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Played to level 7... my 2c worth of opinion on open beta
markyturnip
Member UncommonPosts: 837
Disclaimer: I realise that open beta, is, well, open beta. I also only progressed a short way ( I don't want to ruin the eventual fun for myself). That said, I do think I got a flavour.
I was very much looking forward to this game.
PRO:
Original setting.
Decent community.
Interesting enough sea combat (could get a little samey after a while, though, I fear).
Large world.
Potentially excellent player-driven PVP.
Hard to explain, but it has a positive atmosphere.
NPC dialogue quite lively.
You can see your captain and crew manning your ship and cannons when you zoom in close... I liked that.
CON:
Graphics look old (saved by being a bit cartoony).
Sea is flat, and quite simply not that great looking from above, though from a horizontal view it's OK. LOTRO had much better water.
No weather.
Land missions are awful. Rubbish. Land combat dull as ditchwater.
Swashbuckling needs a lot of work.
Ally AI seems pretty weak.
Everyone's eyes were a strange orange color - and I had no idea how to fix that. May have been only on my PC... but no idea why. Everything else looked fine.
.................................................................................................................................
Overall, compared to the brilliance of so many games coming out these days (and I include non-MMOs, as they compete for my gaming hours), this is OK, but far from top end.
I would give it a 7/10 - because it is an MMO, and because it has spirit. If PVP takes off as it could, it could go up to an 8/10; assuming a lot of other things also fell into place.
That said, if I had the same experience on a single player game as I did on the solo missions, probably would give it a 5/10.
Flame on!
Comments
The sea I found was nothing short of spectacular, amazing, and yes, its supposed to be flat.
Orange eyes? Damn thats weird. Go smash your vid card.
The invisible walls were my favorite.. since they wanted to stay historical yet they put some folklore stuff in the game they should have made it like the end of the world instead of invisible walls in the ocean.. like a water fall at teh end of the earth that would have been a nice effect rather than a giant invisible wall..
go see my poll on Invisible walls in the ocean!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Very short review but honest one, I can add all character may look strange but they don't have orange eyes. Avatars are added just a few months ago and it shows.
Btw there is weather inside the combat instances.
And invisable walls? you mean you run out of the maps? or before you reach the end? L=map
I think I was told a long time ago that the eyes were like that for beta to allow them to know when photos were taken.
Ive been playing beta too, have three characters up to lvl12. Yes PVE the sea combat does get pretty samey, the graphics are not great, games such as EQ2 for example have much better and more detailed graphics.
The problem with PVE sea combat (even with talking to a sea captain to get the difficulty put up) is that it is too damn easy and there seems to be very little variation in gameplay.
The land combat and boarding party combat are bloody awful to be honest and whilst some of the animations are quite nice, this is the area that really concerns me.
On top of that, the game is heavily instanced. Even battles in the open sea are instanced which I found really disapointing ( I was hoping for something more along the lines of Eve but at sea rather than in space).
This may sound like I hate the game, actually I dont but am I dissapointed after waiting so long for this game? The answer would have to be yes.
I'd agree with the op, heck i'd agree with most of the negative reviews. But the thing is even with all of the negative I kinda like this game.
The first time I played for about an hour I turned it off and called it the biggest piece of crap ever. Then I decided to give it another try, now I think I'm hooked.
It is open beta now? I don't know if I want to play Open Beta and ruin it for me.
Playing WoW to pass the time, When is the real release date?
Old Skool Ultima Online Junky
Bring back the OLD UO so I can play again
There's a pre-boarding party that starts on January 7th where you get access to the servers 15 days before release and can level up to 20 and get a start with the economy. Then the official launch starts at January 22nd.
I have played up to lvl 16 now as a Freetrader and pretty much agree with most of the comments above.
To begin with the questing system is not to bad, the storylines of a few are interesting and the rewards match the time spent doing them. As folks have pointed out though these encounters rapidly get to be clones of previous ones and it starts to get tedious.
The crafting options are excellent and have obviously been thought out well. The economic side of things is already very diverse after only a few days and looks to be the strongest aspect of the game.
I have yet to taste the PvP side of things and can only comment that from what I hear it is popular.
The land and boarding party combat is awful. Theres no other way to express it and its pointless trying to put a shine on the matter. Its poorly realised both in graphics and gameplay.
Overall the game is interesting enough for you to want to get involved and certainly has scope should content and a major upgrade in the land/ship party combat be forthcoming. I suspect however that it will remain somewhat niche in its appeal and players will quickly move on to games with a little more freedom to travel in places with better scenery and encounters.
6/10 - Good effort but lacking in diversity.
Not going to do a detailed review at this point, but I would like to add a few things the OP may have missed.
Yes, the land and boarding combat is clunky. We all agree on that, even the devs. It's being worked on, however, and steadily improving.
As I hear it, weather is going to be in live. It is already partially implemented in instanced sea combat (very hot / storm / night etc).
Graphics... I honestly have no problems with them. Not sure what the OP is talking about, video card issues maybe?
There's still almost a month to go till the boarding party, and things are being worked on FAST. We had two patches in the last week. The devs seem extremely committed. When lag got out of hand Saturday, the GM on duty called in a dev, who came, had a look, and got to work. One hour later the server came down to apply a patch that actually FIXED the rubberbanding.
Bugs I'm currently reporting (lvl 22) are mostly text errors and minor glitches, contrary to a game like Tabula Rasa, where half the quests were still broken at similar level. While the game may simply not be for you, I feel it WILL be the most stable (and complete) release I've seen in a long time. Best you can do is try it while it's still free.
Linna
I think this game has a great potential. Why? Here's some of the answers;
1) This is the first game I see where developers are actually listening what community is saying, I think FLS is a great example of how a gaming company should work and actually develop.
2) The genre itself is quite fresh, at least that's what I think, so it's not the game where orcs and elves are again grinding for something. No offense to fantasy genre lovers.
Of course this game isn't going to be so popular like for example WoW is, but for me as a potential costumer that's a good news, I rather play with small, mature and polite community than play a video game, which is favored by a lot of teens and other immature players. As a good example I can mention EVE Online, which is the game I'm playing at the moment, what can I say, good community + it's the first MMO with DX10 support, the game recently got a new "engine". Anyway, If someday I'll decide to quit EVE, I'll give PotBS a try, that's for sure.
On a side note, You guys remember how much time did it took for EQ2 to get where it's now? Think of it. And PotBS is only in Open Beta stage. Finally, I think people are giving too much negative feedback to this game, I think it's too early to judge.
At some point I agree with what Linna said, "Maybe this game is just not for You?" I think people nowdays are too used to playing these linear fantasy games where's community is not important and everything that matters is great loot and e-peen, perhaps I'm mistaken.