Showing posts with label Crowfall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Crowfall. Show all posts

Friday, August 11, 2023

GamesMadeMe: Actual Games + My Gaming Origin Story!

 GamesMadeMe is a series of posts that cover gaming-related topics that have shaped who I am as a gamer today.  Since I've covered specific moments in games and related topics like gaming magazines it is about time I actually talk about some games that made me!  Today let's take a jaunt down the gaming history that has informed my current day preferences.

 We'll start at today and work backwards as best as my memory can recollect!

new world
  New World is my current jam and holds the record of "most played" across my entire gaming career.  As of this post I am nearing 2,500 hours played!  Whats most amazing is that I never planned to play this game.  I only found out about it because it was hosting an early preview event at the same time as the Crowfall beta test.  

 While testing Crowfall the population numbers plummeted one day and when I asked why the New World preview event was mentioned.  I decided to give it a go because I just wasn't feeling Crowfall and I was absolutely hooked from the moment I set foot in New World.  I am still hooked.  I love New World.

 

gw2

 Guild Wars 2 (GW2) is next on the list.  Between New World and Minecraft (which we'll hit after GW2) there were a lot of games but Guild Wars 2 was the one that stuck around and kept coming back around.  I own and have played the first three expansions but admit I am all about PvP so spent a lot more time in World vs World vs World (wuvwuv for short).  

 Also as I mentioned in my Game Markets post I was a huge investor in Guild Wars 2 and truth be told that is where most of my /played time was invested in GW2.  I earned so much gold and converted so much of it to premium currency that I have piles of stuff and knick-knacks on my account. I also have several level 80 characters.

 I never really got hardcore into GW2 even though I played a ton (1,000+ hours).  I didn't have a guild and never played with one during my time in the game.  The game is very solo friendly so it was never pressed upon me to need to group up.  I did a lot of things but aside from playing the market one specific thing never grabbed hold.  I never finished the original story, never did dungeons/fractals/raids, really didn't finish any living seasons, and outside of some ascended gear pieces and a single legendary greatsword don't have much gear.  I own the first two expansions but barely played their stories/areas.  But I still loved the game and should I ever break up with New World it's likely where I'd go back to.

minecraft

 Minecraft launched in 2009 which was a special year as that is when my oldest was born.  I tried Minecraft off the recommendation of a co-worker.  At the time there was no survival mode and the game was a very basic block building game.  The UI still showed how many players online; I used to have a screenshot showing there were about 500 total users online!

 The beauty of Minecraft way back then was that it ran on our work computers.  When the survival mode launched my co-workers and I filled our breaks and lunch hours with Minecraft.  We had our own server and played the crap out of the game (some of my Minecraft videos from this era exist on my Youtube 1 2 3).  

 As a first time father Minecraft was the perfect game in those first few years of my oldest son's life.  Relatively non-violent and abstract blocky graphics = perfect for a kid to watch.  I played Minecraft pretty hardcore for it's first four years.  Lots of fond memories and I wish to this day I'd of stuck with making videos (I could be super famous now!).

 And that would have been the end of Minecraft after I moved on to other things, but right as I was breaking my addiction my oldest son hit Kindergarten and Minecraft was every kids world at the time.  My son picked up Minecraft about 2013/14 and he still plays it to this day.  We've played together on and off and we even got mom (not much of a video gamer) to play.  Some my fondest gamer dad moments are building stuff in Minecraft only to find out my son cheated and spawned a wither the next day and destroyed it.  I still have the worlds saved and a personal cherished digital artifact is when screen recording accidentally recorded my son exploring a new castle I had built for him.

war

  Before Minecraft my passion was Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR for short). WAR also holds the record as the game that broke me.  I was the uber fanboy for WAR. As a long time Dark Ages of Camelot player I was confident that Mark Jacobs could do no wrong.  WAR was going to be the best game ever.  It was the World of Warcraft killer (remember we are going new to old so we haven't gotten to WoW yet).

 WAR is also unique in that the entire rise and fall of the game is captured in this blog's history (see tagged posts here).  If you were interested you could watch as I go from eternal fanboy to ex-cult member.  I loved the premise of the game and had a great group of folks to play with.  

 We formed the Casualties of War guild on the back of a bunch of World of Warcraft/MMORPG bloggers (400+ members at its peak).  Running that guild taught me I never want to run a guild again even though in every aspect of real life I am a leader (people leader at work, leader when I was in the military, leader in boy scouts, always my kid's sports team coach, etc).

 WAR was really fun to play when it launched. Unfortunately the game was never really finished and it showed.  End game zones were mostly devoid of content and the advertised end game of city sieges never really worked.  When it did work it was exploited heavily.

 WAR ended up crashing and was shutdown.  Fortunately I broke my fanboyism long before it was in shutdown and even though I revisited it for a little bit it never got it's hooks back in me.  It did forever change how I want to interact with new MMORPGs.  I'll be optimistic about games.  I will play them hardcore like I do New World and be a cheerleader.  But never again am I going full fanboy and expecting a new MMORPG to be the next big thing.

wow

 November 23, 2004.  A day after my birthday.  World of Warcraft launched and there I was on the Azgalor server with my mind blown (even though I had played in a beta phase before launch).  How could a game be this good?  12 hours later I realized I hadn't left the computer.

 World of Warcraft (WoW) holds the spot in my record book for the longest gaming sessions.  I could not put the game down and my addiction was aided by an odd work scheduled at the time where I basically had half the month off and the other half 12 hour shifts.  I was also in the military in full on real-life-war-mode so interest in anything other than work and then getting home to play WoW didn't exist.

 I loved playing WoW launch.  I was fortunate in that I never really had problems accessing the game and playing.  It was just a magical time to be playing online games.  So many new players, and gamers, coming to check this once-in-a-lifetime game out.  I played as a Horde Troll Shaman but refused to heal; I was all about the DPS shaman with windfury on the great axe.

 My time playing WoW was focused on PvP.  I really didn't care about dungeons and did very few.  I never participated in a raid nor did I have interest in raiding.  I wanted to do nothing more than prowl the Alliance zones looking for trouble.  Since there were PvP servers I was given that opportunity.  Later on battlegrounds came out and that was my jam.

 As magical as WoW was though it didn't hook me long term.  I gave up playing before the first expansion came out and it was months later before I gave The Burning Crusade a try.  I really don't know why I went from playing 12 hours straight to not interested.  Partly it was landing an amazing girlfriend who then became my wife, but mostly I just stopped playing.

daoc

 Before WoW it was Dark Ages of Camelot (DAoC).  DAoC launched Oct 9, 2001 and I played it faithfully until WoW wrenched me away.  I loved the Realm vs Realm and played a Runecaster for Midgard on the Merlin server.  I was at or adjacent to many of the world firsts in the game: there when the first relic was captured, in the race to be the first player to 1 million realm points, and there when the guy that did make it to a million realm points got part of the game world named after him (screw you Dakkon!).

 Mixed in with my time in World of Warcraft and Dark Ages of Camelot was Star Wars Galaxies.  I was an early adopter as I was heavily involved in the Star Wars roleplaying forums the game hosted before launch.  I was in the early beta/alpha tests when all there was to the game was an empty sand zone and speech bubbles.

 Star Wars Galaxies had some of the best possible MMO systems ever created.  It is a shame they never got the time of day if they were not strictly combat or Jedi related.  As I tell people I want to be the moisture farmer so as the game steered more to letting anyone become a Jedi the more it wasn't for me.  But systems like housing, vendors, gathering, and crafting - no game has done it better.  No game even comes close.  Damn it game developers; give me SWG 2.0! (No; I am not interested in SWG emu servers).

 Ultima Online is the first graphical online game I played.  It is the first game I bought when I had my own PC and my own place as a young adult.  I rushed to get internet solely because I wanted to play Ultima Online.  

 I was introduced to Ultima Online years before that moment when I was working in a grocery store as a teen and my manager played it.  I would get a chance to go to his house and watch him play on a potato of a computer.  At the time it was original Ultima Online with all it's craziness: no safe zones, red players killing anyone that walked out of town without a plan, player run cities, game masters that would literally play god in the game, and houses you could lose if you lost your key.  To illustrate how early we are talking: there were still tons of open spots to place a house.  I never got to play, but watching was enough for me.

 Fast forward back to being in my own place with my own PC and I was joining right as Ultima Online Renaissance came online.  The Renaissance expansion brought a mirrored version of the world, called Trammel, that was completely safe and it opened up a flood of new land to fill with houses (the "open spots" having long ago been taken up in the original Felucca realm).

 Being a new player I had zero idea what the land grab was and other than some memory of watching my old manager play the original game I didn't know what I was doing.  So I treated the game like a virtual world; more intent on interacting with other players in a social aspect than getting the next progression item checked off.  If that meant just picking up garbage people left on the ground (oh yeah; items could be dropped and picked up by other players... how novel) then that's what I did.

 Eventually I did catch on that I needed to progress and that spun into having multiple different accounts so I could abuse all sorts of systems like the faction system, housing, and more.  Unfortunately I was so late to the housing party the only way to get a house was to buy it off eBay (yes, I bought my UO houses off eBay!) because all open spots were taken so even if you wanted to place a house you could not.

 I was very fond of PvP in UO.  I was not a player killer, but I loved faction warfare (player killing without becoming a red player).  I also got into the provoking skill which was basically the easy mode of end game PvE content as you could entice monsters to fight each other while you hoovered up the loot they dropped from killing each other.  

 I also got big into taming anything the game let you tame; my favorite being the white ice dragons.  Anyone that knows taming in UP knows the saying "kill all"; nothing more satisfying than a half dozen dragons suddenly vaporizing an enemy.  While in today's PvP metas it is "kill the healer" back then it was "kill the tamer".  Many a fight was won based on how many dragons were brought.

mud mush

 Now I need to fill a gap between my gaming origin story and Ultima Online because before graphical MMORPGs I was addicted to text MUDs (multi user dungeon).  Without MUDs we wouldn't have the MMORPGs that we have today.

 The one that got me started was a MUD running in IRC on the Xnet IRC server.  I stumbled on it joining a chat room and a bot posting a puzzle; once you figured out the puzzle it let you in fully to the MUD.  It was like virtual Indiana Jones! I have no other recollection other than those pieces, but it was tons of fun and featured perma death PvP.  I killed my younger brothers character at one point.

 Probably my most invested MUD was a Star Wars themed one.  I don't remember the specifics and the websites are long gone, but I do still have notes I took on paper about it.  I used graph paper to map out areas of the game and take notes about things like "droid here" or "viewport overlooking space dock".  It had space flight as well as many planets.  I do vaguely remember getting into some drama and getting banned at one point. 

 I played plenty of other MUDs as well along with MUSHES and whatever other acronym soup we used back in those days to differentiate one from the other.  I even got into Medievia MUD for a bit which was the largest MUD ever and still running to this day.  It was mind blowing they were aiming for things like 20,000 players online and wanting to get to 200,000 (not sure what they ever peaked at).  I was used to MUDs with 5 people online; thousands was crazy to think about.  One of the coolest part of Medievia and many other MUDs was player created content.  It was just text so the barrier to entry to have your dedicated players help build was very low.  I honestly wonder if some of my poorly worded room descriptions are still floating around somewhere in Medievia!

 We'll finish on the origin story of gaming for heartlessgamer and recount the day I won a Sega Genesis.  I had played Nintendo and Super Nintendo at friends and extended family houses, but in my house we were still stuck in the "black and white" television era.  Without easy access to them video games were no different than any other toy to play with when visiting friends and family.  

 That all changed the day that I won a Sega Genesis.  The Sega was a possible prize from selling magazine subscriptions as a fundraiser.  I (really my mom) had done a good job getting folks to sign up so I was in the running.  It was towards the end of the school day and classes had just let out and announcements were coming over the intercom.  I hung back in the classroom to hear them.  I really, really wanted that Sega Genesis.  Then I heard my name and to this day I can remember looking at my teacher at the time and seeing the biggest smile on her face as I sprinted out towards the office to get my prize.  I hoisted the box over my head and for a few glorious moments I was the king of my school.

 I walked to school so had a few blocks to get home with the prize.  I really don't remember my parents reactions, but they were supportive of me getting it up and running.  I wasn't kidding when I said we still had "black and white" televisions.  Our main set was too old to get the Sega working and after phoning a friends parents we were able to get it set up on my mom's tiny little kitchen TV.  From then on I spent many an hour at the kitchen table playing Sega games in black and white. Some favorites from the time; Wrestlemania, Shining Force, and of course Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

 I will never forget winning that Sega Genesis and I swear the movie 8-bit Christmas is loosely based on that time in my life (I already had an awesome treehouse my dad made though; I just needed a video game console).  And that is the gaming mode that started it all and therefore is what truly made me a gamer!

Saturday, November 12, 2022

Crowfall: Going Dark on Nov 22nd


Crowfall is going offline Nov 22nd (what a birthday present for me!).
Hello Crows!

Over the past few months, we’ve been evaluating the current state of Crowfall. One of the biggest challenges has been the sheer amount of development effort required to build new campaigns and keep the game running daily. In order to refocus our efforts from live operations to development, we have decided to take the Crowfall live service offline for the time being.

On November 22, 2022, at 11 AM CST, Crowfall will go dark, and the game servers will be unavailable. Until the service goes offline, take this time to try out all of the cool buildings, mounts, and emotes for free in the Crowfall store.

We're going to use this time to map out the future of the game. We have yet to determine what that looks like, but we are investing in and rethinking every part of the game - from the core technology and tools to art, design, and gameplay. Nothing is off the table.

We'll share the plan with the community as it shapes up.

We want to thank Crowfall players for their support, feedback, and patience since Monumental purchased the game.

The Crowfall Team
 Not surprising to be honest.  The game launch was lackluster and struggled to find an audience.  I don't feel the game was unplayable but it really didn't offer anything to your average player.  To be honest if you wanted to enjoy any part of the game you needed to be part of the in-crowd and the in-crowd had all sorts of exploitation to game the system which made it irritating to be part of.  I had an enjoyable run but as a mostly-solo player being forced into waiting around for guilds to do something meant there was nothing for me in the game.

I will be curious if Crowfall comes out of this dark period.  I could see the cost to re-develop not being worth it, but that would really make me wonder why it was acquired in the first place.  As an early backer on Kickstarter I do want to see Crowfall realized into a live service game so hopeful they are taking the down time to make a serious development effort around the game.  If they do relaunch I'll be there to give it a try.

Thursday, September 22, 2022

What is an MMORPG? Is Fortnite an MMORPG?


 I was listening to Epic Loot Radio's recent podcast State of the Game with @Ready Check Raideo (You Tubube version for anyone interested).  They cover a gambit of topics regarding MMORPGs eventually getting into what makes an MMORPG an MMORPG. An interesting question is discussed: Is Fortnite an MMORPG?  Their answer is no and I'd agree to that.  Here are some more of my thoughts on what was discussed.

One item that I keyed in on was their discussion on what the cut off point for "massive online" is.  The consensus number was at least 1,000 players in a single online world.  That resonated with me and I'd put a clarifying point on it that the game has to have the potential for 1,000 or more players and additionally the world needs to be a persistent online world.  

My point above about "potential for 1,000 or more" cuts off the "do games like Crowfall count when they are not popular enough to go over 1,000 players?".  Persistent online world helps to drive out considering games that have large online player counts jumping in and out of their worlds, but are not persistent.  

With these considerations we can rule out Fortnite as an MMORPG massive online front.  Yes, Fortnite has millions of players online at any given time, but you are only ever in a world with 100 of them and that world ceases to exist once the match is over.  Note: this doesn't make Fortnite any less of a game; it just doesn't need to be called an MMORPG.

On the tail end of MMORPG is the role playing (RP).  This is briefly covered in the Epic Loot Radio discussion, but is important for a lot of players to separate MMORPG from games that hit all the other points but are just MMOGs.  If anyone has ever read my first blog post (from 17 years ago!!!) you will know where I stand about role playing:

Social interaction with like minded nerds and geeks; people whom live through their in game characters as though it was version 2.0 of themselves.

I don't want to hear these gamers speak in foreign Orcish or Elvish tongues. I want them to speak English and call me newb, l33t, or dude. I want role playing that is a real person, embodying a real in-game character. I don't want to know how much you can pretend. I want to see who, what, and how you can do things in game with the class, race, or skills you have chosen in our game of choice.

So my take on role playing is that the game offers players roles to play within the construct of the persistent online world.  This could be the holy trinity -- damage, tank, healer -- or it could be the desire to just bang away at an anvil as a blacksmith.  The key is the game requires players to fill their role in the world.  On one end are games like Final Fantasy 14 where players are asked to set their job (aka role) and while set to that job that is the only role they play.  On the other end are games like New World where based on gear equipped your role is defined.  On either end players are playing a role.

Role playing is another area where you would look at Fortnite and say "mmmm, nope".  Yes, during a Fortnite match you may get different weapons and take different actions which change how you play but really everyone is there for essentially the same role: kill other players (hopefully before a building pops out of them).

I'd also be willing to accept arguments for some games considered in the MMORPG market to be discarded due to this RP element because they don't actually put players in roles.  None come to me off the top of my head, but I am sure there are some out there.  

I think there is a valid category of MMOG where there is a persistent world that supports over 1,000 players but players just come and go without any defined roles. Minecraft is the easiest example as it has many multiplayer servers that are over 1,000 players and the game doesn't define roles but yet has persistent worlds.  Minecraft is a massively multiplayer online game.

MMOG also dovetails into the last comment I want to make.  In the podcast there is also reference to games-as-a-service; "as-a-service" (aaS) being the buzz word across the entire software landscape.  The company I work for has "aaS" hanging off most of our software products.  All it really means is that customers can expect software based solutions that continue to be updated (and hopefully improved) as part of a service contract (i.e. I don't have to buy version 2.0 in a year; I will instead just keep getting updates as part of my service contract).

I'd argue that the golden era MMORPGs such as Everquest and Ultima Online were gaming's first "as-a-service".  Now-a-days almost every game is dabbling in the service aspect with cosmetic purchases, paid for add-ons, battle passes, subscriptions, etc.  So make the last defining characteristic of an MMORPG that it is a game-as-a-service (note: the service contract aspect can vary from free 2 play to battle pass to subscription; that is less important than the aspect that players will see continued change to the service).

Want to argue with me about what an MMORPG is?  Play Fortnite and feel offended?  Drop a comment or two.


Thursday, April 07, 2022

"Sandbox"

See the source image

Let's talk about the term "sandbox game".  We'll take a look at a couple games I consider as true sandboxes and a couple that misuse the term.  Through this exploration; the definition -- my definition -- of sandbox will be apparent.

Games I consider as true sandbox games

  • Foxhole
  • Minecraft

Games that need to stop using the term "sandbox"

  • Albion Online
  • Crowfall 

Starting with Foxhole there is a very clear sandbox.  First, I can log in and choose what I want to do and in order to do what I want I need to either pull resources together myself, use resources shared by other players, or steal resources from other players in the Sandbox.  Important to note; the game allows me to choose any path, change path, or blend paths.  In my first couple of hours (outside of the tutorial) I moved seamlessly between logistics (known as logi in game) supplying other players to the frontline where the fighting was at (and once there I switched between playing medic, infantry, and frontline logi).

The "frontline" in Foxhole also illustrates another of my tenants of a sandbox; the world can be changed.  In Foxhole the frontline is defined by the players changing the world.  There is a world map in Foxhole that defines some features (where water bodies are, what area is a mountain, etc) but beyond that everything else is defined by the player.  The frontline area I ventured into was in the middle of a field; one team on one side the other team on the other side.  Our side had dug in foxholes and trenches.  Behind those were numerous medical tents and forward bases; all placed by players.  A little further back a group of players were working on a hardened base with cement fortifications.  Somewhere in the middle were players setting up long range artillery.  All of this build up was defined by the players choosing exactly what to build and where to build it.

Another key aspect to the build up was that the resources came from the game itself.  Every gun, bullet, bandage, and piece of building material was manufactured by a player somewhere and then transported by a player in a player-crafted vehicle to that area.  Nothing happens in Foxhole without a player somewhere putting in the work to make it happen.  And the end result?  A sandcastle that can be smashed by the other kids in the sandbox who can then take that sand and make their own castle you get to smash.

The frontlines of Foxhole are exactly why Foxhole is a true sandbox game; they are defined by the players collecting from and manipulating the world with minimal restriction and that manipulation has meaningful impact on the game.

In summary; what we take away from Foxhole in regards to the term sandbox:

  1. The world is made of resources that players make use of (i.e. "the sand")
  2. The game world itself can be changed by the players (i.e. "can make sand castles")
  3. Those changes by players have meaningful impact (i.e. "sand castles can be smashed")
  4. There is minimum restrictions on what can be done where (i.e. "build my sand castle anywhere / permanent sand castles aren't already built")
  5. Players can move between roles seamlessly (i.e. "eat sand if want to")

If we roll what we learned from Foxhole into Minecraft we see that we hit all of the marks at an entirely new level. In my opinion Minecraft is the truest sandbox game in existence.

  1. In Minecraft the world is literally made of resources that players make use of without almost any restrictions. 
  2. Players can change the world in Minecraft; to a degree well beyond what a game like Foxhole allows.  
  3. Changes to the world in Minecraft have direct impact.  If I dig a hole straight down and a pig falls into it... well... bacon.  
  4. As mentioned and bearing repeating there is little restriction in what you can manipulate in Minecraft
  5. Players in Minecraft can be in combat one second and digging that bacon hole the next; there is no concept of a role in Minecraft.  The player do anything at any time.

So that covers items 1 and 2 from my Foxhole list.  The question is then; is there any other tenants of sandbox games that Minecraft brings to the table? 

Those changes by players have meaningful impact (i.e. "sand castles can be smashed")

Somewhat already covered by the bacon hole example, but to expand on the impact players can have in Minecraft I'll talk about multiplayer servers as that's the closest equivalent to the MMO space.  On a multiplayer server under non-modded players are free to modify the world however they see fit.  If player A stacks two blocks then player B can break those two blocks and if they so choose place them somewhere else.  If player A digs a bacon hole then player B could fall into it ending in death.  There have been numerous "chaos" servers whereby the entire world becomes an apocalyptic wasteland with anything resembling order quickly converted to chaos by the players.

There is minimum restrictions on what can be done where (i.e. "build my sand castle anywhere / permanent sand castles aren't already built")

At the end of the day some form of restriction will always exist in games just as even in the real life sandbox there is eventually an end to the sand and physical limits on what you can do with it.  Minecraft is no exception here.  But Minecraft goes a long way in minimizing restriction.  For example; I can build a house out of any material that I can dig up and stack.  A fond memory for every Minecraft survival player is that makeshift shelter of dirt and wood blocks hastily assembled to survive the first night.  For the most part; if you can dream it you can build it in Minecraft.  Journey into the world of mods and the sky is the limit.

Players can move between roles seamlessly (i.e. "eat sand if want to")

Minecraft has no real concept of a role.  One moment the player is digging a hole and the next they are in combat and the next they are an interior decorator in their home.  The only requirement is that you need to have picked up some sand and turned it into whatever you need for the activity you want to do.

With the exploration of the "true sandbox" that is Minecraft let's look at some not-a-sandbox offenders in the MMO space.

The one that jumps immediately to mind, mostly because the owning company uses sandbox in their name, is Albion Online by Sandbox Interactive.  Interestingly enough their video for "What is Albion Online?" goes a long way trying to defend it's place as a sandbox.  Let's go through the checklist.

  1. The world is made of resources that players make use of (i.e. "the sand")
    • All items in the game, from weapons to the bed you place in your house, are made from resources gathered from the world.  Players have to gather those resources and use them or trade them for others to use.  The big issue I have here as I'll also touch on later is that those resources are static, always replenish themselves, and harvesting them has no noticeable effect on the world (they will be back in the same spot in a few minutes for the next player).
  2. The game world itself can be changed by the players (i.e. "can make sand castles")
    • Some may argue that players can change the game world, but I'd have a hard time buying the argument.  Resource nodes are static; always in the same place and players just keep harvesting and the resources keep re spawning.  Players can manage their own personal or guild islands; placing houses and items but that is all instanced off from the main world.  Outside of some zone control mechanisms and hide outs that are placed in the outer zones; players have no practical effect on the world.  What is on the world map today will be there tomorrow and the day after and the day after.
  3. Those changes by players have meaningful impact (i.e. "sand castles can be smashed")
    • As noted in #2; players have little impact on the world itself.  But I will give Albion points here because of the crafting and the fact that every item in the game was crafted by a player at some point and the material for that crafted item was gathered by a player.  
  4. There is minimum restrictions on what can be done where (i.e. "build my sand castle anywhere / permanent sand castles aren't already built")
    • Albion is a combat-focused game.  While there is housing, farming, and some other activities on personal islands these are all just mini-games.  The game world is built and outside of things changing ownership (like a shop being bought by another player) most everything is already built and placed in the game.
  5. Players can move between roles seamlessly (i.e. "eat sand if want to")
    •  Albion ties a player's role to the gear they have equipped.  Want to be a mage?  Throw on a robe and grab a staff.  Want to be a warrior?  Grab a sword and heavy armor.  Each piece of gear grants the user an ability.  Players can change gear at anytime, but must "level up" each type of gear in order to equip higher tier versions. Crafting is mostly driven through a level up system but requires access to crafting stations so while any player can do it there is gating mechanism.

Final Judgement? Albion Online has some sandbox aspects but is far from the "king of sandbox MMORPGs" that it tries to bill itself as.  With that said; don't let this scare you off of the game.  I played it for several months and absolutely loved the time I spent with the game.  It is on the short list of MMOs I'd recommend and on the even shorter list of MMOs with original ideas; it just is not a sandbox.

Next on the evaluation list is EVE Online.

  1. The world is made of resources that players make use of (i.e. "the sand")
    • The world of EVE is massive; a series of interconnected sectors of space.  When playing it can often feel endless.  Within the endless space are asteroid belts to mine and enemies (affectionately known as "rats") to farm.  These make up the sand by which the sand castles (ships, space stations, and more) are built.
  2. The game world itself can be changed by the players (i.e. "can make sand castles")
    • EVE gets a good score on this item.  Players can build and manage space stations in many areas of the game.  The only issue is that the game world is broken down into different levels of areas and in the "safe" areas there is not much from a player perspective that can be changed.  It is already defined by the game in these areas.  However the heart of the game is played in the "low security" zones where players define and control almost everything.  From my time playing EVE I learned the hard way that you don't show up unannounced to an area owned by someone else.
  3. Those changes by players have meaningful impact (i.e. "sand castles can be smashed")
    • As noted in item #2 players have direct impact on the world outside the safe zones.  There are numerous legends
  4. There is minimum restrictions on what can be done where (i.e. "build my sand castle anywhere / permanent sand castles aren't already built")
    • As noted in other answers the game is divided into different areas with different impacts on players.  In the far reaches of space in the low security zones there is very little restriction to what can be done as long as players spend the time to collect the requisite sand and toys.  In the safer areas the rules ensure sandbox enthusiasts are not stealing each other's toys.
  5. Players can move between roles seamlessly (i.e. "eat sand if want to")
    • This is an area where EVE falls down and ultimately was why I gave up on the game when I played.  Skill progression is tied to real world time.  Players set a skill to accumulate points which accumulate whether playing or not.  Players that have played for years have years worth of skill points accumulated.  There is no time machine for a newer player to catch up.   This limits the roles that an EVE player can enjoy. While fundamentally the game allows the player to change what they are doing at any point; functionally it is hardcore time gated as to be infeasible.

Final judgement?  EVE can count as a sandbox, but is best for those that are looking for a multi-year engagement to get that experience.  EVE is another game on the short list of recommended MMOs and that shorter list of games doing something unique.

 Now let's look at Crowfall.  All I'll ask "Sandbox?  Really?  REALLY!!??".

  1. The world is made of resources that players make use of (i.e. "the sand")
    • Crowfall does have resources to gather and those resources are used to make things.  Like Albion Online points are deducted here because the resources are static and respawn endlessly.  While there are is a campaign mechanic where campaign areas are time-limited (i.e. they go away after a month) and thus the resources within that campaign are not available forever; the practical reality is that another campaign will replace the current one and feature the same resources.
  2. The game world itself can be changed by the players (i.e. "can make sand castles")
    • Players can take control of castles and zones, but there is almost nothing that players can do to change the world.  There are "eternal kingdoms" (EKs) where players can build their own personal or guild zone.  EKs feature a lego-like building toolset.  If that toolset was part of the full game experience and not just a side feature for EKs then maybe I could see sandbox fitting but in it's limited state for EKs only it does not get any points.
  3. Those changes by players have meaningful impact (i.e. "sand castles can be smashed")
    •  As noted in #2 there is not much of anything the players impact so zero points here for Crowfall.
  4. There is minimum restrictions on what can be done where (i.e. "build my sand castle anywhere / permanent sand castles aren't already built")
    • Crowfall is a standard class-based MMO and zones are on rails.  In effect the entire game is one of restriction when it comes to my sandbox tenants.  Zero points here for Crowfall.
  5. Players can move between roles seamlessly (i.e. "eat sand if want to")
    • I repeat; Crowfall is a standard class-based MMO.  While players can slot crafting/gathering disciplines to change up what they are at the end of the day you are the class and race combination of your character and to change requires you to change your character.  Crowfall tried to advertise the concept of changing roles as changing "your vessel/crow"; whereby a character is really a vessel and you are jumping in and out of the worlds as different vessels.  In reality it's no different than changing characters in any MMO that allows you to have multiple characters.

Final judgement? Crowfall is not anywhere close to a sandbox and should not use the term.  My prior posts on Crowfall will give you my opinion on the game.  I'd not recommend it and it is not doing anything all that exciting or different.  It's a crappy World-of-Warcraft-a-like.

As can be surmised from my rambling I have a tendency to be attracted to games that purport to be sandbox experiences.  Then I play them and realize they fail to hit my key tenants of a sandbox as influenced heavily by Minecraft - yet I still enjoy and recommend some of them.  What that boils down to say is that games that advertise as sandboxes are really saying "I am different" and for anyone that knows me I tend to jump on the "I am different" bandwagons.  I'd still prefer that sandbox was more indicative of Minecraft-like experiences and thus not used in error by games like Crowfall. 

Saturday, July 17, 2021

Crowfall Community Top Likes and Dislikes Feedback 07/14/2021

The development team behind Crowfall is looking for feedback; so figured I'd save a copy of my input on this thing I call a blog (oh and because no matter what I try I can't submit posts on the forum; it just times the web page out losing the post).


In a Galaxy far, far away (and many other games I worked on), I would post a weekly Top 5 for feedback and bugs from the Community. This would help me in providing feedback to the team (in addition to all of the other feedback posted on the forums) and also let us know where we are doing good.  So I'd like to start doing this weekly with you, my murder of Crows.  I've even included a place where you can provide me feedback about this thread, (you may want to see a different question listed or want to offer suggestions for a question of the week).  This is separate from our feedback posts we have for Live and Test, as those are more for the patches at the time.  Please do not hold discussions in this thread, this will help me in gathering feedback quickly.  I'm on vacation until next week, and when I return I'll lock this thread and parse the information for the team.  Thanks for playing Crowfall and for providing feedback.

Top 5 Crowfall likes (things you feel we're doing great on).

  1. New player experience; I enjoyed the extended version that stretches into the Gods Reach faction vs faction PvP zones.  In the last beta I played the new player experience stopped midway to where it does now so felt incomplete, but now it finishes what it started.  I'd like the see this model extended further in the game.
  2. Variety of classes and builds; many ways to play
  3. Group harvesting is a cool concept
  4. The art style and direction is refreshing.  Characters and locations have distinctive feel to them.
  5. Eternal Kingdoms can be great; not sure if they are much of anything yet but they feel promising.


Top 5 Crowfall dislikes (what you feel we could be doing better on or a pesky game mechanic that you don't enjoy) and how can we make it better?

  1. Lack of personal progression tracking; everything is very "random" as far as progression once you are out of the level 1-30 (which is all of a couple hours of play).  A good example is harvesting.  You randomly can get an upgraded harvesting discipline by harvesting; could be an hour ... could be days.  This is a terrible way to progress and you only know this is how to progress because other players figured it out not because the game tells you this is how to progress.

  2. For a hardcore game there is not much risk to those that just hunt down other players.  The risk is entirely on those that are being hunted.  I have to chuckle when people call this game "hardcore! Full loot! Not for carebears!".  All bullshit statements.  You do NOT lose your equipped items (armor, accessories, and weapons) on death.  You only lose your inventory; thus if you are just out to kill other players are are literally taking almost no risk if you get killed as your inventory will be empty.

    For comparison I'll use Albion Online.  If you died in a PvP zone you lost everything; loot and equipped gear.  There was a real risk if you decided to suit up and hunt other players.

  3.  The new player experience, while in my list of good things, is simply not representative of the game.  It cannot prepare the player because there is nothing like it after you are done; you are left to a completely undefined and unwritten progression path.  I personally liked the new player experience and would like to see that type of guided experience permeate through the game in the future; this will go a long way to making a consistent experience.  When I roll up to a keep in a guild or faction campaign it should explode ? marks with things for me to do.

  4. Inventory and bank management; need filters and quick sort options.  Specifically "sacrifice all sacrifice items" at fires.    

  5. Character respec locked behind gold or behind paying up for VIP.  This will create feel bad moments since it is hard to know the optimal way to spec your character for the way you want to play.

      

Top 5 bugs on LIVE (that we may have missed and wish would be fixed). Please be specific and constructive.

  1. Animations cancel when you open your inventory screen, but are still completing which is confusing.  Specifically when mounting up I tend to open inventory and always get confused if I am still mounting up or not since the animation cancels.
  2. Website: I cannot save my forum posts no matter what I try (different browsers, etc).


If you could ask the Team member one question, what would you like to know?  Be nice, seriously don't be a jerk. 

  • Is it intentional for the game to obfuscate how things work or how progression is made; leaving players in the complete dark on how to contribute towards progression?

Thursday, July 15, 2021

Three strikes and you're out! Crowfall Classes

I've been playing Crowfall since it's July 6th launch and have worked a few characters up to level 30.  I've done some quests, some PvP (Gods Reach), and a little harvesting (but no crafting).  And I've struck out on finding what I want to play!  So wanted share my thoughts on what I've tried and get some input on what next to try.

See the source image

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Half-Elf Cutthroat of Shadow

Build: https://crowcaine.wiki/build/xQZ8lQH7dWSDFgvFxZfq

 

I had not given assassins a big whirl in previous betas, but spent a good amount of time getting killed by them so wanted to give it a spin.  I took this character through the full new player experience quest chain (which took me from 25 to 30 after I used the level 25 boost as part of my VIP).  I did not play the character in any group play.

 

What I liked

  • Stealth is invisibility
  • Big hits and crits
  • Deleting fresh level 25 characters trying to level/farm

 

What I didn't like

  • Becoming the invisible monster I've always decried in games
  • Struggled to execute positional attacks

 

 

Human Paladin

Build: https://crowcaine.wiki/build/qQWV07nOzaw2KGJlTkR9

 

The character I played most in previous betas was a support Templar.  I made the change from a Cleric because I was struggling with single target healing and liked the promises of Templar being a good group support option that is mostly based on area of effect benefits.

 

What I liked

  • I did the new player quest up to level 16 without training a single talent, spending a single stat point, and only using gear that I got along the way - felt like super tank.  Then I skipped to 25 and leveled to 30 in Sky Point with a group.
  • Able to sustain myself in group fights; Righteous Reflections is sweet
  • Felt like I was helping groups and I believe my AoE effects helped players whether they were in my group or not (not 100% sure though)

 

What I didn't like

  • Being the focused target in group fights; even with sustain I was almost always the first person down.
  • I did not find a rotation of skills I was comfortable with and struggled to know what abilities to use when
  • Taking Resurrection as a minor disc but almost never being able to use it due to it's long cooldown
  • Did not understand why the class has pips or how pips fit into the playstyle

 

 

High-Elf Fanatic

Build: https://crowcaine.wiki/build/0QV0OVaYYkSONApdutF9

 

The character I played most in previous betas was a support Templar.  I made the change from a Cleric because I was struggling with single target healing and liked the promises of Templar being a good group support option that is mostly based on area of effect benefits.

 

What I liked

  • Having ranged attacks
  • Disappearing with Q in group fights and popping out with more BOOM
  • Melting camps of NPCs when farming

 

What I didn't like

  • Keeling over if any other player so much as looks at me
  • Disappearing with Q in 1v1 only to be immediately found and killed anyways
  • Time to kill feels slow and it seems every class can just leap to you so range offers very little advantage outside of large group standoff fights
  • Not sure if it is my settings or a bug, but I couldn't see most of my attacks so wasn't always clear if I was missing/out of range/etc.  It would be ideal if I saw something like a fireball traveling across the landscape.

Friday, August 28, 2020

By Schism Rent Asunder: Crowfall Beta is HERE!

I had to look up when the last (and apparently only time) I had posted about Crowfall was and it was January 2016!  I knew that it was a new years post mentioning I was looking forward to seeing progress on the game but I'll be honest that I didn't think it had been over FOUR YEARS AGO!  Where does time go?  Ironically I had also mentioned I was going to blog more in 2016 and that turned into a whopping two total posts in 2016 and only a handful since (kids, real life, something, something).

With that recapped it is time to drop some thoughts about Crowfall now that the beta has arrived.  I am an original kickstarter backer so I've had access to all of Crowfall's testing phases.  In the last year I've jumped in and out to check on the game, but did not spend any serious time with it. 

I jumped into the beta with both feet and I've now spent just shy of 20 hours with the game.  There is a full game loop this test compared to previous tests, but I did not find anything that makes the game stand out and I am struggling to find anything that Crowfall does that makes me go "this is the thing that makes me want to play".  If I were to sum up my feedback on the beta so far it would be in the two letters O and K.

New Player Experience is OK

Unlike the past tests that I participated in there is a new player experience that is part of the beta (and from my understanding only 2/3rds of the full experience is in place so maybe some of the below issues I call out will be resolved by the last 1/3 when its added).  It is a straight forward quest system that guides the player from point A to B and explains basic concepts of the game.  

Unfortunately while it serves it's purpose it does nothing to actually bridge the player to what is purported to be the real game of Crowfall; the campaigns.  In fact I would say it does the opposite of bridging players.  The new player quest (and leveling to 30 in the God's Reach safe zone) builds the player up under the premise that you are building towards something and that there will be guided experiences (quests) along the way.

However; currently the only available campaign is "zero import" which means the player will have to strip naked, empty every single inventory slot, and dump everything into their bank in order to join the campaign and literally start over.  No where in the new player experience does it explain that and players can find themselves having geared up for a cosplay party at a nudist colony with strict entrance criteria.

Yes, I can hear forum warriors screaming "there is more than campaigns!".  There is "The Infected" that is a "safe" PvP zone available after level 15 which has no restrictions, but it's not clear what you actually do in "The Infected". Again just pointing back that the game does nothing to bridge you to the next step content. 

New Player Experience; OK at introducing you to the basic mechanics and GREAT at abandoning you without a whisper of what to do next. I'll admit I've not had that experience in an MMO in close to twenty years.

Leveling is OK

Leveling is simple in Crowfall.  Max level is 30 and can be reached within a matter of hours (I've gotten it down to about 2 hours now from 1to 30... it is that easy).  If you group up each group member gets 100% experience from every kill and as a group you can rifle through camps of monsters pretty quick (though respawn rate is glacial so I can forsee problems when population increases).

While leveling is easy what is not explained is that you will have to re-level when you get upgraded "vessels" which are upgraded characters that start over with better stats.  The basic take away (again not actually explained anywhere to you in the game) is that you will always be leveling in this game and characters are disposable so don't get attached.

Leveling; OK because its quick and GREAT that you get to do it over and over and over and over WHICH leads me to my next point.

Choices are final, yo!?

Crowfall is a game of choice and those choices are locked in when it comes to your character.  There is no undo button or respec.  Once a decision is made; whether in the passive skill system (more on this in a bit) or in assigning stat or skill points its final.  This is all fine and dandy except when you realize that wrong decisions can render your character unusable.  Forget to leave enough skill points to unlock minor/major discipline slots (basically leaving your character unplayable) and you will be starting over.  Have the audacity to increase more than a single stat point and therefore hamper your character?  You can't redo them so back to the new character screen and back to leveling!

This is honestly a mind boggling design.  As noted leveling is not hard and the PvE content by which you level is NOT an area Crowfall is focusing on so its a pretty damn boring experience.  Why on earth the game would want to force players back through that versus giving a method to undue/redo stat points is baffling.  It is complete "feel bad" as a new player.  I had to abandon my first two characters because of this.  I can see new players quitting over this without ever getting a taste of what the actual game is supposed to be.

This is the point I should also talk about the "passive" skill training system where you earn points every few seconds (whether logged in or not) that you can then spend on a skill tree to unlock various nodes and the effects are account-wide.  It is very much an EVE Online clone.  You can only gain points in two of the three tracks (you can switch which tracks are earning).  Once you spend points though its final; if you want to go a different direction you have to wait the required amount of time to pursue that alternate path.

Probably the most frustrating portion of the passive system is that some of the very first content you run into in the campaign is gated behind a week or more of passive training (and then only if you know exactly what to unlock and don't dilly dally points away elsewhere).  This goes back to the new player experience feedback and how it actively teaches you the wrong thing about the game.  Through the new player quests you are learning about harvesting yet when you get to the campaign you cannot harvest the nodes that you were trained to think you can harvest and no where does it explain why you can't harvest them or that you may need to go to the passive skill tree to unlock the ability to do so.  The lack of feedback in this game is astounding.

I honestly don't know why the passive skill system is in the game other than to time gate stuff and ensure that any new player in the future is utterly frustrated.  Maybe I am missing something, but I can't see how it contributes to the game in a meaningful way.

Also on the topic of choice one interesting area where choice is not locked in is your choice of faction in the current Dregs Campaign.  You can change your faction and in the current beta (as of this post) we are seeing a bit of faction hopping as a prominent guild has "unguilded" and opted just to play with "the newbs" in one faction.  Thus we have an exodus from other factions.  It's a curious decision.  If there is any decision I'd say warrants players being locked in it would be something such as what faction they select when joining a campaign since supposedly the game is all about campaigns and rewarding players for doing better in them.  Being able to flip flop factions (there is a time delay so it can't be overly abused) seems like an odd place to offer choice to the player when so many other fundamental things are locked in upon your first click.

Combat is OK

If there is one area that I struggled the most with it is the combat.  I'll be honest; I do not like it and it will be the reason I stop playing.  It is "twitch" based as in that you have to aim your attacks/skills (even heals) but the classes/skills are all built in the style of tab targeting combat where you are trying to chain skills together on your target.  

Without any form of lock on targeting there is a higher abundance (at least it feels like it) of skills with some form of area of effect (AoE).  However, it looks like there is a cap on targets so only a limited number of enemies can be hit by an AoE.  In some cases for cone AoE attacks they only hit one target which is really frustrating in crowded combat.

The "hit detection" is pretty generous so I didn't have much issue landing my clicks on target.  I know some players would like to see the hit detection tightened up, but personally I prefer the generous approach as the game (animations, skills, etc) do not lend themselves to a precise hitbox.

The aiming applies to melee as well and you do have to be right on top of your target to land melee hits.  This can be frustrating when combined with the fact that every character (player or NPC) in the game seems to have some form of super leap ability (don't even get me started on magical flying centaurs) which makes for a lot of Cotton Eye Joe "where did they come from/where did they go" moments. 

The best description of combat is the term "floaty" (which I nabbed from this video).  It is hard to describe in words, but as KiraTV noted in the linked video you will understand it when you play and I couldn't agree more. Attempting to use some words to describe it; there doesn't feel like there is any weight to combat.  Everyone is leaping about (just about every NPC you fight included) and characters seem to move as if just slightly skating above the actual ground.  You never feel like you are actually committed to combat and in group settings there is a lot of "I'm going in deep" over Discord voice chat as the bowling ball classes leap into combat (but knowing full well a second later they are jumping back out).  I'll touch base on crowd control in my comments on PvP.

And there is something I just cannot pin point with the combat to make it click with me.  I really struggle with getting skills to fire.  So many times I thought fired a skill or ability, but nothing happens.  No feedback; nothing.  Many skills are also just slight variations of something else so they feel very "samey" which contributes to the confusion.  

There is also some sort of resource system for each class, but of course like so many things in the game it's not explained and the error messages that flash on screen "not enough X" don't really help.  The main problem here is this type of system is best suited for tab target combat (using the term tab target as I lack better vernacular here) but is slapped into a twitchy wannabe FPS combat system in Crowfall.

Player vs Player is OK

If you read my section on combat then you know that I won't have much more to say about the PvP, but I will touch on a couple things.

To footstomp the note about the "floaty" feeling of combat: characters are flipping and zooming all over the place in combat and it is annoying and frustrating (I'd wager 50% of the skills in game are worthless aside from getting lucky with some button mashing to land them).  Centaurs take the cake on the ridiculous movement from having leaps and double leaps (I will admit I am not sure if these are class or racial unlocks) that are the equivalent of an in game Superman impersonation.  A good portion of my playtime was grouping up with a centaur champion pit fighter and in PvE I was lucky to be able to reach the mob in the time it took the centaur to have leaped and killed the target.  In PvP they were in and out of combat before I could even think bout contributing.

There is crowd control in the game so enemies can certainly be locked down, but that almost feels entirely designed to punish solo players so they can't escape a group or for stealth gankers to execute their targets victims.  In group combat scenarios with the twitch combat landing crowd control on key targets (at least CC that is not AoE based) is a tall order.  There is some skill in here somewhere (I've certainly been wrecked by getting locked down with CC in fights... well... mostly when trying to escape fights), but its beyond my grasp.

There is different areas for different types of PvP.  "The Infected" map for safe PvP where you cannot be looted on death.  Then the campaigns where there is full loot PvP (except oddly equipped gear), sieges, attack/defend points, and some smaller activities I haven't explored.  The biggest problem with this is the game does nothing to explain why you'd want to do any of it.  

I literally cannot figure out what "The Infected" is intended for.  It states "level 15+" so you'd assume you could jump in at 15 for some fun.  Yet the first PvE mob camps are 20+ so you can't go on a PvE excursion and the PvP is... ganking?  Maybe this is the practice area for us plebes? Maybe if I'm scared of full loot PvP and I'm not interested in campaign rewards then I'm supposed to play here?  CAN SOMEONE TELL ME PLEASE (preferably in the game)!?

I have some comments around the larger battles as well, but as I've not experienced them myself I am going off videos and other player feedback.  I will sum it up by saying I had sincerely hoped I'd never see another dodge/leap and AoE roaming zerg spam fest after Guild Wars 2 (dodge and AoE being my biggest complaints of GW2 combat). Unfortunately Crowfall missed my memo on that.  There is nothing really new here on the topic either; Crowfall has all of the same problems that this type of combat system brings and none of the lessons learned from those other games to discourage blobs of people piling up.  Is that hard to ask games to incentivize reasonable size combat scenarios instead of never-going-to-work "biggest fights of any MMO ever!".

Campaigns are OK?

Maybe?  I am not really sure.  Not much is explained about them in the game and after several hours playing guild-adjacent I can't say I've learned much.  At a minimum there are a few constants: 

  • I can't harvest anything (assuming passive skill system unlocks are needed, but again not explained in game).  
  • You will get ganked the moment you set foot into the first area (the maps feel small)
  • You will spend a lot of time roaming around and playing "capture the thing"

As I mentioned in my thoughts on the new player experience the current campaign is "zero import" so players are starting from scratch; just your character, levels, and disciplines.  In my experience (joining in a week+ after the campaign started) I immediately felt behind the curve and a character without any gear felt completely helpless.  With the small map sizes there is really no place for a solo player (well unless you consider the classic just-what-every-MMO-needs "stealth ganker" as "solo" play) to advance and gear up.  You will need friends (and you better go to the guild recruitment forums because there is no find-other-players-that-are-doing-stuff tools in the game unless you feel like getting hoodwinked and ganked by using the public chats to organize something).

I will have to revisit my thoughts if I stick it out long enough to see a campaign through.

JOIN A GUILD!!!!

Yes dear reader I can hear you slapping your desk and screaming "JOIN A GUILD".  That's a great suggestion; games are always better with friends.  This would be great if the game explained the importance of joining a guild and had a great feature set supporting active guild recruitment, player grouping, and other social connectivity features.

My follow up question to the "JOIN A GUILD" screamers is "then what?".  Joining a guild doesn't exactly unlock anything other than other's to play with.  Why does it have to be a guild?  There are factions in the game; why can't it better facilitate players working together without the construct of a guild.  

Some other things...

Just some other odds and ends (mostly negative; again struggling to find a light here with Crowfall)

  • There is no UI customization and the UI isn't great; at a minimum you need to be able to rearrange items and scale the UI.  After World of Warcraft I had just assumed we'd never see another MMO that didn't feature customizable UIs... how sadly wrong I was.
  • The UI is also a mess in some key areas
    • Buffs/Debuffs are represented on the top right as a stacked list. You cannot click or hover over them (that I can find) to understand what they are and there is no reasonable way to reference them in combat and there will be so many stacked up that they are basically meaningless.
    • Every time you loot it opens up your main character UI screen, the loot window, and any window you had not closed.  Hopefully you don't misclick and invest a stat point on accident because as noted that stat point decision is FINAL on click (whether you intended it or not).
    • Speaking of looting; there is no loot all or auto loot options.  Truly hardcore; to the fastest clickers goes the loot.
    • And speaking of looting; sometimes loot is sprayed out like candy from pinata instead of being in a screen you click in.  Harvesting also works under the pinata model as well which requires you then to go run over the items you harvested to actually collect them.  I'd prefer if the game went one way or the other; candy I just run over and pick up automatically or always have to click to collect.
  • Crafting is... well.. I don't know. Another thing not very well explained in game (and even more confusing if you venture on to the Internet to find out more).  At this stage of the game you get enough loot from leveling that you don't have to think about crafting outside of some basics for bandages and food.  Crafting is supposedly a "big deal" in the game but your average player starting the game will not know that which is disappointing.  I honestly miss the days of Ultima Online where you really had to find the merchants and crafters to keep you going right out of the gate.
  • There is a food system in the game? Why?  I don't know.  Its feels like another "idea on the pile because another game did it".  Maybe its about crafting?  Buffs?  It sounds like it works like Guild Wars 2 where you need food to get specific buffs and thus becomes an annoying "thing you just need to do to be able to play".
  • There is the (now standard it seems in MMOs) drag an item out of your inventory to destroy it feature which seems like a really odd choice in a "full loot" game because players can literally just dump their inventory to avoid it getting snatched up.  Probably can't dump everything but in the group I am playing folks have set up macros to insta-dump pretty much everything if they know they are going down.  Generally if you are going to have a "full loot" system you avoid outlets for players to get rid of stuff.
  • Stealth; meh.  Anyone that knows me knows I hate it.  It's dumb and is really invisibility; not stealth. There is an entire major discipline (Mole Hunter) that is intended to root out stealthers so at least there is some acknowledgement that it has to be kept in check.  This is good because the gerbil race gets stealth as a racial feature (I fully support unique racial traits... just not this one).  It cracks me up that there is "gerbil gank squads" that can  have a healer, DPS, and tank that can all go poof in/out of nowhere.

 

Final Thoughts

My final view of Crowfall is that it feels like a collection of ideas from various games rather than its own unique experience.

  • The characters/classes/skills want to be a tab target MMO while the combat wants to be an FPS; the game needs to go one way or the other instead of trying to straddle both (I'd recommend going tab targeting and I feel bad saying that)
  • The passive skill system wants to be EVE Online but without any clear reason as to why or what its trying to accomplish for the game (other than becoming a hurdle for new players to join the game in the future).
  • The hub/spoke model to the maps wants to be anything but an actual massive online anything

I'll be honest that I am disappointed.   The combat is the part that sticks out to me the most; it does not feel good and that will be a huge item for me to get past to continue with this game.

The lack of feedback about anything in the game is astounding and a road block to enjoying the game.  Some of this will be fixed with the last part of the New Player Experience, but that's only scratching the surface of the problem.  Skills/abilities need a hair cut; we need fewer and more impactful skills that pair well with the twitch combat and then that smaller set of skills/abilities need to be really clear to the players on what they do/don't do when being used.

Crowfall is OK; not great but at least now a full game you can play.

A quick note on performance

I have a new gaming rig (details) and saw pretty solid framerates the entire time I played.  I did not get into any major sieges so did not see combat at scale.  In smaller skirmishes (at most 20 players) I didn't notice any performance issues.  I tend not to get into FPS or other performance metrics; I base my feedback on how the game feels when playing and nothing felt off to me.

With that said I am not sure what is at the root of my feelings around combat.  Again it felt really clunky and I repeatedly didn't see skills fire that I thought I was using.  There could be a component of optimization/performance that I am overlooking, but as I've seen this same feedback about combat almost universally from other beta testers I tend to lean that it's just a core issue with the combat system.

But what about that post title?

Curious where "By Schism Rent Asunder" comes from?  It is a book by David Weber in the Safehold series which gets my vote for some of the best book titles in Sci Fi!  As it was present in my mind (and to-read pile) I wanted to throw it in the title (because #reasons).