Game Status

[tidsdit]

Hello, has it been determined if this game is coming to steam?

 

[Keiban]

it will come to Steam, but no date yet. But should be in the next 1-3 months.

Embers Adrift on Steam

Embers Adrift is a unique fantasy PvE MMO - group play truly shines and solo play is still rewarding. Designed with classic MMO principles in mind we desire to bring players together to create lasting memories and friendships in an immersive world wherein you may lose track of time. Welcome drifter!

store.steampowered.com

 

[tidsdit]

it will come to Steam, but no date yet. But should be in the next 1-3 months.

Embers Adrift on Steam

Embers Adrift is a unique fantasy PvE MMO - group play truly shines and solo play is still rewarding. Designed with classic MMO principles in mind we desire to bring players together to create lasting memories and friendships in an immersive world wherein you may lose track of time. Welcome drifter!

store.steampowered.com

Awesome, thanks for the link!

I’m definitely excited about this. In comparison to a couple of the “early access” mmo’s that have recently came out, none of them compare to embers in my opinion.

Yes there are some things that need to be fixed in embers, but overall I feel this game is more put together and has greater potential.

 

[Keiban]

you know that you can just play Embers right now? It's f2p incl. subscriber benefits until the Steam launch. No need to wait for it.

 

[tidsdit]

you know that you can just play Embers right now? It's f2p incl. subscriber benefits until the Steam launch. No need to wait for it.

Yeah, I know. I’m just hoping for an increase in players with the steam release.

 

[Fyredancer]

Yup, I think Steam will be a success simply because of the numbers.
E.g. Pantheon managed 78,000+ sales and 6,000+ online during the honeymoon.

Embers may not have that cosmic level of hype, but it's largely complete - not an alpha filled with temporary place-holders in a cartoon world.
While still holding to a Vision of old-school gaming without hand-holding.

Meanwhile - the Pantheon community is bubbling with arguments between the old-schoolers and the QoLers.
An example being about a torch for lighting - QoLers were unhappy, so a torch slot was added - which instantly made light skills and items worthless, and changed how groups worked in darkness. A temporary fix which might change later. Neither fish nor fowl. Game design by loudest complaints.

So there are plenty of gamers looking for an old-style MMO - it's just a question of whether we can get over the critical mass, so town is always busy, population 100+ every day, enough friendships and guilds form. Sure, the low fantasy no-magic style is not the most popular flavour, but there is a good fraction who do like it. (Maybe there's a Magic-User class in our future?)

By the time Embers releases on Steam, Pantheon's honeymoon will be fading.
Even 1/10 that success means ~8,000 sales and ~600 online in the honeymoon.

Optimistic

 

[emberral]

Yup, I think Steam will be a success simply because of the numbers.
E.g. Pantheon managed 78,000+ sales and 6,000+ online during the honeymoon.

Embers may not have that cosmic level of hype, but it's largely complete - not an alpha filled with temporary place-holders in a cartoon world.
While still holding to a Vision of old-school gaming without hand-holding.

Meanwhile - the Pantheon community is bubbling with arguments between the old-schoolers and the QoLers.
An example being about a torch for lighting - QoLers were unhappy, so a torch slot was added - which instantly made light skills and items worthless, and changed how groups worked in darkness. A temporary fix which might change later. Neither fish nor fowl. Game design by loudest complaints.

So there are plenty of gamers looking for an old-style MMO - it's just a question of whether we can get over the critical mass, so town is always busy, population 100+ every day, enough friendships and guilds form. Sure, the low fantasy no-magic style is not the most popular flavour, but there is a good fraction who do like it. (Maybe there's a Magic-User class in our future?)

By the time Embers releases on Steam, Pantheon's honeymoon will be fading.
Even 1/10 that success means ~8,000 sales and ~600 online in the honeymoon.

Optimistic

More like unrealistic, but by all means, knock yourself out.

You're being disingenuous about the torches in Pantheon. Basically it penalized classes that dual wield. You had to choose between carrying a torch to see and risking getting jumped and only being able to fight with one weapon because you cannot swap a weapon in and out during combat. Sure, if you're in a group, the cloth wearers can typically carry a torch, but sometimes you want to or must solo. Either you're here to spread misinformation about Pantheon or you're just ignorant. Even with a torch slot, you still need to be careful at night. The visual range of the torch is limited, and it reduces the range at which you can tab target mobs. You still run the very real risk of stumbling upon creatures even with the slot. It's rather creative. The devs have a plan for how to make light sourcing interesting. The magical abilities to cast light were weak and based on what Joppa said, it was intentional. Feel free to spread misinformation if it makes you feel special.

As for the "old-schoolers and the QoLers", that battle has raged continuously with this game. Don't act like that's isolated to Pantheon. People confuse tedium with "old-school". You can have QoL and still have challenging game play. They are not mutually exclusive. However, if you choose to forego meaningful QoL and call it "old-school", then you run the risk of being Embers Adrift with a peak player count in the dozens if that.

There's a good fraction who like the low fantasy no-magic style? As exhibited by the current population in this game? You think that's going to change? This game used to have a lot more players. The low-fantasy no-magic style is still a thing, and that's the main reason so many left. You cannot call alchemy, which is based on a limited resource, magic. It's not really that fun, sorry. I'd daresay no one really wants to spend their time farming a resource just so they can go do some hunting. Medding up mana and going at it is still old school. It's just fun. /shocker

You may or may not be right about the honeymoon of Pantheon. I do see the server numbers seeming to be on the decline earlier in the day. Time will tell. If you are correct that the "honeymoon will be fading", that does not in any way mean that people will try Embers Adrift. You get one chance to make a first impression. Blow it, and you are very unlikely to overcome it. The gaming industry is brutal. Stick to a strict vision for your game and risk having a game so niche that the niche don't even know about it.

 

[Undone]

As for the "old-schoolers and the QoLers", that battle has raged continuously with this game. Don't act like that's isolated to Pantheon. People confuse tedium with "old-school". You can have QoL and still have challenging game play. They are not mutually exclusive. However, if you choose to forego meaningful QoL and call it "old-school", then you run the risk of being Embers Adrift with a peak player count in the dozens if that.

There's a good fraction who like the low fantasy no-magic style? As exhibited by the current population in this game? You think that's going to change? This game used to have a lot more players. The low-fantasy no-magic style is still a thing, and that's the main reason so many left. You cannot call alchemy, which is based on a limited resource, magic. It's not really that fun, sorry. I'd daresay no one really wants to spend their time farming a resource just so they can go do some hunting. Medding up mana and going at it is still old school. It's just fun. /shocker

You may or may not be right about the honeymoon of Pantheon. I do see the server numbers seeming to be on the decline earlier in the day. Time will tell. If you are correct that the "honeymoon will be fading", that does not in any way mean that people will try Embers Adrift. You get one chance to make a first impression. Blow it, and you are very unlikely to overcome it. The gaming industry is brutal. Stick to a strict vision for your game and risk having a game so niche that the niche don't even know about it.

We tried something different for our magic system; you and many others don't like it and that is fine. It is what it is. But I am curious why you feel the need to come here and insult the game and tell us how bad we are doing. How does that help anyone?

 

[Cafe]

I am very happy to see the game heading to Steam and I think it will make big difference on players. Lack of players is why I never bought into the game, and only tried it on free weekends, also a lot of my friends only play steam games and I try to do the same . I'm pretty sure this will open the game up to a lot more people. However, I do think they should add some more QoL changes if they really do want this to be a success. I see they added a compass, thats a good start and to me the most important one. Their still are quite a few other changes the devs can make that would still keep the "old skool" feel, but help people just enjoy the game and stick with it instead of just being frustrated.

 

[Undone]

Their still are quite a few other changes the devs can make that would still keep the "old skool" feel, but help people just enjoy the game and stick with it instead of just being frustrated.

Would love to hear what additional changes you think will help with retention.

 

[Cafe]

Would love to hear what additional changes you think will help with retention.

I don't think this is the thread for that and probably this is been discussed a plenty in others

 

[Undone]

I don't think this is the thread for that and probably this is been discussed a plenty in others

But I am asking what you think. And this is a perfectly suitable place to have a discussion.

 

[Cafe]

But I am asking what you think. And this is a perfectly suitable place to have a discussion.

I am pretty easy because I am old school UO player. Their are only a few things that can be, but are not allways a deal breaker for me depending on the game play. One is map, thats my biggest issue and I really like a gps on the map. 2nd is bag and bank space and I don't mind paying for them cause I am not aginst supporting the game. Lastly something to help me complete a quest. I am not talking about ? or other symbols and crap like that over heads or where where, I can't stand that tbh or markers to lead me what I need to do. But I do like detailed info from the npc or on the quest description to help find my way, and when I get lost and tired of it, a wiki to help. I just like them to be clear so I know what I am trying to do.

 

[Undone]

I am pretty easy because I am old school UO player. Their are only a few things that can be, but are not allways a deal breaker for me depending on the game play.

Thanks so much for sharing! A lot gets lost in the weeds so it's great to hear things on an individual basis sometimes.

One is map, thats my biggest issue and I really like a gps on the map.

Each map is an artistic interpretation of the landscape, which is one of the primary reasons we cannot technically provide an accurate GPS marker even if we wanted to. In other words: the map itself is not 1:1 accurate to the landscape so there is no way to create a reliable coordinate system conversion (so that an x,y position in world space correlates to x,y on the map). So while I understand the desire, it's just not something we can do right now.

2nd is bag and bank space and I don't mind paying for them cause I am not aginst supporting the game.

The bank is expandable via gold, are you looking to expand it past that? Or do you mean you want to pay real $ to expand the bank? The adventuring+gathering bags have been expanded a few times since launch and we recognize that they are not big enough for most folks, and honestly likely never will be no matter how large we make them. I would love to have more of a progression to bag sizes similar to how other games allow you to upgrade your bags but in order to do that it would require a significant overhaul (code wise) to the inventory system, which we simply don't have the time or resources for

Lastly something to help me complete a quest. I am not talking about ? or other symbols and crap like that over heads or where where, I can't stand that tbh or markers to lead me what I need to do. But I do like detailed info from the npc or on the quest description to help find my way, and when I get lost and tired of it, a wiki to help. I just like them to be clear so I know what I am trying to do.

I think most of the team agrees with you here. Each quest + step should have some sort of summary that would allow you to pick it up later on down the road if you spend some time away from the game. This omission is just mainly due to our lack of planning in that department and like many other things is on the "todo" list for some point in the future. But as with most other tasks we're stretched too thin to get them done in a reasonable time frame.

Our highest priorities right now is getting the game to steam in conjunction with the next zone launch. But I do think some sort of more detailed quest summary is the lowest hanging fruit of the bunch that would go a long way.

 

[entity09]

Would love to hear what additional changes you think will help with retention.

Hey! I have been playing around the past couple of days and I noticed a few of things that put me off. These may be non issues to you guys but I wanted to bring them up because we are coming up on the very important steam launch and these things hit me within minutes.

1. You can con mobs but it does not tell you if they are aggressive to you or not.
2. I crafted a couple of extra bows to lvl my skill but I was unable to vendor them. I hate having to destroy nice things just to free a slot. I made it, I should be able to hock it off.
3. Having no marker on the map for the player is annoying but already discussed.
4. Night time seems ridiculously long and you have to hold the torch in your hand all the time. Just make it a light that you turn on and off. The physical torch is clumsy and annoying.
5. I can only select mobs at close range. Often I can see a mob but cannot select it until I am closer.
6. The "no magic" route is ok mostly but the reagents are annoying and only serve as a stumbling block when forgotten. Maybe save that for powerful abilities.
7. Skills should light up to show you are in range to use them even when not in combat mode.
8. Maybe add some way to track a corpse? No /loc, coord sys or map markers make death unnecessarily punishing.
9. Early bows an crossbows have such short range they are nearly pointless to use.

I wish you guys the best luck with the Steam launch. Thank you for the work you are putting in.

 

[Undone]

Hey! I have been playing around the past couple of days and I noticed a few of things that put me off. These may be non issues to you guys but I wanted to bring them up because we are coming up on the very important steam launch and these things hit me within minutes.

Appreciate you sharing! I'll touch on a few of the points below just for clarity's sake as we might not be doing a good enough job at pointing things out along the way in the early game.

1. You can con mobs but it does not tell you if they are aggressive to you or not.

This is true, I'll have to think about how we want to approach this as that data is not available to your client natively.

2. I crafted a couple of extra bows to lvl my skill but I was unable to vendor them. I hate having to destroy nice things just to free a slot. I made it, I should be able to hock it off.

Yea that is a challenging one because we didn't want to flood the economy with money from crafted sales. For this reason we added the "Deconstruct" option which gives some junk to sell and a little bit of crafting xp. We may revisit this in the near future.

4. Night time seems ridiculously long and you have to hold the torch in your hand all the time. Just make it a light that you turn on and off. The physical torch is clumsy and annoying.

Have you tinkered with the "Exposure Adjustment" slider in the video options? Setting this to -1 will adjust the camera exposure at night and makes a significant difference to the brightness. Unfortunately different monitors can result in drastically different brightness levels at night. Early on in development we tried to lean into darkness as a mechanic but we quickly relinquished given that different monitors display things so differently that it was basically out of our control. Maybe I should set the default option to -1 for the steam result so new players have it set to that by default.

5. I can only select mobs at close range. Often I can see a mob but cannot select it until I am closer.

The idea here was basically to be a sort of "fog of war" where you are not aware of your enemies until you are a bit closer. Ideally the selection range should line up with nameplate visibility, but if that is not the case then I should probably look into that.

6. The "no magic" route is ok mostly but the reagents are annoying and only serve as a stumbling block when forgotten. Maybe save that for powerful abilities.

Our magic system comes into play at around level 18 (I think?); at which point you can start the quest to learn alchemy. Reagents on the other hand are something we experimented with early on as minor boosts to your abilities. Combat is balanced as if you had no reagents or alchemy so having either should basically give you an advantage. I typically only us mine while soloing in dangerous areas or when my group is struggling.

7. Skills should light up to show you are in range to use them even when not in combat mode.

I believe they do, but there are a number of disabled overlays which might be muddying the water. I'll take another look into this and see if I can differentiate things a bit more.

8. Maybe add some way to track a corpse? No /loc, coord sys or map markers make death unnecessarily punishing.

When missing your bag a skull will show over your portrait. If you are in the same zone as your bag an arrow should also be around the skull which points you in the right direction. The skull should also have a tooltip indicating how far away it is in meters.

9. Early bows an crossbows have such short range they are nearly pointless to use.

There are two variants of bows & crossbows:

a) long/heavy: these have longer ranges but they also have a dead zone close to the mob, so you must be at range. These typically have slightly longer delays and higher damage outputs.
b) short/regular: these have no dead zones but have a shorter max range. These typically have slightly quicker delays and lower damage outputs.
(hold ALT while hovering over an ability to see the range/angle of an attack, many ability range/angles are based on the weapon type)

Another thing to consider that threat from NPCs is distance weighted, meaning that the farther away you are the less threat you will generate. In addition, some mobs have AoE abilities/stuns/etc that will typically miss you if you are at range. As a Warden I frequently pull with a bow and fight with 2x weapons, but in a group I occasionally fight with a bow depending on what mob we are fighting and/or if I am having aggro issues.

I wish you guys the best luck with the Steam launch. Thank you for the work you are putting in.

Thanks!

 

[entity09]

Thank you for the clarification on a few of those. If things are working as intended then, no worries. I may not have being paying close enough attention. The death arrow I did not see, maybe I skipped over something I should have read due to being worried about the recent butthurt.

About the night tho...the night is OK as is just please consider going to a light source that u don't have to hold in your hand. The torch taking up a critical hand slot then getting put away during combat is meh. That was my suggestion mainly.

 

[entity09]

Oh and about the skills lighting up.
*playing support*

Equip a xbow in normal stance and select a monster. Walk toward that monster and see if your attack skills light up when in range. Once in combat stance they will. It would be nice to simply be able to initiate combat by using the skill from run around stance. I often do but the icon will be still faded when I fire it, eyeballing the range.

 

[Undone]

Thank you for the clarification on a few of those. If things are working as intended then, no worries. I may not have being paying close enough attention. The death arrow I did not see, maybe I skipped over something I should have read due to being worried about the recent butthurt.

If there is any confusion that means there is room for improvement!

About the night tho...the night is OK as is just please consider going to a light source that u don't have to hold in your hand. The torch taking up a critical hand slot then getting put away during combat is meh. That was my suggestion mainly.

The reason for this is partially design and partially performance. If we allowed a light source to be attached without you having to swap stances then everyone would run around with their light source active by default, which has negative performance implications (more point lights, more shadows, etc), and mitigating those performance implications has negative aesthetic issues (no shadows from a light source looks bad from an art point of view, etc). And like I mentioned above: early in the game we wanted to learn heavier into darkness as a mechanic which required players to kind of make a choice between fighting or holding a torch for their group. We have since move mostly away from that with the big blue planet providing a good amount of night light, along with ground torches which can be planted in the ground for a period of time.

At the end of the day if you have an automatic light that is active by default then what is the point of the light? At that point we might as well just adjust the brightness of the scene for better visibility all around to end up at the same result of "players can see better". This was the primary purpose of the exposure adjustment slider to give players a bit of choice of how they want to play. Some really liked dark nights, others not so much, and because of the monitor differences we don't have tight control over how you experience night, so all we can really do is give you knobs to tune it to your liking. An art director on a previous project I worked on once said that night is just a change in the color palette of the scene and not necessarily a change in the light amount - I don't think we're quite there yet but the exposure adjustment goes a long way here.

 

[Undone]

Equip a xbow in normal stance and select a monster. Walk toward that monster and see if your attack skills light up when in range. Once in combat stance they will.

Yea so the same "ON" vs "OFF" overlay that you see while your weapons are drawn is always active, but when your weapons are sheathed there is another overlay on top indicating that you are not in the correct stance, which basically washes out the other one. But like you mentioned, it's not obvious and very difficult to see so we certainly need to improve this.

It would be nice to simply be able to initiate combat by using the skill from run around stance. I often do but the icon will be still faded when I fire it, eyeballing the range.

Most abilities should automatically put you into combat and auto-draw your weapons when hit (with a valid target). So this should already be happening? Or does it just not happen because you are out of range and the execution fails?