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Someone please answer me this...
Raek
Member Posts: 60
Why does this game seem to have such awesome features but no players?
I am seriously considering paying the 20 bucks to give it a whirl because every feature sounds awesome to me and what I've really been looking for in a game. I am really, REALLY looking forward to Darkfall, and this game seems to have some similar qualities. Crafting seems fun and twitch combat is awesome. No levels? Yay!
So I guess my question is... why is it bad? I don't really see any real reasons other than people keep saying "omg its a failure don't pay for this." Can I have a legitimate reason please? I don't mind graphics or little bugs here and there. Is it missing something big or are all of the features pretty much there? Are they simply just not enough people playing the game?
Comments
Mainly, because none of the features are solid. Unfortunately the developer team are a low budget amateur developer team with limit resources and they take a lot of time to do very little. Although it does have all the features we ever wished for none of them work well. Skills is messed up with bugs and other issues. Lag, server bugs and the works. And the combat system is horrendous cause it's full of bugs, server glitches lag from god knows what. It's quite a mess of a game.
I would recommend the crafting would be the funnest part of the game. Everything else is broken at the moment and still being sorted. Not a game worth buying in my opinion for anything else.
If you enjoy crafting, you may find this game to be a picnic. You've got a mega huge variety of crafting abilities and the such, from housing and structures, to tools, weapons, and lots and lots of stuff. Clothes, armour, cooking. Not much else to look forward to in this game except a fun crafting system.
I'm not a big crafter.. never really was. I want to maybe get some skills up, get proficient enough to maybe make a house or a boat, but then have a purpose for it. Like a player city and defend off invaders and start wars, etc. Or a band of warriors who go and do the raiding. Levels are trivial... kinda lame to me. I enjoy crafting when it has a purpose... like making a great sword to kill people with. I don't want to just cook a stew and eat it.... yay... I can go do that in real life lol
Dude, exactly why you should forget about this game. If you aren't into crafting, forget about this game. It's really only a crafters paradice. If you don't get what I'm telling you, thats your problem but I don't care if you like crafting or not.....I'm telling you stay away from this game if you don't like crafting.
The game has a lot of systems wrong, and I'm serious....the combat isn't fun at all. It's more like a text based game for combat. You can't do the things you are talking about. Ignore the descriptions about this game....only crafting system works.
That is completely false.
The game is crafting-heavy, for sure. But combat WORKS, works well, and continues to improve, albeit slowly.
RomaVictor is not complete. There are not many players. The game lacks the "polished" look and feel many players look for. All true.
There are several reasons for the low player population.
When the ability to build guildhalls was implemented, and with it the ability to start legitimate settlements, the starter towns virtually emptied out. Almost every existing group ran out and began building, taking almost all veteran players away from the starter towns.
If a player doesn't manage to get in with a group or guild early to learn the ropes, they never even get a feel for the game, and end up wandering around lost and mostly alone for a few days before quitting.
Despite the great improvements in stability, you really need a good system to play RV. Poor performance can drive players away, particularly on the Roman side, as the starter town is very system-intensive. RedBedlam also is need of improved server capacity and hardware upgrade, IMO. Although, I am far from knowledgeable about that type of thing.
The dev team is small. Progress is sometimes very slow. There are periods in which updates come at a fast pace. But there are also periods in which it seems like nothing is accomplished.
As the game evolves and develops, it can be very frustrating. It requires a high level of patience sometimes, especially when a group is trying to make important decisions and long-term plans. Some players get worn down waiting for the features or content that will enable them to accomplish their goals.
If you want to be a raider-type, I recommend that you go barbarian. Seek out the Tuatha de Biatach or Trinovantes guilds. Start training. Build a bit of crafting skill in things like carpentry and smithing so you can at least make some of your own basic combat gear.
RV doesn't have traditional "levels" but a significant amount of training is involved of one wishes to be successful in combat. Training burns through a lot of gear. No one is going to make all your gear for you to skill up, so your options are to make it or buy it.
If you get in with a decent guild, they will supply a lot of things for you if you contribute to the group with some type of skill or trade.
Ok, let me just share my experience and why this game is not worth playing even it was free. I've been gaming a long, long time online, and I would rather pay a monthly fee for a decent game over this garbage.
Of course, you HAVE to pay for the game itself to play. Having some extra cash, I thought I'd check it out. First problem I ran into - I run Vista...no worries, there's always some extra things to do that usually make it work like XP. Well, I finally get into the game after 2 failed attempts of about 10 minute load times. Now I'm confused all to hell, the interface and gameplay were rather confusing to start. But the game was running fairly smoothly (even for starting in the newbie town?), and I ran around a little exploring the town.
At this point, I had no clue where to go. So I exit out the game to read the guide and watch tutorials and such. Couple more failed attempts to log back in, but I eventually made it. Now I see other players around me as well while I run around, YAY!...except all of a sudden I lost connection. Could not connect again after that, and their technical support in the forums was no help. The first and only thing they try to blame it on is my memory, because I run Vista and barely met the XP reqs on memory. Right, even though it was working just fine before.
So I try a few more times to log in, unsuccessfully with different errors each time. Sometimes I'd make it in, and get kicked right back out before I can do anything. Now I'm getting pissed because I've been wasting hours on this game that isn't working for me. The funny thing is, the graphics are no where NEAR as good as a lot of other games out there, yet have higher requirements.
Pros and cons: Pros - One time payment, no monthly fee. Great, if it works for you and you want to play it though it's not finished yet. Also, supposedly the crafting system is awesome, and the twitch combat sounds like it would have been cool to try out. The music wasn't half bad either.
Cons - Many things not even implemented yet, still a lot of bugs and crashes they need to work out. System requirements are insanely too high for the lower quality of graphics and gameplay. Vista is NOT supported (though will work for most if you set it up right). Cmon...it's 2008! Vista's been out a little while now guys...jeez. The game interface is difficult to navigate and manage. Having to hold ctrl or press tab over and over got annoying just to select different menus. Finally, the gameplay. Again, the whole ctrl or tab thing has to come into play just to move around, and gets very annoying. Mouse lock to target NPCs, unlock to select dialog, lock again to turn around to target another, etc. Lame.
Might be good once it's at least close to done, but I could think of hundreds of other things my $20 would have been better spent on...like a case of beer.
I figure tha main reason for the low population, is that too much depends if yuo get help from other players. The tutorial is crap, your better off getting the local lord to deattend you (you know a game has issues when most players are skipping the tutorial, the last tutorial quest is build a house, that is a end game crafting project). The problem with helping new players is that most will just leave, so that deters vets from helping newbs. Fact is new players should not have to recieve any help from vets, if the game wants to be successful. Also my biggest beef of RV was that the features list is incorrect, a lot of features are not yet implemented. Redbedlam has to change that featutres page, because its a blatant lie. One thing to note is that even if all the bugs and glitches were fixed, and all features are implemented, RV will never have a high population. Most players could not handle the realism of RV, or the patience required.
Well we warn people about these things on here yet they decide to go ahead and buy the game. You have no one to blame but yourself.
In response to Spawnlq's post:
Vista is not officially supported, this is widely known and can be found out easily. That said many do run RV with vista with little to no problem. The main reason you had so many crashes and log in difficulty is probably your lack of ram.
You admit that you barely have the minimum requirements as required under XP. RV is a very ram intensive game, and here you are running vista - a ram hog - with a borderline amount of ram required to play the game in XP. It is little wonder you had difficulty.
Please do not try to make out that 'it's the games fault' when you cannot meet the minimum requirements. If you factor in Vista's ram usage you would be effectively running the game well under the spec requirements.
All this info is freely available before purchase so I am going to have to concur with jdag.
Because a game is not running smoothly on YOUR system is not grounds for others not to play. Yes this game has coding problems. I recommend 2gig memory, I have 1gig.
I'm also pissed that the requirements are so high for such a low graphical/mechanical play. But if you are looking for bells and whistles, Roma Victor may not be for you. Graphics is for the crowd that prefers the dumbed down games, where eye candy replaces gameplay. This is 180AD, everything is wood or early concrete/tile (grey and brown). The fancier looking stuff has not been added yet, though some of it is ingame, just not player craftable. So its kinda like WoW, there might be a cool building, but that doesn't mean you can make it, not yet anway.
Crafting is not a picnic. It takes hours. I just planted some crops and am waiting 3 real life days for them to be ready, then I can start the using them. The crafting tree is deep and essential, ever growing, not at a pace that I like, but it is growing with limitless possibilites.
It has a steep learning curve at first. Remember games that had manuals? Yeah this game might require you to read and learn something in the process. Just because big corporations took over the gaming market and have been producing arcade-like games does not mean we have to compare everything to that as though its THE standard.
The reason for a low population in my opinion is a lot to do with the fact that people start off initially in a low population zone. For barbarians it's Erring, for Romans it's Corstopitum. This makes it become a cycle of the game being unable to keep players in, due to the low population in the first place.
When the game first came out back in July 2006, there was a very bad start to the game. There were a lot of players who had come back to the game who had tested it back in the Gamma and Beta stage of testing. The release and lack of promised content is the real reason why there's not very many Roma Victor players today, although the fact that content is coming in slower than expected and quite some months after it had initially been promised does not help the situation.
No one will say that Roma Victor was a highly anticipated game; few actually know what it can do, there's a very mixed opinion on the game. However, it is pulling it's head out of the sand. If more players were actually around to support the game, it would be a lot better all-round. The developers have been at this game coming on for around 7 years now. The developers have always been quite community oriented, especially compared to some other largely successful MMOs out there today. The community is probably the most enjoyable aspect of Roma Victor actually. It's why a lot of people stay. They're an intelligent bunch to be honest, for the most part.
Another good point about Roma Victor is the fact that, regardless of the bad reputation and very low population, the developers do take action against exploiters frequently. Out of a community of around maybe 100-150 frequent users, a good 20 or 30 people who have been exploiting majorly have been punished, quite a few with permanent bans - and well deserved. You'd think that with such a low population a developer would just "overlook" such serious cases such as exploiting for personal gain, especially in a game like this. But no, the developers actually took action. It does show a level of commitment to the community standards and the attitude of the developers and what angle they are taking to improve the game and keep going.
But again, another point to make about Roma Victor's low population and it being seemingly inexplicable to think so with it's feature list is the fact that it's not actually done yet. It was a bit of a hasty release, and with too much promised to the community at that time. Afterwoulds there was a large update which promised to increase the playfield size to 9 times the size it was back then. Of course, that was promised in the initial release. It finally hit in October or November, I forget which exactly and was a bit of a dissapointment. People thought they'd be able to build on those areas, but that wasn't the outcome. However, since "The Escalation" has somewhat remedied that allowing player guilds to seek out territory and claim it by building their guildhalls.
All in all, the game has definitely improved 100% since release. Lag is actually almost non existant these days, although it would be a real test to see how it would hold up if the playerbase increased by about 300% and more. I do think that it may be able to handle it, but we'll never know unless players give it a try.
It can seem very lonely in Roma Victor to begin with, due to the fact that all the players have moved out of the starting towns to pursue their own territorial construction and defending. But, if you get in with the community via good contact with guilds in your faction, someone will be more than happy to help you for sure. It's a slow progress, but once you're into Roma Victor and see what it's like with a population you'll feel it is a lot better than it appears at first sight.
A big deterrent to the game is also the fact that the main Roman starter town is, to put simply, a bitch to load and play in. The fps is quite bad due to it being quite a memory hog although it will run on an adequate level on decent systems. The minimum memory requirement for Roma Victor is 1 GB RAM, but with 2 GB you'll enjoy your experience quite a bit better. And don't play with Vista, it's not supported! Even moaning about it is just simply showing your ignorance; the game is designed for XP therefore do not expect good results elsewhere. If it is a dire situation, they will get to making it compatible with Vista.
To sum it all up basically, the reason why there's a low population is that:
- There was a bad start to Roma Victor at it's release
-The developers were quite ambitious as to what they could offer and their timeframe for implementation; too ambitious
- Players felt the game was far too laggy in the initial release, and it was extremely bad, for a time. This has since been majorly improved, and lag is a very rare occurance.
- There was no way for players to move out of the starter towns and really expand. This has since been remedied as well.
-The amount of craftables in the game was very limited than first envisioned. The game has "evolved" dramatically since the release, and most of the people who cry that there is an extreme lack of content played during the first few weeks and then never took another look. There is still a long way to go, but there has been a large improvement on the content.
-Certain "vital" promised features were not included. This is being changed a lot, combat has been made much more diverse than it was before, and with ballistics nearing completion within the next few days/weeks will only add another level of immersion to the combat. You tell me what other MMORPG has a simulated real-time style ranged weapons system.
More features definitely need to be implemented, and they are slowly but surely (slower then most would like) fullfilling what they said they would. Often people think that the features are broken, and that they are a bad way to do things. That's all down to personal perception and will vary from person to person. Don't forget that a lot of the implementations in Roma Victor are unique; it's often hard to do this too, especially when you don't want to be yet another WoW clone.
At the end of the day, the game is pretty cheap, it's a one time buy for a lifetime admission into the game and no extra money is actually required to play the game. The dev team is small, and things may seem slow now and again, but if you ever get down with Roma Victor just put it away for a while and come back again the next week, the next month or even the next year. You'll definitely see it getting better and better - no one can deny that. I think the misconception of "lag hole with no let-up and chockablock FULL of bugs" needs to be finally lifted, or at least eased off - even if slightly. The game has improved immensely since the critics piled onto it to suck the life out of it, it's trying to become the vision it wanted to be.
I hope that's a decent, non-biased view of Roma Victor for you. I am a very frequent player myself, and I only want the best for the game and for it to get better. It's low population is a deterrent to the game for sure, and the only way to get that changed is for the community to work together as a whole and spread the word about this interesting game which is on the move, and it's not a turn-based, quest based run-of-the-mill MMOG. It's obviously ambitious, and this is probably one of the big reasons why it is not doing as well as it could. Things are looking up a lot of late though, so if you do give it a try I hope you get into the community and get asking questions and learning how it works.
I will have to agree with much of whats said in the quote above. Everything you read is exactly that, just reading of these wonderful features which are not in the "Solid" state as stated above. Much of the RP is done on the forums, as the mechanics in game play are again not Solid. Besides a 5 min battle which happens in 90% of the cases, there is nothing else you can do. Most distruction you can do is deplete public piles and items, and kill guards/labs that are in public view.
As far as the crafting goes, yes there are some very nice things able to be crafted. But again a much greater lack in other things you cannot do. Such as build in any location you want to.... Unless you build a guildhall first. Which is not possible for a solo player, as you need a guild of at least 7 players and min 25k for a guildhall scroll.
As, someone mentioned above the crafting system some say is kinda like A tale in the desert and Wurm, as a I have played both games, ATITD, is very good for the fact the players build the game play, and the crafting is grand, but then there is no combat at all, which only hinders that game, as there is only so much of grand building you can do without conflicts. Wurm on the other hand, and also a Grand crafting system, in just about all ways better then RV, and where that hugh gap is that RV doesnt allow you can do in Wurm, along with thta is the added benefit of having a combat system that ATITD does not, the downfall though is, lack of things like animation and char customization. But just like any of the games mentioned, plans and actuall patches are being worked on to bring these missing things into game, such as Wurm just getting the basic animations, and RV with the almost addition of light end of Balistics.
So my conclusion, if you want a game to play, you have few options, you can Pay and try out RV, you can pay and play ATITD, you can try Wurm out for free, and then pay later if you want to go further then just a basic account can do... And no there is no levels, just basic has a cap on how much skill points you can go up to for each skill.
Good luck with, and do yourself a favor as it will only benefit yourself in the long run. Read everything you possibly can, and listen to what players have to say, dont believe it all, as just like business men anyone will try and sell you anything. Just take the information and do your homework. I also need to add one thing, which is very important... The inconsistancy of punsihments towards players in RV. If you read alot of whats on MMORPG RV forum you will read up about some of that. So again Reading is your best friend.
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"Vox Populi, Vox Deorum"