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Roma Victor: Virtual World Review
sempiternal
Member UncommonPosts: 1,082
Roma Victor
An Authentic Iron-Age Virtual World
Roma Victor is innovative, a rough MMOG diamond among the onslaught of generic mass-market fantasy games disguised as MMOGs which are flooding the market today. Roma Victor is a game focused on the players and the community and not NPCs, quests and single-player, or developer created content; the likes of which has not been seen to this degree since the original Ultima Online virtual world. Roma Victor is a blank slate of unspoiled open wilderness land, a sandbox game where players are freely building the infrastructure, outposts, villages and towns - living in and helping to create the virtual world themselves. The players are also in control of and are creating much of the social, political and economic environments and rules, governing themselves, rather than the developers forcing rules upon the players with their coding. For many veteran MMOG Players, Community is the main reason to play an MMOG; not NPC content. For many veteran MMOG players, Roma Victor will be the MMOG to play.
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The Vision for Roma Victor is to re-create an historically authentic virtual world based on the bloody front-line conflict between Barbarians and the Roman Empire in Britannia. The game map is real world scale and historically based. The developers strive to make the combat realistic, quick and brutal, the outcome of which is influenced by character experience and player skill along with real-time strategy and tactics. The weapons and armor are historically authentic, effective and cost prohibitive; there is no "uber" powerful blessed or insured gear a player can buy and never lose, allowing him to unfairly dominate other players. A sword is a sword, although there are degrees of quality, all players may die from a well-landed blow. Most gear can be repaired, but eventually wears out. The crafting is difficult, time-consuming, highly detailed and historically authentic down to the raw materials, components, tools, and even the relative game-time required. For example here is an outline of the components required to build a small roundhouse in both real life and Roma Victor: Small Roundhouse.
Trees can be cut down, processed into boards and used in buildings and creating devices and tools. Clay can be gathered from rivers along with water, worked on a bench and then fired in kilns to create pottery, smithy molds or mixed with sand and straw to make bricks for construction of devices and buildings. Crops can be realistically sown in any fertile dirt, tended, harvested and processed into food and textiles. Ore can be mined, smelted in a furnace, melted and poured into a mold at a forge, pounded into weapons and tools at an anvil, and then sharpened on grinding stones. Even rocks can be gathered and chiseled into parts and used in making tools and devices. A current list of 185 planned skills is detailed here: Skills. Not all of them have been implemented yet, but many are. As the Roma Victor virtual world strives to be authentic, even the planned skill list is sure to grow in the future as the game becomes more realistic and diverse. The depth of Roma Victor is extraordinary, simply put, the combat in Roma Victor is more true to life than in any other MMOG and the crafting in Roma Victor is unparalleled, and this is only the beginning.
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At the highest levels of competition, Roma Victor is extremely social and political. Because there are very few limitations set upon the players by the game code and the developers, players have the freewill to act, organize and govern themselves. If a player disagrees with anothers actions, he cannot merely cry for developer support, he must deal with the player socially and politically in game or in the forums; with the exceptions of exploiting or abuse. Along with basic guild structure, there is an election system for every locality of the game. Any player citizen or freeman is capable of moving to any locality, inhabited or not, and being nominated and winning an election to become the ruling Magistrate, Lord, or Lady of the area. Rulers may only be removed from power through death or through another player challenging them in a new election. As a ruler, a player has limited powers; most of his strength comes from influencing the community he rules.
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However, Roma Victor does have some problems. Currently technical issues and manpower are holding Roma Victor back. Redbedlam, a small independent company of gamers, develops Roma Victor. They are frequently interactive with the community, responding personally and fixing and addressing issues as rapidly as other MMOGs as a result. But, like many new MMOGs, the game does still suffer from lag and bugs and some players experience intermittant crashes. Some players are enjoying the game regardless and have the patience and understanding to deal with such issues, but lag and game crashes are never fun. Players may wish to accept instances of lag in order to get a head start in the world, but this occasional lag is notably disruptive enough to combat and crafting when it occurs, that it must be solved before I can fully recommend the game for anyone interested. Redbedlam has stated that the lag issue is their top priority and has significantly reduced the lag in the past week with a new update. They also recently solved an issue that was causing some players to crash repeatedly. At the same time as they work on the lag and bugs, the developers are busy expanding and adding new content to the virtual world. As always, an MMOG is a work in progress, never complete, and this can be expected. The trade-off for a community oriented, innovative and creative independent development team is that the independent company cannot always solve problems by throwing money at them; which can also be a good thing depending upon how you look at it.
As an extremely open-ended virtual reality of player freewill, Roma Victor is a game that most players will either love or hate; it will not appeal to a general audience, nor does it try to. Roma Victor is not World of Warcraft. Roma Victor is intended for a mature audience* of experienced gamers. As such, the player-base of Roma Victor will undoubtedly grow from the sector of virtual reality and virtual world fans, scholars, the politically inclined, Roman and Britain history enthusiasts, and veteran and hardcore MMOG gamers.
*Terms and Conditions of Service; 2.2 Eligibility: Accounts are permitted only for adult individuals who are 18 years of age or older. We reserve the right to request proof of age at any time to verify that minors are not using the service. Failure to produce such proof of identification and age may lead to your account being suspended indefinitely or terminated.
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Author's perspective:
About six months ago I came to mmorpg.com in search of a realistic virtual world where the sword won the day. I was not satisfied with any of the "fake" mainstream fantasy MMOGs available that limit and confine the actions of players in strictly controlled and even sometimes "instanced" environments. As far as I am concerned, these types of MMOGs full of NPC content are more single-player than multiplayer and definitely not good examples of virtual worlds.
I still have fond memories of the first MMOG I played, Ultima Online, and the strong community and reasonably believable fantasy medieval virtual world I found there. As many veterans of MMOGs will agree, Ultima Online was once one of the greatest games ever; now mutated into just another corporate cow.
Anyway, after doing my research here and across the Internet, I only found a single MMOG worth my time to play, Roma Victor. I was not particularly interested in Romans and Barbarians and the game did look rough around the edges. However, Roma Victor did feature what I was most interested in - an immersive believeable virtual world of swords and armor, led by a team of programmers with a solid vision and commitment.
The release of the game has not gone smoothly and many player's shy away from and ridicule the realistic looking graphics and game play. I can understand this after MMOG players have had years of conditioning from playing games that make everything easy on a player and guide him along a set path through brightly colored cartoon-like graphics and far-out fantasy effects. But it's important to realize that the point of an MMOG is player interaction and the resulting community, not pretty graphics, NPC content or special effects. An MMOG can have the best graphics ever, but if player interaction is limited and the game is chock-full of NPC content, there's hardly a point to the game being Massive Multiplayer.
The community, interaction and realism is where Roma Victor stands out above all other MMOs and is the reason I have written this review to share my experience. If you are likewise interested in playing within an historically authentic virtual world with very little limits on what you can do; where you are not coaxed along through a series of NPC quests, levels and plotlines to keep you busy; where players and the community are the most important elements of the game; then don't waste your time, Roma Victor should be the first game you try.
However, keep in mind that getting into this game does not come easily, everything has it's price. Because of the complexity of this game and the technical issues, it does take some patience, reading and especially interaction with other players to successfully play. If you are easily frustrated or impatient then don't bother. If you want to get into the game quickly, join a guild the first day you login. I recommend spending at least a month or two learning and playing Roma Victor before judging your experience; there is no monthly fee.
Comments
From the very start it's incredibly clear that this is a partisan's view. I can't speak to the game itself as I haven't tried it, but calling this a review is really abusing the term.
It looks more like an Ad to me.
I think Roma Victor looks goofy to tell you the truth.
A Work in Progress.
Add Me
Nice try simpiternal, but the cat is already out of the bag. here
Roma Victor looks like Poo
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You see, every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You spread to an area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.-Mr.Smith
I do play the game, I like it and the 6.3 rating is about right for where it is at the moment, I hope to see that score improve greatly as the game delivers in the future.
For some players that like a sandbox style game with open PvP it is a diamond because lets face it these type of games are rare and not especially mass market. Although the amount of gamers that still worship UO means it may well have a bigger potential audience than people think.
It's different, the devs are great with the community and for trying to deliver something this ambitious in this way they get a pat on the back from me.
Benny......................................
Thats if you get past the shotty graphics and can deal with the unpolished mechanics that lack vastly compared to the things us lazy gamers have come to expect. Of course things have changed alot since beta but some of the implementations just seemed like cheap work arounds.
What it is, without a doubt, is a well written, well represented article by a fan and I certainly applaud you for that, it was well done.
But, calling this a review is quite plainlly missleading, insulting and wrong. Besides that, I enjoyed the read, happy your enjoying yourself.
Important Information regarding Posting and You
After watching those Rome victor PvP Movies that guy posted on here earlier....
I will have to pass or I just might shit my pants because of all the excitement rushing through my veins.
Neptus - FFXI - Pandemonium
Neptus - WoW - Detheroc
What the f*ck? If it was a pure free game i'd play it. Wait..no i wouldnt.
I see there are already quite a few posters here to call Roma Victor "poo" without even playing it.
Maybe that's the problem people are having here. I am not a promoter. You would like me to be because then I am easier to attack, but, I'm simply a player that came to mmorpg.com in search of a realistic virtual world, found one, played the game for about six months, wrote a review and am now backing up what I wrote. I hope that like-minded players find the same enjoyment as I do in a realistic virtual world like Roma Victor and that is the only interest I have in writing the review and discussing the game here.
If anything in my review is in error or not true, please point it out and I will be happy to correct it as soon as possible.
When I came to mmorpg.com I heard the same complaints about Roma Victor that have been discussed in this thread, but I decided to try the game anyway, what I found was the MMOG that is closest to what I was looking for, a realistic virtual world. The forums full of unwarranted attacks on the game from people that did not play the game were not helpful.
To get somewhere you have to know the coords, and run through endless emptyness till you might finally see a building in the distance.
Theres no challenge here or immersion, I'm sorry its nice for a school project but thats about it.
You can 'review' to you are blue in the face and your fingers fall off from overuse, who knows you might get some single cell organism to actually believe you... That is untill it Youtubes or watchs one of the 'INGAME' videos of that game that looks like it is 10 years(or more) behind the times. I won't even get into all the bugs and problems that have been reported about it. I think those videos were enough to prove my point.
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You see, every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You spread to an area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.-Mr.Smith
Well I was in beta from August 2005 so I have a fair idea what Im taling about.
I think the main thing RV suffers from is a gross misunderstanding (largely thanks to assumption) on the part of potential players about what this "simulation" is attempting to do.
I say simulation instead of game, because game is just not the word I would use to describe RV. Whe the developers prooudly announced they were making a simulation of ancient roman life I think many folks concluded, "Roman MMO" when the devs clearly stated "simulation of roman life"
So what we have here is indeed a simulation that has more in common with some of those railway and flight sim style programs than it does a modern MMO. The fun factor is very much in the eye of the beholder. If you see farming etc as fun then this is the game for you. If however your expecting to jump into a galdiator type role in a fast paced roman MMO your gonna be hellishly dissapointed.
Now this game may evolve into something more akin to a Roman MMO in years to come who knows. I expect it will garner more than enough of a following to make some cash for the devs and I expect it will run for many years and be successful in its own right. The main reason being, there are enough seasoned game players looking for something completely different, who are happy to work through the early game stages to build a character capable of extracting some normal game fun from the combat and adventure system.
However it will never challenge WoW for finanacial success and the reason is, its not trying to. It is what it is and if you like it your in heaven because it is a very niche product. But if you dont like it, leave it alone because developers like RedBedlam do not deserve derision, they deserve all the encouragement we can offer them for at least having the courage to bust out of the cookie cutter MMO mold.
I mean lets face it. If this game was eleves and orcs you would all be whining that its a WoW clone.... sooooooo
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"MMOs, for people that like think chatting is like a skill or something, rotflol"
http://purepwnage.com
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"Far away across the field, the tolling of the iron bell, calls the faithful to their knees. To hear the softly spoken magic spell" Pink Floyd-Dark Side of the Moon
I highly doubt they ever put a free trial because this game relies on chance buying for its revenue for the most parts.
However,that the only way you should try this game .Thru a free trial .The game is a classic example of a roughly made mmorpg .Wait for a free trial and see it for yourself.
------------------------------
You see, every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You spread to an area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.-Mr.Smith
You are speaking basically about the type of player that will like a simulation of ancient times.However,remember while they are players out there looking for something different(only reason i bought the damn game) we are entitled to a game with some degree of been polished.
If a game is based on the best idea in the world and it delivers a rough,laggy product with horrible mechanics(when was the last time anyone remembers chars looking like they are floating or walking under water) and charge for it then it becomes a problem.
On a side note i cannot recall mmorpg.com staff asking for people to leave DnL alone for instance.After all it was also buggy,laggy,rough.It too promised to be something different.
If anything mmorpg.com should discourage developers who jump the gun ,charge people for a game that was unplayable for a month and till this day feels like an alpha product.
I found your statement well thought of razor till you got to the part you ask "people to leave RB alone".I never seen a mmorpg.com ask this of any game before and fact that the game was basically unplayable for about a month(lets not talk about other issues but this) and people paid for it(it was not free!) makes me even shocked with that statement.
Encouragement stops when they ask for your credit card and charge you.If a product is very rough it will get flamed .
Yes the term MMO was used by the devs. But I think everyone who has been involved with the project a while would know its use is not exactly right for this product.
I appreciate what your saying Tinybina but I have to agree to disagree about encouraging small developers.
If we left the creation of music to Sony and WEA all we would ever hear is Britanny Spear and Justin Timberbrain. Independant developers must be encouraged.
No one is forcing anyone to either read, play or pay for their produtcs. But the market is richer, not poorer for having them.
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"MMOs, for people that like think chatting is like a skill or something, rotflol"
http://purepwnage.com
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"Far away across the field, the tolling of the iron bell, calls the faithful to their knees. To hear the softly spoken magic spell" Pink Floyd-Dark Side of the Moon
hercules,
It was free when you got a refund, wasn't it?
But then agian to each his own, this is just my opinion. I just get sick of seeing so many of these 'crappy' MMO's comming out now. You dont see that nearly as much in other game Genre's that I know of.
Anyways your right, I dont have to play it or even pay attention to it.. And since I don't and won't, I will not continue to bash it.
------------------------------
You see, every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You spread to an area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.-Mr.Smith
Yup I definately get what your saying and I was saying a similar thing in relation to Archlord the other day.
Except in this case its a major developer (Codemasters) who has basically decided they wanted a vehicle for thier MMO division to start becoming a "cash cow" as soon as possible, so they didnt even bother with the usuall tedious process of developing a game, they just rebadged a Korean clone.
I consider that far more damaging to the industry...... As it yells to developers with the resources to do a good job "WHY BOTHER TRYING"
But I can certianly see your PoV
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"MMOs, for people that like think chatting is like a skill or something, rotflol"
http://purepwnage.com
-+-+-+-+-+-+
"Far away across the field, the tolling of the iron bell, calls the faithful to their knees. To hear the softly spoken magic spell" Pink Floyd-Dark Side of the Moon
Now about Rv... RV is a totaly different game, actually its not even a game its a roleplaying world... Simulation they call it.
As you all, already know Rv has had a shakey start... I dont know about you, BUT ive played in a few betas, and releases of games.. It seems to me many many of them all started out with massive problems... Now im going to Stick with UO, cause I once loved that game... Which now i think has gone to complete SHIT, But hey thats my opionion... UO had a horrible start, servers always going down, servers being backed up a few hours or days... Look what came about with UO, a game which everyone started to love, After they fixed there problems.... The differance between the games is alot though, Its completely different game with completely much much more technial fundimentals... There is for starters, alot more skills and sub skills in RV then there is in anyother game, Some you Lazy Gamers who only wanna log on each day to go out and kill a few people or farm some cash , lets face it, dont bash the game cause you cant do that.. Stick to your WOW and play your damn Fantasy game, in which there is almost no skill involved... While others that might want a tougher challeng at gaining skills and not having to worry about UMBER THIS UMBER THAT... Least in RV if you accomplish somehting you actually feel good... Enough about this point of topic..
Rv has problems we all know it... They have 5 guys or so on there staff, Some other guys are Part timers... They have made it clear that RV was not going to be a money making game for them to become rich... EA GAMES DO A GOOD JOB AT THAT, And then they suk at customer support... Again thats my opionion... RB has made a world where some people might like to play and create a world they help build.. Dealing with the server issues and lag issues have and are being fixed... And as someoen said that the game was unplayable for a month??? HAVE U EVEN PLAYED? And if you did your comp must be Old or something... Maybe filled with too much porn? Anyway... I played since beta and at release, and I had no problems playing RV cept for dealing with the tracking Lag issue... Which was fixed after a few weeks of small patches... Everyday it was better and better.... Given the days it was pretty bad, It was still OK... Since then The big lag monstere has been gone... Every once in while theres alittle peak from the closet, but I guess one of you cridits faces are standing there scaring the lag monster back in the closet...
Sorry have to go Maybe Ill finish this later
[URL="https://forums.darkfallonline.com/image.php?u=45765&type=sigpic&dateline=1276129943[/URL]
"Vox Populi, Vox Deorum"
Some have suggested that the Verm revenue system is a cash cow model, designed to milk more money than a standard subscription model, and that Roma Victor was released in a shoddy state because the real emphasis was testing the Verm. RedBedlam states on their site that they will manipulate the game mechanics to encourage the success of the Verm. Obviously if they didn't, it would fail.
This notion that small developers should be given a break if they release a craptastic game is silly. Let them offer a free trial until it's polished if they don't want to be judged on quality.
Btw, how much are they paying you to defend them?
Nothing wrong with supporting small development companies.Afterall daoc was made by was it 10 -13 guys .Yet they released one of the most polished mmorpg ever and have since deserved all the rewards.
But when you release an alpha-like product do not expect a break because "we are small " .You charge money you get reviewed accordingly.
One of the reason this game gets a lot of attention is not because it is unique in been released in a poor state or that it got some dump award,it is because it has a couple of fanboys running around "selling" the product as a polished game and distorting articles .
You say - help encourage small developers.I say help stop people looking for a fast avenue to pay off their house with others people money by making half finished games and selling it.
I wrote a little about Roma Victor awhile ago but (forewarned people I) focussed only on the positives. I'll say now that Roma Victor is (as someone mentioned earlier, a) simulation more so than a game. It has the potential to support RolePlaying to a greater extent than its competetion if RPers start RPing their. There are some new and good ideas implemented.(and even more not implemented, when if ever some of them will be, I'm unsure) As a simulation it's focuss is on realism rather than just fun which allows for greater Roleplaying enviroment.
That said its a simulation and as such it doesn't provide alot of static content found in games like wow and EQII. Their are no mobs, when you fight you fight another player and normally you'd either be training or fighting in a faction war(Barbarians vs Romans). The user friendliness, interface and graphics are not up to par with its competetion. Their is a lack of in game support and the complexity, time and skills required to do most tasks is often overwhelming to begin with.
I'd like to say once you understand the game it surpasses all others and for a time whilst I was testing I felt this way. Yet the game whilst supporting RPing to a greater extent than most games due to its realistic nature doesn't provide a rping enviroment that I want(I'm looking forward to Adellion or a similar type RPing game) and as a pure simulation its just not fun enough.
The developers seem like nice people and are in direct communication with the players via their forums and have discussed what they had planned and recieved some great ideas from players. If progress is made towards features not yet implemented as is intended I think Roma Victor could be the best MMORPG in more ways than one. However at this time, I think only a select few people can really appriecate it (and although its future has my interest more so than most games in devolpment stages,) I'm no longer one of them