Thoughts on various aspects of the game.

[ozziewolf]

I'm going to skip bugs or incomplete content with this and just focus on existing mechanics that could be improved to enhance player experience.

1.) The most pressing is contrast when modifying the terrain. At night time it's nearly impossible to get any sense of depth perception on the sandy terrain because it all looks identical. If the terrain could be modified to give the terrain more contrast it would go along way towards improving things. Day time it's not great but with shadows it helps some. The main problem is everything looks the same so the edges of the sandy terraforming terrain aren't very pronounced.

2.) Fires need to give off light. Right now they seem to give off the appearance of light with out giving off actual light. I can see the light reflecting on my character but the surrounding area is not being lit up by the fire. If fire could be modified to brightly illuminate the surrounding are it would be great.

3.) Left click vs Right click. Most everything in the game you interact through right click. However your hotbars you do left click. I'd like for the game to remain consistant and do either all left clicks or all right clicks. Switching back and forth feels ackward. (Optimally I think left clicking buttons would be preferable to right clicking which doesn't feel natural.)

4.) Chat feels unresponsive and rather sluggish like it can't keep up with me. (Granted I type about 100 words per minute.) Also when I hit enter some times the chat window doesn't seem to recognize it and I start doing various things in game depending on what keys I press before I realize I'm not in the chat bar. Also there is no way to clear out your chat bar so if you type something out you have to hold down your delete key as it slowly deletes what you wrote. Having escape clear your chat bar would be a nice addition.
The other thing is more chat channels something I read that you're adding and I hope you do. One channel that really needs to be added is a speech range chat channel. With out it the game won't attract RPers like it normally would. Being heard for hundreds of meters when talking to the person next to you really has a negative impact on RP.

Crafting: Having to right click what tools you're going to use for every recipe can be a bit irksome. If you could have it remember what tools you used until you lose the tool or change it would be a very positive change. I'm ok with right clicking my materials but selecting my tools for every attempt is tiresome and makes crafting a real chore and unenjoyable.

Over all quite a bit still needs to be done before its ready for release. However what you do have available is either very well done or moderately well done and if the rest of the game is on par with the current release then I expect this to be a very good game. The game can feel a little click spammy at times and macroing will probably be an issue. However progression is easy enough that I don't think players will feel obligated to macro as a way to advance their characters.

P.S. Periodically it seems like the world loses all animal spawns. Friday night there were no animals any where. Then Saturday there were some animals. Sunday we were inundated with animals and Sunday night there wasn't an animal to be seen. You might be aware of it but I figured it was worth mentioning.

Edit: Buildable structures is badly needed and something that I hope is a priority. Buildable structures will ultimately be a make it or break it for Xsyon and my guild.

[Cunk]

ozziewolf wrote:

I'm going to skip bugs or incomplete content with this and just focus on existing mechanics that could be improved to enhance player experience.

1.) The most pressing is contrast when modifying the terrain. At night time it's nearly impossible to get any sense of depth perception on the sandy terrain because it all looks identical. If the terrain could be modified to give the terrain more contrast it would go along way towards improving things. Day time it's not great but with shadows it helps some. The main problem is everything looks the same so the edges of the sandy terraforming terrain aren't very pronounced.

Easy, answer: don't terraform at night. Alternatively use your z-height to check things. Hopefully the terraforming system will be improved (although some might say it should be removed altogether and based on some of the construction I've seen I'm starting to lean that way myself).



2.) Fires need to give off light. Right now they seem to give off the appearance of light with out giving off actual light. I can see the light reflecting on my character but the surrounding area is not being lit up by the fire. If fire could be modified to brightly illuminate the surrounding are it would be great.
I haven't noticed this to be true. In fact I remember a bug where I'd see areas lit up but couldn't see the fire. So it was definitely casting light. Maybe it could be a little brighter or a whiter color.


3.) Left click vs Right click. Most everything in the game you interact through right click. However your hotbars you do left click. I'd like for the game to remain consistant and do either all left clicks or all right clicks. Switching back and forth feels ackward. (Optimally I think left clicking buttons would be preferable to right clicking which doesn't feel natural.)
Yeah, this bugs the hell out of me too. All these months later I still click the wrong buttons quite a lot.


P.S. Periodically it seems like the world loses all animal spawns. Friday night there were no animals any where. Then Saturday there were some animals. Sunday we were inundated with animals and Sunday night there wasn't an animal to be seen. You might be aware of it but I figured it was worth mentioning.

I found a ton of animals last night. It was fairly late (2AM east coast USA) but I couldn't run 100 feet without running into something.

[ozziewolf]

I'm not looking for feedback on interim solutions. I was giving feedback on something that should be modified eventually. Changing it to be part of construction is another option but even then the textures still lack contrast.
During the day time it's still hard to get accurate depth perception it's just that shadows from the sun make it less of an issue.

Both my friend and I tried to use Campfires at night to help lighten an area and outside of our characters lighting up there was no noticeable difference. It's possible there's a bug causing the light not to display properly.

[kiwibird]

1) I hope this don't come off as mean or inappropriate. Night time is generally not a good time to do things that require visual information, so when I personally hear that "we can't do ... during the night time" and it is because of vision, the best answer is, obtain light (fires) or wait till the morning.

When grouped with number 2, I believe that this is a bug, and will report that on your behave. Fires for me do illuminate the area so it is appropriate that you are having problems.

4) The chat channel currently in game to my knowledge is a range based channel, players don't have the ability to have global game chat (except private messages).

PS) This is likely true because animals do not spawn automatically and requires Guides to spawn them.

Edit) is still in the works, Coming Soon: (http://www.xsyon.com/forums/54-announcements/29500-xsyon-in-development#29501)Tribe creation panel - Totem placement and tribal zones - Woodcraft - Proper scroll bars for craft and other panels - Social panel additional functions - Movement and jump improvements - Combat adjustments - Final terrain - Final terrain baking process - Speed Tree performance optimization.

[Cunk]

ozziewolf wrote:

I'm not looking for feedback on interim solutions. I was giving feedback on something that should be modified eventually. Changing it to be part of construction is another option but even then the textures still lack contrast.
During the day time it's still hard to get accurate depth perception it's just that shadows from the sun make it less of an issue.
I'm not sure what sort of cues they can add to help with this (other than the existing shadows during the day). I suppose one way would be to add some sort of visual indicator of a tile's angle. Wurm Online does this by reporting a number for how steep a tile's border is. In the past I've suggested adding surveying tools that allow you to compare tile heights. I think something like that would fit the feel of the game a bit better.

[ozziewolf]

The problem isn't that it's night. I'm ok with it being harder to see. The problem is with the sand tile and the fact that it all looks nearly identical even in the day time its hard to tell if something is level or not with out moving your view around to all kinds of crazy angles. It's extremely difficult in the day time and impossible at night time. I could take a screenshot in broad day light of the sand tiles and do it in such a way that you couldn't tell if you were looking at a pit or a flat level surface. Using illumination at night hasn't worked because the fires have given off no light when we've used them. (Outside of light reflecting off our characters.)

I don't think any kind of extra chat channels are in game currently. There is General chat and I could talk to people 400 zones away. I haven't been able to private message any one in game.

[Kitsume]

ozziewolf wrote:

I don't think any kind of extra chat channels are in game currently. There is General chat and I could talk to people 400 zones away. I haven't been able to private message any one in game.

There are three usable chat channels in game right now.

General - can be heard in your zone and the 8 neighboring zones
Help - /h global chat
Whisper /w for private messages

Other chats, but can't use:
Party /p (can't Group)
Tribe /t (no tribes yet)
Guild /g (not sure if this an alternate tribe chat or something else)

[ozziewolf]

The zone thing is good to know. I guess there was a miss communication before when the person said what zone they were in.

Edit: I hope another channel that gets added is a local hearing range channel. I don't think it will attract much in the way of RPers if every one can hear you in 9 zones when you talk to the person next to you.

[kiwibird]

The zones are laid out different than normal... for example...

if the map looks like this

01-02-03-04-05-06-07
08-09-10-11-12-13-14
15-16-17-18-19-20-21

And you are in zone 10, you can broadcast to

01-02-03-04-05-06-07
08-09-10-11-12-13-14
15-16-17-18-19-20-21

So depending on the layout of the map, the person could be in that zone.

[Snake]

Great thoughts ozzie, most of your mentions I realized beeing important while reading and I missed them without precise noticing before you told them. E.g. the lighting by fires, chat-issues (having a channel for a restricted distance for - let's say 50 or 100m). Perhaps via "/l" for local. Well, beeing a dev too I know it's one thing to restrict listening via zone-offsets, and another thing to do it via radius of distance. The latter is not just a 10 row piece of code, especially if standing at borders of regions lol.
If it will be possibly to create structures via resources like logs or metal or grass or whatever will be an essential thing IMHO for people having homes. Terraforming is a nice option to prepare a land - level it - but beeing able to build something out of various things is much greater.
I will not judge prematurely but I expect this beeing implemented having some issues if I look at the current ability to position things like logs, and - as told earlier - what is having collision boxes and what not. Perhaps there should be an option of the context-menu of objects to switch into a move-objects-mode which gives three arrows in red/green/blue which you can drag. That'd be a complete other thing than the actual trial-and-error-way via pickup, step left f.e. and drop. :)
Cheers.

[ozziewolf]

Thanks for the feedback Snake. I know a lack of local chat was one of the things that killed Darkfall for my RP guild.

Modifying dirt and stuff is nice but I don't think I'd truly feel like I have a fort with out some sort of wooden walls and or tents like in some of the screen shots on the website.
Dirt walls are a good stop gap but they feel more like improvisation versus having an actual fort.

[Cunk]

Snake, building structures by piling up logs and stuff is not the intended way of doing things in this game. That is just something people do for now because they are bored. Structures will consist of the prefab meshes you see in the screen shots (as ozziewolf mentioned above).

As far as chat goes, ozzie, you'll have guild/tribe chat so you can do all your RP stuff in there. I'm assuming the chat interface will improve to make it easier to choose which chat mode you're in (rather than having to type /t or whatever every time).

[Saorlan]

Also be aware that animals are spawned manually by Virtus at the moment.

I agree it needs to be properly dark at night and we need torches and campfires to really work.

[ozziewolf]

Cunk wrote:

Snake, building structures by piling up logs and stuff is not the intended way of doing things in this game. That is just something people do for now because they are bored. Structures will consist of the prefab meshes you see in the screen shots (as ozziewolf mentioned above).

As far as chat goes, ozzie, you'll have guild/tribe chat so you can do all your RP stuff in there. I'm assuming the chat interface will improve to make it easier to choose which chat mode you're in (rather than having to type /t or whatever every time).

Using Guild/Tribe chat for rp defeats the purpose of RP because it limits you to just RPing within your guild. A large portion of RP often includes many people from numerous backgrounds. I can safely say that with out form of localized chat a large portion of RPers will keep looking for the game that does.
It may not seem like much of an issue bit it's probably more critical than any other form of chat when it comes to Roleplay.

The guild I'm a member of is Shadowclan and a friend and I are currently scouting the game to see if it will be suitable for a branch. Granted we wouldn't be RPing as Orcs since they don't fit in with the setting.

[Snake]

Cunk wrote:

Snake, building structures by piling up logs and stuff is not the intended way of doing things in this game. That is just something people do for now because they are bored. Structures will consist of the prefab meshes you see in the screen shots (as ozziewolf mentioned above).

yeah thats great then, thanks Cunk :)

[Kerovan]

Cunk wrote:


As far as chat goes, ozzie, you'll have guild/tribe chat so you can do all your RP stuff in there. I'm assuming the chat interface will improve to make it easier to choose which chat mode you're in (rather than having to type /t or whatever every time).

The path they are currently taking in my opinion is the correct path, I personally can not stand the multi-tab chat systems(Eve/Darkfall). Both games have sever problem especially when receiving private messages going unnoticed.

I agree some tweaks are needed:

* Sticky the channel you last spoken in.

* A hot-key to reply to whispers (ie. r in wow)

* Make name of player a link to start a whisper to. (will help with the whole space in the name issue)

* I am pretty sure this is already in place but just in case - different color for each channel (examples: local - white, tribe - green, whispers - blue, etc...) (disclaimer: color scheme listed is for example only, I am not suggesting to use this specific color scheme.)

* Ability to leave and enter all channels.

* perhaps a DND mode where you ignore all whispers - might come in handy if the "gold farmers" start advertising.


EDIT: Personally I would be happy with a whisper system and a local bubble chat system combination. I use vent for 99% of my conversations anyways.

[ozziewolf]

Kerovan wrote:

Cunk wrote:


As far as chat goes, ozzie, you'll have guild/tribe chat so you can do all your RP stuff in there. I'm assuming the chat interface will improve to make it easier to choose which chat mode you're in (rather than having to type /t or whatever every time).

The path they are currently taking in my opinion is the correct path, I personally can not stand the multi-tab chat systems(Eve/Darkfall). Both games have sever problem especially when receiving private messages going unnoticed.

I agree some tweaks are needed:

* Sticky the channel you last spoken in.

* A hot-key to reply to whispers (ie. r in wow)

* Make name of player a link to start a whisper to. (will help with the whole space in the name issue)

* I am pretty sure this is already in place but just in case - different color for each channel (examples: local - white, tribe - green, whispers - blue, etc...) (disclaimer: color scheme listed is for example only, I am not suggesting to use this specific color scheme.)

* Ability to leave and enter all channels.

* perhaps a DND mode where you ignore all whispers - might come in handy if the "gold farmers" start advertising.


EDIT: Personally I would be happy with a whisper system and a local bubble chat system combination. I use vent for 99% of my conversations anyways.

I agree that tabbed chatting is terrible and not what I'm referring to when I say localalized chat. The games that keep chat all in one window with the option to create more windows or filter what goes into the windows are the ones that have done it right.

[Jenadi]

ozziewolf wrote:

Cunk wrote:

Snake, building structures by piling up logs and stuff is not the intended way of doing things in this game. That is just something people do for now because they are bored. Structures will consist of the prefab meshes you see in the screen shots (as ozziewolf mentioned above).

As far as chat goes, ozzie, you'll have guild/tribe chat so you can do all your RP stuff in there. I'm assuming the chat interface will improve to make it easier to choose which chat mode you're in (rather than having to type /t or whatever every time).

Using Guild/Tribe chat for rp defeats the purpose of RP because it limits you to just RPing within your guild. A large portion of RP often includes many people from numerous backgrounds. I can safely say that with out form of localized chat a large portion of RPers will keep looking for the game that does.
It may not seem like much of an issue bit it's probably more critical than any other form of chat when it comes to Roleplay.

The guild I'm a member of is Shadowclan and a friend and I are currently scouting the game to see if it will be suitable for a branch. Granted we wouldn't be RPing as Orcs since they don't fit in with the setting.

I have to agree with ozziewolf. Kind of "bystander RP" adds a lot of flavor to a world from my opinion - which asks for a local chat channel. Imagine something like UO for example as a major RP plattform with local chat ... :blink: