Multiplayer Linking + Game off-putting to newcomers.
Posted: Thu May 03, 2012 10:01 am
I was advised to come here with my ideas. I love the Myst series, My favourite series of all time. My problem is, I try to get people to play with me on Uru (I've tried with so many people now) but they all end up hating it for the same reasons which I listed in a thread on mystonline forums:
- The most important one: Linking is tedious and time consuming (Hand collecting).
In order to get people to your age you have to gather in D'ni/Bevin then share the Relto book one at a time, Then inside the Relto you have to share the Age book one at a time and sometimes within the age you have to share linking books again, Then when someone 'Dies' they have to link back to the nexus and go through the process of the nexus machine to get back to your age, This process especially if playing with 3+ people is a real time waster. Same with the hand collecting, Everyone has to press the hands for them to count.
- Running/Walking/Jumping animations
So the second most complained about so far is the sluggish and glitchy running/jumping, The controls are stiff and the animations glitch out frequently.
- Bugs/Glitches/Crashes
Now this one isn't as bad as the first two, at least these don't happen too frequently and they are manageable though still quite irritating annoying people.
Solutions:
- Make it so that once you invite someone to your Relto, ALL your books automatically link to your books and all books in all your ages ONLY link to your books/ages. So that the only way for another person to leave is to use their own Relto book at the bottom. Even when they 'Die' they get send back to your Relto instead of their own. I'm surprised they didn't do it that way in the first place.
- The piece of the hand someone collects should count for everyone currently in that age rather than having to collect each individually that way it feels more like a team effort and no time is wasted with trying to remember who has pressed what already and everyone having to wait in line to press a tapestry. Also for people who are visiting your age and help out, they should get the same story progress (unless they are ahead) as the person whose age it is.
- It would be great if the running and jumping animations could be smoothed out making them more up-to-date and less stuttery/sluggish.
- Obviously it would be good if most bugs could be fixed, For example in Eder Kemo if you try to share the book at the end with more than one person it stops being usable by yourself and unsharable, meaning you have to log out and go back each time to send someone through. But if you'd fix the sharing books issue from the first suggestion it would no longer be an issue anyway.
Conclusion:
I know Myst is meant to be difficult but that doesn't mean the game mechanics should be tedious and hard to control. I honestly believe that if these issues are fixed that more people would get into the game and enjoy it, support it, perhaps donate for servers to be kept up. I really feel right now that Uru is a single player game badly adjusted for multi player, it's off-putting for a lot of new people. Right now the issues make it not worth the effort for a lot of people. This makes me really sad, being passionate about Myst I want to see more people enjoy it together.
So are they fixing these issues? Making it more Multiplayer friendly?
- The most important one: Linking is tedious and time consuming (Hand collecting).
In order to get people to your age you have to gather in D'ni/Bevin then share the Relto book one at a time, Then inside the Relto you have to share the Age book one at a time and sometimes within the age you have to share linking books again, Then when someone 'Dies' they have to link back to the nexus and go through the process of the nexus machine to get back to your age, This process especially if playing with 3+ people is a real time waster. Same with the hand collecting, Everyone has to press the hands for them to count.
- Running/Walking/Jumping animations
So the second most complained about so far is the sluggish and glitchy running/jumping, The controls are stiff and the animations glitch out frequently.
- Bugs/Glitches/Crashes
Now this one isn't as bad as the first two, at least these don't happen too frequently and they are manageable though still quite irritating annoying people.
Solutions:
- Make it so that once you invite someone to your Relto, ALL your books automatically link to your books and all books in all your ages ONLY link to your books/ages. So that the only way for another person to leave is to use their own Relto book at the bottom. Even when they 'Die' they get send back to your Relto instead of their own. I'm surprised they didn't do it that way in the first place.
- The piece of the hand someone collects should count for everyone currently in that age rather than having to collect each individually that way it feels more like a team effort and no time is wasted with trying to remember who has pressed what already and everyone having to wait in line to press a tapestry. Also for people who are visiting your age and help out, they should get the same story progress (unless they are ahead) as the person whose age it is.
- It would be great if the running and jumping animations could be smoothed out making them more up-to-date and less stuttery/sluggish.
- Obviously it would be good if most bugs could be fixed, For example in Eder Kemo if you try to share the book at the end with more than one person it stops being usable by yourself and unsharable, meaning you have to log out and go back each time to send someone through. But if you'd fix the sharing books issue from the first suggestion it would no longer be an issue anyway.
Conclusion:
I know Myst is meant to be difficult but that doesn't mean the game mechanics should be tedious and hard to control. I honestly believe that if these issues are fixed that more people would get into the game and enjoy it, support it, perhaps donate for servers to be kept up. I really feel right now that Uru is a single player game badly adjusted for multi player, it's off-putting for a lot of new people. Right now the issues make it not worth the effort for a lot of people. This makes me really sad, being passionate about Myst I want to see more people enjoy it together.
So are they fixing these issues? Making it more Multiplayer friendly?