Topic

Thoughts after a few weeks

I've been playing for a few weeks, and here are my thoughts.

The world is pretty big, but there aren't really differences between locations. Yeah, there are cool artwork changes, but fundamentally, they are all just a combination of a few things like rocks, animals, and trees. I was motivated to explore to get the small amounts of experience you get when entering a new area, and to a lesser extent, to just see the attractive world. But you can really do anything you could possibly want to do in just like two or three areas.

Finding the merchants you want is annoying. Yeah they're on the map, but they feel like a cheap justification of the tedious map/world system.

Instead of increasing skill learn times after the first 10 by 5% (or whatever the exact amouts are), find the average base time it takes to learn a skill, I'll estimate 3 hours, and take 5% of that, 9 minutes but let's round up to 10, and add a set 10 minutes to every skill every time you finish learning one. The reason for this is that I ended up learning the higher teleportation skills earlier than I wanted to because I kept watching 5% REALLY stack up on those long times. So in the current system, you are penalized for learning skills with short learn times first, which there is no reason for. Making it a set 10 minutes removes that penalty.

What's the goal of the game? I started playing and had no idea why I was learning skills and leveling up. I eventually looked it up online and found out that the game is the dream of giants and that we're supposed to be helping create the world or something. That was near at all in the game, and I'm still working on getting achievements and such with no real end goal in sight. For a game that strongly encourages you to play in short spurts, not having a big picture goal hurts because I have no strong reason to come back. In most games like this, that big goal is getting stronger for combat, but I haven't seen any combat in the game and that seems like it would be the opposite of the game's design goal. So if this game is about creation, that needs to be built in from the beginning.

I've invested many hours into the game but haven't really done anything. I've been playing less and less lately because I forget about it, which is a danger of the whole energy system. And I think the only reason I was coming back was because I had already invested a lot of time into the game and my character. But once that character is wiped, unless things significantly change, I definitely won't be interested in starting again.

Posted 18 months ago by Pathock Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • Great to get some fresh eyes on the game and for you to provide some very honest input. There is another thread in the general forum about the game needing a better hook, but I think you described it pretty well here too.

    Honestly, I doubt I'd be coming back as much as I do, except that I came over with a bunch of friends from another game. At one point, I was ready to walk away, but one friend in particular got me to come back after about a month of not playing.  So for me, the hook is my friends, but understand that as the players expand, many of them are coming in solo.  Good points about that. 

    For me, I truly would like more creative outlets in the game, since that is what the game proposes is the objective...right now, I don't feel like we really create anything in the world yet...
    Posted 18 months ago by b3achy Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I agree about needing more creative outlets in this game. 
    Posted 18 months ago by NutMeg Botwin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think I share a few of the concerns. If skills are the only thing worth learning, what do you do if you're learning something that'll take a week? You could say that you could earn currants with the skills you already have. What if you're already filthy rich though? You've bought the house of your dreams, what else can you spend it on aside from philanthropic ventures that, later on admittedly, are more to stave off boredom than out of altruism.

    There has to be more of a sense of being able to shape the world. I remember there being a suggestion that street projects should phase similar to shrine donation, where the donations affect the street (meat = more nibbling bonuses, etc.). Why not extend this and have streets customised like this even after street projects have been completed? Maybe affected just by what people put into the shrines on the street, instead of having to set up a different shrine just for this.

    Plus it should be easier to find out where the current Street Projects are anyway. Yeah there's a group for it, but for new players who don't know what the term means and hell, might be unaware that such a group even exists, they'll be left in the dark. I remember a staff member, in Global Chat, pretended not to know what street projects are and where they were taking place, and very few people could say where. Also some people took him/her seriously and as shockingly incompetent.
    Posted 18 months ago by Liridona Subscriber! | Permalink