE to either have a large enough clan to do it all in house, or to force a player economy of trading resources.
Problem is they are talking about player owned stalls for the market solution, which will most likely fail miserably. Eve has NPC stations with market listings you can see from some distance away. If Pax Dei has a bunch of individual stalls littered about that are limited in location by the land plot system and you have to go up to them physically to view their contents and pricing, its mostly going to be a waste. The major clan in each area will prolly just set up a market and that is where most everyone will go unless they get some tip to buy elsewhere or just come across a stall by happenstance. So selling to the major clan and them relisting is prolly the best you can expect. Hey, maybe it will be realistic feudalism. Get to work serf.
The plot system is the other big conundrum I see. You can only build on a small plot you claim, and they have suggested that once they go live you will pay a subscription based on the number of plots your account holds. Not necessarily pay to win since you can fit everything you need (least, so far) on one plot it will offer advantages for market stalls and other things. The big one will be though, the way clans build their big castles is by placing all their plots next to each other and then anyone from the clan can build on them. So what happens when Bob dies and stops paying his sub? Do you suddenly lose your plot of land in the middle of your castle and all the building on it? Currently when you unclaim a plot all buildings are gone. This seems like it could be a bit of a problem later as the game goes on.
So lot of potential and they seem to have a clear vision and goal of what they want their game to be, however it is a long way to get there and its going to be some time before I would consider this a game with a sustainable gameplay loop.
- 1
Mao
Trakanon Raider
- 606
- 1,458
I am a little confused by this. There were many games in the past that were popular that you couldn't solo. EQ, UO, hell, many parts of old WoW. What do you mean by solo? I'd argue you can't solo most MMOs these days, however the auto-grouping people for dungeons makes it very 'solo friendly'. Still, the harder content usually requires organized groups. While its horribly boring, if you want to get technical EvE is perhaps the most soloable game out, since you can run missions solo and can buy all the stuff you need to craft and build shit without ever grouping with another player.
Anyway...
So far, you can gather, build, and craft solo. However, if you want to do harder content, get into what I assume to be the politics of the game or be efficient in your crafting, you will need a group. Grinding crafts for skill ups is reminiscent of UO or the old FF11 system and if you are solo it will take you longer to get anywhere because you have to divide your time between gathering and crafting, as well as grinding more than one profession because of necessary components for higher crafts.
I think now with modern duty and party finders and the theme park style MMOs a lot of people will not really want a hard core grindfest with no overarching questline grind to tell them where to go and the market for this might be limited. However, a lot of games seem to be aiming for this 'big sandbox' idea now, like Ashes of Creation and Light No Fires and people seem receptive.
Cybsled
Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
- 16,676
- 13,160
There is a large difference between a survival crafter sandbox and a MMO sandbox. Survival crafters usually are more solo friendly relatively speaking because they typically aren't designed with a large player population in mind. The player also has more agency typically in terms of how bad the grind is.
Sandbox MMOs need lots of players to function because most sandbox MMOs as a rule have very little content outside of what the players themselves create. They also tend to lean heavily on group projects and virtually no solo ability in terms of creating things. Shadowbane outside of a handful of POIs was effectively a blank slate and required players to make the core content. However, Shadowbane also demonstrated that if your players leave, then you're left with a game you can't solo in and has no content because no one is left.
Sandbox MMOs need lots of players to function because most sandbox MMOs as a rule have very little content outside of what the players themselves create. They also tend to lean heavily on group projects and virtually no solo ability in terms of creating things. Shadowbane outside of a handful of POIs was effectively a blank slate and required players to make the core content. However, Shadowbane also demonstrated that if your players leave, then you're left with a game you can't solo in and has no content because no one is left.
- 1
Kirun
Buzzfeed Editor
- 18,856
- 35,166
This game has barely progressed from where it was 8-9 months ago. I have no idea why people thing that "Early Access" will change anything. The combat is absolutely horrendous, possibly the worst I've ever seen in an MMO that wasn't a meme game. You need to build 5000 chests to hold mats because the stack sizes are abysmally low, there's no craft from chest, etc.
This is a cash grab, pure and simple. Further evidenced by the way they handled being able to "buy" extra land with RL cash.
This is a cash grab, pure and simple. Further evidenced by the way they handled being able to "buy" extra land with RL cash.
Mao
Trakanon Raider
- 606
- 1,458
I think they are hurting for money and trying to pull a crowd founding backdoor, even though Steam's Early Access policy says you are not to EA a game that you do not have the finances to finish. They were rather straightforward about the state of the game on their website but I do not feel it should in any way be sold as an Early Access title at this point. Whoever said paid Alpha was pretty spot on.
Which makes me wonder they didn't go some sort of crowdfunding route ala Kickstarter or the like, seems to have worked for Ashes and people are still giving Star Citizen money. My guess would be they are trying to hide the state of their financials and perhaps secure investors without giving up too much of their autonomy to larger production companies but I think its gonna backfire as people expect more from an EA game.
Anyway. I would like to see them succeed and play the game they are envisioning, but I think its more likely 2000s era Marisa Miller will show up at my door offering to suck my dick.
Tarrant
<Prior Amod>
- 15,580
- 9,023
I agree with a lot of what Mao has said. For me and the niche I am a part of, I love hardcore gathering/farming/crafting. I've sunk considerable time into this already, I'll be pushing 90hours already at the end of the day. Early PoI's are in fact zerg encounters, but once you start doing Tier 3 PoI's and above, strategy is needed, specific spell loadouts are needed and tactics are a must with blocking rotations, to healing rotations as well.
I love building and am up to level 26 carpentry and some of the learned item progression needs tweaking, but I've enjoyed it a lot.
The group for the most part I run with is pretty good to be around, I've enjoyed BS'ing with them in Discord and I've met several people in the game that I've set up some trading networks with for items I need. The community has been great so far and the devs are very communicative on what they are working on, on almost a daily basis.
I look forward to seeing where the game goes from here, but it does need a lot of love and content added still, but the foundation they have now is great IMO and I can't wait to see what they add next.
I love building and am up to level 26 carpentry and some of the learned item progression needs tweaking, but I've enjoyed it a lot.
The group for the most part I run with is pretty good to be around, I've enjoyed BS'ing with them in Discord and I've met several people in the game that I've set up some trading networks with for items I need. The community has been great so far and the devs are very communicative on what they are working on, on almost a daily basis.
I look forward to seeing where the game goes from here, but it does need a lot of love and content added still, but the foundation they have now is great IMO and I can't wait to see what they add next.