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My review!
Astrokat
Member Posts: 22
Ok got to play the game for about 3 hours yesterday and this is what I though of it.
First the negative.BUGS! I mean it sure needed alot of work. Alot of translation wasnt done yet, so some ingame text was still in french. Private tells didnt work, Guild invite didnt work, group invite didnt work.
Chat bubbles was horrible. Character custimization was terrible, not enough options yet or diversity at all. But it was really horrible, expect the worst possible then you wont get a shock.
Couldnt find any quests, mobs were hard to find but that was more aresult of the pressure on the starting zones. No tutorial at all, and the learning curve is pretty steep. Took a while to even figure out how to get me dragon.
Only did combat as a level one so not much info yet, seemed like the usual mmorpg style. not fast paced or anything, you attack and then add up "moves". And was pretty tough almost died fighitng a level 1 mob as a level 1.
Possitive things.
I liked the graphics even though I didnt have it on max. Lag was better than I had expected.
The world is truly immersive and breathtaking, you cannot imagine how big this world is. ITs like the small island we started on is the entire continent in WoW. The world got enourmous opportunities for roleplay. ITs so realistic, you can go anywhere you want, and it feels very "real". I can imagine some great roleplay in this world.
The music is absolutely awesome.
Free flight feature is an amazing feature, it didnt lag alot either but put such an extra dimension to the game.
Overall judgement:
I am really exited about the "core" of the game. The idea and the potential it got. But in its current state it needs ALOT of polishing. Its not worth paying for as it is now, but if they manage to put in player cities, crafting system and some sort of "quest" content this game has potential to become great.
Screens!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v631/Astrokat/Shot017.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v631/Astrokat/Shot016.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v631/Astrokat/Shot015.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v631/Astrokat/Shot014.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v631/Astrokat/Shot013.jpg
Thats me on the back of the dragon another guy is flying! truly amazing feature, but whats up with the ugly chat bubbles! 
Comments
"crafting system and some sort of "quest" content this game has potential to become great."
so your saying after 3 years they don't even have quests or crafting in the game?
Just hope they put in Aerial Combat , Air to Ait, Air to Ground, Ground to Air..
Just gonna feel cheated if I dont see some dragon mount with broken or shreded wings plunging to the earth with its rider screaming all the way down.
As Ive understood, crafting is not available in SOG, but should be in DnL beta. So dont really know anything about it, Ive just heard they are trying to put in a really interesting crafting system.
As to quests, dont expect WoW. You will be sooo disappointed. I dont think they will have a quest based leveling. Leveling is based on "hunting" and you get xp for PvP aswell, I killed 2 pioneers dragons from the other side and got xp from it.
They talekd about quest being implemented in "events" hosted by the team. But I couldnt find any quests in 3 hours, only found one NPC who told me to "go away" lol.
So dont really know if there are quests around.
Im just saying that it surely has potential, but as it is now its not worth paying for, they need to improve alot of things. Im possitively surprised cause I actually found it better than I had thought
Actually, they first planned to release it three years ago...development startet like four or five years ago
Just out of curiosity... why do all of your pictures say
"Copyrighted 2004 Dark and Light is a trademark of Farlan Entertainment"
In the lower right hand corner????
I was told that Crafting is not even in the DnL beta yet.
5 months before release and they haven't tested crafting yet.
That's a bit scary if you ask me.
___________________________________________
Hmm never noticed that, I can assure you that those screenshots were taken yesterday though. Wether you believe me or not is up to you.
Got abit more leveling done in this hour. Got level 7 and started to get some spells. Lighting bolt spell and the animation was absolutely horrible...
Leveling doesnt seem that tough though when you find the appropiate level monsters.
It was specifically stated that crafting and questing would not be in the initial phases of SoG. Anyway, for the most part I agree with the OP. So, putting aside the innuendo and baseless speculation, I'll say what I thought of what the game actually IS.
I did quite a bit of mob killing and got to level 6. It definitely has potential.
The level system is intriguing. Much more complicated than the usual "Ding, you have reached your next level."
Graphics are not something I feel can be rated fairly. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, yada yada. Personally, I like them. The terrain is especially gorgeous. The avatars definitely need work, though oddly the mobs look pretty good. I prefer the realistic look of SoG over the cartoony WoW or "fake" looking lushness of EQ2. You'll have to decide for yourself. Avatars need more customization options and more fleshing out in general.
Combat animations, which I was seriously worried about, are not as bad as some videos would lead you to believe. Combat is not exciting, it is basic click and attack stuff, with extra clicking if you want to cast a spell or something. And combat itself is tough. I really feel for the people who start as level one if they intend to solo without the benefit of the Pioneer dragon's help.
If they got something perfectly right, it is the flying. Flying on the dragon and looking down is absolutely amazing. You can go incredibly high, then swoop down pretty quickly, or cruise to far distances fast. Very nice.
Having said that, there are three things they need to do or the game will fail.
1-Stability. In the three hours or so that I played, I crashed out of the game about 7 or 8 times. Not sure what is causing this, but it will have to be fixed asap.
2-Choppiness. Hard to say what is causing this. There were a lot of us in a fairly small area, and it reminded me of the way things get in EVE when there are hundreds of people in one system. In the huge crowd of people I got about 5 frames per second. Away from them I got about 20 or so. This was on engine mode 1 at 1024x768. I have an ATI 9800 Pro video card, and 1 gig of ram, but an older motherboard. So my system is not state of the art, but it isn't weak either. 20 frames per second is ok, but nothing to brag about obviously. It would be fine if that was the in-town rate, when you have come in to sell/buy/craft. But I can see it as a problem for PvP and the 5 frames per second they currently have for large groups definitely will not fly for faction vs. faction battles.
3-Camera. Oh my. The camera is dizzying. It isn't fixed behind you, or above your head or whatever. It swings around. Movement is bound to ASWD. But if you are standing still and hit A to turn right, or D to turn left, the camera doesn't move. Your avatar will simply spin around and you'll be looking at his side or front or whatever. If you then hit W to move forward the avatar will move forward in the direction he is now facing, and the camera will swing into place behind him. It's very confusing to me. There are probably some who don't mind it, but for people like me who want the camera to be locked into place behind the avatar, there absolutely needs to be an option to do that.
So to sum up-Graphics, depends on your taste, but I like them. Combat, bland, but fairly standard for the genre. Levelling, interesting and more complicated than usual, which is good to me. Flying, awesome.
Here's hoping they can fix the major things and begin putting in more content so we can get a better idea of what the final product will be.
LOL... that is hilarious! Takes hours to find NPC and he/she buonce u off like that.... BAD NPC..BAD hehe
Anyway, I am kinda beginning to like this huge world idea, instead of the traditional MMORPG model where world is small and everything is cramped. In a huge world DnL seems to be, one can get lost and exploration may become a very important part, thats what I like. Even as limited as exploration was in Earth and Beyond (rest in peace), I still enjoyed it - finding new areas, always on the edge waiting to get blasted by a passing high level mob....ARRRGGGGG if only I could get into beta, to experience first hand all the dark and light sides of the game....YARRRRRRRR
EDIT: Oh BTW. very nice review Astrokat. Is there any chance you could make and post high res screenies plz?
I am the type of player where I like to do everything and anything from time to time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor - pre-WW2 genocide.
Totally agree with elivgys post.
It sure needs alot of work.
The reason why I still am so possitive about the game is Im really surprised about the immersion and the "realistic" feeling to the world.
If you are in it for quests, phat loot, pvp skills whatever I think this game will be a huge disappointment for you.
What it emphasizes is community. The whole world is enhancing a community and roleplay feeling. Its about exploring together, the simple fact that you can pick up other players on your mounts is a great feature. Its not a singleplayer mmorpg, its actually a mmorpg where people have to do stuff together.
Hopefully with player cities it will become a great roleplay, community enhancing game. This is why Im so thrilled about it even though it has so many lacks.
Though bottom line, they really need to fix ALOT of things before its worth paying for and before it will get recognized. I noticed a weird "warphing" movement from the mobs just before. Such things need to be sorted out. And I dont know yet if they can make it.
Ahh the hardship and misery of being a pioneer deserves our gratitude.
I'm sure things will get better with time.
LOL... that is hilarious! Takes hours to find NPC and he/she buonce u off like that.... BAD NPC..BAD hehe
Anyway, I am kinda beginning to like this huge world idea, instead of the traditional MMORPG model where world is small and everything is cramped. In a huge world DnL seems to be, one can get lost and exploration may become a very important part, thats what I like. Even as limited as exploration was in Earth and Beyond (rest in peace), I still enjoyed it - finding new areas, always on the edge waiting to get blasted by a passing high level mob....ARRRGGGGG if only I could get into beta, to experience first hand all the dark and light sides of the game....YARRRRRRRR
EDIT: Oh BTW. very nice review Astrokat. Is there any chance you could make and post high res screenies plz?
Until the community starts whining that they never play because it takes so long to do anything and then all the sudden you have some half baked solution thrown in such as Planes of Power for EQ 1 that undoes the original intentions of the game. Game companies want to please as many as possible now for sales numbers instead of sticking to the type of players they originally developed for. Number of sales before quality of product type of thing. You can't blame them however it leads to a continue flow of mediocre MMO's that all end up mostly alike.
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
Im not quite sure how I do that
Make them another file you mean, or?
I have to agree with Astrokat on most of his "review".
I was able to play last night for about 5-6 hours, i was able to get level 14, mainly becuse i would fly around away from EVERYONE to find something to kill.
I seems their NPC/Creatures are all controled by a seperate database/server and then "fed" into the main cluster, there were times (when the server first came up for about 15 minutes) that the world was empty of all creatures but players, then suddenly they would just all apear.
The world does seem incredibly "realistic" except for the fact it is so empty right now, they need about 1000X the number of creatures they do now just to fill maybe a 1/4 of what i saw, but what i saw was at times breathtaking, i would climb straight up into the clouds and watch as i passed through little snow fluries at the higher altitudes, and then i would burst through the clouds and it would be clear all around me and all i could see horizon to horizon were incredibly life like clouds (really shocked me, and reminds me of flying in planes today looking out the window...). diving back towards the ground was fun but also at times as the landscape's textures changed it was very grainy/pixulated yet it was still "decent".
Something is "strange" with the graphics engine though, i ran at 1280X1024 on engine setting (6 or 7.. not sure which is highest) and i got just about a CONSTANT 22-25 fps, no matter where i was, who was around, what i was looking at etc etc. I have a fairly high end system, so it almost seems like they have the FPS capped at times. There were lots of network latency issues or something, sometimes mobs would "slide" around and characters too, or they would rubber band back and forth etc...
The game has great potential, but i gotta say i am not sure if they can be ready in 4 or so months, just seems unlikely unless they work about 10X faster than they have in the past many years....
Im not quite sure how I do that
Make them another file you mean, or?
High resolution, your screenshot are almost like thumbnails in size.
I CREATED MYSELF!
"<Claus|Dev> i r pk"
SW:TOR|War40K:DMO|GW2
Yes:
1) NPC / creatures on different server cluster.
2) World is huge, but fairly empty.
3) Flying is fun for a few days, but gets boring fast. It's not main draw of this game. Auto travel / bathroom feature.
4) Game is capped at 25 fps for longest time now.
Even if they work 100X faster than before, won't make close to the April release. A huge company, like Blizzard, might be able to do it, but highly unlikely with one as small as Farlan.
What people are forgetting is that the Core parts of D&L are gonna be (on release).
RvR
Crafting
Community
The PvE element is more of a means to an end. The social element is what the games about.
SoG is obviously having major problems, but it has RvR in (from what I gather). I can't say if it's any good, as I can't login
What we have with SoG is really 4 months of Beta testing. It wouldn't surprise me if mor econtent was added into the game as each month passes.
The game is lacking these items atm.
Crafting
Decent Models
Better Mob management
Quest System
SXP
models are probably gonna be easier to do than anything else. Mob management again, is mainly a coding thing that should be easily done.
Crafting, SXP and a quest system. They are the big three that are no doubt the ones being worked on for D&L not SoG. IF they can get those sorted for April, then things will be looking up.
I'm sure the D&L is probably just SoG is atm. To be honest, I've no idea whats taken farlen 4 years to do. You know the french, they have lots of holidays
What we don't know is how long the sxp/crafting/quest system is down the line internally to being "tested". To me, the crafting is vitally importent. Questing is rather tedious as it's no more than glorified PvE and the social element, well. No idea realy
if the game can support 100K (lets forget about the current problems for a minute), then they have done a very good job. If crafting and RvR are implemented well, then in 4 months I think they could have a winner.
we really are just beta testing regardless of what people say.
Note that the DNL Graphic Engine has nothing to do with the game. Remember this was a 'world simulation' engine that was used to make the game. Essentially youre all basically running around in a world (environment) simulations, thats pretending to a be a MMO. Thats why youre all omg the environment! But the rest of the game? What a joke.
after the few hours i played, i would have killed for a higher level of keyboard/ui customization. all in all, i got used to the awkward controls and did remap what i could to something more comfortable.
i absolutely hated the chat window, if that's even what you can call it. i started completely ignoring it after awhile. i also noticed some ghosting of mobs that seemed to be right in front of me but then disappeared with the target box showing "256m" or so away.
the game was enjoyable enough and i've certainly played worse. whoever expects the early days to go well is a fool.