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Alpha 7 comments

shafk 12 years ago
This is just some brief comments about the new featured in the Alpha 7 build:

Smithy
The Wombat digging for gold has been in a few builds will this be extended, right now it shows Robert is more interested in Monetary gain that doing the right thing.

Crypt
Love the Skeletal Dark Knight (should please the Monty Python Fans)
Suggestion - In another area add a quest for a shrubbery given by the 3 Knights of Elbow.
(All the Knights have their left Elbows Bandaged)This quest might be a good
addition to the Deafly caverns area.

Deafly Caverns
Only 1 quest in the area, not much else to find unless there's hidden areas.
Since it's called the Deafly Caverns there should be more than 1 cavern in the area.

Monastery
Loved the Organ puzzle and 16 switch puzzle and the Boat in the Wine Vat.
Suggestion - Add a further quest to get Leo out of Jail once the Fake Abbot is killed.

General comments
The pirate quest and location was moved, that confused me for a while.

Approx Playing time to complete all quests for Alpha 7 - 6 hours on first play.


Last Edit: Added further comments on a new quest, suggested for the Deafly Caverns area.
(Jan. 22/12) Suggestion for Monastery adding quest to get Leo out of Jail.

Edited 12 years ago
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jgprof 12 years ago
Just finished alpha 7. Verdict: awesome. Great job!

In addition to the 20 or so feedbacks that I sent whilst playing, here are some general comments. I don't think there are any spoilers here but if you haven't finished the alpha yet, best go and do that before reading

* At some points I lost the mouse cursor. This is perhaps more to do with my eyesight than the colour of the crosshairs, but how about having a section in the options where one can recolour/resize the crosshairs? Similarly, you could allow the UI elements (the bars at the bottom) to be increased/decreased in size.
* I can't put a game down until I know it's complete. How about having a completion percentage somewhere showing, perhaps, how many quests have been completed (and, crucially, how many there are in total). Similarly, I have 31 silver feathers but I really want to know if I've found them all!
* Maybe this will be revealed later, but what's the deal with the feathers anyway? Other than increasing mana storage, do they/will they do anything? Will there be a reward for collecting a certain number? There should be!
* For the first 2/3 of the game I wanted to be able to change the game speed. In the end I got used to simply pausing when I needed time to think (ie. during a battle), but perhaps it would be useful to allow the player to change the speed during play, and to perhaps set a default speed during battle (if I could play battles at half speed this would give me more time to think and I wouldn't need to pause so much, but perhaps not everyone would like this. It should be a choice.)
* Master Tower Shield blocks the next five attacks, but it would be useful to see how many it has blocked so far (so I can tell how many more hits I can take before the spell wears off)
* As mentioned in a feedback message, I upgraded to master level on the 'Sanctuary' skill but never seemed to be able to use it. I assumed that it would be a new spell, but perhaps it just causes 'tower shield' to block projectiles as well as melee weapons? Either way this should be made clearer.
* It took me quite a while to figure out that by default I fire wood arrows which are unlimited, and not the steel arrows that I kept picking up. Maybe other people are quicker than me, but having an infinity sign where the number of arrows usually is would make this very clear!
* Maybe you're planning this, but you've got to have some puzzle involving the one book.
* I know you're going for adventure rather than puzzle, but even so I found the puzzles too easy. Myst-level is perhaps too hard, but you could make them a little more tricky. The organ puzzle, for example, was trivial once you found the book as the notes were simply spelled out. How about having the tune played out by some object so you have to figure out how to play it yourself? The sliding duck puzzle would have been better (IMO) if there wasn't a picture of the duck on the floor outside. Put it in a book somewhere (the biggish book of monsters?) so the player has to use some intelligence to figure it out! Similarly, the rotating labyrinth was pretty easy. Also, I quite like puzzles where you need to play with a pencil and paper to note things down and use them later. Perhaps some players would find this difficult or irritating, but there will always be walkthroughs online where they can go if they're really stuck (or build walkthroughs in to the game if a player doesn't seem to be making progress on a particular puzzle). If you'd rather that the focus was story and adventure rather than puzzle, then fair enough. This is just me describing my ideal game here
* I never finished the Fizz/Buzz quest because I couldn't find Buzz to talk to him after completing the dungeon. I've left and returned several times and tried walking out from the depths of the dungeon but I can't find him anywhere, so the quest remains unfinished. Not sure what I can do to make him appear.
* For the record, I played quite thoroughly (checking every nook and cranny, reading all the books, trying to find all the feathers) and my final save file reports a play time of 5h38min.

Most of this is nitpicking, by the way. It really is a brilliant game and I can't wait for the next (final?) release! I'm really, really impressed with what you've achieved here. How can two people create all this?!

Finally, if you have any specific questions about my experience please ask ASAP while it's all still fresh!

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jgprof 12 years ago
Just thought of something else:

* The quest log is very useful, but sometimes it's a little too helpful. On at least one occasion I got a certain object and thought 'oh, I wonder if I can go and give that to X', but then I noticed that the quest log told me exactly what I had to do with it. It took some of the fun out of it. Perhaps you could make the log slightly less instructive/useful and add a button (or a spell which allows you to contact a wise old dude, or a 'spoilers' book in a library at the start, or whatever...) which you can use to add more specific information to the log when you're stuck. That way impatient people could get on with the quest and people who like puzzles could take their time trying to figure out what to do next.
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MageKing17 12 years ago
jgprof said:
Perhaps you could make the log slightly less instructive/useful and add a button (or a spell[...]) which you can use to add more specific information to the log when you're stuck.
Or take a page out of Skyrim's book and have a spell that shows you which direction to go to progress in your quest without telling you what you'll find there or what to do there.
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Anne 12 years ago
Thanks for all the ideas & feedback! There's lots of great ideas there and they'll come to good use. I don't have time to comment more right now, but we'll certainly read them carefully, and try to comment more a tad later.

Do keep the ideas & comments coming, when you think of new ones!
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Death Knight 12 years ago
You know, i think that you guys have something very very solid. Look at the pluses to this game:

+User friendly interface
+Gameplay Very appealing to kids and people of all ages
+Addictive
+Excellent music score
+Easy to play, difficult to master

What i would say in particular in case i havent already said it-Market this to kids, its a very expanding audience.
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jgprof 12 years ago
I can update my previous play time to 5h51 -- it wasn't until I saw the new trailer that I realised it was possible to finish the Mystic Stave mission. Unfortunately there is literally nothing left to shoot with it!

Also, I just remembered that I spent aaaages looking under all the beds in the monastry (they take ages to drag out, especially the ones where you have to drag another bed first to make space for dragging a second) and there was nothing there (except in one case...). I feel like I should be rewarded! Same goes for the sarcophagi, many of which are draggable but very heavy.

Oh, and you should market it to old people; there's an expanding audience. Plus they have more money than kids and plenty of free time to make mods...

Edited 12 years ago
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shafk 12 years ago
I didn't even try dragging the beds in the Monastery.
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Death Knight 12 years ago
So far here's what i have on dmoon.

The aoe attacks are good but need to have a slightly less high mana cost. What i was thinking was you could offshoot that by making intelligence add 2 mana per point in it. It would make sense too as intelligence will actually be useful instead of just giving you faster levels. Constitution while adding 2 points of health is useful, might be better with 3 or 4 points. 2 points right now is ok, but considering that most enemies at mid game hit you once for at least 5 points, that 2 points doesnt help out much.

Another thing that might be good for the first aoe on the left, would be to give it a better damage boost for master level. 15% boost for damage from expert to master wont make the biggest difference as 115% to 130% is not as big.

Thats just my 2 cents. Aside from that, it plays like a good party-based game
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jgprof 12 years ago
shafk said:
I didn't even try dragging the beds in the Monastery.

Well where would YOU have hidden the alms money if you were a monk?!
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jgprof 12 years ago
I investigated the disappearing Buzz issue by loading my save up in the editor. It looks like he wandered off the edge of the screen, making it impossible for me to talk to him. You might want to put a wall there to keep him contained!

You can see quite clearly what happened in this screenshot.
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Anne 12 years ago
jgprof said:
I investigated the disappearing Buzz issue by loading my save up in the editor. It looks like he wandered off the edge of the screen, making it impossible for me to talk to him. You might want to put a wall there to keep him contained!

You can see quite clearly what happened in this screenshot.

What a clever way to see what was going on! Good job! We'll add a script to keep him confined.
If you want to pass your quest, you can probably move your Buzz using the editor to an area you can access.
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jgprof 12 years ago
Anne said:
If you want to pass your quest, you can probably move your Buzz using the editor to an area you can access.

Done. It worked, though I had to catch him before he flew off screen again. I assume that there's something that makes him leave the area once the game thinks the quest is over, but I can't find where this is in the level scripts. I think the problem may have occurred because after getting the Blessed Heart I warped out of the dungeon and immediately left the area. I forgot I'd left Robert behind with Eldar...

Another comment on the demo: As you can see from above, I was convinced that I'd completed it. However by chance I spoke to the deaf flute player and opened the Deafly Caverns area. I'd spoken to him before but not enough to begin the new quest. I nearly completely missed out on this part of the game! I know it's my fault for not being thorough enough with the conversations, but if there was a "quests complete" percentage somewhere I would at least have known that I hadn't completed the game and would have continued hunting for more...

[Edit: hid a possible spoiler]

Edited 12 years ago
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ville 12 years ago
I'm finally through most of my feedback, and I'm going through the forum now! I can't thank you all enough! I've done something about most of them. I probably don't need to remind you not to be disappointed if your feedback didn't result in visible changes - I usually try to see behind the feedback to the actual reason, and I might have fixed that - or I might have found it to be too time consuming to fix, or I have liked it the way it was. As your feedback has been keeping me busy (12 hour days mind you) for ten days now, rest assured that I've thought carefully about each of them.

jgprof said:
The quest log is very useful, but sometimes it's a little too helpful. On at least one occasion I got a certain object and thought 'oh, I wonder if I can go and give that to X', but then I noticed that the quest log told me exactly what I had to do with it. It took some of the fun out of it. Perhaps you could make the log slightly less instructive/useful and add a button (or a spell which allows you to contact a wise old dude, or a 'spoilers' book in a library at the start, or whatever...) which you can use to add more specific information to the log when you're stuck. That way impatient people could get on with the quest and people who like puzzles could take their time trying to figure out what to do next.

Actually I want the quest log to only show you what you should already know. In my opinion it should never tell you what to do, if somebody hasn't told you to do it - it's just a reminder. If you find anywhere it predicts future events, please tell me. I found at least one myself, it can tell you what to do with Plotho's key, even if you haven't started the quest yet.

jgprof said:
I can update my previous play time to 5h51 -- it wasn't until I saw the new trailer that I realised it was possible to finish the Mystic Stave mission. Unfortunately there is literally nothing left to shoot with it!

You never found the fire crystal wells that recharge the staff? Or you mean there weren't many enemies left around?

jgprof said:
Another comment on the demo: As you can see from above, I was convinced that I'd completed it. However by chance I spoke to the deaf flute player and opened the Deafly Caverns area. I'd spoken to him before but not enough to begin the new quest. I nearly completely missed out on this part of the game! I know it's my fault for not being thorough enough with the conversations, but if there was a "quests complete" percentage somewhere I would at least have known that I hadn't completed the game and would have continued hunting for more...

I'm going to add a little tooltip to the main map, showing how many quests have been passed out of how many. And a cute little star when they're all done!

Death Knight said:
The aoe attacks are good but need to have a slightly less high mana cost. What i was thinking was you could offshoot that by making intelligence add 2 mana per point in it. It would make sense too as intelligence will actually be useful instead of just giving you faster levels. Constitution while adding 2 points of health is useful, might be better with 3 or 4 points. 2 points right now is ok, but considering that most enemies at mid game hit you once for at least 5 points, that 2 points doesnt help out much.

That mana for intelligence is a good idea. I'm going to see what I can do. I might up the constitution a little, but not too much since you've all just played the difficulty-level-backwards version.

Edited 12 years ago
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ChuckV 12 years ago
About the quest log telling you in advance what to do:

If you find the strongbox with the Alms money before you get the quest, the quest log tells you right away to bring the money back to Sherman. (I guess I am just someone who barges in and snoops around before talking)

Also, I totally approve of the suggestion to have intelligence give you mana.

Edited 12 years ago
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E_net4 12 years ago
Well, I am now able to do a few comments.

- My desktop computer isn't very fast, and it may take a bit more than one second for a transition between maps. During that time, the display simply holds without any "Loading" message. It doesn't even have to be something fancy, but something of the likes of the initial loading screen would be an appreciation.

- I managed to talk to Robert a second time (with the same dialogues and some of the lines "greyed out" as expected) after beating the shapeshifter in the form of Abbey Fern. I must've clicked Robert when he was invisible but still there, by accident.

- Filling up the inventory slots is not a difficult task. It may get easier in the future, if more special items, ingredients and the like are planned. Why not caravan storages? It would be like a shop to keep items in.
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ville 12 years ago
Thanks ChuckV and E_net4! The strongbox is definitely not supposed to work like that. Talking to Robert twice is definitely a bug. I'll list the loading screen as a possible, at the very least it could show the icon of the map you're going to.

The inventory filling is a bigger problem, one that we probably still have to think about. I don't see Driftmoon as the kind of game that limits carrying, so I want to make it possible to carry at least a bit more than currently. Right now the overflow goes to the messages tab. Maybe I can just add more slots to the main inventory, either make the inventory bigger or squeeze the slots a bit. Or maybe add more tabs. But I don't find using the tabs very convenient...
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Amarth 12 years ago
About the inventory.. You could add a scrollbar and extend the amount of slots as needed. The bigger problem though, IMO, is that it'll become harder and harder to find the items you need, or even to get a decent idea of what you are carrying. So maybe tabs which sort the items by type are the better usability choice? Equipable/usable/quest/crafting would already be a very nice distinction - if such a partition is possible of course.
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Pete 12 years ago
Im looking at the items in the editor right now, and theyre already nicely separated into groups and everything... while were on the note of requesting features, could it be possible to add a script action for enabling/disabling the minimap reveal by player movement as well as turning it on and off, and another script action that would reveal an area in a radius around an object instead? And maybe drawing NPCs on the minimap? Basically what Im thinking is recreating the Assassins creed minimap.
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ChuckV 12 years ago
About the inventory:

It seems to me you could add two columns and maybe a row or two at the bottom without having it fill up the whole screen. Tabs could work too: Quest items are a good candidate for this, since you typically don't use them for any other purpose.
One caveat with tabs is that some items could end up "fitting" into two categories. For instance, wood pieces and death caps are ingredients but they can also be used directly.
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ville 12 years ago
I'm going to add a tab for crafting items. It's the single biggest category right now.

So, uh, anybody notice the Armor Piercing skill does nothing? I noticed it just now when I was adding tooltips to the actor variables. Apparently it got broken when I changed the critical hit system back in September, and there's no easy way to bring it back. We were thinking of replacing it with some kind of a helper skill, you'd sometimes get someone to help you in tight spots - kind of like the mysterious stranger perk in Fallout.
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chad (guest) 12 years ago
Please! Criticals are too much fun to just throw out!
I demand you fix it before the next release and I'll buy the game two more times
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Anne 12 years ago
chad (guest) said:
Please! Criticals are too much fun to just throw out!
I demand you fix it before the next release and I'll buy the game two more times

Not to worry, there are still critical hits in Driftmoon! Ville was just talking about the talent that slightly increases the power of a critical hit. But as the critical hit system was vastly improved to enable different criticals for different weapon types and skills, and cooler effects, as well as multiple critical hit types, we couldn't keep the old talent. But we're actually replacing it with something very nice, a new talent involving a mysterious silver phoenix!

Hey, does this mean you'll buy the game three more times?
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Pete 12 years ago
ALL of the times. ALL of them.

Unfortunately this will drain the worlds economy of all of the money thus rendering it worthless...
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Anonymous1157 12 years ago
If you're seriously going to buy a bunch of extra copies as a way of donating, I'd love to have one of them. <.< [/beggar]

Also, Pete, one person only has a finite amount of money. Unless we're talking about something that's illegal in the first place, the fate of the world economy will not hinge solely on someone in Finland implementing a feature in his video game. (That might make a funny movie, though.) [/ot]

NONEXISTENT TAGS! [/wtf]
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jgprof 12 years ago
Anne said:
But we're actually replacing it with something very nice, a new talent involving a mysterious silver phoenix!

Curious...I wonder if the mysterious silver phoenix is the source of the mysterious silver feathers?
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Chad (guest) 12 years ago
Anne said:
Hey, does this mean you'll buy the game three more times?
Oh, my mistake. Criticals are just too awesome, but I guess silver phoenix are kinda cool too.
If you do as fine a job on the rest as you have on the first part I'll buy a copy for every single member of my family (including my 1 y/o daughter) on release day
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E_net4 12 years ago
jgprof said:
Anne said:
But we're actually replacing it with something very nice, a new talent involving a mysterious silver phoenix!

Curious...I wonder if the mysterious silver phoenix is the source of the mysterious silver feathers?
At least we know they fit in an organ pipe.

Edited 12 years ago
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Anne 12 years ago
Chad (guest) said:
Anne said:
Hey, does this mean you'll buy the game three more times?
Oh, my mistake. Criticals are just too awesome, but I guess silver phoenix are kinda cool too.
If you do as fine a job on the rest as you have on the first part I'll buy a copy for every single member of my family (including my 1 y/o daughter) on release day

Nice to hear! Especially the part I read between the lines about you really fancying Driftmoon so far. I fear I have to tell you though, that your one-year-old will probably not be able to enjoy her Driftmoon for some years now.

(Just in case someone reading this is actually wondering about the age-group of the game, as a psychologist, I'd probably recommend Driftmoon starting from the age of about 13. I believe it is much more suitable than most games also for a younger age-group, but the story could perhaps be a bit too exciting for children under 13?)

But just so that you know, Chad, I'm sure the personal licence you've already bought can be considered family-specific. You have my OK for it anyway! And promise me, that you wont go buying the game more than once, unless you can afford it with ease. As an alternative, you could always spread the joy, and tell all your friends about Driftmoon!

Edited 12 years ago
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Chad (guest) 12 years ago
Haha, cool coincidence. My wife is also a psychologist so I don't think video games will get the OK for a while yet

Also sorry for not spoilertagging.
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Anne 12 years ago
Chad (guest) said:
Haha, cool coincidence. My wife is also a psychologist so I don't think video games will get the OK for a while yet

Also sorry for not spoilertagging.

Hey, that's fun! Say hello to my collegue! And have her try Driftmoon as well, if she's interested. It'd be nice to hear what a fellow psychologist thinks of it.

What's surprisingly handy about the top-down view for us (and our players who have children!), is that although we work on the game from home, the graphics aren't scary to our kids (we have two kids, a 1-year-old, and a 3-year old). I wouldn't like them seeing FPS graphics for example.

Also: no problem.
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