Irminsul-Forum, General Discussion

-Wayton

[First Life-Server Impressions of a previous Beta-Tester]

Greetings to everyone reading this

I wanted to make this thread to share my first impressions, seen through the lense of a previous beta-tester and I’m curious how everyone else, tester and non-tester alike, has experienced the headstart-launch.

First of all, kudos to Northwind-Entertainment the head start went perfectly well, no lags, no queues, no nothing. Just a smooth launch, something everyone, especially the older generation, can appreciate.

Personally, I played a human in the beta and had a great deal of fun with it and I like the subtle nods the Devs have taken to history, trying to use something from the past while making it their own. But enough of that, on to my first impressions.

Character-Creation:

Looked quite good, I think it could do with a little more information, just to give those who didn’t play the Beta an easier time to get into things. Otherwise, having the heritage and background-features allows people to individualize their characters even further, without breaking the game. Regarding the amount of classes and the balance between them, that’ll be the challenge for the developers, to make sure that, if and when unforeseen combinations break their balance, they reign that in without punishing those that stumbled across them. How that’s handled is, at least in my opinion, the difference between a good game and a bad one.

Actual Gameplay:

After Character-creation, I ended up in the human city of Stormhelm, playing a Paladin of Sennox and using the Recruit-background. At that point, everything looked quite similar to the beta. I got through the initial tutorial, learning how to use a sword, you know, stick with the pointy end and all that, before truly starting out.

With fetch-and-carry quests. Here, I have to give the developers a bit of grief, the initial quests were bog-standard, the same kill or fetch-quests that have been used for MMORPGs since the olden days, hell, that type of quest is likely older than I am. It might be a good idea to try innovating there, but that’s for the future.

Once I had completed the first couple of quests, things went a little off the rails, with an event that didn’t happen in the Beta. Not sure what triggered it, but it was a nice break-up of those dreaded fetch-quests.

Now, the event I’m talking about was some sort of attack, not sure what exactly happened, but somehow, the Arena and Temple of Kallendra was set on fire, or something along those lines. If you haven’t dealt with the deities in Irminsul yet, Kallendra is the God of Honourable Combat and a couple other things, contests and stuff like that. The Arena, and duels in the Arena, is a major thing for them, and someone tried to blow it up.

What made it even more interesting was that afterwards, a riot started right outside of it, which got the Church of Sennox involved. Sennox deals with the Sun and Law, while being a local version of Jupiter or maybe Zeus, not something along those lines. Anyway, that got me pulled into things and the plot started to thicken when I was tasked to hunt down a murderer, apparently, the daughter of the High-Priest of Kallendra was murdered in the chaos.

So now, I have quests to investigate the murder and the riot, some sources claim that Krom-cultists are responsible, and I’m hooked. That’s how quests and gameplay is supposed to be, not “Go there, fetch this.” but complex and confusing, without getting railroaded at every turn.

The Riot-quests, I totally dig. Even if I have no idea what is going on.

-Farland

[Re: First Life-Server Impressions of a previous Beta-Tester]

Impressions of a Non-Beta-Tester:

Well, hello there.

My first impressions, as the title suggests, I didn’t play in the beta.

Character-Creation:

I like the customizability and the different options. We’ll have to see about balance, but at a guess, there will be a couple of combinations that are simply better than the rest and people will play those. It’s just gamer nature to want the best they can get, even if the difference is minute. But I’m willing to wait and see.

Actual Gameplay:

The tutorial was a little meagre, I doubt that someone who didn’t play similar games before would understand what happens with them. But otherwise, the opening was well done and I have to admit that the elven forest is beautifully crafted, so big shout-out to the graphic-designers, they did a fantastic job.

Sadly, there was no event that I have seen, maybe something will come up.

-Yagnar

[Re: First Life-Server Impressions of a previous Beta-Tester]

Not to repeat what the previous posters already said, I can agree to their takes on character-creation and the initial quests. Otherwise, what I’ve seen of the orcish land looks awesome. Personally, I’m looking forwards to see how PvP actually works on the live-server, in the Beta, I had a blast hunting down humans but there simply weren’t enough players for really big and awesome battles.

-Menja

[Re: First Life-Server Impressions of a previous Beta-Tester]

I have to add, the starting-zones appear to be well balanced, I played a Cat-Folk in the Beta and now, I’m a dwarf. The differences are significant but not jarring, instead the quests feel smooth and immersive. And on the topic of racial differences, the sensory mapping is great. In the real-world, I’m above six feet and now, I play a four-foot dwarf and there’s no phantom sensations of any kind. Even things like the handling of the tail, when I was a cat-folk worked out great and I can tell you, I don’t have a prehensile tail above my butt in the real world. Yet, controlling and feeling it only took a little getting used to.

So, Cat-Folk out there, swing your tail around proudly. :P

-Kourtney

[Re: First Life-Server Impressions of a previous Beta-Tester]

Cool, someone else who started in Stormhelm. I’m sure we will meet ingame, Mr. Paladin of Sennox, I’m looking forward to pulling a heist right under your nose. Because yes, I started as a hoodlum, being inducted into the thieves syndicate of Stormhelm.

But the riot-event was something else, I was there when it started, at first, it was merely a group of people trying to see what was going on, why there was smoke coming from the Arena. You know, normal rubbernecking curiosity.

And then, things went downhill, fast. Not sure how, but all of a sudden, stones were flying around, people were screaming and shoving others, punches were thrown and even the guards that tried to keep everyone back from the Arena got pulled in. There was no way for the Watermages to get through to put the fire out, so the guards started to forcefully make way. I think I heard someone call for revolution against the Empire so there might be something going on that we have yet to know about.

Later, it got even more interesting when the boss of the syndicate started to order people around, giving tasks to some and sending others to take up watch at a couple of hidden smuggling passages. Apparently, one of the syndicate’s members was killed by the same people who set fire to the Arena and now, there’s a bounty on some black-furred Orc, but sadly, that’s above my paygrade. We’ll have to see what the future will bring, but I’m looking forward to it.

Real World, Christina-PoV

The thread had quite a few more posts, pretty much all of them praising the game and discussing the “event” in Stormhelm and a few similar events in different places. Somehow, I knew which Orc they were talking about, but I would keep mum about it and hope that Menja and Venja did the same, or I might get in trouble, ingame. Not that I had even the slightest idea how that would work, could anyone use information from the Forum ingame? Or was there some sort of block to prevent that, something to prevent rewards from being given if a quest was solved by, in essence, cheating?

Shaking my head, I went back to the other posts, researching more information about the Game in general and classes in particular. I’d soon need to decide what I’d take as my second class.