Concerns & Optimism

[Principe]

Greetings!

 

My name is Principe, or at least my virtual Alias is. If you have seen me around then ... I suppose that's a bit good? 

 

Anyways first off, I'll be looking at this game for this topic; my concerns and expectations. So please do take note of that 

 

Before I start, I need to clarify that I'm not a "newb" or whatever names you can think of. I've been playing MMORPGs for quite awhile now, maybe 10 years? I have mostly forgotten and yes, I'm a millennial. I tested multiple Alphas predominantly the big flop of a game called ArcheAge, mind you, I did not buy my way through it, I was invited. I basically hyped and spread news about ArcheAge since I was very excited about it -- at least for pre 1.0 -- and I contributed a lot for it's launch, though I later quit because it became pay to win in the long run. Other than that, I've been playing Uncharted Water games a lot and most especially Uncharted Waters Online which I eventually quit several months ago -- I played a year after it's launch and was one of the leading adventurers in the game, you can call it explorer in this terms and was afflicted with France, the best nation in the game 

 

Whew, that was quite long of an introduction huh? 

 

I recently saw this game a few months back, I was unaware when it was at Kickstarter and you can toss me at the plank for that, how.have.i.miss.this.game.in.kickstarter... And of course, I was excited but sorely dissapointed after learning payment was called off. However recently, I emailed Game-labs and managed to get in somehow, though only at Sea Trials. 

 

So my first expectations of the game... 

 

For an alpha, this game is stellar. I mean the menu is lacking but come on, this is alpha and who am I to complain? 

 

Graphics within the game itself is great, I'm not too familiar with engines but I'm guessing Unity 4 is great but not of the best? So I don't expect much further from the graphics at the moment. It's better than UWO or POTBS 

 

The attention given to each ship is great, I went from yacht to Navy Brig at the moment, but I've seen a couple of ships only until Constitution however and wow, the Constitution is such a   . I'm sure I won't be disappointed by the later ships.

 

Then the waves, whew, it's amazing. I was amazed by the basic waves and can you imagine my awe when a storm was the setting for one of the PVP matches I've seen. The way into which each ships traverse through the waves that are almost larger than them and the density of difficulty progress that goes as the storm worsens. I love it, there's no other words to describe it. 

 

Although, it would be nice if the storm can actually be more dangerous? I mean I can use my full sails without it breaking under the pressure of winds. I mean, you guys have enough pressure it is but surely in the future, maybe we can have more realistic factors within the storm? 

 

Moreover, I'm trying my best not to act entitled as this is the only nautical ship at the moment, so forgive me if I do, but anyways I know the graphical limitation there are already but would it be possible to actually add more sailors, captain him/herself, officers, soldiers and such?

 

If its too much for the low-end players then simply add an option to reduce the npc within each ship or maybe even only allow your ship to have the actual sailors. I don't know too much about graphic and the development of game so this is coming from a commercial consumer's view point 

 

One example of the graphical improvement I was thinking about was Empire Total War's Naval Battle. Yes the graphic of this game is way better but ya know, the sailors for each ship is impressive 

 

Skill must be taken upon consideration and a lot of it if you want MMORPG to survive because simply, if there's no skill involved then ... this game will die quickly cause it will gather too many elitist with materialistic value; yup, I'm talking about those players in other MMORPGs that are only good because of the weapon or armors they have. 

 

I have no more to say about Skill except for the fact that you guys did such a great job to the skill-based factor within this game, my only concern is the ability for small ships or even frigates to have a chance against MOW? There's the massive problem I see for MMO nowadays is its progression system. When people gets over the low level system then it gets completely ignored and only the higher end area or weapon/armor are getting taken care of thereby leaving the newbies by themselves and that's not a good environment frankly speaking if we want consistent migration of players to the game. 

 

In short, I'm worried about people only using MOW to fight rather than using every ship available so hopefully ya'll be able to figure out this problem; I can't think of a solution right now but there should be a way.

 

 

Community is also a great factor I took into consideration while assessing this game. I got in late, by late I mean very very late so I didn't get to witness the massive PVP in sea trials and such, hopefully I'll be able to get a sense of the community when I get to Open World someday 

 

Development is a big, or actually the biggest thing I'm looking at for this game since after all, this is still an alpha. So far, it's pretty good, not the best but great. It's better than Star Citizen since they have almost 80 million now but still doesn't have any sandbox to show, I mean come on? It's better than Mount & Blade: Bannerlord, I haven't seen a blog post for 4 months 

I just feel like, the blog should be updated more frequently and such. The forum activity is great, I just saw a poll awhile ago regarding wipe opinion and such and great job at that  . It shows me that you care about our opinions instead of our molaaa (that's money $$$)

The blog hasn't been updated for awhile so I'm starting to worry about the status of the game and such, I've seen forum post but I'm looking at it in general point, as in consumer's point of view, the main page is where we get most information as a casual player and I'm sure not getting it. 

 

For now this is all I can say tonight, I'll update more tomorrow. This is only like a half of my discussion. The next part should be of my expectations and fix the current problems. 

 

Problems to cover tomorrow:

 

Progression System

PVP & PVE Server (It will divide up the game)

Forum Activity (Horrible, come on! We're testers, show more love!)

Get more players

Get more news out there

The ENDGAME problem all MMORPG faces: everyone using the same ship in EndGame 

Greiving 

ECONOMY

POLITICS

GUILDS/COMPANY

EXPLORATIONS

 

 

Okay, maybe I only covered 1/4 so I'll write the rest tomorrow. For now feel free to comment    

Edited June 9, 2015 by Principe

[Doschichis]

hmmm.

 

1 advice, read the forum more about everything. They have good information. You can also search for admin comments on most of the thing in OP.

- For graphic, and eyes catching things, they are not the main focus at the moment.

- For your worry about Man-of-War or 1st rate ship. I'm 90% sure that the majority of the players will not sailing in that moving castle. Their maneuverability is too slow, so all of the smaller ship will able to outrun them. Sure, they are powerful but not for small PvP(ganking or whatever you want to call it) purpose.  In my experience, most of the ship we see in OW after release or even at the moment will be frigate or some 3rd rate ships. Moreover, you cannot win a 1st rate with your frigate, its just not possible, except the 1st rate captain just want to throw. You need a lot more than 1 frigate to take down a skilled 1st rate.

- Skill: we have a learning curve but that curve is not hard at all, when you get used to the manual sail, all left is tactic and how good are you at predicting and analyzing the situation.

- Community: I had a few big battles before and they are really good, we had around 40 players in a combat one and small ships can be very annoying if you know what you are doing. 

- Development: http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/987-work-in-progress/ enjoy.

 

btw ignore any grammar mistakes I made, English is not my first language.

Edited June 9, 2015 by Doschichis

[Snoopy]

In an artificial 1v1, quite a few frigates can take out a first rate (easy: Santi, difficult: Victory)

[Leviathan]

The best part of this game is the player skill and not relying on clickable bs. I see no risk of first rates taking over due to their maneuverability, or lack of, and their speed limitations. They are a fearsome ship but in the right situation a Victory can be taken out with a lone Surprise or a group of small ships if the captains know what they are doing. Again back to the skill element.

 

Happy to hear you are enjoying the alpha so far.

[SCL]

Interesting things spoken about here.

In terms of people using 1st rates etc I will only say this:

Any ship can kill any ship currently in the game (except if its like a lynx vs a santi etc, yes the lynx can kill it but it may take it half a year maybe longer idk). All that matters is how its done.

Edited June 9, 2015 by SCL

[Brandonchat]

I do agree on the Blog. After the 1.5 week down patch there was a post on the forum stating there would be a new patch in 2 weeks letting all the players in Open World.

Those 2 weeks have come and gone. For myself this is no problem coz im already in the Open World, although i think it would have been smart of the developers to make a blog post about it for the ppl who r waiting to join Open World.

 

I am also missing the development plans for this summer. If the reason for not posting information is coz the developers r too busy or Game Labs doesnt have a community manager then they should post that.

I have no idea how many ppl and what kind of ppl r working on this game. If there r 50 ppl working on this game, then im suprised there isnt more to post on the blog.. if there r only 10 ppl working on this game then i would understand why there isnt anything being posted on the blog.

 

Also i have seen some posts about concept art (a snake figurehead and some greyboxing of a new ship). I think that is amazing stuff to post on the blog. Not everybody reads all posts on the forum. If u put such info onto the Blog u keep current and new ppl curious to what is about to come.

 

More info / communication wouldnt hurt in my opinion.

[MrOkieDokie]

i really love the game thus far. a lot. cant wait for ow and really really hope at some point in the future we could get a camera angle at the wheel of the ship. hope they also offer some premi ships soon so i can give them more money =D

[Clinch]

I would say one thing, right now we are testing ow mechanics and a new damage model. The devs have been thinking for a long time how to deal with typical mmo problems. I dont know exactly what they have in store but i assure you the world wont be flooded with first rates. Good post though.

[Principe]

Progression 

 

Now, as already discussed, this is a huge topic right now concerning this game as I look at the forum. Some players want easy way because they don't have enough time to play game cause they have work -- well we all have work as well, it's simply dedication. Whereas some players want extra-long gameplay to a point where sailing itself becomes a hassle rather than fun.

 

I research quite a bit about this game through the forum and it appears that instead of level, there's ranks and yet some people are still complaining how it's a hassle and a grind. Now first off, grind easily becomes a negative word for some listeners out here and it's understandable in some ways however a game is a game, depending on its direction, it might lean more towards arcade or realism. You have to realize that this game, the OW, is more realism as it is so please do not beg for an easy way out like "Why is there a grind? Can we just get to 1st rate ship in my first hour?" because quite frankly, it irritates me and also it's kind of disrespect to the developers. Progression itself is the Open World. You start of from being in a lynx and eventually on a frigate or 3rd rate and you look back someday and "Wow, that took awhile but the adventure throughout was fun huh?" rather than "Get the game, get a 1st rate and get bored then most likely complain how there's not enough content". 

 

Sorry, I just need to get that out of mind; some people here can be very enlightened, yes you bought the game but we bought the game as well, yes you have lives and yes we have lives as well but you probably have more responsibilities but you know what? If you really love a game enough, then surely you'll at least enjoy it for awhile?

 

If you haven't seen it yet, I'm probably leaning in more towards the realism side rather than arcade because I want a lengthy game that provides beef rather than quick action but to each of their own.

 

Anyways, progression brings up the End Game that I will discuss later today.

 

For progression, I would like to propose a certain average time for each gameplay.

 

Supposing that there's three phase to the gameplay: Beginning, Mid, & End Game

 

Beginning should definitely show show lots and lots of action and excitement, that's how you attract players!   It shouldn't be too quick to a point where we can frigate on the fortnight or even the next week. It should show all the wonders of the game while at the same time encouraging them to advance even further   [ 2 weeks should be ideal for the beginning or even 3 weeks and I'm talking about from Yacht to a Snow ]

 

Mid should be like the where people find themselves in a marble reality; as in, wow I suck at this game, what do I do. Should I keep playing or should I stop? Something like that, there's no stopping that kind of thought, it's always there for ALL MMORPGs out there. So why not make it more exciting? This is where guilds or nation's navy or real piracy or exploration starts? [i propose from 3 weeks to a month or two for this phase] 

 

End Game... Now before you start reading this, recall how many times people told you in other games that "This is where the real game starts, level 90 is where it starts, end game is where it starts". Now try to remove that kind of thinking in your game because that's how you ruin games  . The game should start from beginning or else you would be really making it a hassle, as if 3/4 of the game is a hassle, nope definitely not it. However at the same time, this is where the game should start getting really exciting. Think of Eve Online, why is that it has so many players still? The answer is End Game; yes it's kinda boring, gathering money, etc but that's where politics starts and I believe NA has a big capability of politics and even player-economy which drives the game and its populace: have you ever thought why games with player-driven economy (RuneScape, Eve Online, etc) has such a massive player base? Then politics, oh, sorry if you don't like real politics but game politics are fun; in my old game, Uncharted Waters Online, politics are what drove the End Game, the massive sinkhole (where all people spend their money from instead of hoarding it) and nationality pride! My nation, France were in constant war against Venice because of the possession of ports around the Med Sea, when a port gets flipped (a player invest on the port essentially bribing the port to change their flag to whatever nation their in) then every company from France discusses it and decides which guild/company flips it back and if there's a massive investment war, then eventually it turns to an actual war where we find allies like England or Dutch to wage war against Venice and whoever wins would get massive percentage of investment to the surrounding ports. It's quite fun 

 

Anyways NA should have some kind of End Game like that. 

[Roy]

When I got into age of sail I was playing Port Royale 2 and later found Sea Dogs which lead me to Pirates Of The Caribbean (not the movie version of the game is also known as Sea Dogs 2) which in turn lead me to a forum where I found Age Of Pirates 2 (didn't get much advertisement by the devs and thus didn't do well on the market) I quickly moved to Age Of Pirates 2 (I will refer to as COAS from now on, as its full name is Age Of Pirates 2 City Of Abandoned Ships) about a month or so after getting the game I began modding it because I wanted it to be more realistic and after a while a few guys came together forming the only modding team COAS had and we began working on the mod called community mod or CM for short, later the mod was renamed to Gentlemen Of Fortune aka GOF and the final GOF to be released was version 1.2 as we all went about our lives and hopped a new modding team would be formed taking over where we left off or even starting a new mod of their own. Sadly none of that happened and I returned first updating GOF 1.2 to 1.3 and then later on remaking GOF 1.3 to balance it out more and make it more stable (storm engines, very old and wasn't very stable for the vanilla game hence the reason a mod team was put together).

 

Anyway the part I always worked on was realism and RTBL (real time battle light, had to be light because the original version was very heavy) but trying to make the mod work and still give players the level of enjoyment was not easy so switches was made for all features that added realism to the game (realistic weights, realistic ship purchases, RTBL etc etc) this allowed people to play the game how they wanted the problem the devs have is this is an online game (COAS wasn't) in multiplayer games you can't give switches as it not fair on those playing with a more realistic setup and thus the devs have to go one way arcade, balanced (a bit of both) or realistic. Personally I would go realistic but by doing so you limit the amount of people who will dedicate a lot of time to the game, so long term the game will slowly lose players and at full load could see a few hundred on which for this kind of game isn't good. So a balance between both is the only true way to go, and as painful as that is to accept its the only obvious way.

[Principe]

^ 

 

Yeah, sadly, the general populace of gamer don't take realism lightly. I mean it's fine, we shouldn't dwell on it too much since afterall, we finally got a 2015 Nautical MMO we've been waiting for. 

 

The only hard part is how Game-Labs will balance it out, hopefully they can make it more realistic than UWO at the very least, that's my hope. 

[Roy]

I have never played Uncharted Waters Online and after taking a look on youtube I can see that this game is already far better looking than UWO and the battle mechanics are far better too so I don't think you need to worry about this been a UWO 2.0, VA already has a much more impressive feel to it and the combat mechanics are far superior to UWO. Sadly there will always ben someone who finds a way around the mechanics and abuses things, if leaving ports means you are invisible to everyone for a set amount of time then the players will sit a little further away waiting for those invisibles to show up and then strike the ones that are easy targets.

 

I always wanted a game with the same ideas as puzzle pirates, you had to earn your rights to own a ship so the only way to going to sea was as part of a crew doing one of the jobs like fixing breaches, repairing the sails, draining the ship of water and loading the cannons etc. The ships you can work on could be Ai ships only player ships are not crew-able (although would be good and add a new level to the game where the skill of the players is what decides the ships ability in battle). Sadly that would mean a player would always be waiting for players to join the crew and could spend hours in dock waiting.   

[Principe]

PVP & PVE Servers

 

Now I know this is also a huge issue right now. There's quite a lot of players here who dislike  PVP and that's completely understandable cause a lot of PVP elitist can be dick and simply cause headache just for fun. Then others simply want PVP in order to have more "meat" per se to kill and loot in their server. 

 

There should be a compromise in a way because from what I see, 50-100 players are at OW and that's not a lot, I'm even surprised that NA isn't opening their paypal again but hey that just means they actually care about the game rather than $$$. Though, I heard that NA promised PVE players that eventually this game will have PVE server and developers must always keep their promise unless it ruins the game itself. 

 

We will actually have to analyze the game in the long run throughout this testing phases whether or not it can handle a few server or just one server. One server is optimal if we have a few players. In UWO, we only had one server, because simply speaking we only had maybe 1k players and maybe 1.5k at its peak so we couldn't handle another server even if it means making a PVE server cause it would divide the community as a whole. 

 

Just don't do it like every other games, they launch their games with maybe around 7 servers and at the end of the month, only two servers are active...

[Siegfried]

And if they don't create a separate server but create a new merchant navy in every faction inmune to PvP?

 

Do you think that it would works?

[1MonthFreeTrial]

At this point, my only real issue is with the main menu layout, which I'm sure will be cleaned up in the future. The actual sailing, shooting, and gameplay is fantastic for an Alpha.

 

Personally, I'm really excited to see what comes with the open world release, and I'm hoping for an in-game economy that has some actual depth...we've been starved of games with in-depth economies lately. :/

[MWest9999]

Greetings!

 

My name is Principe, or at least my virtual Alias is. If you have seen me around then ... I suppose that's a bit good? 

 

Anyways first off, I'll be looking at this game for this topic; my concerns and expectations. So please do take note of that 

 

Before I start, I need to clarify that I'm not a "newb" or whatever names you can think of. I've been playing MMORPGs for quite awhile now, maybe 10 years? I have mostly forgotten and yes, I'm a millennial. I tested multiple Alphas predominantly the big flop of a game called ArcheAge, mind you, I did not buy my way through it, I was invited. I basically hyped and spread news about ArcheAge since I was very excited about it -- at least for pre 1.0 -- and I contributed a lot for it's launch, though I later quit because it became pay to win in the long run. Other than that, I've been playing Uncharted Water games a lot and most especially Uncharted Waters Online which I eventually quit several months ago -- I played a year after it's launch and was one of the leading adventurers in the game, you can call it explorer in this terms and was afflicted with France, the best nation in the game 

 

Whew, that was quite long of an introduction huh? 

 

I recently saw this game a few months back, I was unaware when it was at Kickstarter and you can toss me at the plank for that, how.have.i.miss.this.game.in.kickstarter... And of course, I was excited but sorely dissapointed after learning payment was called off. However recently, I emailed Game-labs and managed to get in somehow, though only at Sea Trials. 

 

So my first expectations of the game... 

 

For an alpha, this game is stellar. I mean the menu is lacking but come on, this is alpha and who am I to complain? 

 

Graphics within the game itself is great, I'm not too familiar with engines but I'm guessing Unity 4 is great but not of the best? So I don't expect much further from the graphics at the moment. It's better than UWO or POTBS 

 

The attention given to each ship is great, I went from yacht to Navy Brig at the moment, but I've seen a couple of ships only until Constitution however and wow, the Constitution is such a   . I'm sure I won't be disappointed by the later ships.

 

Then the waves, whew, it's amazing. I was amazed by the basic waves and can you imagine my awe when a storm was the setting for one of the PVP matches I've seen. The way into which each ships traverse through the waves that are almost larger than them and the density of difficulty progress that goes as the storm worsens. I love it, there's no other words to describe it. 

 

Although, it would be nice if the storm can actually be more dangerous? I mean I can use my full sails without it breaking under the pressure of winds. I mean, you guys have enough pressure it is but surely in the future, maybe we can have more realistic factors within the storm? 

 

Moreover, I'm trying my best not to act entitled as this is the only nautical ship at the moment, so forgive me if I do, but anyways I know the graphical limitation there are already but would it be possible to actually add more sailors, captain him/herself, officers, soldiers and such?

 

If its too much for the low-end players then simply add an option to reduce the npc within each ship or maybe even only allow your ship to have the actual sailors. I don't know too much about graphic and the development of game so this is coming from a commercial consumer's view point 

 

One example of the graphical improvement I was thinking about was Empire Total War's Naval Battle. Yes the graphic of this game is way better but ya know, the sailors for each ship is impressive 

 

Skill must be taken upon consideration and a lot of it if you want MMORPG to survive because simply, if there's no skill involved then ... this game will die quickly cause it will gather too many elitist with materialistic value; yup, I'm talking about those players in other MMORPGs that are only good because of the weapon or armors they have. 

 

I have no more to say about Skill except for the fact that you guys did such a great job to the skill-based factor within this game, my only concern is the ability for small ships or even frigates to have a chance against MOW? There's the massive problem I see for MMO nowadays is its progression system. When people gets over the low level system then it gets completely ignored and only the higher end area or weapon/armor are getting taken care of thereby leaving the newbies by themselves and that's not a good environment frankly speaking if we want consistent migration of players to the game. 

 

In short, I'm worried about people only using MOW to fight rather than using every ship available so hopefully ya'll be able to figure out this problem; I can't think of a solution right now but there should be a way.

 

 

Community is also a great factor I took into consideration while assessing this game. I got in late, by late I mean very very late so I didn't get to witness the massive PVP in sea trials and such, hopefully I'll be able to get a sense of the community when I get to Open World someday 

 

Development is a big, or actually the biggest thing I'm looking at for this game since after all, this is still an alpha. So far, it's pretty good, not the best but great. It's better than Star Citizen since they have almost 80 million now but still doesn't have any sandbox to show, I mean come on? It's better than Mount & Blade: Bannerlord, I haven't seen a blog post for 4 months 

I just feel like, the blog should be updated more frequently and such. The forum activity is great, I just saw a poll awhile ago regarding wipe opinion and such and great job at that  . It shows me that you care about our opinions instead of our molaaa (that's money $$$)

The blog hasn't been updated for awhile so I'm starting to worry about the status of the game and such, I've seen forum post but I'm looking at it in general point, as in consumer's point of view, the main page is where we get most information as a casual player and I'm sure not getting it. 

 

For now this is all I can say tonight, I'll update more tomorrow. This is only like a half of my discussion. The next part should be of my expectations and fix the current problems. 

 

Problems to cover tomorrow:

 

Progression System

PVP & PVE Server (It will divide up the game)

Forum Activity (Horrible, come on! We're testers, show more love!)

Get more players

Get more news out there

The ENDGAME problem all MMORPG faces: everyone using the same ship in EndGame 

Greiving 

ECONOMY

POLITICS

GUILDS/COMPANY

EXPLORATIONS

 

 

Okay, maybe I only covered 1/4 so I'll write the rest tomorrow. For now feel free to comment    

Who were you over on UWO? I think I have a few ideas but I'm not sure since that wasn't your old handle there. My handle here should be fairly easy to figure out who I am on UWO.

 

If its not to follow in UWO's footsteps, it needs to stay away from having landing areas that pay out more money than major trade routes (no dungeons for those who played UWO). Also it needs to have a more diverse economy than just one or two areas being the major moneymakers and the rest being garbage (like UWO's treatment of the Spice Islands and East Asia trade). As for the PvP being more realistic, from what videos I've seen of Naval Action its a lot more realistic as it is than UWO, where you can get the in game equivalent of first rates outmaneuvering Constitutions or Super Frigates like taking candy from babies. In UWO it is pretty much impossible for a squadron of small ships to take down one big ship since the big ship can quite literally one shot the smaller ones. If they can allow this in Naval Action for properly skilled fleets it would be much more realistic. 

[Principe]

Who were you over on UWO? I think I have a few ideas but I'm not sure since that wasn't your old handle there. My handle here should be fairly easy to figure out who I am on UWO.

 

If its not to follow in UWO's footsteps, it needs to stay away from having landing areas that pay out more money than major trade routes (no dungeons for those who played UWO). Also it needs to have a more diverse economy than just one or two areas being the major moneymakers and the rest being garbage (like UWO's treatment of the Spice Islands and East Asia trade). As for the PvP being more realistic, from what videos I've seen of Naval Action its a lot more realistic as it is than UWO, where you can get the in game equivalent of first rates outmaneuvering Constitutions or Super Frigates like taking candy from babies. In UWO it is pretty much impossible for a squadron of small ships to take down one big ship since the big ship can quite literally one shot the smaller ones. If they can allow this in Naval Action for properly skilled fleets it would be much more realistic. 

 

MWest.. Mwest.. I vaguely remember you, an english captain in one of the major English company called .. I forgot but yes it's me. Principe, NOTC company and one of the leading adventurers, well not anymore since I quit.

 

Principe or Spy.

Edited June 17, 2015 by Principe