A new player's input

[GoralPL]

Hey fellas,

Maybe some of you have seen me wandering around xsyon recently and asking a tremendous amount of questions, if you are one of those that helped me, Thank you :)

Now I wanted to throw in my 3 cents about the game and see what others think. I also had a few questions.

First up, the lag seems to be an issue but I have seen many threads about that so I'll just let it be :P

It seems like there is still many "holes" in the game, and things/features missing.
To be honest I am a little suprised we are paying 14.99 on top of actually buying the game for an "un-finished" product. Wouldn't it be wise ( and bring in much more people like me ... wallet-watching poor students :D) if they got rid of the monthly fee or made it something smaller for the duration of the Prelude? or as long as the game seems "un-finished"

Now regarding those missing features, here's a question to you guys. How dedicated are the devs? How quickly can we expect a new patch/features/stabilization? How effective will it be? As you can see I haven't done much research on this. It would be nice to know that the game is being furiously worked on to bring us that "finished" product.
With enough money it would also be nice to see each "zone" hosted on a different machine ( like Eve-online) IF that's possible it would solve many fps dropping/lag issues? maybe ? :)

I love the direction in which the game seems to be going, I am actually enjoying it with all these things missing/lag issues. Though it seems to me that the amount of content in the game is a little small right now, I am sure that if the developer is dedicated this will change quickly.

Now, to summarize a few other things I think:

+Love the way the tribes work
+A little hard to start of as a hermit... but I guess it must be, dont change that :D
+Graphics are freaking beautifull for an indie dev.
+There is actually more people playing this then I thought there would be :P

-Lag issues
-Missing content
-Give me an in-game map damn it! Or even better! GIVE me the option to "draw" the map as I explore it and then share it with other players( Trade it I mean)
-Alt+tab is a guaranteed crash :P

That's my 3 cents, what do you guys think?

Hope not to see you in game.... unless we are trading :D

[Sirius]

C'mon, dude. Join date: April 2011. Cut him some slack.

[Larsa]

... Now regarding those missing features, here's a question to you guys. How dedicated are the devs? How quickly can we expect a new patch/features/stabilization? How effective will it be? ...Welcome to the game. Do not mind the answer of the other poster, in a game like this there always are a bunch of these forum tough guys.

To answer your question: The devs are very dedicated, hard working, especially the lead developer that posts under the name of Xsyon. Dedication in this case however doesn't mean that new features will come fast and doesn't mean that they will be all effective. Xsyon is an indie title, it's a very small development team and despite all the dedication do not expect things to change fast. Nothing can be done about it, it's the nature of the beast.

Good that you started as a hermit. Stay solo or join a small tribe. In my experience that's how the game can be best enjoyed in it's current state. In a big tribe you will miss the struggle to get things going and everything is already taken care of.

In one thing I disagree with you: the in-game map, I'm happy that there is none. :)

[jumpshot]

-Missing content
-Give me an in-game map damn it! Or even better! GIVE me the option to "draw" the map as I explore it and then share it with other players( Trade it I mean)
-Alt+tab is a guaranteed crash :P

That's my 3 cents, what do you guys think?


While I agree with your overall point, "there is some stuff missing," I noticed the above. I suspect some of the features you may think are "missing" are done so by design. The obvious example here is the map. While there will supposidly be a cartography skill sometime, I think it's part of the point that it's hard to get around and you have learn landmarks and such. Simple things are made difficult by design in this game. It adds the rewarded feeling for accomplishing even mundane things, like eating or making fire for light.

In other words, if the features you are yearning for our things like NPCs, a map button, story-driven quest arcs, or fast travel... it will be a long wait!

Oooor maybe you're just talking mostly about skill decay, item decay, comfort, adrenaline, and stuff like that. In which case, yeah!

Lasty, go windowed mode (with max monitor resolution) and alt-tab with ease... albeit bordered :/

And laster than lastly, to your original question - you won't have to give it more than a week to see how active and communicative the devs are.

[GoralPL]

Good good, Thanks for the replies.

I see how its designed this way...... such as ... maybe we dont have maps right now but as we progress we might learn cartography etc.

I guess this could apply to content as well. as we progress we will "invent" more items, or find recipes. Its a neat way of introducing stuff I guess.

Again, thanks for the replies ;)

[robofriven]

The game is rather designed to have things released slowly throughout prelude. There are a lot of things missing that were supposed to be in by now but things got sidetracked when the playerbase got a lot bigger then expected right before launch and so the devs got the worst timed stress test ever... and it didn't go so good. They're still sorting out the pieces and working their asses off.

I say as long as you're not in it mostly for the PvP give it time and you'll be happy. If you were drawn in by "full loot" then you're in the wrong game, as this game is never supposed to be PvP driven. PvP is there and adds to the fullness of the game, but if it's your only enjoyment there's better places to be.

[Sirius]

If you were drawn in by "full loot" then you're in the wrong game, as this game is never supposed to be PvP driven.

Uhm, aren't you exaggerating that quite a bit? What I remember reading is that the game wouldn't be a "gankfest". Not the same thing. Is there something else I'm missing?

[Jadzia]

Uhm, aren't you exaggerating that quite a bit? What I remember reading is that the game wouldn't be a "gankfest". Not the same thing. Is there something else I'm missing?

Yup.

From Jordi's latest massively interview:

What sets Xsyon apart is a focus on building and creating a new world and not relying on PvP as the driving force.

And he said this many times on these boards during the last year.

[Sirius]

I suppose if things get in working order many of us will be testing the limits of that statement :)

[Jadzia]

I suppose if things get in working order many of us will be testing the limits of that statement :)

He never said that PvP is not important or that you can't PvP as much as you like :) He said that the game is not PvP focused, and that means several things development-wise. Thats why we have safe zones and thats why warfare will be opt-out. PvPers will find their fun hopefully, just like non-PvPers.

[Dontaze_Mebro]

I say as long as you're not in it mostly for the PvP give it time and you'll be happy. If you were drawn in by "full loot" then you're in the wrong game, as this game is never supposed to be PvP driven. PvP is there and adds to the fullness of the game, but if it's your only enjoyment there's better places to be.

More Carebear Propaganda

[Haphazard]

+1 about the propoganda. In order to properly build a world - we are going to need conflict. We need it now more than ever with the prelude world filled with the blight of a million homesteads.

[mrcalhou]

He never said that PvP is not important or that you can't PvP as much as you like :) He said that the game is not PvP focused, and that means several things development-wise.

Well, considering that it seems like almost all of the content is going to come from other players, I don't see how it can't be PvP-focused.

Thats why we have safe zones and thats why warfare will be opt-out. PvPers will find their fun hopefully, just like non-PvPers. I'm all for safe zones, but at some point, someone's going to have to realize that allowing the players to choose where the safezones are, and to "opt-out" of conflict, no matter what the circumstances are or where they are located, is a bad idea for balance and will be abused horribly. I would love to play the role of the invincible spy but I know it'd kill the game.

Now, if we have zones where everyone is protected and zones where noone is protected, and "opting out" of conflict means staying in a rather large and content-rich area, then by all means they should do that.

If they really want this game to develop into a player-driven, emergent gameplay game, then they will need to make sure each action and behavior has both a positive and negative consequence and that both weigh each other out so that there is no one right way to play. Currently this isn't the case.

[joecool87]

Welcome...to THE GAME

[joexxxz]

+1 about the propoganda. In order to properly build a world - we are going to need conflict. We need it now more than ever with the prelude world filled with the blight of a million homesteads.
+1 +1 +1 +1 +1 = +5 ;)

Like right now, my neighboor is not playing, but the player occupied the land, and on that property is two trees that i would like to cut down, Right now i cant do it, and nothing i can do about it. THATS NOT SAND BOX. I WANT TO MESS WITH MY NEIGHBOORS SANDBOX. ;)

[Dubanka]

He never said that PvP is not important or that you can't PvP as much as you like :) He said that the game is not PvP focused, and that means several things development-wise. Thats why we have safe zones and thats why warfare will be opt-out. PvPers will find their fun hopefully, just like non-PvPers.

omg do we have to do this again. replay the broken record.

i have a full page of quotes (a couple pages back) that back up the position that pvp is integral to game and while not the PRIMARY focus, it is a core tenet of the game play.

IT IS a pvp game.
IT IS modeled after the godfather of all pvp games (UO)

i should say it is supposed to be a pvp game...since right now, it's nothing of the sort. No pvp. No people to pvp with. Having a great time building walls and digging trenches.

[GoralPL]

Here's my 3 cents again,

I think this game needs PVP. Since we are in a post-apocalyptic world with scarce resources we should be quite literally forced to fight for some of them. It will "propell" the game forward, especially at such an early stage as prelude, It will put prices on goods acquired through scavenging/gathering etc. The way I see it is, if there is a big pile of junk somewhere in my zone then it should automatically be a "hot area" with lots of competition and pvp ( mind you, NO tribes on the freaking junk piles.) The goods acquired through scavenging would be worth a lot then. People would start scavenging/hunting scavengers in groups, it would really make you fell you are in a post apocalyptic world.

Then ofcourse comes the technical issues with PVP that the game is experiencing right now :P Those are the priority :P

[Jadzia]

omg do we have to do this again. replay the broken record.

i have a full page of quotes (a couple pages back) that back up the position that pvp is integral to game and while not the PRIMARY focus, it is a core tenet of the game play.

IT IS a pvp game.
IT IS modeled after the godfather of all pvp games (UO)

i should say it is supposed to be a pvp game...since right now, it's nothing of the sort. No pvp. No people to pvp with. Having a great time building walls and digging trenches.

I wonder what could convince you that Xsyon is not a PvP game. The devs said so, it didn't work. The lack of features that are supposed to be in a PvP game...it didn't work. Your personal experience you just mentioned...it didn't work.

Really, you can call Xsyon whatever you like. Just don't blame the devs if it turns out to be something different than what you said.

[GoralPL]

Really, you can call Xsyon whatever you like. Just don't blame the devs if it turns out to be something different than what you said.


Yeah, We can talk here all we want. If the devs listen or not is completely their choice. It's their project/game afterall :P. Still, I am eager to find out what they will come up with.

[mrcalhou]

I wonder what could convince you that Xsyon is not a PvP game. The devs said so, it didn't work. The lack of features that are supposed to be in a PvP game...it didn't work. Your personal experience you just mentioned...it didn't work.

Really, you can call Xsyon whatever you like. Just don't blame the devs if it turns out to be something different than what you said.

PvP can work really well. It's just that people keep thinking that it has to follow the UO/Darkfall model of completely open FFA-PvP and that's where the latest batch of "sandbox" games are really stumbling. They're relying too much on making persistent world Quake-like games. Instead of actually giving players things to do that are fun in addition to PvP.

It's actually a really simple fix too.

Make part of the world safe and don't allow players to build/terraform there. Resources that are needed in the largest amounts and for many, different, crafted items would be found in this area. But mainly in low-qualities with the higher quality stuff being rarer to find.

Make some of the world semi-safe, like what we have now, so players can build and terraform without fear of someone knocking down their stuff but make it so that major resource nodes (things similar to junk piles; not trees) act like homesteads with players' safezones being unable to encompass the node. More higher quality materials would spawn here, including types of resources that wouldn't be found in the complete safe zones.

Make the rest of the world (preferentially a large portion) open-FFA-PvP, with players being able to build and terraform at their leisure. All types of resources would be able to be acquired here, along with having mines and nodes that last a good while and/or regenerate [during server downtime].


I know this would work, because it gives pvp-entuisists and pve-entuisists places where they can play and accomplish things. It also allows for trade routes to form, which caters to smuggler types, and it hinders noones playing-style. Since if this game was only PvE, the PvP people would leave and if it was only PvP then most of the PvE people would leave.

[Kinslayer]

Wow, way to kill another thread guys. Welcome to the forums Gora.