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Small review ....
thark
Member UncommonPosts: 1,188
It's really good when a developer tries to do something new, aspecially now that WOW has it's grasp around the market, for that Atlantica needs alot of credits..
Atlantica is a rather fun game, gameplay wise..atleast for a while..
There is alot of options and for a player that likes micro managing this game is fun...
but..
The strategic combat/turnbased is a bit over advertized,once combat starts, you do not have that many options to choose from and you really do not have that much time to think about things either because a timer is running and if that ends turn goes to your enemy..
The options you have in combat is rather limited in a very small area, and the combat always "looks" the same part from diffrent merc settings and enemies...It's always a small empty battle area where your merc's and enemies stand on each side in formations...later in your advenures the complexety builds up ofcourse..
If you had the options to hide behind obstacles and walk around more, I know this would be hard to accomplish but...Ohh well
The camera in combat is dreadful, needs alot of work..
The world and NPC's and their dialogs is very poor, everything in these aspects are poor or simply awful..It's really feels cheap..How about getting some real story artist and not let the programmers run this part aswell..Atlantica and the whole background around it is bad IMHO..I never felt that I was part of any story , I just did what I had to do(mostly auto running to my quest locations)...
furthermore the outdoor graphics and the mobs that are scattered everywhere really looks totally out of place, both in dungeons and outdoor areas..This is ofcourse a problem in almost all MMORPG's but in Atlantica it's even worse than every other MMO i played..How about a whole field with almost floating ugly foxes..
The Graphics in whole looks really dated, since it's a turnbased game it should not be a problem to get really good graphics..
In the "cities" everyone is just standing next to the "zone in" just because no one need's to go further in the city, because there is a fast UI system to reach all buildings needed...This is very ugly, why create city zones when no one is using them...
In whole Atlantice is not an all bad game, but It really could have been that much better..
6/10
Comments
thanks for this review, it was very well-detailed and concise.
i agree that there could have been much more interaction with the environment involved and all the other points raised in your review. also, there could've been more options for character customization.
but then. what i keep in mind is that this game is free2play so it's kind of understandable that a few features are lacking. who knows? maybe they're still continuously developing it for these other features to be available.
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The review was nice!!! way to go!!!!
thanks for the review. this will be of great help for those who haven't tried out the game just yet.
Eventually it will update, If it goes well and they sell alot of things in the item store..
They have a strong base for something unique here´..
Ohh..And I failed to mention the PvP tournaments in my review, that could easily become one of Atlantica's best features..When I played I got sent upon much tougher players and could not stand a chance.However if they get the match making somewhat better they could have a real cool feature in the PvP tournaments..
/junker
i gota hand it to u the preview is pretty nice. but u gota admit, if there wasnt auto run, every one would be lost by now. the merc is pretty nice and the graphics i like, but hate the compact system.
it has the best community ever from games, espicialy from wows community. the game was fun, but as soon as u find another mmo tht attracts u, u will lose interest. i would give the game 7/10 (1 extra point for its fun).
I agree that the PvP tournaments is one of the good features of the game. The match up system is not that accurate, you have to prepare and build up your characters on its optimum so you will have a chance to win when the time comes that you will be matched to a higher level. Tactics is also important, I have witnessed before a match between a level 58 and a level 70, the lower level won due to his tactics.
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Your Quote -
choose from and you really do not have that much time to think about things either because a timer is running and if that ends turn goes to your enemy..
Well m8 that happens in every turn based game, such as Dofus which is huge or without a timer Final Fantecy series. And i have to say, your quote about the camera is unaccurate becasue you can rotate expect when there doing a Finshing move or monster attacks at player. And lastly your rating which was 6/10 was pretty low for an good game that has retro style of gameplay, if i was doing a review i would give it 8.8/10.
And just asking what kidan config system do you play under ?
And do you play it on high or really low ?
I ment the camera during combat, that should mean the finishing moves...
I play with the highest possible setting..
Retro style yes, and this is also rewarded in my review, as a new take to to MMO scene...
We need more game developers that dare to take steps beyond WoW..Giving us something NEW(atleast in the MMO scene) is very brave and should be rewarded, and as such Atlantica is given a better score than it's really worth in it's current setting..
If but only if the rest of the game was not that poor it would recive a much higher score..It's like they had a couple of GREAT ideas but didn't put some thought around the rest of the game.
But my low score is mostly for the really bad lore and poor voice overs, they really should have thought out the story and the world more, you can't really say that someone is suppose to be exited by this story..That and combined with stiff overall animations(part from combat)..
Finally, you have your score and I have mine, you like tha game more than I do, wich is fine ofcourse
But so far I can't see no reason to give it a higher score than 6/10
But hopefully the score will raise, it is a fun game at it's core..
/junker
Man what kinda games do you play on your computer ?
And also would you actually play RuneScape than Atlantica Online ?
Hmm...Atlantica has no high computer req's to run it in full, if you have problems with that then you probably have a rather poor or old computer, I run it on my 1-2 year old comp with no problems at all..
And If you compare it to Runescape then I guess Atlantica is a pure beuty to behold
and also a much better game aswell If that is your experience with MMO's
There is alot of "Free to play games" other than Runescape on the market..
And as Runescape is a browser run game it hardly even need's a computer to run
Right now there is Runes of Magic for example..This gane has a more Fairy tale look over it and not that high spec's, still it looks better than Atlantica..
I run LOTRO and Age Of Conan and also some D&D Online...
But as these are all pay to play games I would not compare them to Atlantica as the graphics in these game surpasses Atlantica by far, and even DDO that is atleast a couple of years old has better graphics..
Althou graphics is also a matter of taste as much as it is a hardware reqirement..There is a few places in Atlantica that was well made and had nice looks, but the overall feeling and looks didn't cut it I think..
Again, this is just me...But i'm rather sure that many gamers would agree with me on this, atleast those that has experience with modern MMO's and not compares it with Runescape, any game is better looking than that..:)
/junker
Side note on the specs required... I wonder if anyone else running a 1gb ram machine has trouble with disk thrashing? I have an older machine which plays games like Titan Quest and Oblivion, not to mention far prettier MMOs, with only the occasional hiccup, whereas after a quarter hour of Atlantica Online it'll start paging like crazy.
I know it's not a cpu/video problem because cpu usage is low while the hdd light is solid and i can actually hear the hard drive accessing continuously. Also, process manager shows PF usage at 1.8gb so yeah that pretty much confirms it's paging like mad to disk since this machine only has 1gb.
Other than that, I mostly agree with the OP's review. It's a nice game, but quite shallow. Please, turn based strategy games that play like this (your party's moves, then enemies' moves) are like so 1990s. We should be getting stuff like full on grid maps like in the FFT and Atlus games, with tile effects, not to mention weather, day/night cycle, etc instead of this face-to-face i-bash-then-cpu-bashes combat.
I like how most of the other things like learning skills and sharing info contribute towards more positive player interaction. I'm all for that, instead of the mindless "lololol i pee kay you (level 90 vs level 20)" in most other MMOs. There's barely enough strategy in here to keep my interest though. I suppose it'll appeal to more players if it's simple enough, but in the first place people looking for simplicity or mindless click grinding would probably be playing something else.
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On some reviews computers they had the same problem as you, like the ram, cpu ect.
in my opoinion you should have your ram to 3+GB, 512 Video Card " Not Shared", More than 3.5gb of Page Ram" Hard Drive Memory", and atleast a 3.0GHZ P4+ so in todays cpu i suggest a 1.8ghz+ intelCoreDuo.
With those spec you will have no lag at all, that might depend on your internet conection as well so a Cable, DSL or TSL should do the trick.
I ment the camera during combat, that should mean the finishing moves...
I play with the highest possible setting..
Retro style yes, and this is also rewarded in my review, as a new take to to MMO scene...
We need more game developers that dare to take steps beyond WoW..Giving us something NEW(atleast in the MMO scene) is very brave and should be rewarded, and as such Atlantica is given a better score than it's really worth in it's current setting..
If but only if the rest of the game was not that poor it would recive a much higher score..It's like they had a couple of GREAT ideas but didn't put some thought around the rest of the game.
But my low score is mostly for the really bad lore and poor voice overs, they really should have thought out the story and the world more, you can't really say that someone is suppose to be exited by this story..That and combined with stiff overall animations(part from combat)..
Finally, you have your score and I have mine, you like tha game more than I do, wich is fine ofcourse
But so far I can't see no reason to give it a higher score than 6/10
But hopefully the score will raise, it is a fun game at it's core..
/junker
Did you even turn the combat effects off?? There is a camera at the bottom right hand corner where you can turn off the combat effects and then you never have issues again.......You can maneuver the camera into any angle you want.......
I ment the camera during combat, that should mean the finishing moves...
I play with the highest possible setting..
Retro style yes, and this is also rewarded in my review, as a new take to to MMO scene...
We need more game developers that dare to take steps beyond WoW..Giving us something NEW(atleast in the MMO scene) is very brave and should be rewarded, and as such Atlantica is given a better score than it's really worth in it's current setting..
If but only if the rest of the game was not that poor it would recive a much higher score..It's like they had a couple of GREAT ideas but didn't put some thought around the rest of the game.
But my low score is mostly for the really bad lore and poor voice overs, they really should have thought out the story and the world more, you can't really say that someone is suppose to be exited by this story..That and combined with stiff overall animations(part from combat)..
Finally, you have your score and I have mine, you like tha game more than I do, wich is fine ofcourse
But so far I can't see no reason to give it a higher score than 6/10
But hopefully the score will raise, it is a fun game at it's core..
/junker
Did you even turn the combat effects off?? There is a camera at the bottom right hand corner where you can turn off the combat effects and then you never have issues again.......You can maneuver the camera into any angle you want.......
Ofcourse I turned it off, but you should not have to turn things off, hence the complains in my review.
If things work as they should you do not have to turn them off
/junker
Thats a small adjustment though...its not like Vanguard and EQ2 where you have to tweak for days and still it doesnt come out right.....They put it there cause some people want the effects and some dont.....I really dont see how it can be any easier than just clicking on one button.
Hmm...I'm NOT discussing if or if not it's hard to disable "one feature" in Atlantica..It's disabled..
I mentioned a feature that isn't working properly, that MOST players(if not all) has deactivated..
This is but one of the things mentioned in my review, and hardly one feature that has lowered any score in my review at all, it's just a feature that could have been somewhat cool that doesn't work..
some newbie questions
1. Is there PvP? If so how does it work
there's pvp, you can ask another player to compete with you and wait for their approval.. there's also pvp in the free league, set of players battle it out, the ones in the same division.. if your nation has king's judgement, set by the nation king, you can pk the one's your nation is at war with..
2. Is this game fast paced or like slow turn based(i know its turn based but it can still be fast paced..cant it? xP)
levelling up is fast during the earlier part or during low levels and gets slower at higher levels, depending on your strategy, if you want to do quests or grind or do other stuff..
3.How does the turn based system really work? I mean with like more than 1 person in the party do you just wait for everyone to choose their attack?
you have a team of up to 9 mercenaries.. its turn based so during your turn you can make your mercs attack once in a while, you can do combos, choose who to atack, or concentrate all their attack to a single mercenary... there's also a party system wherein you get to battle with other players with 9 mercs too.. there you can both or the three of you can attack at the same time..
you guys can also comment about this.. and post some more inquiries haha
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@Zeusus75:
Yeah, I threw in another gig of ram on that machine and the disk thrash-lag stops, it runs smoothly. The only lag left is due to the graphics card (it's a laptop with only 128mb ram). As I said, that computer runs far prettier looking games with less trouble.
Speaking of graphics, I'd also like to note the fairly poor camera. No, I'm not talking about the panning effects in combat (as others have pointed out, you can toggle this off). I'm talking about when you're walking in narrow hallways in dungeons. Try rotating the camera. See what I mean? Occasionally it'll throw the wall in front of you so you don't see a damn thing, and occasionally it'll snap zoom right in your face if you're standing next to the wall.
Camera distance should stay fixed, period - devs ought to learn how to clip objects between the camera and your character. None of this auto-rezooming crap. Yes it may seem more "logical" (cameras shouldn't go behind walls), but it's a damn sight easier on the eyes, and at the end of the day, people are going to pick an easier-to-use interface over one that picks realism but at the cost of annoying the user.
- - - - -
@thark (the OP):
Funny how all these games sport poor stories and we (rightly) blame them for not hiring writers. However, are writers really THAT expensive? Last I checked, a decent IT guy cost more - I should know, I work in IT - and I know people who write, be it for fun, education, literature, or technical writing. Let's face it, game companies are STILL stuck in the "Hollywood" mindset (shiny graphics over everything else).
At least Atlantica does do some things right - the ranked pvp, stamina system, learning skill / sharing info system, etc. And you gotta admit, as generic as the quests are, they're really no worse than most run-of-the-mill f2p asian grinders. They just have to put more work into it. And yes, I do notice that they provide random guild AND town quests, which aren't "standard" features in other f2p games.
- - - - -
I have one major grouse about the graphics: as you guys have pointed out, Atlantica Online isn't really the best looking game out there. Neither does it need to be. Problem is, the devs worked on a p.s.2 (pixel shader 2.0) engine... which really screws up performance on mid-range graphics cards. Like my laptop. I can run far better looking games (both singleplayer and MMOs) on it with higher settings, however in Atlantica I get performance lag PRECISELY because they didn't give us the option to scale down several unnecessary features.
Toss out antialiasing, make the goddamn underwater areas (Sea Palace, i'm looking at YOU) let you toggle off the stupid bubble effects, etc. For fuck's sake... I can play FPS games at a smoother framerate than this game, what the hell? Atlantica doesn't need that kind of horsepower. The devs should've included more scale-down options in the graphics settings, instead of the usual lame draw distance and vague catch-all 1-to-5 "quality" setting. They also lumped together mobs and other players in the "display simplified" setting (should be separate).
Other than that annoyance, I'm pretty ok with the game. It handles pvp a cut above most other f2p games, and the stamina system rewards people for being friendly and helpful (sharing info, teaching skills), instead of in other games which practically promote mindless ganking precisely because there's no incentive not to.
Also, have you explored the various chat options? The peer and nation tabs are really helpful, it lets you talk to players around your same level, not to mention a simple /t (name) lets you launch the whisper window where you can start a party etc, all with simply knowing the other guy's name. Brilliant. No more hunting around stupid multiple interfaces, guessing which command does what.
" In Defeat, Malice; In Victory, Revenge! "
a lot of reviews here.. nice..
and long haha..
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The combat does get repeatitive since you perform the same moves over and over again but the main strategy is the order of attack depending on the enemy and the timing in general.. For starters you have to decide on a formation. You can't expect to hire random mercs, position them at random and have a functional team. I'm level 58 and I still struggle to figure out the optimal formation for my particular needs and play style.
During combat you have to keep an eye on action points, you have to decide it you want to "Wait" or "Guard" instead and you also get to move around if you wish so. Many times I find myself wondering which mobs I should focus on, in which order, and when I should use my special attacks and on what since they have a cooldown and mana cost. Combine that with a limited amount of time to perform your actions for the turn (30 seconds maximum) and potential combo moves and strategy is not even remotely shallow. Its far deeper than just smashing your buttons on your standard real time mmo.
The camera does need some work on the in combat cut-scenes (which you easily (and should) disable) and in narrow spaces. There are clearly some clipping issues that should be ironed out. One thing that is not really mentioned somewhere is that arrow keys control the center of the camera.
The NPC dialogs are indeed poor but mostly in a comical sense. They are not horrible or anything, just average. They usually make me chuckle :P One thing though that I did like is that every NPC is really different.
I mean, they are far from generic. Every quest giver is distinct and has a unique model. You get everything, from sexy angels, bissops, hindu fallen goddesses, 3-eyed monks, you name it.
My only problem with outdoors is that it feels empty. You will find yourself walking around and you'll be all by yourself. There are some travelling npcs and naturally you'll see other players but thats about it. You won't really get mobs around everywhere as you travel.
Actually this is one of the best things for me, not having to waste time moving from npc to npc inside a city to perform some basic stuff, like buying, selling, enchanting, resting, etc etc.
You're really harsh on it, its by far the best free to play mmo right now and I tried a lot. I can see people being turned away by the turn-based element but really, give it a go guys, its an excellent game (for a F2P one).
I'd rate it 8/10 in general and if some things were to be improved/adjusted I'd easily rate it higher.
these posts are really good.. i think those who is planning to play this game should read these as well as thos who dont want to play the game..
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