Siftland on 2/3/2002 at 19:23

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Did anyone else...

[SPOILER]...notice the secret panel between the spider room and the dark room with the rope? I tried to break it but couldn't....I thought I might be able to go back with the blacksmith's hammer and nail it...but the demo ends.

Also, what are the blacksmith's hammer and club you can't equip used for?....will we be able the forge weapons and armor with them??.....that would rock so much.[/SPOILER]

Avalon on 2/3/2002 at 20:51

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To start off, I was a bit put off by the Installer. With 400 megs of space, I figured I had plenty of room to install it. As it turned out, the thing kept telling me I had insufficient space until I finally managed to clear up 800 megabytes. A bit odd, that..

The game itself ran pretty smooth. Nice graphics, nice framerate. On my machine (400mhz AMD K6-2, 256 megs of RAM, 32 meg Diamond Stealth III Xtreme S540 graphic card), I could run it with everything at Medium and still get acceptable framerate. However, a number of places seem to have a strange rendering problem, where everything lights up (including the interface), as if the lightmaps have somehow been disabled. I'm not sure if this is just my graphics card, but it was always in the same places and I've actually seen that 'bug' in a couple official screenshots..

The interface. This one's a biggy, because the interface was insanely clunky.
- Control. There didn't seem to be many controls. I'm all for having as few controls as possible, but some very necessary ones were missing. There are no Turn Left/Turn Right keys, only Strafe Left/Strafe Right. I got clobbered by the first goblin because I wasn't in Mouselook mode and I couldn't move properly to avoid him. It seems to me there should also be a couple more keys - look up, look down, center view, etc. All of these are important in a game where you can toggle out of mouselook.
- Movement. The movement didn't really impress me much. The other AIs had nice movement motions, but the motions for the player were really just average. Then there are these gigantic hands that swing into the sides of your view when you walk, very distracting and very strange, I always worry for people who throw their arms out in front of them every time they take a step. And speaking of unexpected limbs, the feet were cool. A pity they don't react to terrain at all, and actually don't seem realistic, either. Hard to describe, other than that they look "out of place," and I don't mean just because we haven't seen them much in an FPS. They're not properly lit and they seem so tiny compared to your gigantic hands, and don't seem to actually touch the ground.
Also, do the lean keys serve any purpose? I tried them in a number of different places thinking maybe it was just the terrain buggering them up, but now I'm under the impression that leaning only turns your camera at an odd angle. You don't actually lean out - you just sort of tilt your head.
- Clunkiness. Wow, this was my biggest gripe of them all. Maybe I'm just really used to other games where they don't have this kind of interface, but this seemed unnecessarily clunky and hard to get around. Right-click to toggle mouselook, and then when you're out, you have all of these other strange clicking combinations. Right-click to use things, double-click to use other kinds of things, etc. And having to leave mouselook to use stuff in the world is a bit frustrating, like for flipping switches. While in other games you can merely hit a 'Use' button, in Arx you have to right-click, then move your pointer over to the thing you're wanting to fiddle with, and double-click with your left button. This seems to slow down the gameplay considerably, having to stop repeatedly so you can fiddle with stuff (having to hide in a corner while I equip a weapon to kill Goblins with, for example). If there were more controls to quickly do this kind of stuff for you, I would be very happy.
Is there any way to make the 'Corpse' inventory boxes go away other than walking away from the corpse? I tried clicking everything, going back into mouselook, opening/closing my inventory, nothing made it go away until I left the corpse's general area.
- Buggy book. Whenever I would open the book and click on something, the next time I would open it, my pointer would often mysteriously be missing. Sometimes this happened outside of the book, too, but the book was where it happened the most. The pointer would only be visible while over a button, so I had to blindly move it around from button to button, hoping not to lose track of it along the way.

And some specific game stuff..
- Physics. Does Arx even have what would be called 'physics'? Everything seemed to be on 'moon gravity', floating slowly through the air when you throw it, where it goes until it collides with a wall that it sticks to like velcro.
- Stealth. Hrm, where/how exactly does 'Stealth' work? It seemed to chime in randomly and without reason. I was walking along a regularly lit stone passageway when suddenly the 'Stealth' graphic appeared. I imagine it must be a complex system that calculates the lighting and the surfaces you're walking on, but I didn't see anything about that particular part of the passageway that made it any different from the rest of it (and that's just one example - the thing kept popping on and off all throughout the game in weird places).
- AI. They seem to stress the "artificial" in "artificial intelligence." When an AI is hostile towards you, it runs at you and tries to kill you without really using any kind of strategy. Maybe the AI "improves" the farther along in the game you go, but the ones in here were pretty dumb. In Thief, when an AI attacks you, it will sometimes circle around to your sides or try to get behind you. In Arx, they just run straight at you and attack - all you have to do is move forward, slap them, move back and repeat until they're dead, since they'll never try anything strategic like circling you.
- Magic. Ow ow ow. Rune-drawing is a pain for those of us on trackballs, especially since they seem to demand your drawings be exact. It took me a half dozen attempts to make it accept that weird U-shaped one, because I either made the right side of it too long/too short, or I put too much/too little space in the middle. If there's a way to cast spells other than drawing runes, I'd love to hear it..


All in all, I really like the game itself, but the interface is so much of a hassle.. The story looks really awesome and enthralling, and I can't wait to see it. I only hope that when the game is released, the interface won't still be so clunky that it prevents me from enjoying it..

Dark Angel on 2/3/2002 at 21:42

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Heres a list of all the things that bothered me, i'm updating it as i think of things:


* Game crashes when i hit a door with a weapon
* When you decide to talk to someone you don't have any statement options like you do in Underworld, this is really important i think. There should be at *least* three very different statements so the player can choose the statement that is closest to how they'd like to respond. The demo was really restricted in that reguard.
* The goblin lord that you encounter...i don't understand how he knows you're there. As soon as you walk into the area he automaticly "sees" you and theres no other way to get past him other than to kill him.
* Physics, player movement, very buggy and uncontrolable....as i meantioned before; feels like DeusEx. (in 1024x resolution it begins to have a feel but it still needs a bit of work [hint hint: Havok physics! ;))
* Some of the skill icons are really silly, and kiddy like...such as the "muscle arm" representing strength or the heart representing vitality, surley something more suitable could be used...
* The help screens that come up should be optional! And the sound they make really just, doesn't suit at all
* In spell casting mode i think that the drawling lines (the magical particle fx) should form from the centre of the pentagram instead of the upper right corner
* It might be better and more meaningful if the camera stayed in first-person when you die
* why does the character scream "NOOO!!!" sometimes when it dies? If its vitality is so low..where does it get the energy to scream like that?
* The player is a PIG! He cries for food every few minutes! ..its quite annoying. Also sometimes when someones talking to me, he whines about how he's hungry and i miss what the person said
* There should be at least three movement speeds! Creeping, walking, and running for control purposes
* The leaning didn't even seem like it was finished so i won't even comment..but i really think there should be a forward lean as well
* There needs to be a "Hold Crouch" keybind, it gets confusing when i'm holding down like three buttons at the same time (when i sneak). Those keys being Forward, Shift, and Crouch
* Mouse keybind customization would be very nice, also so we could use keyboard keys to do things such as switching modes
* Blood and cob webs are way too bright! They seem to glow in the dark...
* i'd like to be able to put skulls and other such things that *could* fit in my inventory but the game won't allow!
* Once you alert an AI, they'll always be facing you whether they can see you or not so sneaking up from behind and backstabing them is basicly impossible
* Needs better looking player characters! At least give one of them long, black hair :)
* i really don't like the rats death motion...its just fake looking
* How about a boarder and a black (void) background around the character model in the book? It looks "stuck" on as someone meantioned already
* i don't like the red flashings on-screen when you get damaged. The player should just make a sound indicating it was damaged (much like it was done in Thief, is what i mean)
* When you get drunk, get the player *drunk*! Red flashes simpily won't do! (Laughing when you get in fights and when you attack might be really good :) )
* There definetly needs to be more varied damage voice overs for the AI, they all have the same voice when they get hit and theres probably only about 3 damage VOs in all
* Why is that you can take the meat off a pig, or a dog, or a chicken..but not off humans or goblins?
* Pathfinding is a little buggy i've noticed, like for example in the demo if your across the bridge (3rd map) and an AI is in the water...they'll just stand there taunting you. Or the little doggy that you can get to follow you, whenever it goes back (but why does this happen? It should follow you for the remainder of the game!) it acts as though there arn't walls in its way, it'll go directly to that point, instead of going around walls and such realisticly.
* i've read a lot of things saying that you're suppose to feel like you have complete freedom...though i don't feel like i have all that much, this is because of the way you're forced into objectives. How you (as the player) has no choice in, for example to tell this king that these people have declared war on these other people....had i a choice i wouldn't do this at all. In fact i myself was angered by those near-dieing soliders by them trying to tell me what to do, i slaughtered them as soon as i had a chance. And yet, the game kind of forces you to help them anyhow...its not like Underworld at all in that reguard. Which also takes me back to how you have no statement options during conversations...this is my only really serious problem with the game.
* The lady that owns the tavern doesn't seem to care if you're behind the counter, nor does she care if you steal the wine...
* If you attack someone at the tavern, all of a sudden everyone in there starts attacking you....why is this? Unless everyone in there are friends of some sort, i don't understand why they do this. Realisticly, if that happened everyone would most likley just watch to see what happens...
* The footstep sounds are really nice, but the landing "footstep" sounds just like a normal footstep, there needs to be a realistic, double-step, hard, landing sound...for each surface type too of course. The sound can do a lot to the whole feeling of jumping too, real important i think.
* Scripted events are very bad, methinks, however there arn't many so its not that big of a deal, at least in the demo. For example, once you pick up the key in the secret room (by the water wheel) a rat comes in there after you...now what is the relationship between the rat and the key? Or is there any, if so what sense does it make? The earthquakes were the other thing....once the player walks into a certain area or performs a certain action an earthquake starts...so it makes me think, is the player somehow connected to these earthquakes? It really needs to be at random or else have them take place at a certain time, rather than what the player does or what area it enters.
* Its possible to stand on creatures heads...though is amusing, its just silly. When i'm in combat with other AI i tend to use a lot of stealth, like jump around on tables and jump off them and sometimes i accidently jump onto an AI's head... and if an AI is calm, you can jump on their heads and they don't seem to even care. Piggies however are an exception, i like to stand on that big pigs back and pretend i'm riding it (if riding a pigs back could at all be possible, that would totaly rule! ;) ).


After playing with the demo after hours and hours and hours i really get used to the controls and everything...and now i'm just absolutly in love with it! :D
Just a (lot of) few of things that need a bit of work...

Cerbera on 2/3/2002 at 23:13

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A few more things I've just found out since my last post...

WRT my question about lockpicking, I made a character that poured all his points into picking. Sure enough, I was able to pick the second chest. I assume that all the other doors I can't pick right now lead to places the demo wasn't supposed to go.

[SPOILER]in case you want to know what's in the chest, there is a saber (dmg+6) and a longsword (dmg+5). Of course, I couldn't use them because they have a strength req. of 10 that I didn't have because all my attribute points went into dexterity and mental so I could lockpick. LOL.[/SPOILER]

Also there seem to be a lot of questions about potions. There is a thing about this in the Arx Element of the week over at RPGDot. You need a distillery to distill potions. What you do though, is, in the world (not the inventory), you double click on the mortar and pestle (found in the room with the big fireplace in the outpost) to use it. You can grind water lily flowers, healing herbs and ferns, though I'm not sure what potions they make. You can guess though. Then you double click the newly formed powder to use it, and put it in an empty bottle. At this point I believe you need a distillery to put the bottle with the powder on, to convert it to a potion. Your sucess is dependent on how good you are with making potions and crafting objects I believe.

As for identifying rings, if you're object identification skill (or whatever it's called) is high enough, you'll automatically identify the object

[SPOILER]One is a ring of regeneration, one is a ring of casting +10[/SPOILER]

Also, regarding that pesky unstable wall...

[SPOILER]there is a pickaxe at the top of the lift in the lower level, by a minecart. Take it back and double click it to use. Then have at the wall.[/SPOILER]

Several more problems with the game that I discovered.

1. The appearance of the character resets when you move to the second level. I assume then that it would do this for all new levels being loaded.

2. Not so much a bug as a pet peeve... I hope to god that the font they have in for wall signs and logbooks etc. is a placeholder font. Not to be overly picky, but the font they have at the moment just completely pulls you out of the world. Arial was just not meant to be a good fantasy-setting typeface... :p

3. Also, the lean keys do seem to be almost worthless. You pretty much have to be around the corner to begin with to see around it.

4. Not a complaint here, but I do love the fact that you can kill the animals and then grill them for food. Speaking of which, how necessary is food in this game? I mean, our trusty hero keeps on saying "I'm hungry." off and on, but does eating serve more of a purpose than shutting Mr. Am Shagar up (and the health boost when you're wounded)? Will your stats suffer if you're starving? Will you die an agonizing death or pass out after a while? And besides, a little fasting never hurt anyone... ;)

5. I haven't gotten around to trying this yet, but has anyone tried to go to the tavern and get rip-roaring drunk yet? (there are about 15 bottles of wine there...) Is there a drunk-cam in the game? If so that would be hilarious...

Dark Angel on 2/3/2002 at 23:22

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No, i don't...i was mearly stating what bothered me, hence the list discription :p

Anyway....i just realised something!

i've been playing Arx in 640x480 resolution before and for the first time i tried it in 1024x and the player movement and everything is soo much better, i can't understand why the resolution makes such a huge difference but it does. So for all of you who were having interface/control problems, try it out in 1024x and see if that helps things out for you :)

The controls and way you interact with the world is indeed unique but if you just get used to it, it works out real well.

Oh and yeah i got drunk...after i slaughtered everyone in the tavern (the bastards had a piggy head mounted above the door! Someone had to pay!) i was looking around behind the conter and theres lots of wine bottle back there....all it did was make the screen flash in red though :erm: