Hands On with Alpha

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Hands On with Alpha

Hero’s Song, Pixelmage Games’ first title as a newly founded studio under John Smedley, went into Alpha 3 and early access for IndieGoGo backers late last night. Our own Bill Murphy was one such backer and eagerly jumped into the game this morning for a first hands-on session with the game.

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Ikeda

Thanks Bill. Cautiously following this. Smed always worries me. Is this going to be a True MMO (on their servers) or is it running more like a Minecraft where you host your own?

BillMurphy

Ikeda said:

Thanks Bill. Cautiously following this. Smed always worries me. Is this going to be a True MMO (on their servers) or is it running more like a Minecraft where you host your own?

Running your own, though I feel like Smed said at some point the wanted to run a few of their own worlds too. The idea though is that each world is unique, so really there are no "official" worlds. 

BillMurphy

DMKano said:

Ikeda said:

Thanks Bill. Cautiously following this. Smed always worries me. Is this going to be a True MMO (on their servers) or is it running more like a Minecraft where you host your own?

max number of players is 200, you can host or join other players servers.



they have no plans to make it a 5000 players per hosted server MMO AFAIK

Accurate!

Skitarius

I wonder, is it possible to create monotheistic worlds, or is a full pantheon of gods required?

BillMurphy

Skitarius said:

I wonder, is it possible to create monotheistic worlds, or is a full pantheon of gods required?

The least possible is 3, plus one Underworld god.

JB88

Backed it on IG and just played Hero's Song for @ 60 minutes. It has some issues for now but this game has HUGE upside!

Ikeda

BillMurphy said:

Skitarius said:

I wonder, is it possible to create monotheistic worlds, or is a full pantheon of gods required?

The least possible is 3, plus one Underworld god.

Ok, so hemmed in on Gods but how does the World creation go? For example, you said yours was High Fantasy. Are they all swords/shields or are some more futuristic? Do they have other races other than dwarves/elves/etc?

200 isn't a bad number. In essence, a guild can host their own server to play on. Never really reaches the MM though as you'll be joining rando servers to meet new people.

Konfess

@BillMurphy said, "Yes, getting to Hero Status should be a hard thing to do, but getting to level 50 perhaps shouldn’t be."  When people ask, Why are games dumbed down and everything is becoming easy mode?

I have no inside info on this game but I feel this is how it was designed.  If anyone wants to get to Level 50, this is what I think you should do.  Form a party of Five or more.  There are several classes (15?), try to have a diverse group (Looks to support the Trinity).  Look for Warriors, Wizards, Rogues, and Priests.

Then realize this is a Crafting game.  Specialize your crafting Mining, Smithing, Cooking, Skinning, LeatherWorking, Tailoring, Alchemy, First Aid, and whatever other crafting can be found.  Start harvesting and working on crafting.  You don't want to run out of arrows, and you want to craft better gear and magical items.  So cut down Trees, mine Ore, skin Hides, and pick Flowers.  There are over 10.000 items in game, many will be better than the gear you entered the world with.  Many will allow characters to survive longer.  Discover what can be crafted and start crafting.

How do you find dungeons?  You don't do it as a right out of the box newbie, you level up and qualify for dungeons first.  Once you have crafted and acquired a stockpile of consumables, new and better gear.  Look for rats, and Kill Ten of Them.  Maybe find any mobs that look like easy kills, possibly sheep, rabbits, chickens, cows, and pigs.  Hopefully they will give Xp and be harvestable and or lootable for crafting and items.

A band of Goblin Warriors may look like fun, but any experienced RPGer would know they spell certain death for a new solo player.  The real secret, this is a survival game.  Treat every encounter as a raid, meaning bring as many players as you can.  And as many classes as you can.

The Hero's Song Wiki has no real information.  Please let us know what are the starting class skills?  What are the Starting Crafting recipes?  What items can be harvested and with what tools?  Are there race starting areas or does each character spawn at a random spot in this vast world?  Is there any kind of you are here indicator on the map, so that two or more players can coordinate and meet up?  There is no NDA, so information should be safe to share.

BillMurphy

Ok, so hemmed in on Gods but how does the World creation go? For example, you said yours was High Fantasy. Are they all swords/shields or are some more futuristic? Do they have other races other than dwarves/elves/etc?



200 isn't a bad number. In essence, a guild can host their own server to play on. Never really reaches the MM though as you'll be joining rando servers to meet new people.

That was just me talking about the dwarves/elves/humans with a lot of magic in the world. They're all medieval fantasy in setting.

Frammshamm

Backers should be treated like investors IMO. Would shore up a lot of scam loopholes with shitty kickstarters from Russia. It would also default articles like these to basically being advertisements by people with vested interests in the game doing well. Its not quite a direct investor relationship, but its over-correction in the right direction.

CrazKanuk

Frammshamm said:

Backers should be treated like investors IMO. Would shore up a lot of scam loopholes with shitty kickstarters from Russia. It would also default articles like these to basically being advertisements by people with vested interests in the game doing well. Its not quite a direct investor relationship, but its over-correction in the right direction.

I'm not sure I understand. So your opinion is that the article is slanted because MMORPG.com has some vested interest in seeing the game succeed? And your suggestion to fix that is to have people be investors? That logic sounds a little backwards to me. It's a little bit like saying that in order to solve the race problem we should all be equally racist to everyone of a race different than our own. 

If you feel like the article is somehow skewed, feel free to point it out. It should also be noted that any article that is paid for on these forums is identified as such. So whether you choose to believe the article is objective or not is really personal opinion. The great thing about that is that is the general premise of forums, so feel free to express your opinion. 

PS Fig actually allows people to "invest" in crowdfunded projects and see a return. It seems like there is a set maximum return, but it's a step in the direction of investments through crowdfunding anyway. We'll see how that path turns out. 

SEANMCAD

CrazKanuk said:

Frammshamm said:

Backers should be treated like investors IMO. Would shore up a lot of scam loopholes with shitty kickstarters from Russia. It would also default articles like these to basically being advertisements by people with vested interests in the game doing well. Its not quite a direct investor relationship, but its over-correction in the right direction.

I'm not sure I understand. So your opinion is that the article is slanted because MMORPG.com has some vested interest in seeing the game succeed? And your suggestion to fix that is to have people be investors? That logic sounds a little backwards to me. It's a little bit like saying that in order to solve the race problem we should all be equally racist to everyone of a race different than our own. 

If you feel like the article is somehow skewed, feel free to point it out. It should also be noted that any article that is paid for on these forums is identified as such. So whether you choose to believe the article is objective or not is really personal opinion. The great thing about that is that is the general premise of forums, so feel free to express your opinion. 

PS Fig actually allows people to "invest" in crowdfunded projects and see a return. It seems like there is a set maximum return, but it's a step in the direction of investments through crowdfunding anyway. We'll see how that path turns out. 

you really should create a thread on marketing in the gaming industry, its obviously something you have a lot of questions about and I would be intrested to learn how you think it all works.

Frammshamm

@CrazKanuk: This article being slanted is not the driving concern behind investor classification. The driving factor is clearly the ambiguous and shady projects that raise money only to close down 2 years later with little to no progress other than some demo'd U4 assets strung together loosely. The side benefit would be that articles like these would be seen by readers as "opinions with vested monetary interests". This article is clearly not an ad, but its equally unclear that its not unbiased.

Iselin

Any thoughts on mob and NPC AI in this early alpha stage? I know that Dave Mark has worked on this with Smed... just curious if there is any noticeably better AI.

SEANMCAD

to me the game looks certifiably ridiculous and why sites are giving this game as much coverage as they are is something I can not readily explain

Copperfield

anything produced or posted by Mr. Smedley goes straight into the trashbin

Thanks for your understanding

CrazKanuk

Frammshamm said:

@CrazKanuk: This article being slanted is not the driving concern behind investor classification. The driving factor is clearly the ambiguous and shady projects that raise money only to close down 2 years later with little to no progress other than some demo'd U4 assets strung together loosely. The side benefit would be that articles like these would be seen by readers as "opinions with vested monetary interests". This article is clearly not an ad, but its equally unclear that its not unbiased.

I think this is very much a 2009 concern. I think that when crowdfunding was first popularized it was very much like what you're describing. However, in recent years consumers have become much more educated and much more critical. I think that the fact that John Romero has had 2 wildly unsuccessful Kickstarter campaigns should serve to support that. 

As far as the article at hand goes, if you watched the original Indiegogo video, it definitely describes a game that I think many people here want. I'd imagine that could create quite a bit of hype. However, the article itself actually downplays that and is actually critical about it. In particular, the difficulty and having to create character after character because of permadeath, after only hours of playing it. While he isn't outright critical of this feature, I can see where this might get less praise in a review than an alpha preview if you've been playing for 40 hours and have not managed to create a character who has passed level 10. 

Also, at this time, you can't even back this project any more, that I found. So I don't see why there would be any reason for someone to hype this game at such an early stage. Also, there will be plenty of other players who can give different views, not to mention media outlets. So there should be plenty of time to get a multitude of perspective. 

logicbomb82

I have enjoyed my time so far but man is it hard. I wish they had dedicated server files out. I am sure they will release them soon.

lindhsky

I am no fan of permadeath but I am a huge fan of games being hard. I am also a fan of games with many classes. So not sure what to think about this one. I don't care much about the Graphics as long as the gameplay feels smooth and the game has a lot of features.

I might take a look at this one day.

lahnmir

Thanks for the article Bill! There was only one word I needed from the entire piece, 'fun.' That was all I needed to know. Will be playing as soon as it hits Steam, early access or not. Also, hard as nails is the icing on the cake, give me a challange!

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

SEANMCAD

lindhsky said:

I am no fan of permadeath but I am a huge fan of games being hard. I am also a fan of games with many classes. So not sure what to think about this one. I don't care much about the Graphics as long as the gameplay feels smooth and the game has a lot of features.

I might take a look at this one day.

the graphics are absolutely completely card carrying awful.

as someone who grew up during the 8 bit era this bit of nostalgia for that style of graphics is some card carrying bullshit. Project Zombiod even looks better.

this is of course my opinion

Tiller

SEANMCAD said:

lindhsky said:

I am no fan of permadeath but I am a huge fan of games being hard. I am also a fan of games with many classes. So not sure what to think about this one. I don't care much about the Graphics as long as the gameplay feels smooth and the game has a lot of features.



I might take a look at this one day.

the graphics are absolutely completely card carrying awful.

as someone who grew up during the 8 bit era this bit of nostalgia for that style of graphics is some card carrying bullshit. Project Zombiod even looks better.

this is of course my opinion

It is your opinion, yes. A few games that some would say look considerably worse or old graphics wise yet have stayed on a top list on Steam for months.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/413150/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/294100/

People worried about graphics miss out on some great gameplay in these games, yet complain about how awful the triple A game they bought is because these big budget studios blew their budget making the game look pretty and forgot the fun part. Not always is this the case, but who knows what the future holds for this game, It's worth watching though.

SEANMCAD

Tiller said:

SEANMCAD said:

lindhsky said:

I am no fan of permadeath but I am a huge fan of games being hard. I am also a fan of games with many classes. So not sure what to think about this one. I don't care much about the Graphics as long as the gameplay feels smooth and the game has a lot of features.



I might take a look at this one day.

the graphics are absolutely completely card carrying awful.

as someone who grew up during the 8 bit era this bit of nostalgia for that style of graphics is some card carrying bullshit. Project Zombiod even looks better.

this is of course my opinion

It is your opinion, yes. A few games that some would say look considerably worse or old graphics wise yet have stayed on a top list on Steam for months.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/413150/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/294100/

People worried about graphics miss out on some great gameplay, then complain about how awful the game is because some triple A company blew their budget making the game look pretty. Not always is this the case, but who knows what the future holds for this game, It's worth watching though.

your speaking to someone who has likely put more hours into Wurm Online then any other game in his full gaming career and whose favorite game of all time is Kerbal Space Program

but this game is a full force unadulterated immersion killer

Tiller

To each his own. We will see  if this game can stand on it's own once it hits Steam. You think people around here are hard to please, Steam is the real test and the one I'm waiting for.

SEANMCAD

Tiller said:

To each his own. We will see  if this game can stand on it's own once it hits Steam. You think people around here are hard to please, Steam is the real test and the one I'm waiting for.

yeah I mean a classic example is RimWorld. Popular, deep, right up my ally game play wise but the graphics just kill it for me. But like I say I play Wurm Online and people make fun of the graphics all the time but there is a limit to my tolerance.