So I just finished my Stream of 8BitMMO (Well I started writing this right afterwards, I finished it later though) and I gotta say right off the bat, I see very much the love behind the game thus far. Still in its early stages yes, but I can see the love here, If you would like to see the stream with me finding bugs and making my suggestions to RobbyZ in real time, you can view it here: http://www.twitch.tv...ibrad/c/3370719. Thank you RobbyZ for joining me!
So lets break down a bit of what I saw. 8BitMMO in my opinion seems to be a game where building a community is key. You don't get handed your materials and get sent out to mine and craft them though like several other games out there. Instead you have two systems working and playing off of each other. On one hand you have the RPG section. Here the system handles your characters progression, shop system, quests, economey and the most importing thing, FIGHTING THE BAD GUYS! On the other hand you have have the Building system that directly feeds off of the RPG system. You fight monsters which nets you gold and expierence which can net you more expierence and gold from a quest but most importantly it lets you get your materials to build. The shop is tiered in such a way that your level dictates what you can buy in the various sections of the shop and you use the gold you gain to purchase the items. You can then take the materials you purchase to your own Pocket Dimension. Here you can build what you want then invite people to visit or open it up to the public. The game has heart behind it. I can clearly see inspirations, aspirations and a future for this game, if it can quickly evolve and try to weather the storm.
First off I noticed a lack of polish here and there. Now granted this game is in a Closed Beta like state so I can not hold that against the game (part of the "quickly evolve" statement I made). Server stability has got to be one of the first, if not the first to get ... looked at. I dont want to say fixed because there is nothing broken here, just Indie Development of an MMO. More people than there is money for a server. This isn't a bad thing, you cant buy more than you have afterall, but there were times where I couldn't tell if it was computer lag or server lag. As far as gameplay goes, its foundation is fairly solid. In my opinion the RPG elementents and Building elements need tending to. The RPG portion needs a bit of fleshing out. You start off with 3HP, then level up in to 6. When everything does 1 damage to you, and can do 2-4 damage just by walking past them, you start to get a game that says "its ok to die, just respawn and run back." While running back is not usually too long of a run back I still see it as a problem, a huge gameplay problem. Now granted the main focus I see the game taking is for the Building, but the RPG and Building mechanics are integrated well enough that if one falls or fails, so does the other. To get building materials you need Expierence and Gold. To get the Expierence you can get from quests which you can kill monsters to complete, from there both give Expierence. When you level up more is unlocked in the shop, but leveling up is actually more a pain in the ass than it should be. If the monsters were to just kill me once or twice, then I run back it wouldn't be such a bad thing, but they killed me at least 15-20+ times in just one dungeon. When I did get to building there were a few things that popped out at me that needed work, but not as much as the RPG stuff. Placing down and removing blocks was actually pretty easy until I realized that more blocks were missing out of my inventory than were laid down. This was because you could put down multiple blocks in one spot, except the game never told me this. RobbyZ had to tell me this then I was good to go.
The TL:DR version and my opinionated list of improvements. (Its also more concise)
General:
- Windows and UI should allow for resizing
- Inventory and Shops need a darker color window and or a border system around items
- Perspecitive should be slightly lower (mostly so height can be seen easier)
- The dialogue boxes should scale a bit (a tad too large)
RPG:
- Class System
- No Useless Items (Or an improvement of them like the gun)
- Enemies should feel like they are bieng hit
- The Player should feel like they are bieng hit (as opposed to the player and enemies taking the hit with no visual accuity)
- The player should have a lot more HP (or based on a class they chose)
- Enemy spawns should be fair (there should be enough of them so that players dont feel crowding, but fair enough so someone can read a sign in peace)
- If you were to stick to low HP counts, then a class system with abilites could help in survival
- A Small flash of brief invincibility after bieng hit (A Console like quality albiet not an MMORPG like quality)
- More Customization (maybe a small character creation)
- Enemies should have the same rules as players, like only attacking in four directions unless its a special / elite enemy
- NPC's could have more dialogue choices (like background and story etc)
Building:
- Pocket Dimensions should be a walled off world (no black border you can walk in to)
- Pocket Dimensions should have aspects you can pay ( in-game gold or real money) or fight to upgrade
- Townships should be expanded on
- Mayors should be able to assign positions to other players
- Mayors should have the ability to setup small robot like NPC's to do some of the basic jobs for their towns people if they are away.
- There needs to be a procedurally generated mini-map
- More building blocks (Like slabs, a flat carpet system)
- Pocket dimensions should have the option to have grass automatically be the lowest level instead of needing to manually lay it
I will come back and edit this more when I think of more. I just woke up and I am trying to still process some things, so there is stuff I am forgetting. I will update the list as time goes on. If anyone has questions for me about what I wrote, like clarification, go ahead and ask I will clarify as much as I can. Otherwise this is my opinion of where the game should move forward in right now. There is a lot of room for improvmenet in every aspect, but certain key aspects should be improved or fixed first before the game is taken in to higher levels.
