Gather & Glory

I want to start by saying that this is a much improved game compared with the version I played at the end of August. I definitely enjoyed this playthrough more. The visual overhaul in particular was clear straight away (I found the original brown UI a little bit garish, and quite hard to look at for long periods), and the onboarding in particular is so much better that I was able to get through almost all of the quests without getting lost. That was one of my biggest frustrations the first time around, so it is good to see such a noticeable change.

In the original playtest I spent quite a lot of time trying to work out where I was meant to go and which menu contained the action I needed. This time I generally understood what to do and around 15 or so mins it, I felt like I knew my way around much more so than I did last time.

There is clearly a lot here in terms of crafting, gathering forging etc, and I was interested in seeing what had changed and what the world might have to offer. My main reservation is that, after a while, I started to feel as though I was working through a checklist of TODOs more so than having any form of free reign to explore. I would need to spend time in a more open version of the game, with more freedom to make my own decisions, to know whether the underlying loop could really hook me. That is not to dismiss the progress as this is a considerably more approachable game than it was.

That said, I would not say I am completely hooked yet. I was curious about the amount of content and the possibilities, but I would need to play a version that gives me more freedom before I could really judge whether the game would keep me coming back. I enjoyed it more for sure, but I still think the core loop needs more polish.

Quite a useful inclusion now is the active quest guide in the left-hand menu given it tells you what to do next, and the button to open the relevant screen is a ideal. In the first version I was constantly trying to work out where I needed to go or which menu to use. This time, I was able to get through the quests without UI overwhelm. I think this is a really noticeable improvement from August, and it made the whole thing much more enjoyable to play.

The “Take a Tour” at the start is a nice addition too. It only covers the basic menus, but I think that is fine. I would be keen to see something similar when you first get into combat, because that was one area where I was not really sure what I was doing.

I actually ended up fighting another player before I had fought a rat, and there was not really anything explaining the combat system beforehand. I also spotted the Nearby Players option early on and wanted to know more about it. It would be good to have a little explanation of what you can actually do with other players, even if it is only brief.

I found the onboarding went on for too long though. Pretty much this entire playthrough for me was onboarding. For most of the time I was playing, it was a case of speak to someone, travel somewhere, do a task, and go back to speak to someone else, all in a very hand-holding way. That works well for teaching you what the game has to offer, but after a while I wanted to stop following instructions and just have a look around.

By about 23 minutes I was definitely feeling some fatigue from this. I could see there was quite a lot to gather, craft and forge, and I was interested in what else might be out there, but I never really felt free to go and find out what I could do beyond these very specific tasks. It was almost the opposite of the problem I had in August. Back then I wanted the game to tell me what to do. This time I knew what to do, but felt like I was being forced to do it step by step for a bit too long.

I appreciate this is probably just the opening part of a much bigger game. I would not want you to lose the guidance you have added, because it has made a big difference. I just wonder if the tutorial could be a bit shorter, or broken up with opportunities to explore and make some decisions for yourself. The map and the opening artwork make the world look like somewhere you could go on a big adventure, and I would have liked to experience a bit more of that during this playthrough.

The visual overhaul is a really big improvement. I found the old brown interface quite garish, and I did not particularly enjoy looking at it for long periods. This version looks much better and is a big improvement on the brown UI of old. I have included a screenshot of the older version below for comparison.

I think the new look does a much better job of representing the fantasy setting, but I will touch on AI images below. There are still things I would polish, but visually it is a considerable step forward.

As I say in my other reviews, I am not going to criticise you for using AI-generated art. Not everyone has the money or ability to make or commission their own artwork. The only thing I would keep in mind is that AI art is divisive, and some players will be put off by it regardless of how good it looks. That aside, I think the artwork itself has improved a lot since the first version.

I think the Quests screen and the conversations you have on the World screen could benefit from the banners you use on other screens, such as seen on the Shop page in Fig2 below.

The lack of audio stood out to me a bit this time around. The only sound I can remember is footsteps when moving between areas. I think this game is crying out for some chilled background music. It does not need anything dramatic, but even a little music and some ambient sound would make a big difference. A bit of audio when travelling, entering an area or fighting something would help too. At the moment it all feels a little quiet for a world that is supposed to be full of things happening, though I appreciate this is likely just not near the top of your priorities just yet.

I also did not really get much sense of travelling, despite how big the world looks on the map. Going from one location to another felt more like changing screens than actually travelling somewhere. I am not sure what the answer is here, but it is something I noticed while playing.

On a related note, I’d question why there are loading screens between locations at all. Your load times are so quick that I am not sure they are really needed. Is that something you have added to give the impression of travelling, or is there an actual need for them?

A fairly consistent minor annoyance was having to scroll down just a bit to get the required UI on screen when I needed it. This was quite frequent, and it was almost like death by one thousand cuts as they say.. Even on the login screen (seen in Fig3 below), the actual login area is partly cut off on my monitor. It is not a big problem by itself, but this exact issue is prevalent throughout.

The World screen is by far, the most prominent place this occurs. I understand wanting to show off the map, but most of the time I was just selecting an area to travel to or trying to speak to someone. I had to scroll down to reach those options every time, and while its such a small thing to comment on, it doesnt really make sense from a UX point of view to have to do that.

I would question whether the map needs to take up quite so much room by default (See Fig 4). Maybe there is a way to keep it prominent without pushing the things you are actually there to do off the screen. Again, a minor point, but when you visit this screen repeatedly it starts to become more irritating.

I also noticed that some options, such as Shops and Item Market, appear both in the left-hand menu and under “Available Here”. I do not necessarily think this is wrong. It just might be worth looking at whether you need both, or whether the menus could be simplified a little (see Fig5).

I thought the dialogue screen was laid out quite well. I have marked the order my eye was drawn to things in the image below. (see Fig 6) I noticed the suggested response first, then who I was speaking to, the conversation topic, the actual dialogue and finally my player information. That generally seems good to me, with all the conversation items taking precedence, and the other UI being kind of peripheral.

Combat is an area I would still like to see developed further (and I'm sure you will). It feels a bit flat at the moment, both visually and in terms of what you are doing. I initially thought it was going to work a bit like rock-paper-scissors, but I was not really sure what made one choice better than another.

I did not feel especially involved in the fights, and I think a little more explanation and feedback would help. I appreciate I have only seen the early encounters, so I am not judging the whole battle system from that, but I would like to understand why I should choose one action over another. I understand the accuracy changes, and that Guard reduces incoming attacks, but it felt like I was picking at random with no strategy being applied. I think you could benefit from making combat feel more strategic rather than random chance.

At about 6:01 I saw the Nearby Player option and I fought a test player on the server. The other player looked identical to my character, which felt a bit odd. I think a different sprite would help here.

As this was actually my first fight, I think it would have been a good place to explain the basics of combat. It is worth considering that a player might encounter another player before they reach the tutorial fight with the rats, as happened to me.

I also did not notice the Flee button while playing, even though it was available.

As a very minor point on the battles, the Tunnel Rat blends into the background quite a bit, as you can see below (Fig 7). I struggle to see the rat below.

Later on I was shown a Combat Training Focus screen before fighting a rat. I did not really understand the first bit of text on the right, or what the focus options were supposed to do (see Fig 8). I picked Guard mainly because I was worried about my health and thought it might help me survive.

I also do not remember that training focus being relevant again during the rest of the playthrough, and I am not sure why I saw this before the rat fight but not before the test player (maybe its because this was part of a quest fight?). Something like the little pop up UI tour overlay used at the start of the game might work quite well here on this page (Fig 8).

After fighting a tunnel rat I was down to 1 HP, so I went to Tess at the infirmary (before I was naturally introduced to her through the onboarding) because I wanted to heal before fighting anything else. That seemed like the obvious place to go, but I could not work out how to heal there, and I am pretty sure its not possible (do correct me if Im wrong on this).

It is possible I missed an option somewhere else, including the infirmary link in the left-hand menu. But as a player, if I am nearly dead and there is a character at an infirmary, I am naturally going to assume I can go there to recover, so I was quite confused when I could not. Again, I didn’t notice the leftmost menu option for Infirmary at this point, so Im not sure if healing was possible through that.

On the topic of health regeneration, Im sure you have balanced this, so take this comment with a massive pinch of salt, but I would feel at quite high risk of death if only restoring 1 HP per five mins. At that point it felt like I might be stuck waiting a very long time before I could do anything else. I think you sent me some consumables, which helped me get moving again, but without them I might have just stopped playing. I appreciate it is difficult to judge health balancing properly without a full server of players, and there may be more to it than I saw. But I was not shown how to make a healing vial until about 28 minutes into the recording, well after I had already been reduced to 1 HP. I think it would make sense to introduce healing earlier, especially if the first few fights can leave you in that position.

I would say that seeing that another player was nearby was the most interesting part of the playthrough. I was interested in learning a bit more about what that meant and how I could interact with them, hence going for that option ahead of fighting rats. I would have liked to have gotten time to explore this a bit more. Obviously its clear that the player is very much a test player, but I would be keen to see what more natural encounters like this look like. I think this could be quite an interesting part of the game, particularly once there are more people on the server.

The dialogue itself felt quite standardised to me. I don’t remember the characters having particularly different ways of speaking, mannerisms or personalities. They were all from roughly the same area, so perhaps that is to be expected, but I think giving them a little more individuality would make them stand out a bit more. At the time of writing (a day after playing), I would struggle to recall any individual aspects of a specific character.

I also found some of the names a bit tricky to keep track of, although that is a very subjective point, and I would say the same of Morrowind, Oblivion, and most other larger games. I would be interested to see more character coming through in the conversations, rather than feeling like I am speaking to different people mainly to get my next instruction.

The UI is so much improved from the original, that its hard to believe its even the same game. There are a few smaller wording issues worth looking at. In the screenshot below (Fig 10), I assume “Weapon” is meant to be pluralized.

Under Gathering-Resources, I was a bit surprised to see locations such as Shallow River Bank and Deep River Pool listed. I would have expected to see actual resources under that heading rather than locations.

I also spent a little while trying to find where my pickaxe should go in the equipment screen. My recording overlay is covering part of the image, which does not help, but I was naturally looking around the middle of the character. The tool-belt slot felt quite far away from where I expected it to be.

At around 17:29 I noticed a notification, which turned out to be you sending me consumables. That was obviously very helpful given my health situation, but it was quite easy to miss at the top of the screen. I think something important like that could probably stand out a bit more. I was lucky to spot it, but on another day I might have missed it completely.

It is worth saying that nearly all the quests worked really smoothly this time. The onboarding does a great job at guiding you through all the steps. That is a big change from August. Unfortunately, I eventually got to “A Bow in Hand” and could not figure out how to progress.

The quest was telling me to go to the Haven Workshop to make a bow, but I could not find an option to do that. I had already made a bow myself, and I wonder if that somehow caused a problem. The only other thing I can think of is that I did not choose the suggested dialogue response right as this became active. I cannot say for sure what caused it, but I did get stuck and was unable to move on.. I would be interested to know whether I missed something or if this is a bug.

Overall, I think you should be pleased with how much this has improved since August. The onboarding is so much clearer, the visuals are much better, and I found the crafting and quest flow a lot easier to get through. I definitely enjoyed playing it more this time.

For me, the next big thing is making the game a bit less about following instructions and giving players more opportunities to explore and make their own decisions. There seems to be a lot of content here, and I would really like to see what the game feels like when I am not being led through it quite so closely for such a long time.

I do not want the comments throughout to take away from the improvements, because they are considerable.

1. 00:00:00:00Comment

   “Take a Tour” is a useful addition, though fairly brief.

2. 00:01:47:00Comment

   The active quest guide and direct navigation button are particularly helpful.

3. 00:02:21:00Comment

   Scrolling to reach a character interaction.

4. 00:05:10:00Comment

   Looking around the shop menus.

5. 00:05:36:00Comment

   Nearby Players catches my attention.

6. 00:06:01:00Comment

   First combat encounter, against another player; more guidance would help.

7. 00:07:17:00Comment

   Trying unsuccessfully to heal at the infirmary on 1 HP.

8. 00:08:42:00Comment

   Crafting flow feels smooth and easy to follow.

9. 00:14:20:00Comment

   Tunnel rat combat and unclear Combat Training Focus.

10. 00:16:39:00Comment

    Feeling comfortable with the overall navigation and quest flow.

11. 00:17:29:00Comment

    Receiving consumables; the notification is easy to miss.

12. 00:23:17:00Comment

    Beginning to feel onboarding fatigue and wanting more freedom.

13. 00:23:47:00Comment

    Possible point where the bow quest becomes difficult to progress.

14. 00:28:27:00Comment

    Healing vial crafting introduced well after I first needed healing.

15. 00:31:29:00Comment

    Unable to progress “A Bow in Hand” despite looking around.