episode 2: horrificly bad game design

[roninpvp]

Originally Posted by alyssah

I wonder how many people realise that the temples were probably Jessica's offering to the foragers & crafters to show they were not forgotten.

If thats her offering to harvesters then she can keep me off her gift list cause episode two just painted a big old bullseye on everyone with a pick in their hands This could have easily been avoided by just not including the Harvest branch into the calculation of the highest lvl for caluculation of honor points to the killer. It doesnt matter to me since i'm high lvl fight/mage but I'm sure the ones with high harvest lvls but no combat skills would have appreciated it.

[thlau]

Originally Posted by alyssah

I wonder how many people realise that the temples were probably Jessica's offering to the foragers & crafters to show they were not forgotten.

I really don't think so. The whole event is based on the construction of the temples / sanctuaries. If it were only about factions fighting each other, there would have been no new regions necessary, since there were already two active - and generally avoided - FvF zones in Knoll of Dissent and Sawdust Mines.

[pr0ger]

aha, typical post of boredom. The episode is lasting too long, time to put an end

the reward are :
- a temple for your god (must be of any use for next episodes)
- your name in the stele of valor : perpetual thanks for your effort
- you'll also be able to spent honor point for the spire stuff at next content patch

altough i'm not that font of the episode since i'd like revamps on rite, skills and some guild hall related stuff before, just saying ep2 = bad is mean. Err, to avoid troll effect i'll not explain

[boinged]

I'm sad to say that there's a lot of sense in Keoni's 1st post and I agree that things could have been done better. As per usual, I never know if this is by design, to let us discover things or lack of forward thinking.

I've enjoyed parts of this event: it's been a change from the usual, there's a sense of building something/achievement, excitement and pvp that I probably wouldn't be too bothered about normally. The Kami comeback at the end of act 2 and subsequent overtaking of the Karavan (only to lose it again when we ran out of easy things to harvest/craft) was really enjoyable.

There were clues about finishing up the root/pedestal first from one of the NPCs I believe but it was too subtle. I don't even know any more if there was a boost for the first 'acte' but I'm pretty sure we didn't get one after the 2nd (maybe that would have widened the gap so wasn't applied). The boosts may be yet to come.

It's all very confusing and Nevrax have at least acknowledged this and tried to provide answers with the 'envoy Q&A' part. For all I know this was deliberate - cause confusion and then pluck relevant questions. I know IRL I'd want to know what was going on before spending all my time on it.

I've worked constantly on this being a good little Kami/Karavan supporter but that isn't going to apply to the majority. The goals for most are rewards, rankings, temples - in that order of priority with 'fun' wedged in there somewhere. I've had to be singleminded and sacrifice my usual fun with the knowledge that this will be over once the temples are finished/lands closed. This is exactly what happened in the invasion. The progress bars/rankings/pvp/faction chat have helped reduce player apathy but there needs to be something more for the next one.

It has gone on a bit too long as well for me, I'm quite looking forward to my week on holiday away from the game.

[swe999]

/tar Noin
/disagree
/tar keoni
/kudos

[riveit]

Originally Posted by marct

If you do not know why you are building a temple, you must not be playing the game I am, or at least not paying attention. You are building this for your higher power.

Errr ... I was late to all those envoy meetings. I'm really not good at being on time. Pero explained to me that we were building a massive statue of him, so that's what I've been digging. That's right? Isn't it?

[fateress]

Not to mention the thing has been filled with bugs, like not counting my kills for the past two acts, even though I took the mission! I got a "oops our bad" email from Nevrax! #$@#$&^

[richky]

Originally Posted by marct

I must say that I do not agree with this. If you do not know why you are building a temple, you must not be playing the game I am, or at least not paying attention. You are building this for your higher power.

Unfortunately, my 'higher power' was a little unclear on exactly why they suddenly needed a temple. In fact, my 'higher power' never actually asked me to build anything. All I saw was some homin who claimed to represent the 'higher power' telling me to do something diametrically opposed to all that my 'higher power' has stood for in the past. Going by the in-game knowledge of my character, I see no reason whatever that I should run out and provide slave labour for this 'envoy' for an unspecified period of time. It is only my out-of-game knowledge that tells me that this is in fact what Nevrax wants us to do, and that they really do expect our characters to believe the senseless cut-and-paste speeches of the envoys.

[jared96]

Well said keoni.....I tried to participate, thought it might be fun for a while....don't criticize it w/o giving it a try was my mantra.....crafted for a couple of days w/o really looking at progress ....was pleasantly surprised to see my name in no. 1 spot on leader board hen finally took a peek.....was unpleasantly surprised when I saw that we were 1 % done.....doing the math, it looked like a 3 month deal. No thanks.....not getting 3 months of my time with no stated ROI (return on investment).

My approach to the game is the same as it is IRL, I am not about to bring violence upon any human / homin just because he or she may (or may not) worship a different, as George Carlin says, "invisible man in the sky" than I do / don't.

[vguerin]

Originally Posted by keoni

Why does episode 2 blow chunks, from the standpoint of game design?

Gah... for once I have to agree with you...

P.S. Still don't like ya :P