Glic on 4/3/2002 at 16:28

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Since the release of the demo, I have been amazed at all the negativity. I have heard people criticize seemingly every aspect of the demo. These are the things I have heard people complain about:

1. The design of the icons.
2. Texture seams on the walls.
3. The sounds monsters make.
4. The monsters' animations.
5. The interface.
6. The magic system (one guy said it was impossible to draw runes because he was using a trackball! Good grief).
7. The install program.
8. The number of polygons used in the environments.
9. The monster AI.
10. The gamma correction.

I could go on and on, but you can probably see where this is going. Some serious complaints yes, some trivial. But in my experience with the demo, I have to say this. If they released the game right now, without any improvements...

I'd buy it today!

It is just so very, very rare for any company to even attempt a game of this scope and ambition. Of course it has problems, but the fact that it even tries to do as much as it does is enough to win me over. I keep thinking about how much I enjoyed Ultima Underworld - I think it was the best RPG ever - and just how many years it has been since another game like that has come along. Actually, there hasn't been one. In the ten, yes ten, years since Ultima Underworld came out, no one has even attempted to make another game in the same style. Knowing this makes Arx Fatalis all the more special. I suppose I was a bit lucky too though, in that I did not experience any technical problems with the game.

I would like to discuss the interface in a bit more detail. I have been comparing it to System Shock 2, which is the only game that comes close to being similar. Although it is probably too late in the game's development to do any serious reworking, I think a couple of changes could help.

Essentially, the only significant feature of the AF interface that SS2 does not have is that it allows you to look at objects in the environment. Unfortunately, this comes at the expense of quite a bit of clunkiness in the interface. However, a couple of changes that would simplify the interface and make it easier to use at the expense of a bit of flexibility are:

1. I think the inventory window should open and close automatically when you toggle mouselook off and on. This is essentially how SS2 worked. My reasoning is that you probably won't be doing any mouselooking while you're manipulating your inventory, and vice versa.

2. Make it so that items that are useable in the environment are highlighted while in mouselook mode. At the moment, they are not. What this means is I often had to turn off mouselook mode just to check if something in the game world was useable. A good example would be the barrels; I did not realize at first that they could be examined, because they didn't highlight as I strolled past them in mouselook mode.

3. Currently, it's not possible to use an item in the environment without leaving mouselook mode. This seems like a significant issue to me. In SS2, you can right click on an item in the environment to immediately use it. Compare that single-click to AF in which you have to right-click, then double-click on the item. That's two extra clicks. ;)

Now unfortunately this is a tricky thing to fix. However, if useable items in the environment were highlighted while in mouselook mode, we could have it so that right-clicking when an item is highlighted in the environment would immediately use that item. If no item is highlighted, then the right-click would serve as a mouselook toggle. Now, I'm not sure how well this would work without trying it, however it seems to work well in Thief (in which a right-click either uses an item in the environment OR uses and item in the inventory, depending on whether or not an item is highlighted in the environment).

I honestly think these changes would work very well. The current interface is acceptable, however I find that I am spending too much time thinking about it. I believe the tweaks above could make it almost as transparent as the interface in SS2.

xman on 4/3/2002 at 18:11

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...it didn't crash so often.
However, I know it's just a beta version and that all (most?) of the bugs will be fixed in time.
But it's just a question of small "screw-driving" here and there. I have no major objection on any of the choices made in game design. I think there's nothing I can't adapt myself to in the game and anyway, with all the feedback we have provided Arkane Studios with, I'm sure they'll do their best to satisfy the most important remarks.
I'm very confident that the game will be a GREAT game and that I'll have a HUGE pleasure to play it.
I already had a huge pleasure playing the buggy beta demo, so I'll buy it for sure.

Just a last word : I loved Ultima IX, despite the tons of bugs. I'll love Arx, even with bugs but of course, I'd seriously prefer them to go away before the final release...

Nethawk on 4/3/2002 at 19:36

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My opinions are idental to the Tazman. As much as I am looking forward to playing the final version once shipped, Fishtank had better look under the hood and do some serious tweaking. But honestly Glic, why does it amaze you to hear people criticize the demo? Nobody's doing them a favour by overly praising it you know - even if it HAD been near perfect. Granted, my initial posts were extremely harsh, but Raf came on immediately after and said he and the team would rectify some of the major issues. It's a beta demo for crying out loud - I HOPE they expect us to provide some positive AND negative feedback in order for them to see the game from a third person point of view. They've probably been working on it for so long that they couldn't see it objectively anymore. I'll buy the game, but only if it receives a decent facelift first.:erg:

Dark Angel on 4/3/2002 at 20:19

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i think its a good idea..however, i like the feel of opening/closing it manually just like i like the feel of opening/closing a container's inventory (ie chest, corpse, etc.)...so i think it should just be optional.. as in, an option to choose from in a currently non-existant Options menu... along with other things. There should be lots of user options with the interface, rather than just doing it one way or the other i think.

i've never understood why everyone always looks at problems as being "negative", if everyone posted what they loved about it, nothing would ever get fixed. These things need to get addressed so that the developers know, and so the game can be closer to perfection in the final release :)
i certinaly could go on and on about what i love about Arx, but what use is that to the developers?...well i suppose it could be of use, to let them know what they did right and all..so they don't change it, huh.. :erm:

Nethawk on 5/3/2002 at 06:30

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Whoops - thanx twisty. That one slipped by me.