Reply With QuoteWhoa.
Holy shit... I just heard about this game http://www.atitd.com and it made me feel extremely anxious... it incorporates a lot of things I've been harping on over the last few years. I'll be downloading the demo sometime over the next couple days and I'll tell you guys how it goes. Finally... a MMOG I'm excited about... it's been so long.
What this game looks like right now is a mini-game... I don't consider it a fully fledged game but what I'm going to look at is how it works and how WELL it works. If it works well those elements (player creation, non-kill game parameters, player skill not character skill) should continue into future more multi-faceted games.
I just don't believe I'm seeing this. I thought it was going to be a couple years away at least. Well, enough of my optimism that may not pan out. Time to see things up close and personal.
Whoa.
No doubt.Originally Posted by xahlt
Damn... I really have to avoid 2.5 month periods away from the internet in the future ;).
The old atitd thread seems to have died, so I'll end my anonymous reign of terror and pipe in that yes, this game is fantastic.
Burnout is very possible and very common if you try to build every building, learn every skill, and pass every test. But if you can handle the idea of not getting to be a baseball player and an astronaut and the world's greatest lover, or if you can just take a day off every now and then from this game, you'll be fine.
I try to hold my gameplay down to about 20 hours per week, and there's really no time in there for other games. Last week I picked up Tropico 2, which looks great. But after playing it for half an hour, I started thinking about how I could be rotting flax and making glass rods instead.
24 hours of free game time before you have to pay anything, no startup cost, and $14 a month. Not bad, guess I'll try it out.
Gentlemen, may I remind you that you cannot murder people in this game? AM I GETTING THROUGH TO YOU PEOPLE?
I had fun with this for about 2.5 weeks. Played a lot more of this for $15 than I played of disappointing Freelancer...which was about $45 or something.
You can vote that their sculptures are eyesores. That hurts.
Yeah! I had an awesome sculpture titled "Samson and Delilah" that featured a temple made of dried grass stalks that was in the process of collapsing and that featured a green grass "Samson" putting all his weight onto one of the columns that was buckling.You can vote that their sculptures are eyesores. That hurts.
A fearful grass Delilah watched on in horror as the husband she betrayed brought marble death upon the heads of all present.
This was a masterpiece of ATITD sculpture, but at the time I tore it down it had like 13 eyesore 5 interesting.
:evil:
I hope you are not trying to advise people toward or away from this game without a preface as to your unique play style.
SpoofyChop enjoyed this MMP game (which all but requires community involvement to advance) as a single player game. Those damn multiple players kept getting in his way it seems. Somehow he even formed a "single player" - multiplayer guild.
Now you may proceed with your debate about whether ATITD is worthy of your time with all of the facts necessary to make said decision.
( :wink: )
Yeah! And we were on a roll too until I quit unexpectedly!
There's always that one guild-member that is a nuisance to all the others.. :/
[rant topic hijack on]
For the love of all things good and holy, Freelancer was NOT THAT BAD! You make is sound like walking over hot coals or something and bitch about it at every turn. Give it a rest. It isn't like it was MOO3.
[/rant topic hijack off]
-- Xaroc
Hehe.
[rant topic hijack on]
For the love of all things good and holy, Freelancer was NOT THAT BAD! You make is sound like walking over hot coals or something and bitch about it at every turn. Give it a rest. It isn't like it was MOO3.
[/rant topic hijack off]
-- Xaroc
Yeah, but it's kind of like the Phantom Menace. It was hyped up so much and it obviously had a lot of potential, but in the end it really failed to be anything more than an "also-ran" space game.
So you're right. It's not that bad.
But it's terrible.
It's a paradox.
But you! Are you one of the developers or something? My beating of teh ded h0rse really has you steamed! :D
I've played about 9 hours of this game so far (I go by my classic handle Ananke there), and I'll share some thoughts.
My initial reaction to the website was correct. This is a mini-game incorporating very exciting elements that hopefully will be brought to other, more encompassing MMOGs. The biggest disappointment people will have is to be under the impression they are getting into a full game.
I look at this game as an experiment to see how these elements work in a game context. I very much like the realism present in the craft system. Its exciting to me to see how different geographical areas develop differently based on availability of resources. Its absolutely huge to have realistic travel (no teleportation) and it introduces what I've longed for for a long time in MMOGs... Localism. Since no death is the closest thing to my preferred system of permanent death, its interesting to note the repercussions of a no death system.
I think its very cool to have art generated from manufactured parts. And when the world is as barren as this one is, these silly art projects are actually the visual *highlight*.
I haven't gotten into the "tests" stuff much... I'm still seeing new things in the crafts system (recently made a true kiln and a student's loom).
I like the one-year reset the developers have planned. Many other web-based games have been doing this for a long time and it allows for easy changes made to the system which cannot be done with a no-reset policy.
Here are a few proposed design improvements to this game. Some of them will be familiar to those of you who have read my previous comments on MMOGs...
World size adjusted for population:
Autoduel back in 1985 is my inspiration for this. I'm not a big fan of lots of servers. Multiple servers are fine but the goal should be for lag and population peaks to not be a problem technically. Multiple servers should be strictly for the existence of different rule-sets (essentially, different games). Within a single server the world-size should be adjusted to maintain a desired population density. As long as the game is designed this way from day one, I don't see substantial technical issues arising.
Serious Localism:
ATitD has elements of Localism, but its missing some elements. First and foremost has to be the introduction of more Private realities than are found in Guilds and by physical and social context. Having to run everywhere is a great step, but notice that INDOOR or RESTRICTED locations are pretty much non-existent (barring things like tents and chests, which are highly limited). Why not have cities with citizens and outsiders who are not allowed access unless they desire to be so and prove themselves worthy? The cities would be player run of course.
Less Designer Help:
I want the designers to create the world (then heavily modifiable by players) and NOT tell the players how to interact with it. The players should learn by trial and error, and most importantly by communication with each other (telling each other their successes and thus spreading them). The designer pre-set one touch accumulate resource buttons for example I'm not a fan of, although I'm fine with enabling macros for players to set up their *own* version. Its still a technical issue, but having the world be more useable (more interactivity options) would be nice.
As a desire for "more designer help", I think its fairly atrocious that the in-game Map cannot be annotated. I'm not a fan of in-game maps in MMOGs in the first place, but if you're going to have one at least do it right.
Better world features:
The world is barren and uneventful. You call *that* a University?. Where are all of the animals? The scale is screwed up too... hills are puny and rivers are narrow. To an extent the developers probably see all of this as a feature and not a problem.
Also, realism has been sacrificed in resource accumulation. Its ludicrous for a tree to produce 2 wood periodically while retaining its physical form. As a matter of a dynamic world the world should be changeable by the players. If the designers are worried about deforestation then they should give players the ability to plant trees (once the method is discovered by players anyway).
Here are a few additions that would turn this mini-game into a full-fledged game...
The ability to die (permanent death).
The ability to reproduce.
The ability to kill.
Greater ability to produce private reality.
High-quality NPCs (humans and animals).
Much less barren world with much more interactivity.
How would that work? When your avatar dies, would the game CD violently propel itself out of the tray, buzzsawing straight through your jugular?The ability to die (permanent death).
By way of thrum-clicking the "Imagination" icon on the lower right hand corner of the mana bar.Greater ability to produce private reality.
Since you haven't managed to master the gameplay of reproduction in real life, Brian, do you really think you'll succeed any better in a less interactive version with a clunkier interface?The ability to reproduce.
DrCrypt could you please link me back to the previous thread in which Koontz pissed in YOUR cornflakes? I don't understand the vitriol...
Brian Koontz is my troll. I can be as nasty to myself as I want to be, thank you very much.DrCrypt could you please link me back to the previous thread in which Koontz pissed in YOUR cornflakes? I don't understand the vitriol...
The fact that violence is impossible in the game is one of its great strengths. It creates a very different game experience. Soloing and small guilds are very viable. If you want to kill stuff in an online game, there are plenty of other choices available.
Same thing with no NPCs. This is a design choice, and it's making for some great gaming. The fact that there's no designer-established currency has led to a really cool cooperative effort to create a backed currency. That's the kind of thing that wouldn't happen if there were scads of NPC shopkeepers and the like to handle this for players.
I am not one of the developers. I am just kind of surprised that anyone would repeated bash what is generally a decent game. If it were Diakatana or Ultima 9 or WW2 online I could see it but the game was hardly a disaster.
-- Xaroc
To clarify, DrCrypt adopted me into his troll family. I didn't request it. I like to avoid thinking about who the other family members are.
Yeah, but you just proved my point. I'll tell you why.
I LOVED Ultima 9. I played it after the final patch (probably about a year later) and it was super fun.
So whether something is a disaster or not is either
a) your own personal subjective opinion
or
b) the collective opinions of a bunch of people who all agree with each other and manage to drown out the people who hold the oppositve view
Neither of which are objective measures (I'm not talking about revenue remember, just "disastrousness".)
So even though it was an ok game, it was still a disaster and it annoyed me a great deal. (Apparently the way Ultima 9 annoyed you! :-) )
So I deny your premise and I'm claiming that Ultima 9 rocked and Freelancer is teh tr@5h.
Incidentally, EB is only going to give me $12 for my copy of Freelancer.
:(
I want some of the elements of ATitD to go into a game with death and killing. I really don't like your attitude of "seperate but equal" where one game (ATitD) is only fun if you don't like killing and marauding berserker games are only fun if you like being a marauding berserker. What happens then is the RPG MMOG genre will stagnate as has happened over the last decade.
Death and killing are very social. In a game that claims to be all about the social, you've gotta have death and killing. I absolutely agree that within the game design death and killing have to be *controlled*... I'm all for making the marauding berserker a rare thing. Part of the control lies in permanent death (where players will be much more excited about staying alive than in today's pathetic InstaResurrection games) and part lies in enabling the players control over their environment (such as setting laws and penalties for breaking the law).
We are in agreement on the currency issue... player creation and control is key and the currency (among most other things) should be generated by the players.
The idea behind NPCs is that in a realistic world players won't want to be bored. Even if you're a janitor in real life you won't want to be one in-game (usually). So the idea is to have a realistic world with realistic actions, but have NPCs be able to assume any role. The NPC is coded in a certain way (say as an Innkeeper) and the PC can compete for that job, take it over (at which time the NPC disappears), but if the PC fails to maintain the minimum job requirements he's kicked out and the NPC pops back into existence. And the existence of the job itself is tied to the physical construct of the Inn.
I agree that ATitD is not at a level of realism necessary for NPCs to be critically important. My point with respect to ATitD is that the world is barren and has to be made denser with features. That problem would be somewhat solved with my "adjust the world size to fit the number of players".
I know everything is opinion when it comes to these things just your persistance when it came to this matter just rubbed me the wrong way. I apologize for going off on you. Feel free to trash freelancer some more in other random threads I will try to restrain myself from jumping through the monitor and slapping you silly. ;)Yeah, but you just proved my point. I'll tell you why.
I LOVED Ultima 9. I played it after the final patch (probably about a year later) and it was super fun.
So whether something is a disaster or not is either
a) your own personal subjective opinion
or
b) the collective opinions of a bunch of people who all agree with each other and manage to drown out the people who hold the oppositve view
Neither of which are objective measures (I'm not talking about revenue remember, just "disastrousness".)
So even though it was an ok game, it was still a disaster and it annoyed me a great deal. (Apparently the way Ultima 9 annoyed you! :-) )
So I deny your premise and I'm claiming that Ultima 9 rocked and Freelancer is teh tr@5h.
Incidentally, EB is only going to give me $12 for my copy of Freelancer.
:(
BTW, I am playing Ultima 9 at the moment as well (got the collectors edition for $13 from my local EB) and enjoying it. I am just saying when U9 was released it was a disaster of the highest possible preportions.
-- Xaroc
Hey! Don't be so reasonable! That doesn't make for good flame wars.I know everything is opinion when it comes to these things just your persistance when it came to this matter just rubbed me the wrong way. I apologize for going off on you. Feel free to trash freelancer some more in other random threads I will try to restrain myself from jumping through the monitor and slapping you silly. ;)Yeah, but you just proved my point. I'll tell you why.
I LOVED Ultima 9. I played it after the final patch (probably about a year later) and it was super fun.
So whether something is a disaster or not is either
a) your own personal subjective opinion
or
b) the collective opinions of a bunch of people who all agree with each other and manage to drown out the people who hold the oppositve view
Neither of which are objective measures (I'm not talking about revenue remember, just "disastrousness".)
So even though it was an ok game, it was still a disaster and it annoyed me a great deal. (Apparently the way Ultima 9 annoyed you! :-) )
So I deny your premise and I'm claiming that Ultima 9 rocked and Freelancer is teh tr@5h.
Incidentally, EB is only going to give me $12 for my copy of Freelancer.
:(
BTW, I am playing Ultima 9 at the moment as well (got the collectors edition for $13 from my local EB) and enjoying it. I am just saying when U9 was released it was a disaster of the highest possible preportions.
-- Xaroc
Hehe.
Anyway, I understand what you're saying and all. I'm just being contrary.
Have fun with U9!
WANNA PARTIIIIIE?
Um.....what?WANNA PARTIIIIIE?
So have you played U9 or haven't you? Or is that "final patch" you mentioned actually the fan patch that completely rewrote the story?
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