FEEDBACK - almost enjoyed it.

[single player]

Alright, here's my two cents after finishing the game.

1. Talk about a dungeon crawler!
Walking speed is the most crucial thing to fix right NOW. And I do not want to hear a thing about my PC (macintosh G4, OS 10.4) being too old. I was able to play Diablo II at full speed on it - and this here should have a lot less memory requirements. Developers, get to it right away or this will kill your otherwise interesting project. No more excuses, just deliver!

2. General impression:
Nice concept, neat game. Combat is interesting. I played a mixed warrior and ranger with divination buffs: Boost my stats, whittle incoming baddies down with my bow and finish them off with cleaving weapons (if they made it all the way to me.) The formula is just right: Main story, side quests, travel around, cities with NPC's and shops. A bit short, but neat. All in all a good and successfull old-style RPG, which we all miss so dearly.

I have no problem with turn-based combat - I prefer it to real time.
Some minor balance issues, but that's just a matter of fine-tuning. I'd arrange for twice as much level-ups within the game and offset this by making monster successively harder and in greater groups. (Goblin hackers, 55exp, right in the end game? Puulease)

3. Not so good.
I'm male, but I prefer playing female characters, just because when you have to stare at your character for endless hours, you'd like to have something to stare at. I realize it's more work for you guys, but hey, get to it.
What irks me most is the finite number of monsters (camp surprises excluded). I like to go farming for exp and loot, because I like to face whatever comes next over-levelled and build up a Ãœber-character before I end the game. Here I just have to move on and finish once there is nothing left in an area. While we're at it (more work), there are not nearly enough different monster types in the game.
One of the most fun parts of an RPG is to get new and better stuff for your character and build him up the way you planned it. This excitement is a little bit subdued in E.B1. There's just not enough variety in the equipment to get collectors excited about it. Maybe with randomly generated skill and stat boosts you could get more fun into it. Who has the time to imbue his stuff anyway?

4. Party time!
Pary of four or five would be much more interesting to manage and to play with.

[BasiliskWrangler]

single player: what is your "performance rating", displayed in the Options Menu? Are you getting numbers higher than 16? I wonder if you are getting poor performance and that is making the game seem slower to you than it really is. If your performance rating is in the red, try switching to 16-bit color and see if that helps, or select "Low Detail" from the Options menu.

We are working on optimizing the engine more, but it's a big project and will take some time.

[Slarty]

I find it confusing that every time someone says the walking speed is slow, the first response is to check the performance rating. Let's face it: even with a low (good) rating, the walking speed is slow. It's slow compared to any other RPG out there. It may be a legitimate and reasonable speed, but that doesn't change the fact that it is a slow speed.

[BasiliskWrangler]

Slarty: one of his poll options is: "No I do not! I love to slay spiders in hyper slow-mo". This to me suggests he is having performance issues, not just that his opinion of walking is that it's too slow. The PowerPC Mac we have here in the studio is old and yes the character walks in slow-motion, especially in town. There is nothing I can to if you choose to run the game on hardware that is at or below the minimum system requirements, and comparing Diablo's engine to Eschalon's is like asking "why is a banana yellow and an apple red when they are both fruit?"

We are working on improving engine speed right now. Also, walking speed will increase a bit in Book II, and there will be more Quick Travel zones as well. As for "running"... I don't know yet, and I can tell you it is very low on the list. It just isn't necessary in this type of turn-based game.

Also, there will be no "running" patch for Book I- the amount of re-engineering of the animation system would be too great. I've mentioned this in several other posts already.

[dalamber]

I must add that "size matters". When playing in fullscreen mode, one step is several times greater depending on your monitor size, so speed almost always appears to be good

Although I actually had some light performance issues on my office workstation(P4 2,4 GHz with a gig of RAM), so optimisation sure won't hurt!

[Rune_74]

I would just like to point out, this poll seems very "substandard". Usually when you ask for things or would like things looked at you ask in a general less insulting way. Personally, I'm surprised you even got a response with the way you worded things. I have no problem with you listing things you felt wrong with things, just in the way you executed it.

[JOG]

I find it confusing that every time someone says the walking speed is slow, the first response is to check the performance rating. Let's face it: even with a low (good) rating, the walking speed is slow.

Performance 2-3 with Directx here and the walking speed is just fine. It shouldn't be much faster for that kind of control to be still playable, and it shouldn't be much faster for the animations not looking ridiculous.

It's slow compared to any other RPG out there. It may be a legitimate and reasonable speed, but that doesn't change the fact that it is a slow speed.

You can't compare it with today's fast-paced action RPGs that constantly have your character running around. It's about the same speed as Ultima6+7, Magic Candle, Dark Sun, Fallout, BG, PS:T etc. (When played on the high-end machines of their release-time...) Of course a lot of those games have haste-spells or running-modes, but most of them are also using a pathfinding-point&click system.

Ultima 7 is a good example of what happens when you add a flexible movement-speed to a point-at-direction system: more often than not you ran past your intended target. So when you're asking for faster movement do yourself a favor and ask for pathfinding-point&click controls as well.

[single player]

Basilisk Wrangler, I already tried everything mentioned on the support board to speed things up. Did not work. And yes, my system and all my thingamagicks are updated. I'm afraid this is not a hardware problem, but something rather strange and disturbing in your code.

By the way, normal walk rate is okay by me. It's just when light sources or NPC's are thrown into the mix that everything goes sooooo slllllooooooooow...

Rune-guy: Yes, this poll is aggressively worded. Perhaps if you would have to watch flames burn up at infintesimely small rates every time you throw a demon oil, you'd understand. Be glad you are not afflicted by this.

So let's be more positive. Eschalon is a great platform for a turn-based RPG, it really is. Beyond of what it is as of now, the potential of the project is extraordinary. It even could be great, with more time and care and some additional seasoning. But all this will awail to exactly nothing if this ONE, GIGANTIC FLAW, which is ruining everything else, is not addressed and fixed ASAP. How many users, think you, will try the demo and then decide that, hey, they did not need such a tedious exercise in staring at immobile pixels. I almost did - I'm glad I did not follow up on my initial to abort the experiment: I was just too starved of decent RPG-fare, as it was, so I gave it a chance. This is decent fare, yes. Now to get rid of that annoying aftertaste...

Hence my choice of challenging words. Gotta keep the pressure up.

[single player]

Me again, brief after-thought: Perhaps the problem, it is a performance problem, is due to the fact that the game is made for Windows, Unix and Macintosh plattforms. Wouldn't be the first time us Mac folks get the snotty end of the bargain due to our minority status.
I do so hope this isn't the case.... if it were, though, I wouldn't be surprised.

[Necromis]

Single player you still fail to provide any information for BW to be able to analyze your performance issues. Did you ever think it might not be the game but that you have a Mac on the low end to run the high end game? Give up some details to be helped rather than crying poor me.

[single player]

Necromis: The exact problem, and a possible solution, are best described in the third post of the mac support forum "disappointingly slow". Sorry, I don't know how to add a link for that post in here.
That's what the problem is, apparently. And in six months, nothing was done?

[kwokkie]

Single Player, it was mentioned somewhere in these forums that EB1 is written in a somewhat higher level language. The convenience a high level of abstraction is often paid for in a lower performance. For an extreme example, try playing a simple Flash-based game on something less than a 1GHz machine.
I'm guessing something similar is going on with EB1.

[single player]

Kwokkie, two notions about your contribution:

One: there are system requirements for all applications. Users check them out to see if they can run the application at all. If they are met, as with me and my Mac, I expect a smooth performance for my money.

Two: What is the point of a higher-level language for what essentially is a rather low-tech app? Surely it cannot be the graphic design, which is appropriate for this kind of game, but certainly not mindboggingly delightful or memory consuming. I'm no coder, so there might be an advantage to a higher-level language, but to me this comes accross as hiring a stretch limo only to drive to the grocery store around the corner.

[kwokkie]

About your first comment:
There is a demo available, so you knew more or less what you paid for. Performance of the demo and full version should be the same, so complaining about it afterwards seems a bit silly to me.

About the second:
Faster development. A high level of abstraction means that you do not need to concern yourself with a lot of details, but because these details are often not accessible to the programmer, you cannot optimize your code at that level.
If you want an analogy, it's more like taking a bus instead of driving a car yourself.

[kwokkie]

By the way, I have no experience with the programming language EB1 is written in, so a lot of what I said may or may not apply here. I was talking about high-level programming in general.