Some Arete feedback

[Ixal]

Ran through the NPE today, here's what I thought of it:

-General layout and mission flow is a vast improvement to previous noob island

-Having a tutorial for implant assembly is great

-Shop terminals are hard to see in the dark, especially the Bazzit style ones, it'd help if they had bright luminescent screens and/or neon blue accents to pop them out from the environment at night

-Quest text feels really sparse on many NPCs - I assume this is because it's a work in progress, but just in case, a lot of it lacks the depth of old AO writing

-Reets seem really aggressive, disproportionately to other mobs in zone

-Quest to plant the bug device was a bit too unclear and frustrating, should be more clearly indicated that you need to search for an object you need to interact with

-I really like the explorable buildings in the area! I really want to see more spots like those out in the world, too

-The outfit variety on NPCs feels like a nice touch

-The arrowed animated neon line when entering ICC looks pretty off, it'd fit better with the environment if it was in neon blue and white tones

-Omni-Tek recruitment posters in Arete look kind of amateurishly done, the fonts, colour choices and bevel effects look very outdated in a bad way, I'd strongly advise going over them and cleaning them up

-The icon on the weapons shop in Arete (idk if it appears anywhere else) looks low quality, the beveled gun-wielding figure in the logo is really hard to read and suffers from the same outdated look

-Font choices are too much all over the place in the signs and terminals and often feel too bland, it'd make sense to unify them more and use a more immersive, slick font, it's missing that Sci-Fi feel now

-I really like getting composite nanos in the noob zone, good call

-Most of the environment feels too drab at nighttime, definitely missing some lighting effects and neon signs to liven it up

-I might've missed something but I feel a bit lost coming out into ICC, shouldn't there be a greeter NPC of some kind to nudge you in the right direction on your adventure to Rubi-Ka? Yeah, there's the Subway NPC, but a new player would probably be feeling a bit lost and wanting to get an idea of the world at this point. Maybe put some optional faction content here? Introduction to the politics of RK? Conflict zones? This would help draw the player more into the story.

-Movement speed boost for noobs is awesome. Thank you so much!

-Newcomer's Armor is a great addition, I'm digging it a lot and it definitely makes early gearing easier as intended.

-Maybe consider lowering implant prices below QL50? They're still putting a big dent in my wallet.

[vitriolic-v]

I don't understand the image. Is the left how it is, and the right how you think it should be, or are those both independent screenshots of different existing terminals?

[blackhawks]

I like the one on the right

[Tryptophy]

Also here's what I mean with the lack of sci-fi-ness of the terminals and displays

Looks amazing, and you said it was a "quick" photoshop? If FC is continuing its current development budget they should really look into an approval system for player-generated content (like with Doc's icons, but for game textures as well). I know they said it wasn't possible before but times have changed.

[Ekarona]

Also here's what I mean with the lack of sci-fi-ness of the terminals and displays

This and give the blue howering icons back. They were very useful in places.

[Caloss2]

It's actually hard to believe the one one of the left is the new improved version, I just showed that pic to my 8 year old son who's never played AO. # Guess which one he thought looked the newest, and then which one looked the best. yeah

[revenant342]

I agree that Arete looks amazing and is a major improvement over ICC Island. I especially love the alien team mission in the crashed ship with the General boss!

There are a few things I'd like to comment on, however:

Firstly, the NCU quest (Alien ship, "find a team") and Composite Weapon/Special Nano quest (Blow up mechs with rocket launcher) are not currently available to froobs/sloobs. I don't see why this is, as it excludes them from getting these basic rewards and doesn't grant them access to anything they don't have already.

Secondly, are there plans to add a method of obtaining the Kyr'Ozch Atomic Restructuring Tool to the island? The junk shop sells all the store-bought components required to craft AI armor, the basic clothing parts are available from quests, and the alien-dropped parts are available from inside the ship, but the one final piece of the equation is missing. Judging my the availability of parts in the junk shop, even at so high a price, it seems intended for AI armor to be crafted there with extreme effort to raise the money. Could it be included as a quest reward, possibly?

Thirdly, the outlying areas with the minibulls and rollerrats feel pretty empty. Is more content planned for these areas? As it is, it just feels like a long trek through nothingness. Maybe toss a few more dynabosses in?

Fourthly, Dynabosses. Their respawn seems much longer than their ICC Island counterparts, and there are less of them. Could this be shortened? I can see competition for them becoming a problem.

Finally, Sarah Greene, the armor vendor, does not appear to refresh her inventory. As a result, the QLs of the Sundance armor she offers never changes. Could she be put on a 30 min refresh timer like the Secondhand Peddler? Or, if that's not an option, could she have a constant supply of QL5/10/15 Sundance? The armor is nice, but not really an option versus newcomer when the max QL of pieces is 5.

*EDIT* I just remembered another thing. The starter nano packs seem very sparse, even compared to the previous version from ICC Island. Most contain only three very basic nanos, and this doesn't seem correct as the starter area itself can easily take a player to level 15-18 just through completion of all the quests and side activities. Especially of concern is that doctors get no new heals and engineers get no new pets, and I'm sure several other professions are missing critical parts of their nanolines for those levels as well.

[Merit]

Looks amazing, and you said it was a "quick" photoshop? If FC is continuing its current development budget they should really look into an approval system for player-generated content (like with Doc's icons, but for game textures as well). I know they said it wasn't possible before but times have changed.

Textures are nothing, like... a silly simple edit, anyone with Photoshop/MS Paint can do better than what we get in AO, and, AND, they are in the client, so would only hassle the user end (if baby PC) would be nothing server side.

Look at the Sims community and what they accomplished, the talent pool from just players would be ginormous!

But alas, it's FC, simple/reasonable things confound and baffle them! ^^

[revenant342]

I have been saying since about 2007 that an engine upgrade won't do much to make AO look better without a comprehensive texture overhaul as well. It's a massive undertaking in terms of man-hours, but is fairly simple, and I think crowdsourcing it to the playerbase would be a good option.

[lilcroy101]

*EDIT* I just remembered another thing. The starter nano packs seem very sparse, even compared to the previous version from ICC Island. Most contain only three very basic nanos, and this doesn't seem correct as the starter area itself can easily take a player to level 15-18 just through completion of all the quests and side activities. Especially of concern is that doctors get no new heals and engineers get no new pets, and I'm sure several other professions are missing critical parts of their nanolines for those levels as well.

Those nano will scale upwards as the person's skill increases. For example that pet nano will update itself as users skill increases. Like the Mp's and Keeper aura. It's already in the Database. I don't know if they've implemented it yet.

[revenant342]

It doesn't currently function that way for engineers. MP pet works, but engineers are stuck with a level one bot for the whole NPE.

[vitriolic-v]

I have been saying since about 2007 that an engine upgrade won't do much to make AO look better without a comprehensive texture overhaul as well. It's a massive undertaking in terms of man-hours, but is fairly simple, and I think crowdsourcing it to the playerbase would be a good option.

Oh my god. Are you me?

I was saying in another thread that the way that Freedoom (Doom, because its engine was GPLed, with community created assets, also open source, resulting in a completely free-as-in-freedom game) put together its assets -- before the term "crowdsourcing" was even in the lexicon -- is a great example of how FC could do this in a very uncomplicated way.

[Misat0]

I agree with your thoughts. The overall "flow" of the zone is good and a real improvement.
And I also found the transition from the NPE to ICC harsh, given the proper guidance the player gets in the starter area. A guidance NPC at least leading the player to visit the various places in ICC, introducing their function and after that encouraging her/him to explore (the subway).

I think the shop terminals were generally hard to recognize. I think especially new players might find it difficult to even identify some of them as such.

[revenant342]

One thing I am wondering is whether all the professions are slated to get their own quest NPCs like Shads have. I understand that Shades are the most different from the other classes, but I think it would be a major boon to new players to have some basic, specific instruction on what their class does.