Elenkis on 3/3/2002 at 00:28
>>WRT my question about lockpicking, I made a character that poured all his points into picking.<<
Heheh, you don't need to put all your points into it. Even with a low technical skill you can still open the second chest if you keep trying, you just have a lower chance so will probably take several attempts.
>>4. Not a complaint here, but I do love the fact that you can kill the animals and then grill them for food.<<
Am I the only one who got a kick out of killing the cute little puppy and roasting its stakes over a fire? I love how much this game lets you do :-p
>>i've been playing Arx in 640x480 resolution before and for the first time i tried it in 1024x and the player movement<<
Interesting. I've been unable to understand these movement problems people are complaining of. Movement is great for me, feels pretty much the same as the movement in Thief. I've been playing in 1024x768 the whole time though.
I also don't have the "items sticking in walls" that others are complaining of. If I throw something at a wall (anything from a stone to a chair) it will hit the wall and clatter to the ground fairly realistically (although I've had chairs land balancing at impossible angles).
>>Right-click to use things, double-click to use other kinds of things, etc.<<
Right-click to equip items, double-click to use items. It took me a little bit to get used to the controls too, but I really do like them now and have no problems with them at all - A lot easier to get used to than the controls in Shock 1 for me.
twisty on 3/3/2002 at 02:07
I haven't finished the demo yet, but so far, I've enjoyed what I've played of it. However, like most people here, I also have a winge list. The only reason that I'm doing this is so that Arkane studios can make this game into the classic that it should be. I also feel that they should try and push the release date back another 6 months or so. Okay here goes:
<ul><li>Needs more ambient music.
<li>Although I haven't had any performance problems with the game (PIII 1Ghz - Geforce3 - 384 ram), I've encountered loads of small bugs. Some of these include no capital C for save game titles (not a big deal, of course), getting stuck in terrain occassionaly, mouse dissapearing problems etc.
<li>Some different alternatives for the player portraits. I really didn't like the look of any of them.
<li>Do they really have to do the whole "nameless one" routine?
<li>In the spell book, it would help to have tooltips appear over the rune icons. Or at least, reveal what the name of the rune is via a right-click etc.
<li>So far, the AI could rival Ultima Ascencion for providing the worst combat experience in an RPG. They seem to tun back and forth erratically during combat and forget about you once your a few metres away.
<li>Like Avalon mentioned, this game really needs some better physics
</ul>
I really think that this game has an enormous amount of potential, and I can't wait for it to be released. However, it needs a lot of work and refining.
Le Magot d'Oz on 3/3/2002 at 03:16
I only find 1 ring so far
are the rings 'consumed' regarding the time you wear them ?
you get drunk but no more than 15 seconds and you got only a flickering red screen (no trouble to walk or anything else)
* where are the cools UW's mushrooms effect ?
- it's true that actually you not enough lean in "leaning" to be an usefull activity :)
sacredginmill> put both mortar and pestel in your inventory and go away : they're not sale separatetly ;)
you could lockpicking, backstab and even pickpocketing but you thus need a very high level of mecanism (especially for the latter)
you could not much choose your apperance as you played an existing character with is own past !
the goblin lord face the passage you come in... and no shadow to hide ! a guard is supposed to watch, so he did ! (and no supposed to be knockout ;))
you got 2 movement speeds : walking (stealth mode) and running
I'm agree with the need of mouse customisation, the hold crouch keybind, turn left/right (even if those are not necessary in most of the games, they ARE here)
Fuinelen on 3/3/2002 at 10:17
Well .. I did like it ... as for many others, it reminded me strongly of UW. The graphics were very nice (I loved the big spider hanging on the ceiling:), sounds seemed quite good (couldn't chek EAX though, although I *do* have an SBlive, tradeskills were a nice addition, I even won at the roulette. I LOVE the magic system (which worked quite well for me, but I had most points in there and in sneaking)
Still a few things that bothered me (and I won't go into the installation, which was a very frustrating experience) ... here in loose order :
My system Win98SE, 1.466Ghz (Athlon 1700+), 512MB, GEForce2 MX, 50GB free on the disk I installed Arx on (had to free 300MB on my C drive though to be able to install :( Oh wait I said I wouldn't talk about the installation)
- Give us a way to change the amount of head bobbing or at least to completely disable it.I'm sure some people will suffer from motion sickness.
- I wasn't able to pick the dead animals (apart from the fishes), seems like other could. A bug?
- Showstopping bug (literally) the second time around : I didn't talk to my cellmate, and just went ahead and escaped from my cell, killed the goblin and opened his cell. I had a cut to 3rd person view, but he didn't walk out. Intead I just stood there and nothing more was happening. Couldn't move around neither.
- jumping into the trap crashed the games a few times before I was able to continue playing
- [EDIT:Forgot to add that one] : After dying from the first goblin and nt having saved, I was taken back to the main screen. Started a new quest. LONG pause till the char creation screen appeared, and crash to desktop on the loading screen. I was able to replicate it.
- I second the wish to be able to bind the third mouse button (would be very convenient for the magic system)
- Sneaking needs love. If I press my sneak key (Shift) then I want some feedback, even if it's a useles attempt in plain view in full light. Sneaking seemed to work though(had one of the small spiders search for me)
- Hmm ... slightly screwed logic in the second level : Why were the people at the tavern so cool and cheerfull if 300 meters away the fort had been attacked? I mean, yeah, they might not care about the soldiers and stuff, but it still felt a bit unreal. In the same vein, why wasn't the puppy feeding on the corpses? (aeh .. forget the last one;)
- no real interaction with the NPCs. From the description it seemed as if it was a UW style of dialogue, not just a 'click - watch/hear the cutscene' system.
Despite all this, I really liked the demo and was quite disappointed it was so short ;)
Nethawk on 3/3/2002 at 10:55
I'm reposting my opinion here in this new thread only because I feel really really really strongly about this, so be warned;
Pulling the drainplug on Fishtank:
The install ran fine for me on WinME, and that's where the goodness stopped. IMO, the intro cutscene could have used an extra team of animation artists and PROFESSIONAL voice actors to make it look and feel more enticing. There's no in-game save feature (and that's just plain rigoddamndiculous), in-game resolution max is way too low, printed words looked as though I was seeing them through bad eyeglasses, and the movement/actions controls felt like they were conceived by someone who smokes banana peels for inspiration. I didn't see many areas that looked like they had over 100 polys, and small varmints such as mice looked like they glided/floated over surfaces rather than walked on them (is John Romero on the development team for this game by any chance?). I don't know if anyone here has any rats where they live, but I've seen tons of them on the docks in Quebec City, and the largest ones do NOT sound like metal hoofed ungulates.
I don't have to play a whole demo to know when something is subpar. Ten minutes was more enough for me to make a decision. It's coming as soon as I'm finished posting this, and unless I hear news that a major update and patches are released in the future, it will stay off for good. Arx fatalis is a great game idea that was either hastily and/or poorly implemented, or lacked sufficient financial backup. In its present state, Arx Fatalis would have been a great game...two years ago. I expect more from development teams today. At least I'm on cable and didn't waste any dial-up download time to get it.
By the way, the Thief Assassins demo WAS awesome when it came out (in the late nineties no less), and I played it relentlessly before I bought the game. It was great because the controls were overwhelmingly simple, the sounds (if not all voice acting) were superb, and the atmosphere and gameplay was dynamite. I may be seen as unnecessarily harsh on this new title, but why rock the boat if it's better sunk? I expect demos that make me feel as though I'm playing games, not running them through alpha testing. Fishtank, it's bread crumbs for you I'm afraid.
Fuinelen on 3/3/2002 at 11:29
hmm ... well .. everybody should stand to their opinion, but still : there IS an in-game saving function. Just no Quicksave key.
I can't comment much on your other remarks. Everything is subjective. The graphics and sounds worked for me (never been to Quebec, but I had pet rats;), and I loved the atmosphere. If you don't like it, don't buy it, it's your right.
Bye,
Fuinelen
Nethawk on 3/3/2002 at 12:07
Come on - get real. Would your opinion be the same had the demo come from Warren Spector's office? Don't you expect more from today's games? I'm all for emotionally and financially supporting new game developers (or aged teams still struggling to pump their first "hot" title) - if they deserve it. Arx Fatalis' "alpha test" demo has some great atmosphere, but some core elements are severely lacking ( a killer and original storyliine for one, which I doubt will be revamped for the final release). This is what tarnished its shiny lustre for me.
Siftland on 3/3/2002 at 13:00
Quote:
Originally posted by Nethawk Would your opinion be the same had the demo come from Warren Spector's office? Of course not....That's precisely the difference. ISA has a large staff and tons of financial backing....Arkane is a very small developer, without much money, and in a country not known for producing high-caliber games (erm....none that I know of). For you to expect the same quality is nutty.
Take Troika, for instance: Extremely small, brand new developer...With Arcanum: they didn't innovate, the gameplay was very derivative of Fallout....and the graphics looked about the same too. Fallout came out in 97! They released the same thing, with a cooler setting, much bigger, and managed to create a huge money-maker and one of my favorite games of all time (beating Fallout). This was four years later!
Now Arkane, on the other hand, is being very innovative. I always played Thief and thought, "wouldn't this just kick ass as an RPG?"...that's what they are delivering IMO. If some rough spots show...who cares?....I'm thankful it's not being developed by a large, soulless American company, (most of) which couldn't produce a geniune and lasting title if their life depended on it.
Nethawk doesn't seem like he's really given it a chance anyway...I hope the developers don't read this thread, nay-sayers can be very discouraging.
...And you must not play many games with voice-acting...because compared to most, this is fantastic.
Fuinelen on 3/3/2002 at 14:51
hmm ... France has quite a record on very good (and very often innovative) games btw , the 'Twinsen' serie being my personal favourite :)
Apart from that, I agree ;)
Fuinelen
Raf on 3/3/2002 at 15:37
As a matter of fact, we do read forums, and yes, it hurts sometimes, but it is fair that people express their feelings, and most of all, even if people are a bit hard on us sometimes, it is a very good way for us to make changes before the game comes out and to be aware of what people like or dislike.
We'll do our best to fix most of the problems, including all the unstability issues and some interface improvement by the time the game gets out, we'll also implement any good idea that doesn't take much time to implement as long as it improves the game.
I'm a bit surprised about the few posts I read saying that the plot is dull: it must be our fault in a way because we really wanted to make it simple so that players would get quickly into it and don't get confused too quickly, but then, believe me that you might get very confused and I'll bet you'll find it to be one of the more original and surprising plot you've seen in a game.
Also, I read a post saying that we don't display more than 100 polys per scene: count them again please, it's more like 20000, note how walls are not straights, there are extruded volume everywhere, unregular floors, etc... In fact 100 polys is about the polygon count of a skull.
Anyway, I also want to say 'thank you' to all encouraging and constructive emails or posts we received, there are many of them, and be aware that your suggestions are taken into consideration and help us making the game your game as well.
