@Deathruler Actually, its not like that, as Karma is your measure of Good vs Evil, an Evil Character would get more 'Bad Karma' just making it that much harder for them to try to change into a Neutral and then Good character...so as I understand it, there is a Karma exchange whenever players interact with other players in a combat type adversarial nature. I could be wrong, of course.
@Logain I was not saying the press releases/kickstarter was making the claims with the %'s, I was simply stating that the original plan of the game was equal support for all 3 playstyles, PvP, PvE, and Composite, and from that I extrapolated the obvious breakdown to a degree. I'm sorry if that seemed to indicate otherwise. You took the first part of my post and took it to mean they decided/advertised the entire content of my post directly and I don't want to misrepresent the Devs in any way.
My guess is, they will run it like EverQuest ran their servers. Right after a new server opened up, there would be a short period of time when players from some of the more crowded servers could get a free server shift to the new server to help equalize the load a little bit. After that period, you could move servers, but it would require a paid service, or an in-game award that allowed it.
@Kazzier said in First Impressions on the new City System:
Personally, I think the only safezones should be inside buildings and the starting zones. I think that's a fair compromise. Otherwise I feel it impacts the immersion and identity of the game too heavily. But that's just my personal opinion.
I understand the above is your opinion, but that goes against the original design theme of Fractured too. In the original press releases (Kickstarter overviews) it was billed that it would cater to all 3 major playstyles, PvE, PvP and Mixed, with the human planet being the mixed area, which would be mostly safe but contain some areas where PvP was possible.
So, basically, the Demon World = 100% PvP, little to no safezones whatsoever (except maybe the 2 starting cities per continent)
the Beastmen World = 100% Safe, no PvP anywhere, or very very small 'Arena' style zones, and special Invasion Events being the only break from the norm.
and the Human world should then = about 50% PvP. Much of the actual wilderness is a PvP area, but more civilized areas like established towns would be safe zones (as it is currently being proposed).
Remember, as always, PvE play does not mean Casual play...there are serious players who never, EVER enter into the PvP portion of a game, and there are casual players who spend much of their time in PvP (often dying). It is a major misnomer to think that non-PvP/Safe-zone play makes one a casual gamer. Casual versus serious is more a matter of how much time and effort you invest/are willing to invest in a game. Many so-called serious PvP players invest their time in 20+ different games all over the internet, so obviously they aren't dedicating the lion's share of their attention to a single or couple of games, (such as Fractured). where on the other hand, there are hard-core skillers, as an example, who spend 8+ hrs a day, 5-7 days a week playing games like Old School RuneScape, and even WoW, and nobody should think to call them casual. Skillers/PvE gamers can be 'competitive' players too, they just don't necessarily enter into the PvP competitions, but many games also have other mini-games involving the skills and/or storyline of the game that they get very passionate about. In fact, those who play on Role-Play servers, I'd argue, are some of the most serious gamers of all, playing in modes like HCIM (Hard Core Iron Man), LMS (Last Man Standing) and other modes where a lot of what they have the seriously have to work 10x harder for.
@obijawnbby Food=yes, as far as Alchemy, it hasn't been introduced as a skill as of yet, but if it is, it will probably require a crafting station and probably a tech tree upgrade
@Bierbaron stress tests generally happen shortly after an alpha test, and aren't preplanned but announced right beore they happen
they also said there is no plans for a repair system in the game, and if you wish to do certain crafts, you will need a crafting station, you can't do these things at a campfire
All founder's pack perks, except for Alpha/Beta access, are only good once the game itself launches. As the game is currently in Alpha Testing, you have to wait for a scheduled Alpha test to run to use the game at all, or join in on a stress test.
Alpha tests run approximately 1 in every 3 month period (1 per quarter/season) with the next one scheduled for Late February, possibly early March. Stress tests, when they happen, are usually run 1-2 weeks after the end of an Alpha test phase and run 3-5 days and require no founder's pack to join, used to either test a very small niche change, or more likely to see how the servers hold up to a huge potential player base with no limit to who can join in.
Also, at the end of EVERY test phase, all characters and houses and cities and such are scrubbed and reset to the beginning. Just warning you so you are not surprised by this when you get to join in.
This means, in essence, your pack perk isn't useless, it's just not available for redemption yet. The game is not set to release until 2022 earliest, and possibly 2023 or later, depending on the results of testing. You have invested in a game in its development stage, not a complete and ready to play game, which the website makes clear in several dozen places, Just the fact that a founder's pack mentions alpha server access would indicate that the game is still in alpha testing. Once you start seeing the Beta tests running, the founder packs won't bother to say Alpha access, and that line will switch to Beta Access I'm guessing, as Alpha will be over with by then.
@PeachMcD No problem, Peach, sometimes I think you're my biggest fan on these forums, LOL you always seem to have a ton of positives to say about my ideas.
@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.
https://forum.fracturedmmo.com/category/19/deutsches-forum-german
the above link will take you to the German sub-forums
@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.
No, you can only play the game when the Testing phases are going, either a full phase, like the Winter Alpha coming soon, or a Stress Test or Targeted Test, like the 3-5 day tests that often follow shortly after a main phase. In between those times, there is no active server to log into whatsoever. This is true, no matter what level of backing you are.
@Farlander I've played D&D for 43 years (as of like 2 weeks from now, started March 3rd, 1971, I know the exact day because it was my 7th Birthday) and yes, your right, the treasure of a creature is often based around what is found in their lair or on their kills, however, as later editions came out, with more and more concern for trying to be more realistic (but not completely, of course) the books started to separately list what could be found on a creature with what could be found in the same creature's lairs.
Most of the creatures we encounter in Fractured are 'out in the wild' and thus count more as Random Encounters, even if they are in known encounter zones for those kinds of creatures. Lair creatures would be the Legends and Bosses, and possibly chests or other types of lootables within certain specific home base settings. For instance, a Bear might spawn, and after you killed it, a search of the area might eventually lead you to a bear's cave, and in the cave is a pile of refuse and junk that when searched might contain more extensive 'treasures' than what you would find on the creatures themselves in the wild.
This is, again, if the Devs want to go through the details of putting lairs that are searchable sprinkled in the wild...or chests that periodically refill and become researchable in Tribal centers and old ruins. Otherwise, the name of the game, from the Devs' original concepts which many of us oldest investors decided to jump on board, was and still is the more realistic loot drop system, encouragement to explore being a #1 priority, and a Player driven economy.
@Zephyron Not to devalue your opinion, but enough people have already paid for the Eternal pack, or upgraded gradually to it, to already justify it at its current level. As much as getting more and more is always fun and appreciated, the Developers would actually be out of their minds to add more to a pack that is pulling its weight and then some...with the old adage of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' in mind.
What is more likely to happen, if they were to come up with new perks, would be for them to go into the Dynamite store to be bought with the Dynamite gold, or a new pack being created containing additional perks or a different variety of them.
What is sufficient value is very subjective, as you stated, however, changing it now, even if you retro-actively gave the additional perks to the people who already bought the Eternal pack, would also be an emotional slap in the face, calling the previous buyers 'suckers' for going in so low-ball and not holding out for more...leave the Eternal pack the way it is.
EDIT: If anything, the true value of the packs additional added perks won't be realized until the game launches, as none of these extras even come into play until then.
@d3Sync I believe I already stated my opinion, but if not, then here it goes:
I agree with the Developers keeping loot drops on creatures to things you would find/scavenge from/on their corpses. I also agree with the unlocks of skills and talents the way they are right now and don't want to see it changed to books that can be traded around. Right now, the game encourages exploration in order to unlock everything, and that is like the #1 goal of the Developers, getting people to explore, and if you make it so people can just buy the skill books from others instead of going out there and unlocking them for themselves, you take away from the most core of design philosophies to which I first signed onto the game to enjoy.
If your unsure, but you want to participate in the next Alpha, go for the Master Pack. This will give you Alpha access, and none of the other perks even come into play until the game actually releases. In addition, you can always upgrade your pack later on without losing any real value on it. I started with an adept pack way back when the Kickstarter ran, and I've upgraded gradually as I went and had the funds available.
@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.
It goes back to the philosophy of only having creatures drop items that make sense for that creature. Bears and Wolves and Giant Spiders would not be carrying around spell books unless they were of the Boss/Legend variety where a treasure trove might be expected.
There are several reasons not to keep an ongoing Alpha server running 24/7...
As was stated above, test phase burnout is a big factor. Once the most recent content has been thoroughly kicked around and dusted off, many, I wouldn't say a massive majority, but many get tired of doing the same thing over and over in a limited game environment like an alpha server.
Also, after each Alpha test, they take the server down and analyze the data from the test, which is hard to do if your leaving the servers running constantly. Significant changes could be in the works, and they want the freedom to incorporate the new testing data without an ongoing stream of late data throwing off the numbers.
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Running a separate Alpha test server that runs 24/7, except when the active test server is going is of course an option, however, it is a quite costly one, and further, you would get those playing on the 24/7 server who started to think of it as a full game release, and get attached to their characters, and you would have even more of an uproar when character resets happen to the game. Also, you eliminate the freedom the Devs have to run open stress test weekends like they have done in the past. If you try to run them in tandem with another 24/7 server, you won't get the stress test you want, as a large portion of the players would just log into the 24/7 server, and if you take down the 24/7 server not only for ever month long test, but also for every 3-5 day stress test, you start to inspire the devs not to even bother with the 3-5 day tests because of all the complaints about the 24/7 server going up and down all the time. Finally, in the 24/7 server, people would not want their character reset as much, as the reasons for the reset wouldn't feel as justified to them. The Test servers are the ones that need reset all the time, the 24/7 server should just be left to grow...this is majorly negative in that the newer content doesn't get incorporated into the 24/7 server as much at the end of tests that way, and thus the snap shot of the now 2 games are not the same. Think of the changes, minor and major, that have come about between test phases so far for examples of why a total reset and breather is needed in between.
Overall, the 24/7 server would end up being more of a detriment to player retention, and game advancement that it would be an asset. You would end up losing players left and right, and the actual progress on the game would slow down to a crawl.