By Jim Rossignol on October 1st, 2009 at 12:02 pm.
Eskil Steenberg sends word that he’s opening up the alpha of his game to the public. Because it requires servers to be run to test it, he’s asking money for access at this eatly stage. You will be helping test a game, but the fee is relatively small. You can get it for 3 Euros, which is about £2.80. HOWEVER, it is not a finished product and/or service, and it is the work of a one man team. If you don’t like the idea of paying for an explicitly unfinished game, then this is not for you. If you want access to a weird and beautiful indie MMO, and to help make it work in the long run, then get your wallet out. To be sure it runs on your PC please download the client and get the alpha access details via the game itself. That way, says Eskil, you can be sure the game will function on your machine, as the world displays in the menu screen. You can follow Eskil’s ongoing updates on Twitter. And very brief first impressions follow…
We had a crack at this last night, and it’s suitable strange and gaseous. Reminiscent of games past, and yet it feels very new. Almost like a ghost of the future. Even at this unfinished alpha stage you can see the potential, although the game has a long way to go in terms of teaching you how to play, and presenting the information you need on screen. We’ll see the testers in there, and have more coverage soon.
01/10/2009 at 12:07 Schmung says:
I’m still unclear about what the purpose of the game actually IS. The development tools were very clever though.
01/10/2009 at 12:14 Meat Circus says:
Well, now we can FIND THE CHUMP OUT, can’t we?
01/10/2009 at 12:14 nabeel says:
I’ll probably drop in on the weekend, been waiting a long time to try this.
01/10/2009 at 12:15 Meat Circus says:
Can we build an RPS clan/guild/corp/thing in the game?
01/10/2009 at 12:15 Jim Rossignol says:
Basically you wander about in the landscape and claim a settlement, which you can then build up by manipulating the terrain around you. To make settlements bigger and better you have to go out and explore and find “tokens” and bring them back. The more tokens you have, the better your settlement becomes. And you have to fight monsters both while exploring, and defend the settlement. Movement and combat is FPS style.
01/10/2009 at 12:16 Jim Rossignol says:
Meat: doesn’t look like there is that much community detail in there at the minute, but we can definitely congregate on a specific server/settlement.
01/10/2009 at 12:18 Norskov says:
I think I’m on UK Server 2, but I’m not sure as I can’t connect at the moment..
01/10/2009 at 12:18 Meat Circus says:
Can you RP-bless one then, Jim? It would make things easier.
01/10/2009 at 12:19 Tei says:
So, where I can join this thing? Where is the pay button?
01/10/2009 at 12:25 qrter says:
Download and run the client – it contains the URL where you can buy a “voucher”.
I’m not trying to be obtuse here but Steenberg wants you to run the client first to see if your rig can handle it.
(Although I have to say, an easy clickable link within the client would’ve helped, it’s not the easiest website to remember..)
01/10/2009 at 13:39 Tei says:
HEhehe.. I am inside. At first, I was solo, and fighting a mosters sentlement, but I have found people, a nice setlement :-)
01/10/2009 at 12:20 Dominic White says:
I’m totally in on this. Everything I’ve seen about the game has been fascinating, and for all the grumbling people do about wanting a new FPS-MMO, when one comes along, nobody seems to even notice that it’s one.
I’ll repeat that: This is an FPS/MMO hybrid. You run, you jump, you shoot people with bullets and build bases and such.
01/10/2009 at 12:20 678 says:
I can’t log in.
01/10/2009 at 12:23 678 says:
Fixed it.
01/10/2009 at 13:38 Glove says:
I helped (not really).
01/10/2009 at 12:23 Ian says:
The question is, who’ll be more annoying? The bone-headed luddites who’ve already decided it’s a big pile of old wank without having touched it and refuse to change their mind or the bone-heads who’re fanboys of the game before the thing’s even out and will refuse to let anybody criticise it?
Round 1: FIGHT!
01/10/2009 at 12:30 AndrewC says:
The fanboys are only saying it looks incredibly interesting and refreshing and they eagerly await more details of how it plays.
The critics are saying it’s gay.
01/10/2009 at 12:40 Ian says:
I stress that I’m making a distinction between people who are merely very enthusiastic about it and the ideas that Mr Steenberg is implementing and are excited to see what comes of it and the people who think it’s a solid gold guarantee that this game will be utterly amazing and look down their nose at anybody who thinks otherwise.
01/10/2009 at 12:57 AndrewC says:
Who are they, these zealot people?
It’s also true that the haters are pretty thin on the ground too – I don’t think they’ve turned up in the last couple of threads about this game. And I get the feeling most of them were just the fake-hate of deliberate trolls anyway.
Let’s see if any turn up here. You get the jaffa cakes and i’ll bring the binoculars.
01/10/2009 at 13:18 Ian says:
Admittedly, the shouty folk at both ends of the spectrum have died down with this game. Thankfully. But there have been the odd couple at both ends. Personally I think this sort of thing more than deserves to work (and possibly needs to) but I’ve had the distinct impression once or twice from folks that because it doesn’t make me wet my pants that I’m some sort of cave-dweller.
I’m looking forward to seeing what the Hivemind think. And the jaffa cakes.
01/10/2009 at 13:22 AndrewC says:
Ah. I think you’re just referring to Meat Circus. The only movement he’s indicative of involves last night’s curry.
01/10/2009 at 15:50 Meat Circus says:
No joy, AndrewC. I’m definitely in the “This looks ace! Can’t wait to see what it actually *is*…” camp.
01/10/2009 at 19:19 Flobulon says:
STOP BEING SO REASONABLE!
01/10/2009 at 12:30 The Sombrero Kid says:
looking forward to this
01/10/2009 at 12:31 Joseph says:
I reckon it’ll be the boneheads who talk about boneheads.
Anyway.
I imagine being in Australia means this beautiful looking FPS MMO is unfortunately a no go for me due to shooting + lag. Has anyone tried it out from afar?
01/10/2009 at 12:41 David says:
Weapon firing is slightly laggy (at least it is from Sydney), but it’s nothing a red-blooded Aussie can’t handle.
01/10/2009 at 15:22 Pie21 says:
My first impression was that you were suggesting you needn’t worry, since shooting = ban.
I can see that.
01/10/2009 at 12:41 Dominic White says:
Alright, got my account key. I’ll save making my account til later – the person I want to have as my buddy (lovely buddy idea – you can have a second player play for free, but only when you’re online) isn’t around yet, so I don’t know what username/pass they want.
Oh yeah, is the referral system up and running? If so, an RPS referral chain would be a good idea. Get every an extra 5-6 days of play for that 3 euros.
01/10/2009 at 12:51 nine says:
ukserver1 for the RPS group? Makes sense, as all servers have plenty of space so far.
01/10/2009 at 12:51 Mort says:
So, anyone swapping usernames for the reference bonuses?
Seemed clear that the voucher is time limited from the penalties for changing servers/bonuses etc. But what is the limit of the voucher? Did I miss it? Is it in the email containing voucher I havent yet received?
01/10/2009 at 13:00 Dominic White says:
It’s 30 days. And you should have gotten your voucher the second you paid – I did. Check your spam folder, maybe?
01/10/2009 at 13:05 Mort says:
yeh got it, indeed in spam.
01/10/2009 at 13:01 jameb says:
‘Download and run the client – it contains the URL where you can buy’
sorry i run the client can find no url ? anyone help?
01/10/2009 at 13:03 Mort says:
mouseover the create account option, the url appears below. Iirc.
01/10/2009 at 13:05 Stijn says:
http://www.quelsolaar.com/alpha – somehow it only pops up inside the client once for every 5 times you run it. I hope Eskil doesn’t hate me now :(
Regarding hate and Eskil, I ordered a voucher key but didn’t get any so far. What a ripoff!!!!
01/10/2009 at 13:06 jameb says:
thanks mort
but nothing appears for me….. guess this is a good reason to go to work and try it there…..
or could someone post the url?
01/10/2009 at 13:08 Jim Rossignol says:
Aim for UK server 1.
Also the game assigns names, so you may need to share them here.
01/10/2009 at 13:19 nine says:
names change each time you rejoin so no point
01/10/2009 at 13:10 jameskond says:
It seems to have a Subscription type system in place, you play per month, so you can play this Alpha for 30 days for 3 euro’s ;p
01/10/2009 at 13:11 jameb says:
actually – just logged in to work— get no url there as well :( graphics do display over logme in though which is nice) both systems are nvidia graphics cards and amd chips… any one post the url ?
01/10/2009 at 13:12 dartt says:
I’m signing up as ‘dartt’ on UK1, if someone posts their username here soon, I’ll put you as my referal.
01/10/2009 at 13:14 Songbearer says:
This game is a boiling, seething mass of potential. It looks beautiful, runs very smoothly, and promises to be a lot of fun.
Its current major flaws are that Settlement tokens are extremely rare, and you need to be part of a Settlement to do practically anything in this game.
You start a Settlemennt by finding a Settlement Token, followed by finding a suitable place to establish your new city. Once the settlement has been set up, other players are directed to it and asked to join it.
The settlement is then expanded by finding Tokens throughout the world. Players scout out these Tokens, bring them back to the settlement and install them, turning them into buildings which players can get tools out of. For example, you might find an Elevator token out in the world. Once you take it back to your base and install it, other players can build elevators leading into your settlement.
This is all well and good, but since there are no permissions in this game any player can do whatever they like to the settlement providing they’re a member of it. This means that they can basically level and change all the terrain to their hearts content, and can even destroy entire settlements or murder people at a whim.
The other problem is that it’s possible to modify a settlement to the point that it’s innaccessable, such as raising terrain all the way to the sky with no way to reach it.
This is where the lack of Settlement tokens really bites you in the arse. It’s rare to find more than one in the wild, meaning if some gimp ruins the one settlement in the game, there’s nowhere else to go. Love basically screams for a way to limit certain people’s ability to mess with settlements.
It’s important to realise that the game is still in Alpha and has a long way to go, and the work Eskil has done so far is incredibly impressive. The world is a genuine joy to explore due to the sheer print-screen destroying beauty of the graphics (Although they can get VERY noisy at times), and when people co-operate to build a nice Settlement it can be extrodinarily rewarding. You can literally carve into mountains Dwarf Fortress style, building windows, maps, turrets and the like as you go.
01/10/2009 at 13:23 Spoon says:
I like the referral chain idea. Anyone with their account already created care to get the ball rolling?
01/10/2009 at 13:23 Nick says:
Paid the 3 euro, logged in at lunchtime, I have absolutely no idea what the hell’s going on, but god it looks good. 3 euro is a bargain for supporting development madness of this ilk.
01/10/2009 at 13:26 P7uen says:
P7uen is my username. And in the game.
No, really, refer away.
01/10/2009 at 13:50 Spoon says:
P7uen, I referred you when I created. If someone would do me now, it would be ace. SN is Spoon.
01/10/2009 at 13:57 ophois says:
Right Spoon I put you as referrer. If anyone want to continue the chain I’m JackalHeadGod :)
01/10/2009 at 13:28 Hypocee says:
And of course, Steenberg has often implied that this is intended to be not so much an MMO as a persistent PvE game that you play with real friends who are not screaming sociopaths – many small servers.
I do hope some form of crowd control finds its way in…but I’d be skeptical of even a Blizzard attempt to ungrief players who can modify terrain and pop items as a matter of course. For a one-man team, no matter how extraterrestrial…I’m not sure it’s on the docket.
Nevertheless, for now at least, I am there!
01/10/2009 at 13:30 kurige says:
Oi… Maybe I’m crazy, but I’ve completely lost faith in this one. I’m not one of the critics who thinks this is “gay” – quite the contrary – but it’s Eskil himself who’s turned me off from this game.
When I first heard about Love I subscribed to Eskil’s blog, and then unsubscribed about a month or two later when I couldn’t stomach it anymore. I simply don’t understand his lone-wolf mentality, and reading him pontificate on the subject is tiring.
This whole, pay-to-play alpha test is just another nail in the coffin of my interest. If you can’t afford a server for everybody then run a server out of your home for a handful of testers you trust who are willing to work for free. When it’s ready for beta testing and you still can’t afford a dedicated server then you’re going to need to take out a loan. If you can’t/don’t want to take out a loan and don’t trust anybody to finance the game for you, then you shouldn’t be making a commercial-scale MMO.
Seriously, who in their right mind would pay for this:
01/10/2009 at 13:39 kurige says:
Before 101 angry fans jump down my throat, let me clarify this one sentence:
I am – in case it’s not terribly obvious – referring to the Alpha. I’m all for paying for a finished game, or, even pre-paying for a game that I have reason to believe will be finished in a timely manner. Neither is true, in this case. And, the fact that it is a small amount of money has nothing to do with the principal of the thing.
Aight. I think I’ve got my bases covered. Opine away!
01/10/2009 at 14:13 Jacques says:
Here’s the reason Eskil’s given for charging. http://www.gaminglove.net/forums/showpost.php?p=666&postcount=75
01/10/2009 at 14:18 Dominic White says:
I personally think ‘Pay a little and get in on the ground floor’ testing is a great approach for small indie developers to take. Worked great for Mount & Blade, and Overgrowth looks to be helped by it no end. By putting a money barrier there, it filters out the opportunists looking for something new to play, and ensures that only those most interested in the future of the game are on-board. These people are far more likely to provide useful bug reports and actually dig deep and see what works and what doesn’t than your average random joe who signs up to open betas.
It lets them test on a large scale while bringing in a first wave of funding, and allows them to interact with their audience and tune the game better to their desires. Now, if a multimillion dollar studio pulled something like this, I’d tell them to fuck off, but if it’s one guys ambitious solo project, and the subject interests me, then sure. If it helps the end product, then why not?
01/10/2009 at 14:53 TotalBiscuit says:
Gratuitous Space Battles. Nuff said.
01/10/2009 at 15:18 Lestaticon says:
I have a hard time, due to my very strongly intuitive personality, to put into words an easily understood/clear response to this, but I swear I picture it all very clearly in my head! It seems you have very defined and absolute beliefs regarding the way games should be developed and shared with the world; how they should be classified, and how, due to their classification, they should be developed and sold to the world.
Well all I can say is that I don’t agree. I tend to see things in ways which are less constraining. I think you limit creativity and positive change by needing to classify everything so rigidly. You end up having good and interesting ideas being squeezed into inappropriate labels and totally misunderstood.
“We need endgame.” “Where are the classes?” “Who is the producer?” “This is a beta” “No, this is an alpha” “There are no raids?” “How do I call a GM?”
Eskil has explained the reasoning behind the development and this testing process. It’s very logical, rational, and realistic. Some could even say very human. The name of the game is very revealing.
02/10/2009 at 18:50 Doug F says:
So… don’t buy into the alpha then? You can thank me later for coming up with such a simple, elegant solution.
I may not reply right away, as I plan on registering for this as soon as I get home tonight.
01/10/2009 at 13:38 Stijn says:
Played 5 minutes until someone put me in a pit so deep I couldn’t get out of it.
WELL
01/10/2009 at 13:41 CMaster says:
… well well
?
01/10/2009 at 13:49 Stijn says:
It’s basically the thing I was afraid would happen – people messing around with the terrain shaping tools to annoy other players. Should be familiar for anyone who played Sauerbraten or Cube in multiplayer edit mode.
Apart from that I think I’m not too fond of the fog shader stuff present everywhere – it makes screenshots look nice, but is really disorienting for me.
01/10/2009 at 13:39 CMaster says:
I’ll pass on the pay-for-alpha I think. It immediatley strikes me as a game out there enough in it’s own ideas I’m not too interested in helping shape it – I’ll sit back and see what comes of it in the long run.
01/10/2009 at 13:47 Norskov says:
It is possible to commit suicide, just press the compass icon in the menu.
01/10/2009 at 13:49 Clovis says:
Is really necessary to explain something as intuitive as that? :-p
01/10/2009 at 13:54 Norskov says:
It was a reply to @Stijn.. Still having a bit of trouble with the comments ;)
01/10/2009 at 17:17 Clovis says:
Heh, no I was just joking. Go back and read your sentence. That’s just madness!
01/10/2009 at 13:49 dartt says:
I had a quick exploratory romp through the world during my lunch break. I tried to navigate to a settlement (direction indicated on my HUD) but only made it so far before it was time to actually eat something and get back to work.
It’s beautiful and confusing, I can’t wait to try it on my home PC when I can give it more time and attention.
01/10/2009 at 13:51 lefishy says:
This game is… crazy. I haven't had any trouble with griefers but yeah you can just respawn if someone messes with you or traps you. If you have a token that is a different story because using the quicktravel makes you drop any oneshot items you may have.
01/10/2009 at 13:59 P7uen says:
Good stuff. Now if I had even the slightest idea what was going on that would be fantastic.
Are you supposed to point the penis at the bottom of the screen upwards, and that will lead me to a settlement? I don't know whether it's supposed to be pointing up or down, if you see what I mean.
01/10/2009 at 14:02 dartt says:
I think it makes the most sense for the penis to be pointing up.
As in real life, the penis will often know what it’s doing even if you don’t.
01/10/2009 at 14:02 Jayt says:
Can’t wait to read some impressions!
01/10/2009 at 14:05 lefishy says:
It is all the penis talk that has got you interested isn't it? Harhar.
Now someone mentions it it is kinda phallic. I guess like all men I should follow my penis to salvation.
01/10/2009 at 14:08 Quasar says:
I’ve signed up as Quasar, so refer me if you like.
Having a tough time figuring the game out – ran through a forest I couldn’t really see and died of being shot by something or other. The graphics are an interesting experiment, but I don’t know if I could stand to sit and look at them for hours at a time. Could really do with some graphical options, as I’m running at around 15fps which isn’t ideal.
Also, is there supposed to be sound? I’m not getting any.
01/10/2009 at 14:17 Nick says:
Don’t think there’s any sound at the mo.
01/10/2009 at 15:12 Fraser says:
I referred you, Quasar. If anyone could do the same for me that would be awesome :)
01/10/2009 at 14:10 Jacques says:
I’ll probably see a few of you in game on server number one. Ingame name: Clebri.
Also, join the forums, I’ll be adding a section for the alpha proper once I get out of college.
01/10/2009 at 14:21 lefishy says:
Farbs is doing a very similar thing with Captain Forever. While CF is a game in and of itself by buying it you are funding and gaining access to Captain Successor. Seems like a pretty good business model to me. It's kinda like the appstore model a lot of developers are using. Release a game with this amount of content and use the proceeds to add stuff to the game that people want. It's like episodic games but real!
01/10/2009 at 14:32 Jacques says:
Anyway, on the subject of paying, isn’t it better to pay 3 euro and decide you don’t like it rather than buying the full game, paying 10 euro (or whatever it’ll be at launch) and then deciding you don’t like it?
01/10/2009 at 14:40 Mort says:
not when it’s an alpha, no. Traditional trial accounts are ok for what you’re suggesting.
The problem with paid alpahs/betas, is many participants already have the problem of remembering they’re testing something, not TRYING something, when you require payment for that it becomes even more of a problem.
01/10/2009 at 15:03 Clovis says:
So, what's going on with the blockquotes? Two people above me are claiming that "anonymous coward" wrote something. Did I end up on slashdot somehow? I'm guessing it has something to do with using the "quote" button in the forum, no? That's what I just did. The code that I can see before submitting this claims that lefishy wrote the quoted bit.
01/10/2009 at 15:04 lefishy says:
I think Anonymous Coward == Unregistered Poster but I can't be sure.
01/10/2009 at 15:10 Jim Rossignol says:
Yes, “anonymous coward” is how the forum processes unregistered people. It’s a bit insulting, we might have to fix that.
01/10/2009 at 15:19 Clovis says:
Ya, the anonymous part is certainly a bit insulting, since they aren’t truely posting anonymously. The coward part seems fine though.
01/10/2009 at 15:29 thaspius says:
2nd that, the coward part is fine.
01/10/2009 at 15:33 Nilocy says:
Well, i started play this last night after i got home from work. And the only thing that really bugged me was the lack of sound. Other than that this game is fantastic. I found a wee settlement (that wasn’t blocked in by a gigantic wall) where a few other players were starting. It was quite nice acctually, i met the settlement dwellers by shouting over a canyon at them, asking where to go, they had no idea. So i started on a small adventure to find a way there. Eventually I did. Then the servers crashed :(
My name is Qual, and I’m on UKserver3
01/10/2009 at 15:59 Meat Circus says:
Meat needs sound badly.
01/10/2009 at 17:18 Clovis says:
Designer shot the SFX!
01/10/2009 at 16:04 Andy says:
I must’ve logged on at ingame nighttime, because this game is incredibly dark – near zero ambiant lighting, I kept falling off cliffs because I couldn’t see 2ft in front of me.
I also seem to be lost in the bottom of a canyon…
Malkevin, server 1
01/10/2009 at 17:01 kurige says:
Perhaps this discussion would be better moved to the forums, but, succinctly:
@Dominic White, @TotalBiscuit :
RTFA. You’re not getting in on the “ground floor” of anything. This is a time-limited fee to “try” an unfinished, unpolished program. Period. You’ll still have to pay for the game. (Apropos: I paid for Captain Forever.)
@Lestaticon :
I’m an intuitive person as well. However irrational or unjustified and despite how much I want this game to be awesome the reason I’ve lost faith is because of the developer’s attitude. An attitude which I intuited from his blog postings.
I hope to be proven wrong, but unless his attitude towards outside help changes the transition from beautiful-screen saver to commercial MMO is going to be a rocky one, and it’s going to take a very very long time.
01/10/2009 at 17:04 kurige says:
Damnit. That was supposed to go here Ah, well.
01/10/2009 at 17:20 Dominic White says:
Holy jeebus, man.. You seem to be awfully agressive/defensive here. Other people seem quite happy with the idea of funding and helping with the testing of an indie project like this. Why you gotta be crapping on them and the idea as a whole?
I think you’re just bitter because you didn’t think of it first. Either that, or bitter in general.
And again, I bought in on Mount & Blade when it was in late alpha/early beta phase because I enjoyed what I saw and wanted to support it. It grew into something great. I did the same with Cortex Command, which is growing into something impressive. I’d put money down on Captain Forever and Gratuitous Space Battles if I had the disposable income, but at 3 euros for me and a friend to poke around an early version of Love, I can’t complain.
01/10/2009 at 17:24 Dominic White says:
Also, the guy says he hopes to (no promises, though) to transfer any remaining Alpha time over to Beta and then the final game, and I’d imagine that the price to play will go up by launch, so yeah, there’s a chance that there’s a discount in getting in early.
And y’know what? Unfinished as it is, if you have fun playing it, that’s nothing to complain about.
01/10/2009 at 17:31 TheModernArdeo says:
Alright, I’ve used you JackalHeadedGod.
For the next in the chain, my name is Ardeo.
01/10/2009 at 17:32 TheModernArdeo says:
Bugger; that did not work as I had intended.
01/10/2009 at 18:12 Gutter says:
I speak for all geeks with a non-geek girlfriend when I say that the buddy system is genius!
Is there any other MMO that implement something similar?
01/10/2009 at 18:18 tballi says:
I’m listing Ardeo as referrer – I’m on as tballi.
01/10/2009 at 18:33 KP says:
It’s nauseating on a lower end graphics card. It’s a social game but the interface sucks for socializing. It’s some “eh” gameplay shrouded in some hipster art – which makes it just “eh” when the art is all barf-o-matic on low graphics.
01/10/2009 at 18:34 RobF says:
Maybe he should have employed a game designer?
*boom* *tish*
01/10/2009 at 18:58 Tei says:
You sould not criticise a game that is not even on Beta yet.
01/10/2009 at 19:16 Mort says:
lol, why?
That’s patent nonsense, putting it very mildly.
01/10/2009 at 20:20 Tei says:
The alfa version of a good game could be a version that don’t even run on a PC. Say.. Quake1 early alphas running in a NeXT computer. Or use placeholder graphics, like a big X for a model that is not yet ready. Or could have a mayor subsistem like sound unimplemented.
So, In your opinion, how good or bad the sound of Love is? do you like his music?
Oh.. I forgot to mention that is not include with the alpha. You are seeing only a part of the program, a tiny part, as other are unfinished, or need changes, etc.
Anyway, If you move forward, and want to criticice a alpha, you must compare it to other alphas of indie games. Realistically most alphas of indie games are less than toys, the good ones are just toys.
01/10/2009 at 20:21 Mr. Sinister says:
When a game that is not even in beta yet gets this much free publicity, I think it’s fair game for criticism.
01/10/2009 at 20:43 Tei says:
What publicity has to do with anything? Do you want to be critic of unfilmed movies based just on a temporal cast of actors that is not even the final cast?
01/10/2009 at 21:06 Jacques says:
I don’t really see what publicity has to do with anything. Eskil’s not running around telling everyone he’s the best games programmer/designer ever, and saying his game is number 1.
Sure, some criticism is fair, but it shouldn’t be immediately dismissed.
I’m not really seeing why you think it’s nauseating on a slower graphics card, the only thing that changes between different computers is the framerate, nothing else.
03/10/2009 at 01:32 KP says:
Well on a 5800 the people aren’t drawn correctly, for one thing – unless they’re supposed to look like horrifying scribbles. Also I wouldn’t waste time criticizing if I didn’t think it had the potential to be a great game. Right now the gameplay side of it kinda sucks.
01/10/2009 at 18:47 Ludo says:
I’m getting a ‘Server Selected Do Not Exist’ message when trying to create an account, anyone else getting this?
01/10/2009 at 18:49 EyeMessiah says:
Holy shit its 4mb? Is that even a peggle??
01/10/2009 at 18:54 Railick says:
I liked Mount and Blade so much when I got it durning alpha that I went ahead and baught 2 more copies of it and gave them to my friends so they could enjoy the game as well. One of those friends ended up loving it even more than I did :P
01/10/2009 at 19:05 Tei says:
I can’t play just now. Servers tell me I need a update, I download the latest version, but still show that message. Also, for some reason the latest version use the same name love_alpha.zip, this probabbly a bad idea, since It can be cached.
01/10/2009 at 19:08 Tei says:
The version I am tryiing to run (love_alpha.zip) is 4,778,050 bytes long…. Is not the 4.764.316 bytes long version. Geezers. It probably is serverside…
01/10/2009 at 19:05 Dominic White says:
Really, the first few hours/days of alpha testing for ANYTHING is going to be a total clusterfuck with things falling over and servers exploding and things utterly failing to work. This is because the game is still in very active development at that phase, and almost nothing is set in stone.
Alpha means the engine mostly works. That’s about all your garunteed.
01/10/2009 at 19:22 DXN says:
I’ve had a little play around in it so far — as others have said it’s kind of confusing at first, but after 10 mins or so I was getting the basic hang of it even if I’m nowhere near building anything yet. The world is extremely pretty, but a little hard to navigate with no hard edges — what would really help would be a way to move the camera high above you so you can see where you are in ‘map view’.
Still, seems pretty fun! And even if it turns out to be a turkey, I won’t begrudge 3 Euros to a developer at least trying to do something new and interesting.
01/10/2009 at 19:22 Mort says:
my first impressions were ok I guess. Am I allowed impressions of an alpha?
Not sure on the art style, it’s very disorienting in places, fun for hiding in the muddy mess of shapes and colours though to pick off busy players doing I have no idea what.
I need to read some instructions clearly, but for a quick look; intruiging.
01/10/2009 at 19:24 Dominic White says:
Well, one nice thing. Your account time doesn’t count down when the servers are down, so while he’s hacking around with this stuff, we’re not losing any of our pseudo-investment.
01/10/2009 at 21:31 Redd says:
Shoulda gone donations. Woulda made more money and had more people playing too.
01/10/2009 at 22:37 Dominic White says:
Yeah, and hundreds of griefers clogging the servers within hours. There’s friendly fire and the ability to completely screw up your own town. At the moment, when things go wrong, folks are pretty apologetic.
02/10/2009 at 18:06 Redd says:
People who won’t play the game as prescribed by the Gameplay section of the site are exactly what an alpha needs.
01/10/2009 at 23:38 Dominic White says:
Well, as confused and vauge as things are, the servers seem quite stable now, the netcode is holding up, performance generally seems smooth and responsive, and the game looks lovely. People are also learning to cooperative very quickly, although there’s still a couple of jerks who like to just screw with everyone.
This is probably the best ‘day 1 of alpha’ any game has faced, which bodes well for the future.
Also, massed-rank gunfights at night are beautiful. Just beautiful. Those slow, luminous blaster bolts across the dark nights sky just look lovely. Seeing a bunch of players with woefully poor equipment try to defend themselves from a distant AI threat is great, too.
02/10/2009 at 00:00 PleasingFungus says:
Paid $4.50, got my code, managed to update (which was a bit of a pain – the URL given in-game doesn’t seem to work), jumped into the game…
And immediately, without pressing any buttons after spawning, fell in some water and died.
Quite the game!
(wish it had sound)
02/10/2009 at 00:18 Railick says:
People being jerks in the alpha is probably the best thing that could happen to the game. He'll learn all the ways people can grief each other right off the bat, see of paying customers will put up with it or if he needs to find some way to change the game so you can't grief ect. Will be very useful information.
02/10/2009 at 01:41 Masaq says:
Note: it seems the offline-only client released a few days ago has been replaced with a newer version – with exactly the same filename/download location. So, if like me, you’re wondering where to get the newer version after the game complains that you’re out of date, try the same link as you did before.
I have to say after playing for a few hours I’m disappointed. I know it’s an alpha but there’s no concessions for new players, in some ways it even seems deliberate walls have been placed in front of new players (randomised names, no control listings). No sound. The colours pulse in ways that are faintly queasy. Fall into some water, very easy when it’s pitch-black night, and you’re dead.
I can’t help but think it would have been better for the creator to hand-pick 200 people for his closed beta, work on these issues and then offer the 3 euro fee. As it is it’s just way too unfriendly for the masses, myself included.
02/10/2009 at 01:50 Dominic White says:
Again, ‘Alpha’ means ‘Engine test’ at best. Overgrowth (another interesting indie title) is in Alpha right now, and it’s completely non-playable. It’s just the unfinished editor and tools right now!
Of course there’s no concessions for newbies. That happens maybe in mid-to-late beta phase if you’re lucky.
02/10/2009 at 01:52 Dominic White says:
Anyway, DAMN YOU, UK-1! That server went down just as I was finally getting the hang of things. We’d set up a good settlement, I’d managed to locate a well defended and equipped AI base, noted its coordinates, went back home and geared up for a solo ninja raid.
I pulled it off, too. Fast in, take out about four guards, grab a token of some description, and fast out. There was probably another 4-5 AI soldiers in hot pursuit, firing constantly with hyperblasters and grenades. I was just another hill from home when the server went down. Bah!
Also, playing with explosives is fun.
02/10/2009 at 03:08 Polysynchronicity says:
I still can’t launch the game without it instantly quitting to the desktop. :(
02/10/2009 at 05:02 Caitiff says:
I’ll wait for a more solid release, since I want my first impression of the lovely graphics to go hand in hand with proper gameplay, but it’s good to see it progressing so well. This guy is a genius, far as I’m concerned. Does anyone know if he’s going to put out another version of the verse apps?
02/10/2009 at 06:08 Stromko says:
Welp, spent about 3 hours working on one settlement, after losing the last two (presumably) to AI attacks.
We were taking intermittent artillery fire, but our settlement was coming along well, we had a nice (mostly) flat plateau that made us basically safe.
Then one of ours who'd been working with us the whole time got a bazooka and destroyed all our structures, including the main settlement. End of settlement.
Couldn't even reach the next settlement as we were surrounded by ocean and couldn't sculpt terrain anymore.
Since the names are assigned on login, assuring total anonymity, we can't even tell who really destroyed all our hard work. It wouldn't really matter anyway, you can't hurt other players, but other players can destroy all your structures and everything.
I guess it depends on having a community so we can hold eachother responsible and whatnot, but, there is no community because everyone is anonymous!
It's a real mess right now.
02/10/2009 at 06:50 PleasingFungus says:
Whoa, Stromko, you're on my server! Atlanta-1, right? What's your in-Love name? I'm Calris.
(Yeah, that was a mess. But it was great fun while it lasted. I'd never seen half the tokens we'd gotten in that settlement, and it was my… sixth or seventh or so!)
(also I wrote some things about the game here, which might perhaps be interesting for anyone who hasn't played.)
02/10/2009 at 10:36 Stromko says:
Yes I believe Atlanta-1 is the server I'm on, as Charon (rather lucky name: the ferryman who brings souls to the underworld!). I've become aware that our random names actually follow us through subsequent logins, so it turns out we aren't totally anonymous after all. Still not sure what you can do if you know someone's a griefer though.
But anyway, it got a lot better when I logged back in, nobody tried to grief us in the whole 4 hours that I was back, and we got a nice settlement in the form of a box fort with stairs on the inside that led to the tops of the walls. Almost an 'end-game' settlement, though the AI attacks became more and more fierce the closer we got to the sweet guns.
We had shields, I think we had all the architecture tokens, and right after we got the Slug Rifles the enemy started busting through walls and blasting us with big nasty guns (probably slug rifles!). They managed to destroy our Sculpt tool so we couldn't even fix the holes right away. :)
We eventually got the terraform tool back and managed to resecure our base pretty well, but we'd earlier rant into a glitch– something about placing another token too close to our settlement token.
It borked up our base spawning, so we'd spawn somewhere random instead of near base (not fatal since we had a couple wild spawn points near to base), and also messed up our factories so we couldn't get power or health pods made. Someone also suggested that building a cave underneath our factories would mess them up, but that didn't happen right away, it only seemed to happen when our base spawn got screwy.
We eventually decided to blow up our settlement and restart it on that same spot, but the issue seemed to keep happening. I'm sure it'll be cleared up by tomorrow anyway, and eventually fixed.
If I had to give any tips on base design — don't build insanely high walls, because the enemy will eventually just punch holes through them anyway. Also, don't try to build a super high plateau for the whole base, it seems to attract artillery fire, plus it just isn't worth all the time-consuming and tedious terraforming. Mid-height walls placed at the extreme end of your build-zone are the best idea, so there's plenty of space inside. It lets everybody watch the base and keep it safe but blocks long-ranged fire well enough.
As for re-entering the base, some form of jumping puzzle is the best idea, just a few spaced out columns that get higher as they go until they're high enough to jump over the walls.
We didn't find any tokens to expand the build area, they might not be in yet. It got more than a little crowded with almost all the tokens inside our walls.
02/10/2009 at 11:14 Stromko says:
PleasingFungus: That’s a good write-up of your experience in the game. It really says a lot for the concept of a micro-MMO that I can actually remember all the things you talked about happening, simply by virtue of being logged into that same server. It’s not a very small world, but completely focused on the settlement such that all players will gravitate towards it as a beacon.
Eskil has been very busy this morning changing how settlements work, and seems to be working rather hard on this key piece. Cheers for that, the changes sound pretty good. http://twitter.com/quelsolaar
Working on settlements is exactly what he needs to be doing right now, as they’re the thing that’s going to make Love live up to the hype!
02/10/2009 at 11:18 Dominic White says:
Something I noticed is that the enemy AI is already very solid. A nice mix of convincing agression and mistakes. If you take cover behind something, the enemy will often continue to shoot in your last known direction for a few seconds. Makes firefights look pretty impressive.
02/10/2009 at 13:10 Stromko says:
I hope Eskil intends to add some sort of sound at some point, I’m not sure if it’s part of the aesthetic or if it just isn’t done.
At any rate, the game is great fun once you get a team that wants to work together, and more often than not (2 out of 3 sessions) that’s exactly what I’ve encountered,
Got our infrastructure set up, got all the tokens, beat back the AI and forced it to move to a new base. It’s a nasty, squirrely enemy, just wish it’d keep up the pace in attacking us so we’d have something to do. :)
Also, had a devil of a time finding a way into the enemy base, I eventually managed to circumnavigate around the ice cap region, got high up on a glacier and was able to drop onto a bridge that led into the enemy base. Once I got there though, all the demolitions and sniping we’d been doing against their infrastructure and troops had made them decide to leave, and all I found was the distinctive AI architecture, abandoned.
Interesting times.
02/10/2009 at 13:33 Dominic White says:
Sound will almost certainly happen later on, but I can understand it being a distant concern at this point. the dev-Twitter is packed full of activity right now. Next update looks like it’ll simplify joining settlements, limit terrain alteration somewhat, and reduce opportunities for griefing. All good stuff, and it seems to be in direct response to problems player have found on that first day.
Looks like the whole public alpha thing really works. We have fun, he gets funding and feedback. Helps that he seems to be some kind of freakish development dynamo.
02/10/2009 at 15:41 Jacques says:
Someone's made a great video of a settlement.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyPa8osgHHs&hd=1
02/10/2009 at 18:17 Railick says:
Based on these posts this game sounds awesome.
02/10/2009 at 18:39 EyeMessiah says:
I played for a few hours last night and had a lot of baffling fun.
Visually love is quite a lot like being kicked in the face by a rainbow, which I expect will probably turn out to be a fairly divisive issue. Personally, it works for me.
I spent the first 30 mins or so trying to get to the settlement and quickly realised that the landscape doesn’t necessarily have simple paths, but does have fairly forgiving jumping and that sometimes a bit of creative jumping climbing and dropping is required to reach a given area. I died a lot from falling into water mainly (sometimes through almost invisible single tile holes!). All the dying-repetition meant that I had to gradually work out how to navigate the various terrain features in all the while making my way slowly toward landmarks I could see in the distance. Its probably the most fun I’ve had exploring an environment with a compelling sense of place in a long while.
When I got the settlement I found that a war was already raging. A war between people trying to build stuff and others who were hell bent on turning everything into inaccessible towers. Teaming up with people and building up the settlement was also great fun, if a bit glitchy but I didn’t get much of a chance to go out looking for tokens or fighting the AI.
I’ll be interested to see where he goes from here, particularly in terms of preventing ass-hats from unmaking everything. So far so good imho.
02/10/2009 at 18:49 Railick says:
So is this available in the US? Would it be 5 bucks a month to play it here? I can't access it from work :P (and when I get home I'll probably be playing Blood Bowl all night, that game has a hold on me)
03/10/2009 at 03:57 Rai says:
3 Euro’s converts to 4.50 USD on paypal.
03/10/2009 at 06:39 Post Maker says:
So who here’s playing on UK-1? I’ve spent a large enough amount of time chatting with my servermates to know that they seem like nice people, but I’m always wondering if any of them are on here.
03/10/2009 at 09:24 Stromko says:
That is how they're supposed to look, yep.
03/10/2009 at 10:45 Stromko says:
Something very important to note. The thing doesn't auto-update itself, you need to get the newest version and unzip it to a new folder in order to potentially avoid some serious glitches and to get the new features.
03/10/2009 at 14:08 Stijn says:
Post Maker: I'm there, I think currently nicknamed "Cindra" or something. Played with a few nice people (partly from RPS) a few days ago – see the other Love thread in PC Gaming for a writeup – but yesterday there weren't that many people on.
03/10/2009 at 15:11 Post Maker says:
Stijn, I’m pretty sure I ran into you a couple of times and ended up being of no help at all. Any idea who blew up the old settlements?
Thanks for pointing me to the Love thread, although it seems that I can’t log in any more. Is there any way to recover a password without entering a username? The forums seem to have erased mine (or I’ve forgotten it, which is much more likely), although my e-mail is apparently still saved.