Just recorded a 'Your 1st Character' in Fractured Beta Video
The video is unedited and about 2 hrs long, but walks you through creating your first character (an Arcanist) and gives some recommendations and some explainations for beginning characters/players.
I will probably refine it later, but here's the link:
By the time we enter into Beta Testing phase, all 3 worlds should have gone live.
Beta-testing will be when they do the final testing of bugs and tweaks before going to the full live launch, so during Beta-testing is when the best guess as to the actual Go-Live Date will begin to develop.
Right now, we're still in Alpha testing, with just the continent of Myr to play around in. It is not sure if they will slowly phase the other continents in or the other worlds in at the end stages of Alpha or not.
My advice is to wait and see!
@OlivePit Each 'Lost Tale' is usable only once per character
@spoletta Also don't forget that a KP system, unlike an XP system, you spend the KP on things, like unlocking skills and the talent tree, where generally the XP system is either one lump sum that amasses, or several small sums towards different skills/abilities (like in RuneScape games)
Is anyone else getting wierd hanging around Tool Tip windows, and then getting kicked out of the game only to get to a character connect/starter screen hybrid (has the Stamina/Endurance/Mana/Satiation/Exhaustion meter in the upper left, the mini-map in the upper right, and the word Tutorial in the mid-right, the rest being the character select screen?
There are certain basic design philosophies of Fractured the Devs have stated absolutely will not change...I'm not absolutely sure, but I believe the segregation of the Racial/planetary cultures is one such philosophy.
The game is designed to fit multiple playstyles, and to meet that requirement, they have developed the basic planetary scheme and then housed a different race on each planet. Although they want the game to feel like a single game, with interactions possible, they also want each world to have its' own distinctions, and thus I seriously doubt they will add any kind of implementation that would make racial intermingling a commonplace possible occurance.
@d3Sync said in How will work the repair system?:
I don't really understand a system with no repairs. Meaning, no degradation. Will there be an alternative degradation system? If items remain in existence forever, then eventually, the game will be saturated with high level gear. Only in rare occasions, IE PvE, will items be lost forever. I can understand wanting to try something. But a player economy with no item sinks sounds impossible to succeed.
They said there would be no Repair system, not a lack of degradation system. They already have a degradation system in place actually. The only difference is, as gear degrades, you can't repair it, it must be replaced when it reaches 0% durability, that's all. A distinct item sink program, but without any kind of real dampener. I mean, you can use enchantments to increase the durability of an item, so it lasts longer, but this of course takes up one of the item's enchantment slots (or more, depending on the tier of the enchantment used)
New Archetypes/Backgrounds = Great! I can't wait until something like a Minstrel/Bard is added, but love the 4 core builds right now!
New Attribute rebalancing: Excellent! This should make it much more distinct in how you allocate your attribute points, and allow people to vary their dump stats based on the build they want. Previously, there wasn't much that could be a dump stat for anyone, as all Attributes needed some love, but now, you can sacrifice in one area without it majorly affecting the whole viability of the character.
Marketplace: Loving it! The look is great, ,the tabs moved to the side plays along with game consistency as other windows tend to use side tabs more in Fractured than top tabs. Some even using both. Love the ability to view, but not buy/sell/order from other Cities just to see what the market is like. An entrepreneur trader could use this information to plan out a traderoute, of course realizing that it would make certain optimized routes more likely to have highwaymen/women waiting to ambush them.
Mailbox system: I like how it is restricted to System messages. Much better than having to rely on the Global Chat to see all the system messages, and this way you don't miss them if your not online when they happen, and the game doesn't have to spam them constantly, or hit you with a bunch of updates when you log in. Would still love to see a crafting noticeboard so city dwellers can keep track of who's projects are in the works in the crafting stations, and whether they are good with others taking the resulting materials or not.
Overall, I love this update and can't wait to see how it plays out. I'm really looking forward to the new changes to the Talent Tree considering the Attribute changes, and Background Options. I think Background specific starter quests is a great way to walk people through getting started by the game-play build they prefer, and really can't wait to sink my teeth into the new Alpha!
Actually anything you buy in the store like pets and decorations won't even be implemented until the game launches. Yes, your character gets deleted and reset after each Alpha and Beta test, but that's why the things in the store aren't actually available as of yet.
Play with confidence, because if you do purchase a pet with your store gold, it will be waiting for you upon the actual launch of the game.
Plus the Human world is supposed to be the only world with any kind of Tech Levels...so any skills related directly to tech would at least be discoverable only on the Human world, that's not to say other races couldn't journey there and find some small knowledge in that regard.
Respawns is one way that they keep from really overwhelming the playerbase with too many resources at one time. As it is now, there is already quite a surplus generated everywhere on most resources. Far more than there are crafting stations generally available to process those same resources.
If anything, the respawn rate might need to be made longer, at least until the population is built up a little bit more. Once there is a much bigger player base, like in Beta or at Release, then shorter refresh rates on resources might need to be implemented, although in release, there will (or may, anyway) be far more areas to explore to obtain said resources. (See talks about staggered release in other threads)
Finally, this is not a Beta, it is only an Alpha. Beta hasn't even been scheduled to start yet.
@d3Sync said in Spell Tomes/Books?:
Also, Dynamite seems to be breaking that rule with knowledge point books and tomes already. As PeachMcD pointed out.
Except they are not breaking the rule...These kinds of drops are being found only on Legends, and as I said above, it makes more sense of a Boss/Legend type creature to drop that kind of loot.
Alphas are purely about mechanics and bug finding, Betas are about Achievements and Quality of Life fixes, then going live is the finished product. Keep in mind, many alphas have no element of heavy graphics yet either, and don't give a whole continent to explore initially.
@Eidans although I see some positives to this system, it has some major downsides too.
just being always able to attack anybody anywhere, even if they are 'white' and minding their own business is a drawback, but allowable on Syndesia I guess, at least to an exstent. Fighting back when attacked unprovoked should not give the defender a new status, however. I definitely disagree wholeheartedly with that. You shouldn't have to just take it.
For the most part, the most recent iteration of PvP/PKing is not bad for Syndesia. Still needs a little work, but it is far better than most suggestions I've seen.
@WaterMerchant Also, to add to what you said (which I totally agree with, by the by)
Gold in this game is one of the easiest assets to acquire. Find a humanoid mob and just focus-grind that area if you want, and you can easily earn 1000s of gold in a day. Goblins can be tough in some places for early characters, but once a character has been around the block a couple times, tactics vs Goblins aren't that hard to come up with solo, and as a small to medium group, they become a cakewalk...then we look at places like the Veil of Shadows with the Zombies and Skeletons everywhere, you can probably grind out an 8 hr session there once you get even half-way decent equipment, or a couple buddies to go with you, and easily clear close to 10k gold.
Next, the Market places are going to probably be on a gold standard, even if Bartering is the norm, valuations will be done in gold, and someone will want to just buy stuff over trading as its simple and fast, so a dedicated merchant or small merchant's guild could amass quite a sum of gold for buying all the base skills/spells in the game early on, and they might even hand such items out for free to their newly joined members as a signing bonus, or to encourage those members to be the more militant arm of their guilds.
Buying and selling skills just seems like a bad choice all around. I see no pros really to it, and all cons, even the perceived pros by some people end up being detrimental to the gameplay as it stands. You don't have to grind a monster to unlock it, generally no more than 100 kills of a creature is all it will take to get all they have to teach you, and often it's less than that right now. I want to explore, and encourage exploring.
Finally, to answer a comment from before as well, Fractured is not actually billed as a Primary PvP game with a lot of PvE elements added in (or however he put it, not looking back right now) but rather, it was and has been billed as a game that tries to equally (that's EQUALLY) support all 3 major playstyles out there, PvP, PvE, and those who like elements of both.
Once the game is actually generating revenue, the Devs should really put Spectre in a staff position with pay...he does sooooo much for the community as a volunteer, they could make him the DM Manager (for in-game dungeon master volunteers who typically would take over his job when it becomes WAY too much for 1 man/woman to handle)
@muker Aerhen is part of Syndesia, just a new continent and not Myr.
Arborea, Tartarus, and Asteroids have not been implemented yet.
Thus, the new Continent is new territory.
Also, a lot of people include Content into 'Featuers' and thus, new content is also a good fit for a feature spotlight.
@d3Sync said in Spell Tomes/Books?:
I think it's actually a net positive. It helps to give guilds the upper hand in recruitment
As it has also already been stated in several places, the Guilds don't need an upper hand. The Guilds already have a distinct advantage over the solo/small group/guild player and the devs have said they are trying to equalize play across playstyles, not trying to clearly set one group above the others, so again, this counts as a Con, not a Pro.
Being able to buy something you should go out and earn is never going to be a Pro in the long run. Sure, the one doing it sees it as a shortcut, but shortcuts shortchange a player from the total experience of the game. The arguments about still not getting the upgraded spells don't hold water, because as Prometheus has also said, Base spells are going to be just as good as the 'upgraded' spells, all spells will just have their niche usages. As to not learning the weaknesses of a given creature, well, as the buying of skills/spells makes it to where the player doesn't have a strong incentive to go out and confront that creature anyway, it no longer matters if you learn their weaknesses or not. Even though the game is set to cater to craftsman and skillers as much as mercenaries and bounty hunters and PvP types, they do want some incentive to have everyone go out and explore and do a little bit of the killing, to get their feet wet, and acquire those initial base skills/spells, even if they never need the more 'advanced' spells and skills you talk about. Being able to buy them eliminates that incentive all together.
So again, I state that I see no real Pros to this idea, and lots of Cons.
Also, comparing this game to Ultima Online is definitely not a fair comparison. Ultima Online was the first real MMORPG out, period, over 23 years ago, and as such, many things worked for that game that wouldn't work now, because the game had no competition whatsoever for the MMORPG enthusiasts...they were the only game in town. Before UO came out, you had MUDs, MUSHes, MOOs, and MUCKs, which were all pretty much text based, and just the graphics aspect alone was enough to draw people into the game who want the MMORPG type experience. This is the reason that when EverQuest and WoW came about, Ultima was pretty much dead in the water. Shoot, RuneScape was a dead copy of UO because the devs didn't want to pay the monthly fees, and while UO is practically unfindable nowadays, RuneScape has 3 different versions that still can be found (and OSRS, the one based around RS2 still gets 100s of thousands of players logging in daily) so your practically comparing Apples to Oranges (or, more accurately, Apples to Dutch Apple Pies) as we as gamers have far matured in our expectations for a game.
For Fractured to maintain their overarching goal of catering to all 3 major playstyles as evenly as possible, PvP, PvE, and a fair mix, as well as balancing out Solo and Small to Large group play, so that no group has too much of an advantage over any other group, they have to be careful how they skew things.
@GreatValdus It was written as a cautionary note previously, which would indicate that everyone would be hittable by AoE spells, good, bad, and the ugly...which makes AoE spells much more problematic in group dynamics