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I downloaded the demo today and almost quit immediately. The text is VERY hard to read. And since my wizard kept moving up front - and when we stumbled upon enemies, all of them targeted him immediately - I quickly got stomped, at first. Frankly, I came very close to giving it up right off the bat.

But once I stuck with it awhile, I was very impressed. I finished the demo, and just now purchased the game. But I have a few suggestions (for next time, probably, since I doubt these things can be changed now). And note that this is only from my experience with the demo.

1) Fix the text! The graphics are fine, but the text is terribly hard to read. I wonder how many people won't give it a chance, just because of that?

2) The combat is great, but how about going on to the next character once there's nothing more that you can do? I hated hitting the space bar to end each character's turn, especially since I used the mouse for everything else. (But when using the mouse to do that, I kept scrolling up the screen.) I really dislike having an unnecessary command that must be done for each character, every round of the battle. If I've got a choice to make, no problem - but otherwise, why not skip it?

3) I didn't have any trouble finishing the demo, and I don't know how difficult the complete game is. But I don't like games that are too difficult, where I have to keep reloading saved games and fighting battles over and over again until I win it. Some people like challenging games, and some don't. So my point is, if the full game doesn't have this already, why not have difficulty settings? That way, each person can have the degree of difficulty he prefers.

As I say, I didn't have any problem with the demo, though maybe I was just lucky. And I don't care how anyone else likes to play. I'm just a very big fan of giving players options.

Anyway, good job! I can't wait to get into the game itself.

Bill

Hi WCG, thank you for your post and for your order.

WCG wrote:1) Fix the text! The graphics are fine, but the text is terribly hard to read. I wonder how many people won't give it a chance, just because of that?

This seems to be a common complain, I may be able to do something about it. For example, when you play in windowed mode I could use a higher resolution just for the text. Will take a while for me to fix though.

WCG wrote:2) The combat is great, but how about going on to the next character once there's nothing more that you can do? I hated hitting the space bar to end each character's turn, especially since I used the mouse for everything else. (But when using the mouse to do that, I kept scrolling up the screen.) I really dislike having an unnecessary command that must be done for each character, every round of the battle. If I've got a choice to make, no problem - but otherwise, why not skip it?

Usually it does this already. For example if your character is Stunned you won't have to push Space. Sometimes you may think that there are no options left, but there may be. For example a spellcaster could use a Metamagic Casting: Still to cast even when paralyzed.

WCG wrote:3) I didn't have any trouble finishing the demo, and I don't know how difficult the complete game is. But I don't like games that are too difficult, where I have to keep reloading saved games and fighting battles over and over again until I win it. Some people like challenging games, and some don't. So my point is, if the full game doesn't have this already, why not have difficulty settings? That way, each person can have the degree of difficulty he prefers.

There are difficulty settings, in a way. Easy mode is to set Maximum HP and character stats at 'all 18'. Ultra Hard mode is Ironman, without Max HP, with purely random statistics.

WCG wrote:
2) The combat is great, but how about going on to the next character once there's nothing more that you can do? I hated hitting the space bar to end each character's turn, especially since I used the mouse for everything else. (But when using the mouse to do that, I kept scrolling up the screen.) I really dislike having an unnecessary command that must be done for each character, every round of the battle. If I've got a choice to make, no problem - but otherwise, why not skip it?

Probably there IS something the player can do, even if you don't want it. Of course, the game can't guess, so it requires your input to go on (imagine that the game skipped automatically when you wanted to check the inventory or take a better look at your PC's status before continuing...)

is the option for max hitponts and character stats at 18 available in demo?

Not the stats 18 (because the characters are pre-created), but you can set Maximum HP on level up.

Over wrote:Probably there IS something the player can do, even if you don't want it. Of course, the game can't guess, so it requires your input to go on (imagine that the game skipped automatically when you wanted to check the inventory or take a better look at your PC's status before continuing...)

No, I'm talking about those situations where there are only two or three options left, none of which affect the character. One is to go on to the next character (which should be automatic at that point, IMHO), another is to close the window with the options (apparently, then you'd just use hotkeys), and... I think there's a third, but I can't remember it. It's nothing to do with the character, though, but only the interface (if I remember correctly).

And why would you want to check the inventory or take a look at a PC right then, if there's nothing more that character can do? Besides, you can still do that when you go on to the next character, if you want. You can ALWAYS look at a character.

This isn't a big deal, but it's an unnecessary bit of manual entry for the player. And considering that this game is all about combat, it happens frequently (or it does for me, but then, I like to take 5 ft. steps, so my characters commonly make both movement and standard actions, so are left with no options remaining).

gewibe wrote:is the option for max hitponts and character stats at 18 available in demo?

This was answered (no, not in the demo), but it reminds me of another thing I like about the game. You can set how many stats you want to be 18 - from none (just random rolls, in other words) to all of them. So you can decide just how much of a power gamer you really want to be. Heh, heh.

And so, if you set it for two stats at 18 (for example), the two maxed stats will be randomly selected (with the others being random rolls). Then, as usual, you can re-roll one stat and you can switch two stats. This means that you can guarantee that your character will have his primary stat at 18, but you still have the random element. It's really very nice!

And this is all up to the player. I love to see player options! I don't want even the game developer to tell me how I HAVE to play a game. Heh, heh. Well, as little as possible, anyway.

On the downside,... I couldn't stop playing the game last night, so I didn't get much sleep (or anything else done yesterday). Some of the combat is pretty tough, but just once I had to leave and come back later. So - at my level of ineptness - it seems to be challenging, but not frustratingly hard. Nice balance there!

And I'm even able to ignore the horrible font,... most of the time. Note that I have a widescreen monitor, and it's probably worse on that. And my eyes aren't great (which is why I don't play it windowed, either - I need everything as big as possible).

WCG wrote:This was answered (no, not in the demo), but it reminds me of another thing I like about the game. You can set how many stats you want to be 18 - from none (just random rolls, in other words) to all of them. So you can decide just how much of a power gamer you really want to be. Heh, heh.
And so, if you set it for two stats at 18 (for example), the two maxed stats will be randomly selected (with the others being random rolls). Then, as usual, you can re-roll one stat and you can switch two stats. This means that you can guarantee that your character will have his primary stat at 18, but you still have the random element. It's really very nice!

Yes, that's exactly why it was designed like that.

WCG wrote:No, I'm talking about those situations where there are only two or three options left, none of which affect the character. One is to go on to the next character (which should be automatic at that point, IMHO), another is to close the window with the options (apparently, then you'd just use hotkeys), and... I think there's a third, but I can't remember it. It's nothing to do with the character, though, but only the interface (if I remember correctly).

Okay, what were these situations exactly? Were you paralyzed, confused or something? Or is it after completing a full attack?

BlueSalamander wrote:Okay, what were these situations exactly? Were you paralyzed, confused or something? Or is it after completing a full attack?

No, not paralyzed or confused. It could have been after completing a full attack, I suppose (I'm not sure what constitutes a full attack and what doesn't).

In general, though, what can a character do after making a move AND a standard action (cast a spell, attack, etc.)? I just frequently find that my characters have no more options, except to go on to the next in the initiative order, and I'd prefer not to have to order that manually.

But I'll pay more attention when I play today, and I'll let you know.

OK, almost every character, every round in combat, I'm left with only the following options:

SPACE: END TURN
HIDE ACTIONS
VIEW INITIATIVE

This happens whenever I make a movement and then a standard action (or the action first, then a five-foot step). So it's very, very frequent.

It's no big deal, certainly. It just seems unnecessary. Why wouldn't I want to end the turn at this point? After all, my character can't do ANYTHING further, right? I can always "hide actions" or "view initiative" next time.

But I don't know. Maybe it would be confusing if the game immediately switched to the enemy? You'd probably want a small pause there, just enough to see what your character did. Or maybe I'm just getting used to this.

One other minor thing that would be nice is if I could play it under my Windows XP user account. As it is, I have to be logged in with administrative privileges. That's not so bad, but I can't even use "Run As" the administrative account. I actually have to log out and log back into the other account in order to play this game.

It's worth it, though.