OT - DL Demo discussion - Pros & Cons

[Wyvern]

By the time I finished the demo I was much better with the interface (I had made a lot of keyboard edits which helped and learned to use my keyboard turn WITH my trackball) - I'm still not truly happy with the interface but think I will manage it well enough to play the game.

[Kynaeus]

I think this would have done a lot better if there was a tutorial for people to learn... I also hope there are more races/species for us to choose from.

Silly Sally's, they give you better equipment atthe beginning because (I'm assuming) you can't buy anything in the demo

[jsalsb]

Okay, so I have finally had a chance to sit down for an hour or so and actually play this thingy. Not bad (although it's amazing how much less patience I have for learning new things when there's a 6 month old baby in the house - can you believe he's 6 months?!?).

I like the overall feel of the thing so far. It has W&Wish airs, in some indefinable way. The interface is a bit much - especially with virtually no documentation. And Wyvern, I can sympathize totally with your track-ball issue - I'm playing with a laptop touchpad! Between that and the sluggishness of playing with a 32 meg video card, the controls are like molasses in winter. But I also remapped many of the keys. It helped, especially since I’m a lefty – which I suspect you are too, Wyv, if you mapped the direction keys to the arrows.

I'm getting killed by nearly everything when I attempt to use weapons, but I overpower everything with spells. I still can't kill a bat - except by fluke – but I’m getting better at hacking slimes… bigger targets.

I don't like that there is no curser in the main display. I want to float something over the spell hotkey boxes to se what the bloody icons stand for! But of course I can't without going to the equipment interface. Do I have to memorize 100 spell icons?? Or do I just have to cast the Nova thingy every time I really want magic missiles?

Going to try some more tomorrow. Can't wait for the game to come out... not to actually play it, but just to read some @#$%&! documentation on the controls!!

I'm not trying to sound negative. I actually like the game and am sure the interface will become as fluid seeming as W&W's did after a short while. I'm betting the story will be loads of fun and there's be lots of quirky DWBisms to discover. Looking forward to the full game in all its glory - and I'm sure I'll soon be bragging to newcomers how I can name all the spell icons by heart

PS: Bungleau, opening a chest thru a wall? LOL! Remember (if you played it) in Wizardry 8 where you could recruit the imprisoned Umpani and T’Rang NPCs into your party *through* the locked stockade bars??

[Bungleau]

I never got that far in Wiz8... but that's the kind of thing that can drive developers nuts [img]smile.gif[/img]

Glad to hear you're able to play. It took me a while to get the interface down (although I'm still jealous of those critters that quickly rotate around me to attack... I don't have the spin move down very well [img]smile.gif[/img] ). I finally figured out how to do a backflip... but it's dependent on what's behind you. I tried flipping away from some slimes, only to end up banging against the wall and falling right down among them again. So much for grace and beauty...

*edit* just remembered that the way I ran away from the spiders outside was to backflip while shooting my bow. Amazing how accurate you can be when doing that

As for gameplay, I'm a righty, although I played W&W with my left hand on the arrow keys. That's 'cause my right hand couldn't leave the mouse...

[ 03-29-2005, 11:02 PM: Message edited by: Bungleau ]

[Wyvern]

jsalsb - playing on a notebook touch pad??!! Oh, that must be painful! I have a notebook in my studio for my work and the first thing I did was add a real trackball - I just don't like the "mouse" options on notebooks - they're awful!

I'm a "righty" as well but I got very comfortable while playing W&W keeping my right hand on my trackball and my left hand on the number pad controls. There were times when I had to cross my right hand over the left to add a boost of speed, but I got really good at it. After I had played W&W for a while, I could cruse around at top speed easily.

Reassigning keyboard commands has helped me a lot with DL. I've got it set up so that it is a bit more like W&W and most of the important keys are all within easy reach. I still have to cross the keys to hit the fast keys for magic and stuff but far less dancing around the keys especially when in a state of panic.

I may end up refining my reassigned keys some more once I have the real game.

I hope they do include a tutorial in the game. I've seen good tutorials and I've seen some awful tutorials but a good tutorial would be nice even though I feel like I at least have learned enough to get on with DL.

I know I already said it (maybe twice), I really wish the demo had been a complete quest and not just a get from here to there scenario. I also wish it had been more like the real game. I suspect that we're not going to be able to import our demo characters into the real game. Would be nice to do so but I doubt that's going to be an option given how much they handed out to the demo characters.

[Bungleau]

Discovered a couple of new things last night...

First, the penalty for using armor or weapons does not appear to be related to your strength. Studley had a strenght of 20 (4 or 5 higher than most of his stuff) and still had -1 or -2 penalties.

Second, I discovered the trick for getting better weapon and armor abilities! In order to move up an armor grade, you must be level three in your current grade. IOW, I couldn't train in Medium Armor until I was level 3 in Light Armor. Likewise, once I was level 3 in Light Weapons, I could now train in Medium Weapons. Once I hit MW3, I could now train in Heavy Weapons.

Don't know if this works the same for other skills, but it was a cool discovery last night.

One more thing.... at least in the demo, there's a glitch where it doesn't let you train the new area immediately. I think you have to exit the character screen before you can train in it.

BTW, Fire Nova is a really, really, REALLY cool spell....

[Wyvern]

Yep, you have to train in the correct armor to lose the penalties on the better armors. I expect the same is true for weapons.

The higher stats probably allow you to train in the higher armor but you have to have that training to actually loose the penalty.

Figuring out how to spend your experience points may end up being complicated but hopefully (as in W&W) it will all work out fine in the long run!

[Bungleau]

I'm not sure if they matter for whether you can train in the skill or not. I'll try another guinea pig tonight to see what the results are, but I think it's just related to your skill in the lower weapon or armor.

And I agree -- deciding *where* to spend your skill points will be critical. At least things don't scroll off the screen

I have noticed that things improve automatically by using them, much like W&W and wizardry. It's awfully slow, though...

[Bungleau]

Okay, tonight's results...

1. If you don't have the skill, it's a -1 penalty for weapons, -2 for armor.

2. If you're below the strength requirement, it's -1 for each point. Having the skill appears to offset this a bit

3. Ninjutsu (open-handed fighting) really does rock! I took out scorpions in three blows... in my opening battle [img]smile.gif[/img] I had over 4000 attribute points after that battle (two scorpions and a spider)

4. Too many things can poison you in the wilderness

5. I'm pretty sure that Scorch doesn't appear until you're told that Fargrove is closed.

6. Don't attack the Fargrove guard, or he won't talk to you. And if he doesn't, Scorch won't appear...

7. He won't even talk to you if you reload from before you attacked him...

8. The next level skill becomes available when you get level 3 in the current skill... confirmed. Low strength penalty still applies, though...

9. It also applies to light weapons, if you don't have the skill.

10. The W&W-like pause in the action means a new monster faction is about to appear...

11. If you equip a bow but leave your main weapon free (to use hand-to-hand combat), then the bow becomes your weapon 100% of the time. You can't quick-switch to your hands... you have to remove the bow first. That stinketh...

I think that's going to be about it on the demo for me. I don't know what more I can experiment with at this point.

*edits for typos and missing point*

[ 03-31-2005, 09:54 AM: Message edited by: Bungleau ]

[Wyvern]

Great info, Bungleau!!!

Hope I will get a chance to play around some more with the demo but doesn't look like that will be any time real soon.