Cpeepers
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Hi, so I'm an aspiring game designer who has done a lot more hours of research and taken way more notes than I'd like to admit (the Word document of my game design notes is reaching over 10,000 words) and I got my hands on the alpha for a little while.
This is going to be a long one so I'll do my best to format it in a way that it can be gone back to for reference or you can just pick out particular parts. But I really do advise you read all of it even if you don't agree with it all.
I have played AQ and DF on and off for almost a decade, playing it for a few months then taking a break for a year or two, rinse and repeat. I saw a lot of the progression and development of the company and I unfortunately feel as though steps backwards have been taken with AQ3D so far. I'll explain why very soon.
First off though,
MISCONCEPTIONS OVER 'ALPHA'
I scanned through the replies in this thread and a lot of what people are saying in response to certain things boils down to "It looks nice" and "X isn't fun/exciting/new/interesting", to which others will reply "It's an alpha" or "They haven't had a lot of time to think about it". This isn't really a good sign.
An alpha is among the earliest stage of a game's development; a prototype. Prototypes are designed to be proofs of concept and a show of the ideas behind a product, and these prototypes are built upon. This is important; Alphas are about ideas and concepts, not about presentation. They are there to show you that what you have works. Right now I see no reason why I would play this over a game like Blade and Soul, a game that not only is also in an early stage but has far more classes, landscapes and customization between the classes and their movesets. Also free.
The point I'm trying to make here is that if the presentation and execution of ideas is taking away from the ideas themselves then you are doing the Alpha wrong, and executing ideas poorly without properly thinking about them will put you behind in an already EXTREMELY crowded genre of games, that being MMORPGs.
So you either need a very appealing setting that will attract people or you need to bring something entirely new into the mix.
Unfortunately in this stage of the game where concepts and ideas are so important I see none of either. While AQ had an -okay- story, we can't fool ourselves and say it wasn't a "I thought of something cool, let's see what we can do with it and make some jokes while we're at it" type of game. Because it absolutely was, and trying to merge it with another game that was the same thing will not make your game alluring. It will attract people with fond memories of Adventure Quest but no one else.
I played around and ran through the levels that were there. They were all meh. All of them. Even Battleon was underwhelming, the place that is supposed to be the 'HUB' of the players. If you're going to make a new AQ game then Battleon should pretty much be the base of operations and with that said should probably be massive. It doesn't even have to look pretty, it's Alpha. Make a few really cool, well-designed places instead of a million mediocre ones that look nice. It's not even a case of 'Oh it's Alpha'. Again, this is the stage of development where you are showing us how promising this concept is.
And why would you make just another forest area before making a big boxfort area for the Sneevils, especially considering a quest chain occurs centered around them? Forests are boring. When I saw Sneevils I couldn't wait to get out of this dull forest and into a cool castle made out of boxes and ignored treasure, especially in this neat 3D art style. But what took priority over the box fort? An equally-dull forest. The Alpha is the time when you're trying out a lot of cool stuff, not clinging to your safe zones. A second town was NOT more important than something actually interesting.
This should go without saying, but especially in this stage of the game don't put all your eggs in one basket. Don't put too much effort into things that will be changed later because otherwise you'll have wasted precious time. This is the time when you work on an idea until it's good, apply it in a way that conveys that idea, and then you work on the next one. Polish can come in the beta.
IT IS, CURRENTLY, UNFORGIVABLY DULL
Kill some chickens. Kill some frogzards. Kill some sneevils. Kill some more frogzards. Kill some eyes. Kill some frogzards. Kill 30 eyes (what the heck are you thinking?? You even acknowledge that it's going to take too long and it's not even the end of the quest line). Kill more Frogzards. Ok good now kill this boss until you get his shiny. Repeat this in the next area.
This is not how to do quests. Quests aren't about a billion quests forming a chain that all ask you to kill things, they're about keeping the player occupied and feeling productive. And no, combining a 'kill X monsters' quest and a fetch quest together to form 'kill X monsters and take their stuff' doesn't make any sort of new spin on the formulae.
Enemy walks up to you. You push buttons until either you or it die. The really cool thing about World of Warcraft is that your enemies will all force you to act a different way towards them, whether it be changing your movement patterns or changing your attack patterns. One of the first enemies you fight as an Orc is a huge scorpion that shoots poison pools on the ground and forces you to move out of them. The coolest thing? It's not even that hard to do. You know what hitboxes are right? And even cooler is that Alpha is THE time to try out new crazy stuff like that.
It doesn't have to be complicated in an Alpha either. Just a proof of concept. A Frogzard starts coughing up and then launches a projectile in front of it. If you don't move around the Frogzard while it's not turning after you then you get hit by it.
DODGING SHOULD GO (kind of)
I'll say the same thing that I would say about AQ from when I was 9. Dodging doesn't need to be in this game, it adds inconsistency for no reason and only makes balancing monsters/armor/everything harder. The only thing it adds is that "Huh" moment when you dodge a big attack and the "UGHGHGUGHGUGH" moment when the enemy dodges your attack, the frustration often overshadowing the satisfaction.
Instead I think that Dodging/Blocking should be something that is limited to classes/certain monsters, and even then used sparingly. For example;
Rogues can dodge all damage because they are fast.
Warriors can block an amount of damage from an attack if they have a shield because they are tough.
Wizards are all damage and range so they can eat butts when it comes to taking less damage.
Sneevils are vicious and aggressive so they don't focus much on dodging and all attacks on them will hit them.
Evil Eyes are flying so they can dodge attacks with their increased maneuverability.
It's pretty simple. Instead of everyone having dodge you should have the choice to trade damage, durability or safety for it (same goes for monsters). Some attempt was made at this in AQ, but it was done in extremes. Either you hit them most of the time but not all of the time or you hit them only some of the time, there was no grace applied to it.
IDEAS
Honestly I am disappointed. When I started seeing the word 'mutations' in character dialogue I got excited. I was told about a Sneevil King who was apparently mutated as well. It was an enlarged Sneevil model who, despite having moved on from cardboard boxes, had a cardboard crown instead of a real one. I was very very disappointed. I thought I was going to start seeing some really cool stuff. Like, really using your imagination. Instead of just being a bigger Sneevil why can't you do something cool with it? Like maybe he was merged with some other creatures, or his proportions got messed up. Maybe his legs stay the same but his upper body grows huge, and instead of doing flips at you he throws these big boxes and treasure chests that he feels he no longer has any use for because he's moved on to valuing the things inside of them.
I'll say it a million times; this is when your ideas are the most important and you're just not DOING anything with it.
It seems like you guys are hoping to get away with a "More of the same but in 3D" approach to this project and it's turning out to not even be that. I relate AQ and Dragon Fable with 1-on-1 focused and very flashy battles where you would normally think a few turns in advance on how to defeat someone who appears stronger than you, but right now it's just "I found a combination of buttons that works and will stick to it forever" while you walk up to enemies and they walk up to you. You guys held a kickstarter and got way more than you expected to, and now that I take a look at it to see what promise it has I see very little.
ART
The game looks pretty and everyone looks cool. I hope to see more variety in models later, like Yulgar being chubby and sitting down on a comfy chair instead of standing up and looking way more fit than someone who has been running an inn for several years and who has likely only really been getting arm exercise should (Blacksmiths use their arms and their backs, so he would have big arms but probably have developed some chub. Look at almost every Blacksmith ever for reference).
That said I get that it's alpha and it's more of a 'Oh hey look here's where yulgar will be' thing I would hope. But you guys made him super fit in AQ as well for some reason and I never understood why. He has settled down for the past several years and his arms are probably the only part of him that have any muscle mass. You make him LESS interesting by have him look like a bronze god akin to Artix or Galanoth, not more.
IN CONCLUSION
Don't be lazy. This is the time where you guys should get most creative and do the most with the premise that you've laid out. Using a cool mutation storyline to morph familiar enemies and even villains sounds awesome and gives old fans something new to chew on and new fans something cool to look at.
I know I said 'get creative' like a million times, but it is extremely important. Throughout Artix Entertainment's games there has been no problem with coming up with new ideas, but now that it has to be brought together in a way that's not just on the spot to justify a cool idea someone had, there is struggling.
My best advice is to just remember over and over again that it's an Alpha and presentation doesn't matter. Just make something awesome and then make it more awesome later.
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