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Project: Gorgon Alpha - Play Today
Ratero
Member UncommonPosts: 440
I saw this game on Steam and thought I would give it a go. It is sorta a cross between EQ and Asheron's Call. If you liked games like that then you will like this game. Granted it is still in Alpha but it is very smooth and there is a good bit of content already in the game.
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Project: Gorgon
Developers: Eric Heimburg and Sandra Powers
Wiki: http://project-gorgon.wikia.com
Web Page: http://projectgorgon.com/
Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1045484633/project-gorgon-a-new-approach-to-mmos
Steam Greenlight: steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=306606334
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GorgonMMO
Project: Gorgon is still considered an Alpha Game which has been in development for I think 3 or 4 years now and is being created on the Unity Engine by a very small group of people. The Head Developer is Eric Heimburg who used to be one of the Developers on Asheron’s Call and Sandra Powers who also worked on Asheron’s call and other games. The game has been available for download for quite some time but has flown so far under the radar no one knows much about it. You can download the client and either play as a Guest or you can actually register to play. In either case the game is free to play. The game does not feel like an Alpha game to me at all, and I would gladly pay a monthly fee right now if one were available. One more thing… Eric did a post in Reddit and he mentioned that they do not think they will ever have a need to wipe the character database. They may wipe skills or revamp them so the players may have to relearn them but from that post it seems that you will be able to keep your existing character at launch.
The graphics are similar to what you would find in an early version of Asheron’s call. While the graphics are nice they are not as good as what we would normally see in a modern MMO. What makes this game shine is not the pretty graphics but what lies underneath. The entire game is one big sandbox and it promises to never hold your hand. Once you emerge from the Newbie Cave it’s totally up to you in which direction you set out for, but most people head for the town of Serbule which can be seen in the distance. There are currently three zones in the game in which you can explore: Serbule, Eltibule, Kur Mountains. The Kur Mountains is only intended for a high skilled character with a lot of Endurance since once you step foot in the Mountains you will begin to take cold damage which will reduce your manna, hit points and your armor rating until you stand near a nice warm fire, but it is well worth it to travel there.
In the game you’ll be able to learn several different combat skills and you can use any two of them at the same time. Currently the combat skills are: Animal Handler (Current pets are: Rat and Cats), Archery, Battle Chemistry, Fire Magic, Mentalism, Necromancy, Psychology, Staff, Sword and Unarmed. Want to use Animal Handler / Mentalist? Unarmed / Sword? Necromancer / Fire Magic? Why not! As long as you have unlocked those skills you can mix and match them up as you please.
You can become a Beast by either drinking a potion or by being Cursed. Playing as a Beast you will gain access to that beasts skill set. However, you will then be limited as to which of the normal skill sets you will have access to while in that particular beast form. You can play the entire game as a Cow (Cows currently have their own armor sets, weapons and skill line), Deer, Pig, Spider or Wear-wolf (Warning: If you become a Wear-wolf you can never be cured but it does have its perks)... OR all the above, it’s totally up to you. As a Wear-wolf you will be able to transform from your normal self to a wear-wolf and back to your normal self when you like EXCEPT for the time around the real world full-moon in which case you will be locked into you’re your wear-wolf form. There is a Druid skill line currently in development and will soon be released when the new zone goes live.
If you like to craft you can learn more crafting skills than you can shake a stick at. Currently in game you can learn: Alchemy, Armor Patching, Art History, Blacksmithing (recipes are not out as yet), Butchering, Calligraphy, Carpentry, Cheesemaking, Cooking, First Aid, Fishing, Fletching, Foraging, Gardening, Geology, Leatherworking, Lore, Mining, Mycology, Skinning, Surveying, Tailoring, Tanning and Textile Creation. At one point or another you will have a need for most of the items that come from these trade skills. You can even craft your own gear with magic effects on them from the most basic to the rarest of the rare if you have the skill and the recipes to create them. Items are not binding so once you get done with an item either sell it to a vendor or give it to someone else as an upgrade; it’s up to you.
While you’re still wet behind the ears you’ll find that it can be hard to make a bit of coin from selling items to the NPC’s and will most likely barely tolerate you even being in their shop let alone buy or sell items to you. You need to gain faction with them by doing them “favors”, “giving them gifts” and you can also raise your faction with them by “hanging out” with them when you’re off-line. As your standing raises you’ll find that they will have more and more money to purchase the items you have to sell. They may even teach you a new skill, give you some storage space in their shop, allow you to actually buy and sell from them or allow you to put items up on consignment in their shop so you’ll make a bit more money than if you sold it directly to the NPC.
When talking to a NPC and you select “Small Talk” you will find that each of them have certain things that they “love”, “like” or “hate”. By “giving them gifts” that they “love” or “like” you will increase your faction with that NPC. This gift giving removes the vast majority of items from the game. For the most part, the gifts given to the NPCs are all quite useful in other ways so you’ll need to make a decision if you want to gain favor with that NPC, if you want to increase a certain skill, craft with it, sell it for a profit or just give it to someone in need.
One thing to keep in mind; if you kill the Chickens running around town where the Serbule NPCs can “see” you then you will lose faction with that NPC and they will yell out that they saw you do that and call you names, or say that your such a brave hunter for being able to kill a Chicken. Also take your time and listen to some of the NPC conversations…
While gear is always important in games, the gear in Project: Gorgon is not that hard to come by if you’re not too picky. People give out gear to those that need it and if they don’t want to sell the item to a Vendor they can put the item inside the towns Community Chest for 1g. Once an item is inside the Community Chest, anyone else can open up the chest and see what others have put into it. If they find an item that they can use all they need to do is pay a few gold and they can take that item out of the Community Chest and use it. Right now, the random affect generator on magic gear is in dire need of a makeover so you may have some bazaar combinations of effects on that item or it may be just what you’re looking for.
You would think that since none of the gear or items “bind” to your character that there would be a glut of goods just laying around since everyone would be fully geared. But that is not the case here. Due to the randomness of the item generator a lot of the items have odd combinations of magic effects on them. Therefore people will either take their unwanted goods and use them to increase their faction with certain NPCs, sell the item, give the item away to those that could use it or put it in side the towns Community Chest.
While there is PvP in the game it is totally consensual and to join in you must imbibe a PvP potion which will flag you for PvP for 1 hour. In the Kur Mountains there is also a cellar you can climb down which is a PvP zone and I’ve heard of an Arena (I have not seen it) that allows PvP matches to occur there.
The Death penalty can be set to either Normal or Hard Core and I think you need to choose which one you want at character creation. If you die in Normal mode then you are offered two choices: “resurrect”, “enter the light”. If you “resurrect” then you leave a tombstone where you died and you’ll respawn at the area respawn point. If you “enter the light” you are taken to a small room with a portal in it in which case you can then take the portal and it will take you back to town. In Hard Core mode it works pretty much the same way except that you’ll break items when you die and you’ll have to repair them before they can be reused again. Also in Hard Core mode you will be a bit tougher and will have access to “hard core only” items. There may be more benefits for going Hard Core but I’m unaware of them at this time.
There are several dungeons in game already and parts of them will tax even the best of characters with the best gear possible. Some areas should only be explored by a Group of players while others can be soloed depending upon your mood. I think there is even a Raid dungeon but I have not been in it as yet so I know little about it other than hearing about it in chat. I should mention that loot is a “free for all” system in which anyone can loot a corpse and take the items but this may be changed in future updates.
Project: Gorgon seems small at first but once you start exploring and doing the quests you’ll soon think that the world is much larger and filled with many more things to do than you had first thought.
Project: Gorgon brings you back to the early days of games when there was a great community of helpful players and a brand new world to explore.
Comments
"This may hurt a little, but it's something you'll get used to. Relax....."
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Wizardry,
You may want to double check that. I read in their blog that they had an issue with 32 bit but that was a month or so ago.
Also I was told that one of the Orig Dev's for Asheron's Call is creating Project: Gorgon so it is no wonder that they look and feel quite a lot alike.
Ratero.
You have to go to the Greenlight section and then search for it there.
http://tagn.wordpress.com/2014/08/29/the-return-of-project-gorgon/
^-- an excellent article explaining why it's up to us fans to help get the word out.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Well this game snagged me for about 4-5 hours tonight/last night/whatever. Lot's to check out and discover. Really does bring back the old days to me...
"This may hurt a little, but it's something you'll get used to. Relax....."
One of the Devs was the original designers of Asheron's Call. I played it a few months back and it lacks a lot of meat but it will eventually get there. Sadly their kickstarter failed but they are plugging along and will get it right. I'll check back again next year though, still too unpolished.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
Your correct in that there FIRST Kickstarter failed. However, the link I posted is for the CURRENT Kickstarter. The Devs started a new Kickstarter a while ago and it really needs a ton of support form everyone that loves games like this. Please consider supporting this game. I went with a $125 pledge myself and while many may not be able to afford to support it to that extent any amount given in support is that much less that they need to get this off the ground.
Ratero.
I have no idea how this game isn't getting more attention. Is the press too busy putting out the fires they caused with Gamers Gate?
But yeah, the design for this game, and the FEELING I get from it (it is NOT talking down to me, and there are tons of little things to find everywhere that MATTER), it's so fresh. It feels like I'm right back in 2002 discovering MMOs for the first time ago.
SO many good new ideas.
You stay sassy!
It's sad that only the mega low budget games are the ones that have anything actually interesting going on in them.
Read the article I linked. It explains the issue very well.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
While you may like some and dislike others, that's neither here nor there. The above is a list of some of what Project: Gorgon is offering that other MMOs don't, some of which is already live in the current playable version.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
The first point is what I love...no AH....just things to buy discarded by others.
"This may hurt a little, but it's something you'll get used to. Relax....."
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
In the game there are several ways to obtain items besides the normal "go kill mob, strip mob naked, sell everything for coin" method. Each vendor in town may or may not even want to sell to you so you need to build up some faction with them before you can do so. Once they are willing to purchase / buy items from you then they may only be willing to buy certain things while other NPC's are willing to purchase other things. Get a bit more faction with them and then you can put some of your items up for consignment with that vendor so the vendor I think get's a small cut and you get the coin if the item sells. This is a good thing since right now vendors run out of coin quickly. Different vendors have different amounts of coin they can purchase your items with and if you have more faction then they will have more coin to purchase even more of your items. Some vendors will not even bother giving you a decent price for your items and when you see it in your "sell" window it will have a little gold dot on it which will tell you that other vendors may be willing to purchase that item for more money. It's up to you if you want to go ahead and sell it or go to a different vendor. As with anything the vendor will only pay so much for an item but will sell it so the vendor makes a profit. However, items are not that pricy and money is not that hard to come by so buying good items is not so much a cost issue but an issue of actually finding an item you would like to purchase. There are a lot of dynamics going on since you can pick any two skills you like and use them and most good gear requires you to have certain levels of different skills before you can use it.
You can also get some good items dirt cheap. In the towns they have a community chest. People can just sell their items for 1g and someone else can open the chest and if they see something they can use they can purchase it for about 8 or 9g or cheaper. I've seen everything from common white items to very rare yellow items in those chests.
This game does not hold your hand but gives you an opportunity to explore the world around you. Right now that world is small but there is a ton to do already. Tons of skills, crafts and factions to raise up and it take a good amount of time to do so. I'm really enjoying this game quite a bit and I would encourage anyone that liked Asheron's Call to give this game a go.
Ratero.
You forgot the feature I like most: the game has great immersion and is painfull in an old school way. Sometimes to a point that you just want to punch the game.
F.e. fighting through a dungeon to free a pixy and after you ran through every possible hallway because there is no icon on the map or "follow the arrow", just before you are there you die because of a stupid add and/or respawn. No ress, nothing you can do. You have to fight your way back to that room. And after a while you really start to hate those freaking goblin guards who walk by at the worst moments (but it feels so good to slaughter them once you are a bit stronger). Then you talk to the pixy about your reward and she says " well, you can get some Art History (skill) xp" and at that moment I was thinking the same as my char "WHAT? That is all?"
And after you are done with the quest and have gotten your Art History xp all you want to do is sell the loot you got for some nice coin but then that damn NPC doesnt want to talk to you because you are dirty so you have to wash yourself first. I mean, come on! I just fought through a dungeon, killed about 100 goblins, 30 bears, some skelletons and freed an ungrateful pixy.... give me a break! After all of that this cheap NPC still only wants to pay half for some of your stuff. So you sell what you can and wander off to look for another vendor who pays more while thinking "That is one NPC I will never make friends with".