Another long rant from the rantmaster

[SOFWarrior]

<insert facepalm.jpg> Why is it some people lack the common sense to realise that a game/project cannot be literally done overnight (unless your an AI from 200 years in the future). It takes time to implement things, bug hunt, bug fix, design etc. Have patience like the rest of us, Keep thinking about suggestions, Help the Dev's hunt them Bugs.

It might have something to do with the fact that this game was supposed to be released back in April - you know, back when they were trying to drum up money for the game with preorders.

Then, they delayed it 1 month because in the developer's professional opinion, that's all the time he needed to complete and release the game. Now, eight months later, the game still doesn't have many of the features it's supposed to have. Obviously, the developer's ability to gauge what his own game needs was horribly, HORRIBLY wrong. Not just a little off - A LOT OFF, and the game still isn't anywhere near ready with the planned features. I'm sure that, by maintaining the illusion that release was imminent, the money kept coming in.

Not to worry - when the game finally does launch, and is a train wreck, they'll just attempt to pass it off as "Prelude".

In short, I agree with the OP. So far, this isn't a game, it's work disguised as a game. They've forgotten one key element of a game - FUN. Xsyon doesn't have it yet.

[trenixdecease]

It might have something to do with the fact that this game was supposed to be released back in April - you know, back when they were trying to drum up money for the game with preorders.

Is that so? So why were they telling us not to promote the game for them?

[trenixdecease]

Not sure how you figure this disproves what you're implying it disproves. Wouldnt it do the opposite?

No, they said that if they wanted to promote the game, they'd do it themselves rather than ask for us to do it for them. Another words, if they really wanted to rack up money with pre-orders, they would of. It's not like this game hasn't progressed so I don't get what's all this bitching about.

[Luculus]

Revkha - I agree with your questions. I think the basic answer is "they are coming", but there has been quite a bit of unforeseen problems with server performance etc. A release date of last April was horribly misplaced considering the size of the Dev team and the fact that so few of the features had been tested. I have no problem with that personally, and I was also very wary after the BS that was/is Mortal Online. I would totally understand anyone who is not happy with the delay.

The only bit I disagree with is "what is there to do?". You can build your own society. From scratch. Terrain, housing, rules, laws, hierachy, quests etc. That is feckin amazing for those of us that are into that sort of thing. I can't think of another game that comes close to that level of sandbox except perhaps EVE.

[MrDDT]

Revkha - I agree with your questions. I think the basic answer is "they are coming", but there has been quite a bit of unforeseen problems with server performance etc. A release date of last April was horribly misplaced considering the size of the Dev team and the fact that so few of the features had been tested. I have no problem with that personally, and I was also very wary after the BS that was/is Mortal Online. I would totally understand anyone who is not happy with the delay.

The only bit I disagree with is "what is there to do?". You can build your own society. From scratch. Terrain, housing, rules, laws, hierachy, quests etc. That is feckin amazing for those of us that are into that sort of thing. I can't think of another game that comes close to that level of sandbox except perhaps EVE.

Wurm, and A tale in the desert by far.

Also, there are some that are able to push past the basic need to be told what to do, but its not all that many. Most need to be at least shown a little of what they can do, then they will catch on. Leaving it up to the new player to figure out what they want to do in a sandbox is hard. But you give them a few tools, and show them a few small tricks and off they go. Next thing you know they are making huge sand castles and having fun.

But if you just sit them in sand with water sprayer, bucket and knife. Then tell them have at it make some stuff. They will be bored in mins.

[aliksteel]

I'm confused, Do we want a sandbox, or something somewhat like a sandbox?

What you are talking about now is not having your hand held(Being told what to do). Which is surprising, As I'm a carebear and I don't want my hand held. The unknown is what this game is supposed to be about. At lest I thought that it was about the unknown.

So what do you want, An NPC to tell you what to do and how to do it?

[mrcalhou]

I'm confused, Do we want a sandbox, or something somewhat like a sandbox?

What you are talking about now is not having your hand held(Being told what to do). Which is surprising, As I'm a carebear and I don't want my hand held. The unknown is what this game is supposed to be about. At lest I thought that it was about the unknown.

So what do you want, An NPC to tell you what to do and how to do it?

Please define your sandbox. It is clear to me that your definition of a sandbox would be different than my definition of a sandbox. I define a sandbox as a game that gives players different ways in which they can advance in the game while also not making them follow a pre-defined path in order to do so. I also consider games that have an open world environment that lets me complete tasks at my pace to be sandbox. This does not mean that a game cannot have an over-arching story, but rather that I can go about playing the game without having to do the story stuff until I want to. In a nutshell: A sandbox is a game that gives the players options. Some games I consider sandboxes include: Eve-Online, Fallout 3 and New Vegas (I haven't played the first two), The Elder Scroll Series, and the Grand Theft Auto series.

In my opinion, having NPCs does not take away a game's ability to be a sandbox. Neither does having a sort of tutorial to introduce players to some of the mechanics that they will run into.

[REVKhA]

Please... if you think i want to make a bad name out of this project you are insanely wrong. I gave away a music album for free (no license) that album too more than a year to complete... not counting the years of experience. Sure it wasn't a tribal oriented album but a space ambient project (good for the night) but the intention is there. I want this project to survive more than you can imagine (Neocron 3 is ways off , Black Prophecy is pretty boring, cannot find any good games out there).

What i meant is that i want to play this game but there is no game yet . The tools, items and buildings have no statistics , no condition, no quality, no information about them. The armor has no resistance buffs against anything , there is no way to spec properly except with trial and error which makes no sense. There needs to be some basic rpg elements for this game to feel like a game , i do not like tradeskilling that much, i'm more of an explorer and killer/hunter as well as someone who like repairing, upgrading, maintaining and such, and right now those functions are nowhere near the acceptable state.

When there is more animals and pop up information in the char creation (i am against a 3rd party manual, we need all the information in game since the devs want us to find about all the secrets... it needs to be centralized and focus should be in game, not in some third party pdf but i do not condemn people who did that manual at all) the game might feel like a game. There needs to be a way to look at item information. Buildings should 'buff' tradeskills and such. There needs to be a label system on containers. There needs to be a full logistic aspect to the game (carts, horses, etc).

There is a whole lot still missing to the game, while i might be ranting , you should see it as somehow being impatient to play the full Xsyon. I just hope they can pull it off, this game needs a lot more work and i'm starting to wonder if they have enough cash to finnish this huge project. You have to realise that these features they announced is why people have joined. There is a lot to do still and this game is a huge project but we are getting there sooner or later it's just that the pace of improvement is somehow not regular and it seems that progress stales sometimes.

The combat is somehow acceptable right now but will eventually need a major overhaul sooner or later. I just hope that the missing features get implemented real fast so that the game feels like a game and people will play it more regularly because right now there is no point to grind , there is so much of the big picture missing. I can run for 15 minutes and i am at the mist. There is no mystery to the game yet because it feels like a shoebox more than a sandbox. I want to go and explore and fight some special beasts and bring back what i gush out of it to my tribe. I want to make roads and connect tribes to diplomacy and roleplay.

This current economy is almost a joke... everyone will farm for various worthless currency without any having a real function. It seems that old official statements (dollar = currency and people start with 50 or 100 iirc) are no longer valid and that things change all the time. I am open to this but with a game that's supposed to have people 'discovering' things there is also a major problem with all these sudden changes.

I just want the game to be clear and simple but with such a complex rpg/rts/fps project there is a whole lot of hardcore elements to it and that's why i am here because true open sandbox games are not simple although we can simplify the rules and objectives.

Looking forward to a couple of big updates where i can find the missing features and then the current project might start to feel like a real game and not a virtual world with no meaning. I guess time will tell , like it did in the past 9 months. My guess is that this game will start to really shape up in mid-summer 2011 and maybe feel complete in about 9-12 months from now if this current pace does not change.

I am here to stay but with magic and religion having priority on guns and ranged combat i felt like this game will turn like Wurm when they implemented religion , it totally destroyed the game and created a very theme park feeling and destroyed the true sandbox feeling. Let us create the lore with proper tools, don't impose some shitty themepark elements like magic and religion. Implement content and skills and let us create the lore with item lore made by players , we should be able to write a description to items.

This game needs more functions like right click on items with an info box with condition, weight, quality, and any other stat. It should not only be visual ( rotten food, rusty knives, broken tools , etc) but it should also have an information box.

I just want this game to be balanced in terms of gameplay functions and events. We NEED natural disasters, migration, and lots of random scripted events. Depleted grass in the winter forcing players to stack up. I am not afraid of players not doing teamwork , i am affraid that this game never gets completed at all.

Hopefully you guys can see my point of view. I want this project more than anything because other games are PURE JUNK. Please do not let this project die . Thank you

[MrDDT]

I'm confused, Do we want a sandbox, or something somewhat like a sandbox?

What you are talking about now is not having your hand held(Being told what to do). Which is surprising, As I'm a carebear and I don't want my hand held. The unknown is what this game is supposed to be about. At lest I thought that it was about the unknown.

So what do you want, An NPC to tell you what to do and how to do it?

Im not sure how giving someone a few quests at the start to help them along is telling them what to do or holding their hands.

Instead of dropping them off on a blank paper of a world and saying here are some tools to make brushes, then you have to figure out how to make colours, then you have to figure out how to paint with those brushes and colours.
You could say, here is a quest on how to make your first colour, here is a quest on how to use a tool, here is a quest on how to paint something small.

You tell people that the world is open for them to do anything in and dont tell lead them to do anything, you will find they will just do something else (not in game).

[aliksteel]

It's almost like two people are using the same account, REVKhA. Your OP made me think that you was doing all you could to destroy the game, Then this ....

Please... if you think i want to make a bad name out of this project you are insanely wrong. I gave away a music album for free (no license) that album too more than a year to complete... not counting the years of experience. Sure it wasn't a tribal oriented album but a space ambient project (good for the night) but the intention is there. I want this project to survive more than you can imagine (Neocron 3 is ways off , Black Prophecy is pretty boring, cannot find any good games out there).

...... Link to comment

I just want this game to be balanced in terms of gameplay functions and events. We NEED natural disasters, migration, and lots of random scripted events. Depleted grass in the winter forcing players to stack up. I am not afraid of players not doing teamwork , i am affraid that this game never gets completed at all.

Hopefully you guys can see my point of view. I want this project more than anything because other games are PURE JUNK. Please do not let this project die . Thank you

I understand you and now am with you on most of this. And With all the new post you have started, I understand that you do want the best for the game. Thank you for making me understand. This REVKhA is the guy that I hope to be running way from, Trying to stay alive with you right behind me trying to slice and dice me to death, Goodtimes to come.

Please define your sandbox. It is clear to me that your definition of a sandbox would be different than my definition of a sandbox. I define a sandbox as a game that gives players different ways in which they can advance in the game while also not making them follow a pre-defined path in order to do so. I also consider games that have an open world environment that lets me complete tasks at my pace to be sandbox. This does not mean that a game cannot have an over-arching story, but rather that I can go about playing the game without having to do the story stuff until I want to. In a nutshell: A sandbox is a game that gives the players options. Some games I consider sandboxes include: Eve-Online, Fallout 3 and New Vegas (I haven't played the first two), The Elder Scroll Series, and the Grand Theft Auto series.

In my opinion, having NPCs does not take away a game's ability to be a sandbox. Neither does having a sort of tutorial to introduce players to some of the mechanics that they will run into.

No we are much alike, My point was about .... and Forgive me if your not one of them, people on the forums when talking about combat want to say that a sandbox is open and no one should be able to hide behind any type of game feature to save them. Then a few of you started talking about game quest for new players, I found that funny. Any way I am with you on some of that. Don't want NPC's.

Im not sure how giving someone a few quests at the start to help them along is telling them what to do or holding their hands.

Instead of dropping them off on a blank paper of a world and saying here are some tools to make brushes, then you have to figure out how to make colours, then you have to figure out how to paint with those brushes and colours.
You could say, here is a quest on how to make your first colour, here is a quest on how to use a tool, here is a quest on how to paint something small.

You tell people that the world is open for them to do anything in and dont tell lead them to do anything, you will find they will just do something else (not in game).

I think like a short instance that you go to after you make your toon, Would work nice. Say a short five to ten minute game tutorial. Then from there you pick your spawn point. I'm not hardcore sandbox, But in the last five or so years so many games came out and I felt like I was chained to them as they pushed me down a long hallway that I could not get out of. I have a fear that when you start adding a little hand holding here and a little there, That you may push it over into that type of game. But if it took us having NPC's and quest to have a good game population, I will be for it. I want like it, But I want this game to work.