Teifer
10-10-2007, 10:28 AM
Taking a moment to provide my feedback, I realised I was not sure where to begin.
Much can be said about looking back over the last 20 years of gaming, especially when you remember how successful certain older games were. For myself, my first home computer was a Commodore Vic 20, but even before that, I had a console called Atari. These were the way forward for many years, resulting in Nes and Master System, which exploded the genre of affordable games systems into everyone living room.
This then caused a flood of new and exciting games, much like the one we are currently testing, in layout and experiance.
As you know however, the games did not stop there, we move on and on, to current titles, such as LOTRO for example, which include massive game areas, in 3D yadda yadda yadda.
Yet, for many people nowadays, we don't see what once was, so games like SoS, are new and often fresh for todays younger players.
So I come to the crunch. Nostalgia is playing a huge part in my recommendation of this game, simply because it's nice to step back and look at something that reminds me of a bygone time. A lot of people will highlight this game as from something else, but I personally believe, every game has it's own merits.
Character creation is simplistic in nature, leading to the first few missions ingame, that allow you the basics of movement, locations and functions the game offers, before you are even allowed to fight, however, they do miss an important lesson which can be overlooked, that being the stat process and even a GM had to post, put everything into power till you reach lvl 16. A valuble lesson lost in the midst of starting.
To reach 16 is easy and then you strike out on your choosen path via a quest for collection of four pendants. Rogue, Acolyte, Fighter, Mage. Each of these opens up new skills and the game a little further for players.... a world, in which you will have to explore and learn to move around and find whats best to hunt for certain classes. This goes on for several levels, till new armor comes, then rinse and repeat and you'll start to find a little repetative grind enters the picture.
Questing, can be an integral part of the game or totally forgotton, since quest items are dropped even if your not on the quest and when you are, items have a nasty habit of being absent for long periods, giving the feeling of frustration and repetativeness I spoke of earlier.
Some things however are fun, lucky balls for example, offer costumes to players which make your characters different in appearance. Some of these are brilliant and I hope they expand on this as much as possible, even allowing some rare perminant ones for players to keep, trade etc.
I am concerned however, that the game again still appears to be limited in areas for all levels. This sense of repetativeness is going to hit players at some point and whilst a few will get through it, some will be driven away.
This game overall can be very fun, with a good solid community of beta tester players behind it, but it's long term goals and additions will be what I am looking for in the future and I hope this period of retro gaming will last for some years to come.
In short -
Good points -
Varied colourful characters.
Supportive community.
Easy to simplistic gameplay.
Brilliants start up and quest introduction.
Bad points -
Repeative healing sounds are annoying when we need to spam pots.
Not enough open areas to explore for sake of xp gaining, will get worse as more and more players are introduced and fights break out about kill stealing.
Questionable longevity and quest system which needs some revision.
Indervidual shop system. Can we please have an auction house instead of indervidual shops, before it's too late and game becomes laggy due to shops in the two towns!
Secrets of the Solstice - 89%
For now, this speech is over :)
Much can be said about looking back over the last 20 years of gaming, especially when you remember how successful certain older games were. For myself, my first home computer was a Commodore Vic 20, but even before that, I had a console called Atari. These were the way forward for many years, resulting in Nes and Master System, which exploded the genre of affordable games systems into everyone living room.
This then caused a flood of new and exciting games, much like the one we are currently testing, in layout and experiance.
As you know however, the games did not stop there, we move on and on, to current titles, such as LOTRO for example, which include massive game areas, in 3D yadda yadda yadda.
Yet, for many people nowadays, we don't see what once was, so games like SoS, are new and often fresh for todays younger players.
So I come to the crunch. Nostalgia is playing a huge part in my recommendation of this game, simply because it's nice to step back and look at something that reminds me of a bygone time. A lot of people will highlight this game as from something else, but I personally believe, every game has it's own merits.
Character creation is simplistic in nature, leading to the first few missions ingame, that allow you the basics of movement, locations and functions the game offers, before you are even allowed to fight, however, they do miss an important lesson which can be overlooked, that being the stat process and even a GM had to post, put everything into power till you reach lvl 16. A valuble lesson lost in the midst of starting.
To reach 16 is easy and then you strike out on your choosen path via a quest for collection of four pendants. Rogue, Acolyte, Fighter, Mage. Each of these opens up new skills and the game a little further for players.... a world, in which you will have to explore and learn to move around and find whats best to hunt for certain classes. This goes on for several levels, till new armor comes, then rinse and repeat and you'll start to find a little repetative grind enters the picture.
Questing, can be an integral part of the game or totally forgotton, since quest items are dropped even if your not on the quest and when you are, items have a nasty habit of being absent for long periods, giving the feeling of frustration and repetativeness I spoke of earlier.
Some things however are fun, lucky balls for example, offer costumes to players which make your characters different in appearance. Some of these are brilliant and I hope they expand on this as much as possible, even allowing some rare perminant ones for players to keep, trade etc.
I am concerned however, that the game again still appears to be limited in areas for all levels. This sense of repetativeness is going to hit players at some point and whilst a few will get through it, some will be driven away.
This game overall can be very fun, with a good solid community of beta tester players behind it, but it's long term goals and additions will be what I am looking for in the future and I hope this period of retro gaming will last for some years to come.
In short -
Good points -
Varied colourful characters.
Supportive community.
Easy to simplistic gameplay.
Brilliants start up and quest introduction.
Bad points -
Repeative healing sounds are annoying when we need to spam pots.
Not enough open areas to explore for sake of xp gaining, will get worse as more and more players are introduced and fights break out about kill stealing.
Questionable longevity and quest system which needs some revision.
Indervidual shop system. Can we please have an auction house instead of indervidual shops, before it's too late and game becomes laggy due to shops in the two towns!
Secrets of the Solstice - 89%
For now, this speech is over :)