I am sure everything we took notice to as seasoned gamers they have aready noticed themselves and are working on it, still being so early in. The main focus was being able to just take a peak at a masterpiece in the creating. ( my 2 cents ) :) Although as you stated, it was a very impressive stream. :)
I thought it was a great first showing. Not getting too critical since pretty much everything can and probably will change from a pre-alpha build but it seemed pretty easy despite how "scared" they seemed sometimes.
Loved the environment, world looks great in design if a little small in scale (I was hoping for FFXI large). Combat pace seemed great, not too slow, though I do wish mobs would give more of a challenge aside from the occasional bad pulls. That is, assuming they were meant for group play. Otherwise there isnt really much more I can say.
Looking forward to more gameplay and info on the game.
Two thoughts popped into my head while watching the stream, and I can't shake them. 1) Races: I'd love to see at least a couple races represented during the next stream. 2) looting mechanics: we didn't see how the looting will work- are we on the honor system here (like in old EQ), or are there other looting mechanics that are in the works that weren't on display during the stream?
I really enjoyed the stream gameplay is looking great for where you guys are at. Me i can deal with the lack of ability slots for great gameplay .....but the one thing that got me was the cleric. You guy went back to the standered stand around and do nothing but drop a heal and keep buffs up EQ style cleric. Well at least at low lvls he was. I know there is still alot of tweaking and things going to be added in at diffrent phases of beta .I guess what im getting at is that how every class in VG not EQ (because not ever class in EQ was fun to play IMO ) was fun to play and very diffrent. Also every class was useful. I just wouldnt want to see all the great ideas for classes go to waste to make what seems to be the majority now taking over these forms.
I watch the stream twice now. I took a long while, to study the nuance and interplay of their little adventure (pausing & reading text box).
I have been hopeful for this team, but in seeing the development work that has been done since last Aug. I am now more confident than ever about my earlier predictions of Pantheon & VRi team. The way I see it, Visionary Realms is going places...
After watching the video.. what I saw, was a group of relaxed friends (& coworkers) sitting back and enjoying their creation... and the fruits of their labor. WHat many people may be missing, is the fact that there is a sound foundation of mechanics in the game. (ie: Pathing looked crude, but working, etc..)
Thank guys for letting us ride along on your little adventure & story..
Baulkin said:I was very impressed with the progress shown on the stream. It did feel like combat was overly fast however that was mostly due to Kilsin's 1 hit kill backstabs :p
** agreed **
I noticed you mainly held back, Kilsin, until the overpulls. Then out came the knives. I loved the mobs that refused to make it easy, turning or stunning you. Smart mobs are fun mobs. Great work overall for pre-alpha, kudos to everyone on the team. Thank John for showing us areas off in the distance that your group didn't visit. My wandering feet are hankering to explore.
Well, I have watched the stream 3 full times now, catching a new feeling, detail, or different chat message each time. The one thing I feel really encouraged by, is that after seeing this "pre Alpha" test, I am confident that investors and new followers will be jumping on board. There is definitely something already special with what they have pieced together so far. It takes an enormous amount of work and testing to make the small adjustments necessary for ideal game play. I know they are a ways out from completing the game, however, their base model is looking incredible already. As they move forward, get a few more technical people on staff, they can really start making some headway.
Go back to some of the early videos and compare... Now imagine the same swing of improvements leading to Alpha testing. That is what I envision, that much improvment across all aspects. This is exciting, and I honestly can't wait until we can all experience it for real.
For those of you that were let down by EQNext, just keep in mind that the SoE team never even showed an actual "live stream" test for use to see anything. It was all trapped with focus on Landmark. So thanks VR for your passion and dedication, and I look forward to all of your future success that will be coming your way!
Well, I cannot contain my enthusiasm!
I think this was so far, and away, the best surpruise demo ever. I mean I had *NO* idea you were this far along. I know there are still months and years to go - I get it, but the game actually PLAYS and there are zones and everythnig looks so *REAL*.
I'm really raw over putting my emotional eggs in the EQN basket, which never showed a bit of real live gameplat ever. So, this was so much farther along than any of that and more than I ever expected.
I had *NO* idea you were so far along in the pre-alpha 9extra early) stages.
Most importantly, as a lifelong EQ1 player, this felt like home. I mean, I can't put words to it....it just felt "right".
I added a Knight's Pledge to my account, simply because of how awesome this stream was, and how excited I am.
Kumu said:Baulkin said:I was very impressed with the progress shown on the stream. It did feel like combat was overly fast however that was mostly due to Kilsin's 1 hit kill backstabs :p
** agreed **
I noticed you mainly held back, Kilsin, until the overpulls. Then out came the knives. I loved the mobs that refused to make it easy, turning or stunning you. Smart mobs are fun mobs. Great work overall for pre-alpha, kudos to everyone on the team. Thank John for showing us areas off in the distance that your group didn't visit. My wandering feet are hankering to explore.
Yeah, good observation, I had 4 abilities and one was the OP backstab, which we didn't know was OP until the stream, so I eased up and didn't use it unless we got into an "oh crap" moment, which there were a few lol
That stream was so much fun and we all enjoyed it thoroughly, the game is really coming along and is definitely something to be proud of, I can't wait to get everyone in to test with us as soon as it's ready :)
Here were my post-stream thoughts:
Pros (not in order of importance):
1. Group Interdependence / Defined class roles
2. Resource Management / downtime - casters (see con as well)
3. Spell Fizzles / Cast times (although still needs to be tweaked)
4. Pulling/Pullers will be necessary
5. Trains
6. Emergent Gameplay (root parking, etc.)
7. Pantheon Difference: Weapons getting cold and having to re-equip? (nice to see this in action, but I hope it's less gimicky than simply needing to re-equip) and Environmental Harm - Crystal
8. Pantheon Difference: Multi-Colored Mana. Much better than what I was originally expecting out of the system.
9. Limited Spell/Skill Sets
10. Skill gains
11. Minimal UI
12. No Mini-Map / Quest Markers / etc. Just pure adventuring
13. World/Zone Vastness. If all zones were similar in size/scope to Avendyr's pass, it would be incredible.
14. Spell sounds/ambient noise and music. Glad Monty unmuted or turned up his volume at 18:00. You realized immediately how much the music/sound effects/environmental sounds added to the immersion
15. Crowd Control
16. Offensive / Defensive Targeting
17. Spellbook - and the fact it doesn't take of the entire screen or need to be open to meditate
18. Agro control - couldn't just spam abilities without pulling agro as a wizard/enchanter/cleric
19. Didn't collect the Must Kill 10 Rat quest! I think I heard that joke in there. And just killed 10 rats. Similar to #12.
20. Deaths - and the need to "run back." (see con).
20. Tangible Proof that work has been done.
21. Moving while casting (VG style)
22. Most importantly, the dev team seemed to be having fun chatting and worked well together. Something that's severely missing in MMORPG's today and a good sign for Pantheon's continued development.
Cons (in no particular order):
1. Combat pace - mentioned in other threads, but needs to be tweaked, and I'm sure it will be tested/tweaked in alpha/beta
2. The big green health bars. Just distracting to me, but, I wouldn't be aganist a toggle-able option for those that liked them.
3. Resource management - melee. It could have been due to Kilsin having OP backstabs and not using them, but casters mana seemed to deplete much quicker than melee's endurance. I would like melees to have to manage resources as well, which I'm sure will be tweaked/tested in alpha/beta as well.
4. Death - didn't see the naked corpse run, it appeared Monty respawned with all equipment
5. Ease of looting / auto-stacking inventory. Obviously I'm sure will be tweaked, but it was painful watching Monty individually stack those items.
6. The Head bob while running. If it is in game, I'd prefer it to be toggleable. I'm for most realistic things, but I can promise while running my field of view doesn't bounce nearly like that.
7. I wasn't playing in the stream having fun with you all :).
There's a few other cons as well that aren't even worth mentioning as I know they will be tweaked and a few pros that I;m sure I forgot, but all in all, a great showing, and a great calculated risk that was worth taking - it definitely peaked my excitement. :)
Dullahan said:I hope we see the recording of the play session uploaded to youtube, rather than a copy of the stream. I'd love to see it again without the quality loss from streaming.
If you change the settings on the twitch stream and replay to high, the graphics look a lot better, especially when monty stops moving.
Here is my thoughts!
Kilsin, Brad, Team I am proud of yall!!! You all are Making it happen!!! I have played Many Many MMOs but have never found one that appeals to me or makes me feel some sort of attachment as what you all develop/create. There is no love towards those games and i lose interest really quick. You all have stated over and over that this is your labor of love and is PRE PRE Alpha!!! You all never said this is near a FINISHED PRODUCT and almost ready for alpha. But you all wanted to share with the community how its coming together. I was impressed!!! I have absolutely no Critisim, yes i saw some flaws but I had no issue with them because of the state of the game which was already announced by the team. Keep up the good work and thank you so much for making another great game and showing your fans yall are working hard to bring to life what they all want.
I'm curious about how much of an influx of cash they received from pledges following the stream. I know myself, among many others increased the amount pledged. The fact that this is Pre Pre-Alpha is so damn promising. Obviously there's hiccups, but what the hell can you expect? I think, along with others that the time-to-kill needs to be increased, but that's an easy fix. It really is awesome that VR is getting so much support from the community. A year or so ago I thought this would end up being vapor-ware. Fortunately, the game is getting more real every day!
The thing that boggles my mind is people bashing the graphics.. Personally, I could not care less about graphics, although I know thats not the case for the gaming community at large. But seriously, what's this fetishized obsession with graphics? It seems more often than not that the games with fancy graphics are totally lackluster gameplay wise. Yet, over and over again the community comes out with the "MUH GRAPHICS" complaint. Like Brad said, worry about the gameplay first and the go back and worry about touching up the graphics, otherwise you're just "polishing a turd". Whatever, I would just hate to see a game not do well simply because groan over something as trivial as graphics. Let me add though, if you put the twitch stream on "source" and refreshed it, the graphics looked awesome being in this stage of development for me. Hell, I still play Everquest (I know this isn't uncommon, I'm just making a point) because every thing out there is just so hollow to me. My stupid ass dropped $100 on Black Desert (the game does look absolutely phenomenal) and I quit the game after hitting the soft cap because it had zero depth FOR MY TASTES. All the eastern MMO's are just mindless grindfests. Social interaction is what makes or breaks an MMO, and nothing has come close to replicating what Everquest has done. I truly hope VR pushes this very strongly (I know this is already one of their tenets).
I know I got sidetracked, so that's the end of my rant. I just have so much hope for this game as I've pretty much given up on MMO's entirely. Keep up the good work and make this young pleb happy VR!
Also - 
P.S. I don't know if this has been brought up, but what is VR's stance on boxing? I haven't seen this asked, but maybe it has. As much as I enjoy boxing 2-3 characters on EQ, I really hope VR at least limits it, if not prevents boxing entirely. Since playing on Phinigel, it shows how detrimental and toxic boxing can be to the community, so please take a long hard look at this. (It's probably way too early for them to even acknowledge this).
Reeses007 said:...
P.S. I don't know if this has been brought up, but what is VR's stance on boxing? I haven't seen this asked, but maybe it has. As much as I enjoy boxing 2-3 characters on EQ, I really hope VR at least limits it, if not prevents boxing entirely. Since playing on Phinigel, it shows how detrimental and toxic boxing can be to the community, so please take a long hard look at this. (It's probably way too early for them to even acknowledge this).
If I remember right this has been brought up, as long as your paying for multiple accounts and phisically playing all the characters it's ok, that meaning you cannot have any form of software/macros or anything help you play said characters, and the level of skill/attention that will be required to play at all effectivly will make this pretty much impossible. But the use of any programs or scripting to automate the multiple characters will be bannable.
Rachael said:
If I remember right this has been brought up, as long as your paying for multiple accounts and phisically playing all the characters it's ok, that meaning you cannot have any form of software/macros or anything help you play said characters, and the level of skill/attention that will be required to play at all effectivly will make this pretty much impossible. But the use of any programs or scripting to automate the multiple characters will be bannable.
I hope this is the case, but there's always going to be a community out there who will do it anyways. Look at how prevelant it is in EQ, WoW, etc. Like I said, I'm not averse to boxing, as I've done it plenty myself. I just hope that what you said is true and they strongly monitor the use of third-party programs.
Boulda said:I loved the demo. Looks like it is comming along good.
My personal thoughts on what I saw...
It looked a bit easy. Pulling 3 Yellow's was handled with ease. Only when there were lots (8+) of mobs did it seem to be challenging. Even at the end it still didn't look that hard until the Boss pull.
I think it's fine that mobs are not that though (as in EQ) as I find myself solo like 25% of my time while waiting for my friends to login. Maybe they need to tweak it a little. If you find that mobs are to easy you can always kill mobs of +1-2 levels and get the challange you are looking for as well as get much better loot and experience. That's what my group will do at least. Devs have also informed us that we will be able to equip most items we find. So it will encourage us to do that. Find our limits.
However I think the Spectre should have instant killed them. It looked like the spectre wasn't so high level. Maybe they need to increase his level some!? :D
Not sure but maybe the mobs agro range needs to be tweaked some (as lots of mobs came all the time). Don't know if it was because of the spawn rate. I think a group of 2-3 players will have a hard time there. It looked really exciting.
Well done on the Twitch Stream! Enjoyed getting to see the world and the mechanics that you are going to build the rest of the game on top of.
Death penalty, the eq'esq ui and loot system, medding for mana, spell fizzles and the graphics style(looks very much like Vanguard, but better) were all things that got me excited. Another big thing that I love is no instancing. This was the best feature in Vanguard imo.
Needless to say, I pledged after watching this. I can't wait to create a Halfing Druid. :)
I was very impressed by what I saw, I was aware of this game during its initial kickstarter and kind of stopped following along once that failed. I happened to see the day I found out EQNext was cancelled that the live stream was going to happen. I feel like they are executing on all of the aspects I want to see. As far as combat animations and graphics I know that polish will come. I felt comfortable enough after the stream to become a backer. I not only want to support the game but hopefully also support more streams like the last one if they see a jump in pledges as they reveal more gameplay.
Raidan said:6. The Head bob while running. If it is in game, I'd prefer it to be toggleable. I'm for most realistic things, but I can promise while running my field of view doesn't bounce nearly like that.
One thing that really bugged me is the head bob speed vs run speed doesnt match. The bob effect is far too slow and artificially smooth for the pace at which the character is moving, which makes it feel pretty unnatural. Agreed with a toggle to turn this off completely as well.
Reht said:Dullahan said:I hope we see the recording of the play session uploaded to youtube, rather than a copy of the stream. I'd love to see it again without the quality loss from streaming.
If you change the settings on the twitch stream and replay to high, the graphics look a lot better, especially when monty stops moving.
I had it on high the whole time, it didn't do it justice. Compared to screenshots or even the last video, it was low quality. I'm not worried about it, but I do want to see them always put their best foot forward. People have been critical of this in threads and forums all across the internet and it could have been avoided.
Dullahan said:I had it on high the whole time, it didn't do it justice. Compared to screenshots or even the last video, it was low quality. I'm not worried about it, but I do want to see them always put their best foot forward. People have been critical of this in threads and forums all across the internet and it could have been avoided.
Yeah, it's not going to solve the issue that they weren't streaming in HD from their end, but it did help some.