"Sandbox"

Let's talk about the term "sandbox game".  We'll take a look at a couple games I consider as true sandboxes and a couple that misuse the term.  Through this exploration; the definition -- my definition -- of sandbox will be apparent.

Games I consider as true sandbox games

• Foxhole
  
• Minecraft

Games that need to stop using the term "sandbox"

• Albion Online
• Crowfall 

Starting with Foxhole there is a very clear sandbox.  First, I can log in and choose what I want to do and in order to do what I want I need to either pull resources together myself, use resources shared by other players, or steal resources from other players in the Sandbox.  Important to note; the game allows me to choose any path, change path, or blend paths.  In my first couple of hours (outside of the tutorial) I moved seamlessly between logistics (known as logi in game) supplying other players to the frontline where the fighting was at (and once there I switched between playing medic, infantry, and frontline logi).

The "frontline" in Foxhole also illustrates another of my tenants of a sandbox; the world can be changed.  In Foxhole the frontline is defined by the players changing the world.  There is a world map in Foxhole that defines some features (where water bodies are, what area is a mountain, etc) but beyond that everything else is defined by the player.  The frontline area I ventured into was in the middle of a field; one team on one side the other team on the other side.  Our side had dug in foxholes and trenches.  Behind those were numerous medical tents and forward bases; all placed by players.  A little further back a group of players were working on a hardened base with cement fortifications.  Somewhere in the middle were players setting up long range artillery.  All of this build up was defined by the players choosing exactly what to build and where to build it.

Another key aspect to the build up was that the resources came from the game itself.  Every gun, bullet, bandage, and piece of building material was manufactured by a player somewhere and then transported by a player in a player-crafted vehicle to that area.  Nothing happens in Foxhole without a player somewhere putting in the work to make it happen.  And the end result?  A sandcastle that can be smashed by the other kids in the sandbox who can then take that sand and make their own castle you get to smash.

The frontlines of Foxhole are exactly why Foxhole is a true sandbox game; they are defined by the players collecting from and manipulating the world with minimal restriction and that manipulation has meaningful impact on the game.

In summary; what we take away from Foxhole in regards to the term sandbox:

1. The world is made of resources that players make use of (i.e. "the sand")
   
2. The game world itself can be changed by the players (i.e. "can make sand castles")
   
3. Those changes by players have meaningful impact (i.e. "sand castles can be smashed")
4. There is minimum restrictions on what can be done where (i.e. "build my sand castle anywhere / permanent sand castles aren't already built")
   
5. Players can move between roles seamlessly (i.e. "eat sand if want to")

If we roll what we learned from Foxhole into Minecraft we see that we hit all of the marks at an entirely new level. In my opinion Minecraft is the truest sandbox game in existence.

1. In Minecraft the world is literally made of resources that players make use of without almost any restrictions. 
   
2. Players can change the world in Minecraft; to a degree well beyond what a game like Foxhole allows.  
3. Changes to the world in Minecraft have direct impact.  If I dig a hole straight down and a pig falls into it... well... bacon.  
4. As mentioned and bearing repeating there is little restriction in what you can manipulate in Minecraft
   
5. Players in Minecraft can be in combat one second and digging that bacon hole the next; there is no concept of a role in Minecraft.  The player do anything at any time.

So that covers items 1 and 2 from my Foxhole list.  The question is then; is there any other tenants of sandbox games that Minecraft brings to the table? 

Those changes by players have meaningful impact (i.e. "sand castles can be smashed")

Somewhat already covered by the bacon hole example, but to expand on the impact players can have in Minecraft I'll talk about multiplayer servers as that's the closest equivalent to the MMO space.  On a multiplayer server under non-modded players are free to modify the world however they see fit.  If player A stacks two blocks then player B can break those two blocks and if they so choose place them somewhere else.  If player A digs a bacon hole then player B could fall into it ending in death.  There have been numerous "chaos" servers whereby the entire world becomes an apocalyptic wasteland with anything resembling order quickly converted to chaos by the players.

There is minimum restrictions on what can be done where (i.e. "build my sand castle anywhere / permanent sand castles aren't already built")

At the end of the day some form of restriction will always exist in games just as even in the real life sandbox there is eventually an end to the sand and physical limits on what you can do with it.  Minecraft is no exception here.  But Minecraft goes a long way in minimizing restriction.  For example; I can build a house out of any material that I can dig up and stack.  A fond memory for every Minecraft survival player is that makeshift shelter of dirt and wood blocks hastily assembled to survive the first night.  For the most part; if you can dream it you can build it in Minecraft.  Journey into the world of mods and the sky is the limit.

Players can move between roles seamlessly (i.e. "eat sand if want to")

Minecraft has no real concept of a role.  One moment the player is digging a hole and the next they are in combat and the next they are an interior decorator in their home.  The only requirement is that you need to have picked up some sand and turned it into whatever you need for the activity you want to do.

With the exploration of the "true sandbox" that is Minecraft let's look at some not-a-sandbox offenders in the MMO space.

The one that jumps immediately to mind, mostly because the owning company uses sandbox in their name, is Albion Online by Sandbox Interactive.  Interestingly enough their video for "What is Albion Online?" goes a long way trying to defend it's place as a sandbox.  Let's go through the checklist.

1. The world is made of resources that players make use of (i.e. "the sand")
• All items in the game, from weapons to the bed you place in your house, are made from resources gathered from the world.  Players have to gather those resources and use them or trade them for others to use.  The big issue I have here as I'll also touch on later is that those resources are static, always replenish themselves, and harvesting them has no noticeable effect on the world (they will be back in the same spot in a few minutes for the next player).
  
2. The game world itself can be changed by the players (i.e. "can make sand castles")
• Some may argue that players can change the game world, but I'd have a hard time buying the argument.  Resource nodes are static; always in the same place and players just keep harvesting and the resources keep re spawning.  Players can manage their own personal or guild islands; placing houses and items but that is all instanced off from the main world.  Outside of some zone control mechanisms and hide outs that are placed in the outer zones; players have no practical effect on the world.  What is on the world map today will be there tomorrow and the day after and the day after.
  
3. Those changes by players have meaningful impact (i.e. "sand castles can be smashed")
• As noted in #2; players have little impact on the world itself.  But I will give Albion points here because of the crafting and the fact that every item in the game was crafted by a player at some point and the material for that crafted item was gathered by a player.  
  
4. There is minimum restrictions on what can be done where (i.e. "build my sand castle anywhere / permanent sand castles aren't already built")
• Albion is a combat-focused game.  While there is housing, farming, and some other activities on personal islands these are all just mini-games.  The game world is built and outside of things changing ownership (like a shop being bought by another player) most everything is already built and placed in the game.
  
5. Players can move between roles seamlessly (i.e. "eat sand if want to")
•  Albion ties a player's role to the gear they have equipped.  Want to be a mage?  Throw on a robe and grab a staff.  Want to be a warrior?  Grab a sword and heavy armor.  Each piece of gear grants the user an ability.  Players can change gear at anytime, but must "level up" each type of gear in order to equip higher tier versions. Crafting is mostly driven through a level up system but requires access to crafting stations so while any player can do it there is gating mechanism.

Final Judgement? Albion Online has some sandbox aspects but is far from the "king of sandbox MMORPGs" that it tries to bill itself as.  With that said; don't let this scare you off of the game.  I played it for several months and absolutely loved the time I spent with the game.  It is on the short list of MMOs I'd recommend and on the even shorter list of MMOs with original ideas; it just is not a sandbox.

Next on the evaluation list is EVE Online.

1. The world is made of resources that players make use of (i.e. "the sand")
• The world of EVE is massive; a series of interconnected sectors of space.  When playing it can often feel endless.  Within the endless space are asteroid belts to mine and enemies (affectionately known as "rats") to farm.  These make up the sand by which the sand castles (ships, space stations, and more) are built.
  
2. The game world itself can be changed by the players (i.e. "can make sand castles")
• EVE gets a good score on this item.  Players can build and manage space stations in many areas of the game.  The only issue is that the game world is broken down into different levels of areas and in the "safe" areas there is not much from a player perspective that can be changed.  It is already defined by the game in these areas.  However the heart of the game is played in the "low security" zones where players define and control almost everything.  From my time playing EVE I learned the hard way that you don't show up unannounced to an area owned by someone else.
  
3. Those changes by players have meaningful impact (i.e. "sand castles can be smashed")
• As noted in item #2 players have direct impact on the world outside the safe zones.  There are numerous legends
  
4. There is minimum restrictions on what can be done where (i.e. "build my sand castle anywhere / permanent sand castles aren't already built")
• As noted in other answers the game is divided into different areas with different impacts on players.  In the far reaches of space in the low security zones there is very little restriction to what can be done as long as players spend the time to collect the requisite sand and toys.  In the safer areas the rules ensure sandbox enthusiasts are not stealing each other's toys.
  
5. Players can move between roles seamlessly (i.e. "eat sand if want to")
• This is an area where EVE falls down and ultimately was why I gave up on the game when I played.  Skill progression is tied to real world time.  Players set a skill to accumulate points which accumulate whether playing or not.  Players that have played for years have years worth of skill points accumulated.  There is no time machine for a newer player to catch up.   This limits the roles that an EVE player can enjoy. While fundamentally the game allows the player to change what they are doing at any point; functionally it is hardcore time gated as to be infeasible.

Final judgement?  EVE can count as a sandbox, but is best for those that are looking for a multi-year engagement to get that experience.  EVE is another game on the short list of recommended MMOs and that shorter list of games doing something unique.

 Now let's look at Crowfall.  All I'll ask "Sandbox?  Really?  REALLY!!??".

1. The world is made of resources that players make use of (i.e. "the sand")
• Crowfall does have resources to gather and those resources are used to make things.  Like Albion Online points are deducted here because the resources are static and respawn endlessly.  While there are is a campaign mechanic where campaign areas are time-limited (i.e. they go away after a month) and thus the resources within that campaign are not available forever; the practical reality is that another campaign will replace the current one and feature the same resources.
  
2. The game world itself can be changed by the players (i.e. "can make sand castles")
• Players can take control of castles and zones, but there is almost nothing that players can do to change the world.  There are "eternal kingdoms" (EKs) where players can build their own personal or guild zone.  EKs feature a lego-like building toolset.  If that toolset was part of the full game experience and not just a side feature for EKs then maybe I could see sandbox fitting but in it's limited state for EKs only it does not get any points.
  
3. Those changes by players have meaningful impact (i.e. "sand castles can be smashed")
•  As noted in #2 there is not much of anything the players impact so zero points here for Crowfall.
  
4. There is minimum restrictions on what can be done where (i.e. "build my sand castle anywhere / permanent sand castles aren't already built")
• Crowfall is a standard class-based MMO and zones are on rails.  In effect the entire game is one of restriction when it comes to my sandbox tenants.  Zero points here for Crowfall.
  
5. Players can move between roles seamlessly (i.e. "eat sand if want to")
• I repeat; Crowfall is a standard class-based MMO.  While players can slot crafting/gathering disciplines to change up what they are at the end of the day you are the class and race combination of your character and to change requires you to change your character.  Crowfall tried to advertise the concept of changing roles as changing "your vessel/crow"; whereby a character is really a vessel and you are jumping in and out of the worlds as different vessels.  In reality it's no different than changing characters in any MMO that allows you to have multiple characters.

Final judgement? Crowfall is not anywhere close to a sandbox and should not use the term.  My prior posts on Crowfall will give you my opinion on the game.  I'd not recommend it and it is not doing anything all that exciting or different.  It's a crappy World-of-Warcraft-a-like.

As can be surmised from my rambling I have a tendency to be attracted to games that purport to be sandbox experiences.  Then I play them and realize they fail to hit my key tenants of a sandbox as influenced heavily by Minecraft - yet I still enjoy and recommend some of them.  What that boils down to say is that games that advertise as sandboxes are really saying "I am different" and for anyone that knows me I tend to jump on the "I am different" bandwagons.  I'd still prefer that sandbox was more indicative of Minecraft-like experiences and thus not used in error by games like Crowfall. 

Fast Thoughts on Final Fantasy XIV

With New World's recent announcement to delay launch until Sept 28th and my general dislike of Crowfall I've found myself in need of an MMO to hold me over a few weeks.  With the uproar around Blizzard/World of Warcraft and some high profile defections to Final Fantasy XIV (FF14) I figured now is as good as time as any to give the 8+ year old game a go.  I dropped my $20 into Steam to get the starter edition and here are some thoughts after a few hours of play and leveling two starting classes to level ten.

The immediate thing about FF14 is that it takes its time.  It is a Final Fantasy RPG first and an online game second.  Watching some new player videos and reading some guides it is strongly recommended to accept this fact before you start playing; which I am glad I learned about before starting or my expectations would have been off.  The RPG portion is also primarily solo driven thus far and other players are pretty much background noise at this point.

Also slowing down to match the Final Fantasy RPG pace of the game is the combat (at least initially in my experience thus far).  Cool down between skills is longer (I think 2.5 seconds) and classes do not start out with abilities that can be used in-between that global cooldown.  My understanding is later on I will have more "off global cooldown" abilities to mix in.  At first this felt a little boring, but now that I have two classes (Lancer and Archer) up to level ten I sort of dig it.  Coming from New World closed beta and Crowfall where action is fast and furious it is a nice change of pace; ironically also fitting my physical skill level much closer (I'm old and getting older and my reflexes reflect that).

The story in FF14 get's a lot of praise, but I am not sure I buy into it.  I am already just fast clicking past a lot of text boxes as a lot of NPC speech feels like filler.  I've heard it gets better overtime and that players really get engaged with the characters that recur in the story, so we'll see but for right now I am blowing through text boxes and only skimming for the basics.  I do prefer when there is voice acting in the scenes; it is a much better experience, but unfortunately that is few and far between for some reason.

Archer!

As far as graphics and the game world the age of the game is showing in the starter area I am in (New Grandia?).  This does not detract from the experience; character models are great and there is an impressive array of variety to clothing, armor, weapons, and mounts.  However, the rest of the world is bland and mostly unimpressive.  Monsters sit around in tiny groups and often don't really fit with the area.  Buildings are inconsistent, some you can enter and others you cannot.  Interiors are well done for those you can enter.

I have found myself stopping several times to watch another player playing a song, watching an impromptu dance party, or craning my neck skyward after catching sight of an epic flying mount.  One memorable moment was going up a giant log ramp and a motorcycle-looking mount blew past me; engine roaring.  In the grand scheme I do find a charm to the game even with the dated graphics.

Random Flying Unicorn Mount with Flaming Horn

With what I've done thus far and where I am going I do foresee myself continuing to play.  I have not determined a goal yet to shoot for.  I did make a class change to Archer which feels better than the Lancer I was playing previously.  I like that it is easy to switch and I think the main quest line (referred to as MSQ -- main scenario quest) offers enough rewards that I may be able to keep both classes leveled.  After switching it was much quicker to level the second class and so I may dabble into a healer/support role; it seems like I need to always hit three different builds/clases in an MMO to find my home.  Also if I do end up in dungeon/raid content for some reason I don't want to be relegated to just a DPS role (which is Lancer and Archer).

I think FF14 will hold me over for a bit more at this point and I've already gotten my $20 worth out of it.  If time permits I would like to get through the original content and into what is called Heavensward (spelling?) as I hear its even better.  I am glad that I gave it a whirl and enjoy reading and learning more about the game.  If anything it is clear the community and developers of FF14 care deeply about the game which is refreshing.

Thoughts from New World Closed Beta

New World (from Amazon Game Studios) held a closed beta over the last two weeks and I had the opportunity to play a few hours over two weeks.  And by few I mean 50+ hours!  I have not enjoyed a game this much in years and I am here to tell you all about it so sit back and relax; it's a New World!

Visually Stunning!  Sounds Great!

The most immediate thing about New World is how amazing it looks.  I have a mix of screenshots scattered in this post (along with a few on my last post) and they barely do it justice.  Everything  looks amazing from the moment you set foot in the world.  Take a journey up to any of the mountain tops and the vistas are breathtaking.  Sit back in popular PvP areas and watch the fireworks as players battle each other; ranged PvP combat is especially fun to watch.  Walk into a settlement and marvel at the detail of the buildings (crafting workstations especially).  Combat effects, player movement, armor, weapons, and so much more are top notch.

Windsward settlement (aka town) buzzing with activity

The next immediate thing is the audio.  I play a lot of games and New World easily has the best sound I've ever heard.  In the initial rush of beta with tons of players chopping down trees, breaking up rocks, and shooting turkeys the world crackles to life.  As you move into caves the sound changes enhancing the feeling of being in an enclosed area. On numerous occasions I was able to find other players mining nodes or firing off muskets just by following the sounds.  Walking into a settlement has not only the visual pop but the audio pop of being on a bustling city street.  There is also proximity voice chat which can be shocking when someone drops that first fart.mp3 but otherwise is refreshing to not need to jump on a discord to talk to the person next to you in game.  One of my favorite beta videos is someone who hosted an impromptu guitar and song session in a local tavern; only possible because of proximity voice chat!

Proud home owner once again!

Fun Combat and New Content

Combat changed from the preview event and in my opinion it changed for the better.  Stagger is gone so you no longer get "stun locked" and fights don't revolve around who gets the first stagger hit in.  There is some debate about whether stagger could have been preserved, but I am personally glad it is gone.  New weapons were added; specifically I tried out the spear, rapier, and ice gauntlet.  All three felt good and brought new play styles; ice gauntlet bringing some more "magic" to the game.  I mostly played rapier/musket and spear/musket before I changed to great axe/lifestaff towards the end of beta.

With trying out life staff I got my first try at playing a healer in New World.  It is a very unique experience compared to tab-targeted MMO healing and ironically it brings some tab-targeting into New World's action combat.  There is a slew of unique control settings specific to healing; one of which is to enable tab targeting your own group members.  I didn't quite figure out the tab targeting but didn't really need to as area of effect healing was sufficient and I was not healing for any dungeon runs.  Healing felt a little too strong as a solo player; if you max your constitution and use life staff you are basically invincible inside your healing circles.

Dungeons (known as Expeditions) were not in the preview event and were brand new to the closed beta.  I only completed Armine Expedition (several times) and it was a straight forward beat em up; as long as you have a healer you completed it.  Rewards were mediocre; just random gear I ended up salvaging (which is what I do with the majority of gear rewards).  There is a repeatable quest each time you run Armine; the first time rewarding a unique dog pet for putting in your house and then giving a bucket load of experience for each completion.  It is good to see new content in New World, but work is still needed to make the expeditions more engaging and difficult.  Hopefully the higher level expeditions offer more challenge.

Hanging out at camp

Crafting and the economy

Crafting is in a good spot mechanically and seemed about the same as the preview event (i.e. I couldn't tell anything much changed).  There is a ton to craft and that lets you make use of all of the stuff you are collecting throughout your journey.  There is crafting quests as part of the town project boards (that help level up the settlements) which were great crafting experience and great leveling experience.  The only areas I am concerned about crafting are:

1.  Gear drops like candy from quests and killing monsters (the good ole' kill a wolf and get a battle axe) and also there is great gear available from the faction vendors so there is not a market for crafted gear.
   
2. Gear never breaks and leaves the game so once folks have their end game gear I am not sure where demand will come from for crafted gear.
   
3. Everyone can do every craft so you can be self sufficient for consumable goods and components.  There will always be lazy buyers who don't want to do it themselves, but there is no way for a crafter to really make their mark.
   

If there is one thing Crowfall did well it was making a dependent crafting system where players had to work together to produce end goods and thus crafters fit into their expertise areas.  Crowfall also ensured that items leave the economy by permanently breaking at some point and thus drive demand for new crafted goods.  New World has to drive more in that direction or crafting won't be its own area for folks to focus on which will be a miss for this game.

Decorating the house

The economy (or market) of the game was hard to judge in closed beta, but that was expected since progress wasn't permanent.  Early on, it was easy to sell off some stuff like weapons as players looked to play with the new toys that came with closed beta, but that market closed up quick once folks realized everything drops weapons/gear and you will have more than your fair share of it before long.  Having played on a few different servers in different starting areas there is differences on what materials are readily abundant in each area of the map so that felt good that you different regions will hopefully have different prices for goods.

With that mention of regional differences one thing that definitely changed since preview is the ease of acquiring Azoth which is a limited currency (you can only store up to 1,000 at any given time).  It is primarily used for "fast travel" across the world and to aid in crafting.  In preview it was very rare so fast travel was not a regular option; moving goods from region to region required huffing it out on foot (there are no mounts).  You had to be a dedicated market mover to take advantage of price fluctuations per region.  With Azoth being more plentiful fast travel is on the menu.  The more inventory you have the more costly it is to travel so there is some checks in place on mass movement of stuff.  You can also move items between storage in each area for a small amount of gold per item (prohibitive on large quantities; useful for single items). With these changes it is now more realistic to play the game as an economy player (my favorite niche).

Player vs Player

Next up to hit is PvP.  Not much changed from the preview event that was readily accessible.  PvP comes in three forms; open world flagged PvP, wars, and instanced battleground.  The instanced battleground was only available to level 60 players which I did not reach in beta.  Wars are for control of territory in the game and there is an influence system that elects one company (aka guild) to set an army of 50 players for that war.  Wars happen at pre-determined times and unfortunately I was not selected for any wars during the beta.  

I did have my PvP flag on for the majority of of my time in beta.  There is an experience boost of 5% for being flagged and you can complete PvP-only quests for your faction.  The faction PvP missions were changed to be the same every time so you are always going to the same area doing the same things.  These missions contribute to territory control and being in the same area for everyone it can be hit or miss as far as action goes.  Sometimes its a ghost town and sometimes there is a faction furiously preventing anyone from completing missions (aka a gank squad).  Outside of faction missions I had a ton of random PvP encounters; I won some and I lost some.  While there is item damage on death the repair costs are reasonable at lower levels (but I hear they get significant at higher levels) I found that getting killed in the open world meant one of two things: a quick trip back to town that I needed to make anyways or a respawn at my campsite which I religiously reset nearby to any area I was questing in.  PvP kills give a good chunk of level and weapon experience so it was satisfying to get a kill; though I will admit I did more of the giving of experience than gaining when it came to player kills...

Weapons, Armor, and Experience

And with that mention of level and weapon experience it is important to cover how New World works in regards to character definition and progression.  There are no classes or races selected at the start of the game.  There is only humans and your skills are determined by the weapons you have equipped.  Then each weapon has a skill tree that you unlock over time as you level the weapon up (through using it).  You also gain traditional levels through gaining experience and pretty much everything gives experience so its not just grinding monsters.  This set up allows flexibility to switch between set ups; just as I noted previously how I tried multiple different weapon set ups before finishing up on a healer-like build.  

Mr Bad Ass

Armor determines weight class; the lighter the weight the more you can dodge: heavy armor can barely dodge while light armor gets a diving roll dodge.  I think heavier armor also plays into stability of some sort but not entirely clear.  I am not sure if I'm a huge fan of how the armor system works. Later in the beta it started becoming apparent the good PvP approach was to increase constitution which increases health while keeping light armor to keep the advantageous dodge roll.  That dodge ability is significantly better than any armor in my experience (similar to how Guild Wars 2's dodge mechanic was better than any armor or healing).  I am worried we will end up like Guild Wars 2 where everyone goes for the same armor types/stats and the rest of the armor is relegated to trash status.  New World needs to make each armor class more distinct and make some sort of change to constitution so it does not overpower other aspects such as armor.

Gathering

Before we finish up this post I do want to touch on gathering in New World as it occupied a large amount of my time.  As New World started its development as a survival game the world was positioned in a manner where everything is collectible.  That bush over there?  Can be harvested.  That tree?  Can be chopped down.  That boulder?  Can be mined.  That stone?  Can be picked up.  That dead animal?  Can be skinned and chopped up for dinner.  Pretty much anything in the environment that catches a player's eye can be collected and the more visually distinct the better it is (and the higher level skill required to get it).  What this amounts to is leading the player to almost always having something to do; so many times while going from quest A to quest B I made a dozen stops to gather something.  

Taking care of the infamous dead trees from beta; if its in the world it likely can be chopped up!

My only gripe with gathering is that nodes are static in the world; always in the same place.  I can understand this for the basics like trees and boulders, but for the more nuanced items such as rare trees, metal veins, etc it loses some of the appeal to exploration players who like to explore every nook and crannie.  What feels special the first time you find a hidden node feels a lot less special once you realize it always re-spawns there.  This means high end gathering nodes will be on lock down by players walking a circuit between known node locations.  New World needs to randomize gathering node locations in some fashion; this change would make a huge difference for explorers! 

Chopping down the big tree

Conclusion

Over all New World has made great use of the time since it delayed its launch and delivered a better game.  The transition from strict survival game to more traditional theme-park MMO has created a unique experience that is unmatched in the market.  One of my complaints with the preview event was a lack of variety in content and the team behind New World delivered a bucket load of variety.  Is it going to match the 15+ years of content of a game like WoW?  No.  Is there still repetitiveness in quests? Yes.  However, what the New World team has shown is they can deliver new variety if given the time.  They added expeditions, new zones, and added enough variety to quests to prove it.  New World is on the right path and again it's unique history puts it in a position that is not available in any other game.  New World gives the player the best of both survival and theme-park worlds and that is exactly what has me pumped to no-life the heck out of it on launch in September!

 

 My crowning achievement of beta; getting my house up to the top points spot so it displayed to the public in Windsward!

Crowfall Community Top Likes and Dislikes Feedback 07/14/2021

The development team behind Crowfall is looking for feedback; so figured I'd save a copy of my input on this thing I call a blog (oh and because no matter what I try I can't submit posts on the forum; it just times the web page out losing the post).

In a Galaxy far, far away (and many other games I worked on), I would post a weekly Top 5 for feedback and bugs from the Community. This would help me in providing feedback to the team (in addition to all of the other feedback posted on the forums) and also let us know where we are doing good.  So I'd like to start doing this weekly with you, my murder of Crows.  I've even included a place where you can provide me feedback about this thread, (you may want to see a different question listed or want to offer suggestions for a question of the week).  This is separate from our feedback posts we have for Live and Test, as those are more for the patches at the time.  Please do not hold discussions in this thread, this will help me in gathering feedback quickly.  I'm on vacation until next week, and when I return I'll lock this thread and parse the information for the team.  Thanks for playing Crowfall and for providing feedback.

Top 5 Crowfall likes (things you feel we're doing great on).

1. New player experience; I enjoyed the extended version that stretches into the Gods Reach faction vs faction PvP zones.  In the last beta I played the new player experience stopped midway to where it does now so felt incomplete, but now it finishes what it started.  I'd like the see this model extended further in the game.
2. Variety of classes and builds; many ways to play
3. Group harvesting is a cool concept
4. The art style and direction is refreshing.  Characters and locations have distinctive feel to them.
5. Eternal Kingdoms can be great; not sure if they are much of anything yet but they feel promising.
   

Top 5 Crowfall dislikes (what you feel we could be doing better on or a pesky game mechanic that you don't enjoy) and how can we make it better?

1. Lack of personal progression tracking; everything is very "random" as far as progression once you are out of the level 1-30 (which is all of a couple hours of play).  A good example is harvesting.  You randomly can get an upgraded harvesting discipline by harvesting; could be an hour ... could be days.  This is a terrible way to progress and you only know this is how to progress because other players figured it out not because the game tells you this is how to progress.
   
   
2. For a hardcore game there is not much risk to those that just hunt down other players.  The risk is entirely on those that are being hunted.  I have to chuckle when people call this game "hardcore! Full loot! Not for carebears!".  All bullshit statements.  You do NOT lose your equipped items (armor, accessories, and weapons) on death.  You only lose your inventory; thus if you are just out to kill other players are are literally taking almost no risk if you get killed as your inventory will be empty.
   
   For comparison I'll use Albion Online.  If you died in a PvP zone you lost everything; loot and equipped gear.  There was a real risk if you decided to suit up and hunt other players.
   
   
3.  The new player experience, while in my list of good things, is simply not representative of the game.  It cannot prepare the player because there is nothing like it after you are done; you are left to a completely undefined and unwritten progression path.  I personally liked the new player experience and would like to see that type of guided experience permeate through the game in the future; this will go a long way to making a consistent experience.  When I roll up to a keep in a guild or faction campaign it should explode ? marks with things for me to do.
   
   
4. Inventory and bank management; need filters and quick sort options.  Specifically "sacrifice all sacrifice items" at fires.    
   
   
5. Character respec locked behind gold or behind paying up for VIP.  This will create feel bad moments since it is hard to know the optimal way to spec your character for the way you want to play.

      

Top 5 bugs on LIVE (that we may have missed and wish would be fixed). Please be specific and constructive.

1. Animations cancel when you open your inventory screen, but are still completing which is confusing.  Specifically when mounting up I tend to open inventory and always get confused if I am still mounting up or not since the animation cancels.
   
2. Website: I cannot save my forum posts no matter what I try (different browsers, etc).
   

If you could ask the Team member one question, what would you like to know?  Be nice, seriously don't be a jerk. 

• Is it intentional for the game to obfuscate how things work or how progression is made; leaving players in the complete dark on how to contribute towards progression?
  

Three strikes and you're out! Crowfall Classes

I've been playing Crowfall since it's July 6th launch and have worked a few characters up to level 30.  I've done some quests, some PvP (Gods Reach), and a little harvesting (but no crafting).  And I've struck out on finding what I want to play!  So wanted share my thoughts on what I've tried and get some input on what next to try.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Half-Elf Cutthroat of Shadow

Build: https://crowcaine.wiki/build/xQZ8lQH7dWSDFgvFxZfq

 

I had not given assassins a big whirl in previous betas, but spent a good amount of time getting killed by them so wanted to give it a spin.  I took this character through the full new player experience quest chain (which took me from 25 to 30 after I used the level 25 boost as part of my VIP).  I did not play the character in any group play.

 

What I liked

• Stealth is invisibility
• Big hits and crits
• Deleting fresh level 25 characters trying to level/farm

 

What I didn't like

• Becoming the invisible monster I've always decried in games
• Struggled to execute positional attacks

 

 

Human Paladin

Build: https://crowcaine.wiki/build/qQWV07nOzaw2KGJlTkR9

 

The character I played most in previous betas was a support Templar.  I made the change from a Cleric because I was struggling with single target healing and liked the promises of Templar being a good group support option that is mostly based on area of effect benefits.

 

What I liked

• I did the new player quest up to level 16 without training a single talent, spending a single stat point, and only using gear that I got along the way - felt like super tank.  Then I skipped to 25 and leveled to 30 in Sky Point with a group.
• Able to sustain myself in group fights; Righteous Reflections is sweet
• Felt like I was helping groups and I believe my AoE effects helped players whether they were in my group or not (not 100% sure though)

 

What I didn't like

• Being the focused target in group fights; even with sustain I was almost always the first person down.
• I did not find a rotation of skills I was comfortable with and struggled to know what abilities to use when
• Taking Resurrection as a minor disc but almost never being able to use it due to it's long cooldown
• Did not understand why the class has pips or how pips fit into the playstyle

 

 

High-Elf Fanatic

Build: https://crowcaine.wiki/build/0QV0OVaYYkSONApdutF9

 

The character I played most in previous betas was a support Templar.  I made the change from a Cleric because I was struggling with single target healing and liked the promises of Templar being a good group support option that is mostly based on area of effect benefits.

 

What I liked

• Having ranged attacks
• Disappearing with Q in group fights and popping out with more BOOM
• Melting camps of NPCs when farming

 

What I didn't like

• Keeling over if any other player so much as looks at me
• Disappearing with Q in 1v1 only to be immediately found and killed anyways
• Time to kill feels slow and it seems every class can just leap to you so range offers very little advantage outside of large group standoff fights
• Not sure if it is my settings or a bug, but I couldn't see most of my attacks so wasn't always clear if I was missing/out of range/etc.  It would be ideal if I saw something like a fireball traveling across the landscape.

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I bought a house... in New World

Note: I've procrastinated getting this out so some of the information may be out of date to any recent activity from New World development.   These thoughts are my thoughts from the preview period in September 2020.

 

My recent disappointment with Crowfall and some burn out in Magic the Gathering Arena lead me on a search for an MMO fix.  Fortunately the Crowfall beta testers were more than happy to lament low player population numbers because of the New World preview event that had just started.  I knew of New World but I really didn't.  I had heard the buzz around their announcement to delay the game from it's original launch to refocus the game, but other than that I knew nothing else.  So I walked into the preview event with little expectation and I left the event with my pre-order placed and some excitement for a new MMO.

The immediate feeling I had wash over from me with New World was that its a beautiful game.  I have the benefit of a recent (and long overdue) gaming PC upgrade and the graphics were absolutely astounding.  At one point I was stalking (literally) through the woods in hunt of elk.  I aimed down the barrel of my musket into the underbrush backlit by a golden sunrise.  The smoke puffed up as the shot went off wounding the elk.  It reeled back on it's hind legs and trumpeted into the morning.  Out of nowhere a second elk head pops up.  A thunder of hooves and I was knocked to the ground.  I popped up and raced to get my musket trained back on the wounded elk but in the thick under brush and terrain of the wooded area I lost the beast.  I was hooked at that very moment.

While the game is gorgeous there is a sense of copy and paste throughout the world.  The first time you roll into that abandoned farmstead is amazing.  The fiftieth trip to a copy and paste version of it somewhere else on the map; not so amazing.  The different zones do have their own feel to them as far as terrain and fauna but buildings felt exactly the same regardless of area in the world.

The core game-play loops within the game follow closer to survival games than they do traditional MMOs which is an artifact of the game New World was proposed to be originally before it was decided to revamp the game.  

For PvE the core loop is get quest, run to quest area, complete quest.  There is not much variety in the quests; either they are kill X rats or open X crates.  This works, but will get old once the game exists for longer than a week so the game needs to make progress before launch on variety of content.  There is also gate events where players can group up to fight bad guys at the gate events in the map.  These were a mixed bag; thematically they were on point and visually stunning (the entire surrounding area goes into a crimson red fog, lighting shifts, and then there is the blazing portal at the center).  Outside of the stunning visuals though they were easily completed and during preview it was quickly discovered that a zerg of lower level players can easily take down even the hardest of these in the game. 

For PvP there is a few options, but I really only participated in the faction flagged open world content; basically set your flag and do quests which earns you more rewards due to the increased risk.  As the game is level-based the experience was a mixed bag.  Fights at equal levels were fun (excepting some specific weapons that are broken *cough* hatchet *cough*), but some times the fights were lopsided due to level disparity.  I will talk more about the level system of the game later in the post.  There is other PvP modes such as castle sieges which look amazing (at least visually) in videos but mixed feedback on how competitive and enjoyable they are.  Personally I am more interested in the open world PvP and faction system.

For the economy players there is crafting and gathering and regional markets (i.e. there is not a global market).  Crafting feels good and the visuals of the crafting stations really dials the feeling in that you are in working in a workshop/kitchen/forge/etc.  The towns were also packed which really made the market and crafting area feel alive.  That may seem immaterial to the success of the crafting system of the game, but it certainly doesn't hurt. 

Gathering in the game is straight forward.  Find stuff, click on it, and collect.  Repeat.  The adventurer in me felt rewarded by finding rarer gathering nodes in various nooks and crannies, but as the game kept sending me back to those areas and the same nooks and same crannies had the same nodes each time it reduced the sense of accomplishment finding them.  Experienced crafters will have these areas mentally mapped and hit them on repeat without trouble.  There was also some common gathering items needed for quests that were just not easily found or accessible so there was a sense that if you found them you were in to make some serious cash.  Unfortunately, again, they are static spawns so as preview continued on they were highlighted in guides for users to easily go and find.  I think a huge improvement to the game would be the randomize much of the gathering node spawns for the higher tier supplies to encourage exploration and variety.  With that said dedicated gatherers have a complete game loop and will be rewarded for their work.  I would like to see some form of mount or cart system in the game so you can take larger loads back to town; mix that with some PvP risk and there is some fun dynamics to e had.

The market aspect of the game is a straight forward auction house in each major city.  There is no global market so there is opportunity for regional price differences to crop up and for the wall street better there is a chance to find those inefficiencies in the market to cut a profit.  I didn't quite get the fast travel system in the game; it uses a currency that I wasn't clear on how you obtain.  You can teleport between cities using that currency but my experience is it ran out super quick (I think I was able to afford a single fast travel the entirety of the preview event).  If fast travel does stay restrictive it will aid in the market player ability to drive markets; if fast travel becomes too easy with large quantities of goods then the opportunities will close too quickly or only be open to the major players making big moves in the market.  

During the preview event it was hard to get a read on crafted vs dropped loot items in the market.  The market was flooded with the dropped loot while crafted items seemed limited.  This may just be due to preview being limited in time so investment in crafting was not happening as it would in the live game.  I think it will be key for dropped loot to be limited in this game and for player crafting to be the main source of quality gear in the game otherwise the gathering loop will become less beneficial and that problem can cascade through the game.  There was no item loss that I could find in the game so once items are in the game, aside from them getting recycled, they are in the game forever.  That makes it really hard outside of consumable items for crafters to feel like they can make a mark.

Even with the downsides of the core loops noted; I found every aspect of the game engaging.  I liked the combat.  I liked the PvP.  I thoroughly enjoyed hunting the various critters of the land and carving them up into crafting materials (meat, feathers, etc).  I chopped down trees just to watch them fall (again the visuals in this game are awesome).  I played the market a little bit; flipping numerous items for quick profits.  I crafted a lot of food and other consumables; arrows was a steady stream of income to feed my addiction to needing ammo for my musket.

The bottom line is there is a solid core in the game and that has me excited on where this game can go.  There is still a lot to be done as far as content goes to drive more rewards from those core loops, but all signs are pointing in the right direction.  

One thing I noted a couple times was that the game was level based.  This feels off for the game as it currently stands.  It may make more sense as content is added to the PvE side, but for PvP its a classic breaking point of higher level = better.  I think the game would be better suited if instead of leveling it had a tier system similar to it's crafting system that operates in tiers.  Each tier above is stronger than the one below but it's simplified into a few tiers vs a bunch of levels (I think level 60 was max during preview?).  While it wouldn't eliminate imbalance in PvP it would allow the developers to more closely balance between players since there is a smaller division between players.  It could also solve the problem with lower level players zerging down end game PvE content as that end game content could lock out lower tier players in the form of damage reduction (i.e. if you are tier 3 you can't do much damage at all to tier 5 enemies in PvE).  And yep my suggestions for tiers can be implemented with levels but then you just boil down to a few key levels where restrictions change and at that point why not just simplify.

To wrap this long post up (seriously it took me a month to meander these words through my keyboard) I ended up needing a goal in preview and I set that on buying a house.  Every house in the major towns can be bought.  Any number of players can buy an instance of the same house so you are not getting your own dedicated slice of land, but the instance of the house you buy is yours and you can place furniture, store items, and I assume do other things (I literally only made it to purchase not to actually using it before preview wrapped).  There is also a chance however you decorate your house will become the default visual everyone sees from the street.  This is managed through a simple voting interface.  You can visit other instances of the same house and vote up the one you want to see publicly; the house with the most votes is displayed.  This is a neat loop into itself and I definitely forsee some house fashion wars going on for players that dig that sort of thing (and again the game is visually stunning so players can really show off here). I'll leave the post on that thought a picture of my fine home purchase.