First impressions after two days

Valkyrie

I can cut it short so far: I'm incredible impressed with what Xsyon is already. As a long time nomade coming from UO and AtitD spending years in Horizons, Vanguard and EQ2 while looking for a complex game that allowed as much freedom as possible I finally feel like I've arrived. Xsyon feels like a world where I am gripping about "problems" like "I want footprints in the snow" and "why can't I drink from the puddles that appear when it rains?".

Don't get me wrong, the game suffers every so often from lag spikes. Quite some actually on the weekends, but it is surprisingly player dependent, some in the same area are having no lag, some (low ping all) have up to 30 seconds lag with the same actions. So while they work on it and it becomes better it is a puzzling experience and can be frustrating. It crashs often when you use fullscreen so windowed mode is important. The running animation looks odd and the armor is not the most sexy on the planet.

But if you can overlook this then a world awaits you, a true world, where you can take a shovel and dig holes or flatten the land, build stone walls or palisades or tents after you logged down the trees. And careful, leave the stumps in so new trees can grow back! Where you can build tools from stone and wood and grass, the grass disappears while you harvest it but slowly grows back from the sides you left untouched. The trees fall and you can use them for rough bridges or more elaborate buildings. The garbage heaps of the previous (our) civilization are a precious and limited ressource for metal, cloth, leather and plastics, so you better collect the scraps soon (the ground changes back to the underlying ressource like soil or stone when you empty a spot for good) and secure them for your tribe. As there are little ways to obtain these precious screws and nails for a while! Salvaging the ground can bring some items forward but you never know what you find, it might be bottle caps and human bones and dollar bills and more of this useless junk.

People organize in tribes, the tribe claims land by placing a totem. Inside the tribes territory - which expands with each member - the people and items and buildings so far as safe. This will change in the future but currently we have a safe time to get things started. Outside anyone can attack you, loot you. So far it is quite civilized after a few ganker showing up because ... if you ruined your name, you ruined your name and trade and cooperation is quite important. Still better make sure you have weapons and are trained in fight or perception so you can see who might sneak up on you in stealth mode. Or you stay close to your tribes land. And practise your running skill.

The game is skill based so what you do is what improves. While you make items (point and click but many ingredients), you learn new recipes. Salvaging can yield new recipes as well. There is a big amount of items already in the game and more are constantly added. There is hunger and thirst and you loose weight when not eating. Thirst decreases your skilling speed it seems. You have stamina that defines how much energy you have left for moving or doing things. Increasing your run or climbing skill decreases the stamina needed and increased the speed. The world has a dynamic weather system with 3D clouds. When it rains, puddles build on the ground which become slowly bigger. When it snows the earth is slowly covered in snow. The wild life moves around freely - unfortunately there is some AI "bug", they have all run away from the player territories of into the green mist (the area with high radiation that kills player slowly if one goes there). Basically the AI works well but is unfortunate at the moment.

Combat is still weird at the moment and a special dev was hired who is supposed to create blade-and-mount combat system as replacement. We will see how that plays out but with what they have managed so far I'm optimistic. The main dev logs in quite often, talks, is very attentive and open for peoples suggestions and gives you the feeling of both players and development going together into the same direction. This does not seem like a "This is what you get, deal with it!" situation at all.

Basically after playing countless MMO's that were supposed to be AAA and backed by major funding Xsyon is the first game that feels like way more then a game - which nobody of the big players ever managed to do.

Worstluck

Thanks for the post, enjoyed reading it.  Yeah there are some issues, but it is getting better.  It seems they are working quite tirelessly to get everything working properly.  The animal AI is the only thing annoying me right now.  They made the AI too good almost lol, the animals keep running around from us. 

 

I disagree though about the armor.  I've got my leather crafting pretty high, and some it is pretty bad ass looking

Shadanwolf

Thanks for the post. Please keep us updated.I would hope to try the game when it settles down.

eoweth

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Originally posted by Valkyrie

Combat is still weird at the moment and a special dev was hired who is supposed to create blade-and-mount combat system as replacement. We will see how that plays out but with what they have managed so far I'm optimistic.

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Is development, from scratch apparently, of a combat system something you should start after the launch of your game?

jeremyjodes

 the fun for me would being able to be attacked outside of my safe area. I could see it now your camp or whatever surrounded by hordes of half naked humans wanting your stuff lol! "give me that dam loin cloth bro!"

 

thats just the best gonna watch this one close.