Its an awesome quote, slashdot crowd uses it often. Not yet, only login screen and patch download screen so far.
It's perplexing, that is for sure.
well well good
4-starred + lengthy review in the Market.
There wasn't a 4 1/2 star... :/
lol i love getting reminded i am the second image...
404 - not found ...maybe one day...
I reviewed and rated on the App store 5*s - still Top 5 Best Games in the App Store and Best MMO on the mobile, easily.
Here's a detailed review/score for your forumites if you are interested in comparing to your own accessment:
1 Gameplay/Controls: 8/10
Reason: Controls work very well on a tiny screen. Tap-Combat is simple to pick-up with a little improvisation and learning eg achieve Kiting is aweome on the mobile. Downside: Button-mashing and pot-spamming gameplay reduce the sense of actiony-combat. (Bumped up by 1pt due to gcd improving the game imo)
2 Graphics/UI/Presentation: 9/10
I really like the art-style of this game tbh (cartoony seems work for this dungeon-crawler). Bright colors, cool effects and attention to detail on all the little things adds up with the character models designs (incl. all the mobs eg aliens/zombies) the pick of the bunch. V impressive.
3 Sound/Music: 9/10
Sound effects are buzzy and the music is mellow and atmospheric. Pitch perfect almost and not excessively in your face but neither is it too sparce. V cool. In fact SELECTION is very strong (bumped up score by 1pt after re-review eg swamps sounds etc).
4 Role Playing/Level Design: 6/10
Quests have now been added for some time and there is some story there with the speech bubbles and named NPCs. The level maps are well designed mazy dungeons but levelling is quite grindy eg becomes more grindy each level beyond 35. This suits some players but for me, it is tiring to repeat the same thing but with more/harder mobs for more expensive item drops so imo this is the weakest part of the game. But as I like the dungeon-crawl more than quests this does not bother me that much, personally.
5 Value/Price: 10/10
Unbeatable value: Freemium allows free content endlessly up to lvl 13 (or used to) and expansions are always added and sales always available for a huge and continually growing game feels like there is always something to do and the game is very alive/never beaten eg some of the game hrs and farming some players have got up to... sheesh!
6 Fun (ie overall combined effect): 8/10
Longevity is partly there due to large size/instancing and complex stats of the combat but the grind dulls the enjoyment slightly for me. However being able to play an mmo with other ppl so seemlessly means PL will be an app I ALWAYS keep on my iPhone and after a healthy break the fun is always returning wiping mobs/getting phat loot and so on.
7 Community (how social is this game?)/PvP: 7/10
Friends lists, chat features and lots of players online. The design means players are happy to help each other out a lot and find a game and generally enjoy the gameplay and have a laugh atst. The guardians of alterra idea is neat too. Solid. However getting a PvP game for me when I randomly log in always seems to be a problem and the lack of checking on how other players or teams are doing in some global list I think hurts the competition here. So although good community some fo the community features are lacking imo.
8 Performance / Lag/Technical achievement: 10/10
Another 10/10. Never experienced any major problems. Lag occurs occassionally when a lot of "sh*t" is happening on screen, but incredible performance is lightyears ahead of any other app I've got.
9 Customer Service/Dev Support: 10/10
The number of patches and updates (av. 1.x per day) is better than many pc mmorpgs...
Summary: Rating give an indication of my thoughts on the game. Comments are just fluff to expand on the scores as a whole. I would rate this game "fitting to the curve" ie only a few games would rate above 80%
tl;dr: 10 Overall Score 86%
Last edited by ratava; 04-14-2011 at 04:56 AM. Reason: UPDATE: v1.7.1 & GCD = higher score!!!
Change is necessary, and it always happens in MMOs. We would hope that you knew how we do things before bashing us in the App Store. Usually when a large patch goes in we gather feedback, watch, play, and listen before we iterate on it. We wish that you would have chosen to hang out with us for a couple of days and iterate on this instead of rushing off to flame.
All these hasty judgements must pretty discouraging. I'm trying to see it from your perspective, so this is simply a bump in the road. My rating is still 5*, from beginning and still. You know, if a month from now, bugs started to appear, hackers, little or no support for smaller issues(this is the best part, it feels personal ), no update, and the player maturity level dwindled to poor language and behavior, I'd have to decrease the rating. I only haven't yet because I know by now you guys do things with intent to improve gameplay, and will listen to feedback from players. Even though a lot of them, against better self-image, are being rude as hell.
I'm not trying to flame but I do understand summerinsides frustration. Since the update came out you guys have been going around saying that you listen before you iterate (whatever that means) but before the update came out you an announcement out about it and had 30+ pages of comments about it. At least 95% of the comments I read were against GCD. Instead of listening, like you say you do, you went ahead and established it anyway.
People are frustrated that you've ruined a game we love and are desperate to get you to truly listen. I hadn't even thought about leaving an app review but will do so now.
Also, how is anything Summerinside said considered flaming? I think it's an accurate, well thought out review. It may not be an opinion that you guys want but I would in no way consider it flaming.
I think its a major stressor that so much anger is being laid on the devs over this. If you guys saw, not many of the people who have been around for longer than 2 months have said outraging comments. We all know they will tweak the game to better our experiences. I agree there was much opposition to the idea of GCD, but you know, they can always remove it again if it's that horrendous. Or at least add some smaller changes.
I want to show a thread where they clearly did try to listen to us (or one particular individual or groupd) and made changes accordingly. You can see what happened. No, yes, no yes... it'd drive someone insane.
http://www.spacetimestudios.com/show...t=shadow+caves
heres another thread which proves the devs listen.
http://www.spacetimestudios.com/show...ould-be-public
Once again, I'm not trying to flame. I know the devs say they listen and you've got some examples. I hope they do listen and take GCD away. But what I don't understand is that a month ago they put up a thread announcing GCD was coming and, if I remember right, that thread had 30+ pages of replies. The vast majority of these replies were against GCD. I just wish they would have listened then instead of plowing through with it in the first place. The customers said they didn't want it, we got it anyway, now we're saying we hate it and we're told "we're listening". I'm going to give them til tomorrow to see what they come up with before I rate in appworld. If GCD is still with us then I'll be forced to give it a low rating.
i was reading some of justG's posts and i believe by days end they will decrease the cool down period so it'll still be there but it wont be as noticable. i personally hope they get rid of it all together but i'm willing to try out the update.
Last edited by ECHUSER; 04-13-2011 at 07:32 PM.
Why a global cool down?
1) It doesn't balance anything, because it applies to everybody.
2) It makes combos nearly impossible.
3) Plenty of other ways to buff/nerf things.
- (PvE) Increase the hp, dmg, and defense of mobs & also add new def/offensive abilities. Add de-buffs to players when entering a more difficult encounter.
- (PvP) Make it easier to farm high quality gear. Adjust dmg output scaling. Add vulnerability after x amount of time/kills.
4)All spells & abilities are instant cast, add in latency, throw in GCD, and you have a headache.
5) A GCD on buffs? Takes a mage a good 3 or 4 seconds to buff. Which by that time his whole party just died & or he lost the duel.
Conclusion:
A GCD mostly forces users to button mash their touch screens so they can get off an ability as soon as its ready. Before, it was a battle of quickness of mind, combo decisions, split second buffs! Reaction times were everything, and it was exhilarating!
Now, one spends more time on tapping their touch screen than they do on actual game-play. Or to even enjoy the game, the environment, and community...
To be honest, I feel confident that these problems will be addressed. It would be pure negligence otherwise, and I have faith that these Devs aren't like that. They did make a freakin' awesome game, remember...
GCD makes me change from 5 stars to max 2.
Makes me sad. Loved this game so much.
I rated the new version last night myself.
Yeah, guys, WE are the testers. THink about it like that rather than this change being the end-all be-all. Give constructive feedback here in the forums and they will listen. As I understand with the GCD they were trying to fix an issue with multitouch users able to simultaneously launch all their skills. It's an unfair advantage in PvP, but I think it could be kept in PvP only. I'll wait and see if they reduce it to make it less annoying. I do find it awkward and distracting to watch all the skills refresh so I can see which one to fire next. Meanwhile, my party is dying and so am I! Ack.
PL: Jemnus - Lvl 54 Archer; Nasoji - Lvl 54 Enchanter; CaptainUrsa - Lvl 35 Bear;
AL: Jemnidad - Lvl 30 Sorceror; Starkazm - Lvl 13 Rogue
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