Any type of death penalty I'm okay with, as long as I don't lose my equipments in the process.. Imagine questing for a month trying to make the sword of your dreams then .. you make a mistake,  lag, or get distracted and BAM! a month's work down the sink... Not a pretty experience. Now if that happened as a roleplay aspect, I can live with that, but I'm not up to recreating all my gear every time I die..

Trust me it was far from a cure all in 10 minutes, it lasted for over a year and every time we thought it was contained it spread again as there was no way to tell right away if someone is sick, they got slight reduce in a random stat for a few minutes and they knew they were sick only then. Even it wasn't crippling some people just panic at the thought of a penalty that they didn't deserve or have a direct hand in causing.

Now this could work if it was purely cosmetic like some special animation every now and then like coughing or something or a part of a quest where you get a disease , get stat reduction, do a quest and at the end it grants you immunity and that's that. But personally, I would keep to my reflected world and avoid socializing if that meant catching a disease from a random stranger that hinders my process in any way.. Some times that last 1 HP is the difference between winning and losing a fight and there is nothing you could do strategy wise to avoid it or prevent it but to cut off socializing.

I've played a game where there was an event that spread a disease, and you caught that when a sick person talked in public (people hearing what they are saying would get it) and if a sick person talked in private, performed actions or traded with another player.. It got out of hand and turned into a pandemic that became too hard to contain. People stopped wanting to talk to each other, many essential activities in game stopped and people just kept to their apartments. The herb needed to cure the disease became overharvested, and people stopped creating cooking recipes that used that herb. It was a community process to cure it, and it frustrated the elders when a newbie joined and just spread it again.. Nice concept, too risky for an MMO.

Originally posted by Sandbagger

1) Are there enough of us?  Meaning, people like me, who want more from a game.   People who want cooperative intriguing adventures with serious depth to the story?   I'm so tired of mindless killing, (I'm all for combat... lots and with serious consequences and good strategy).  I just want a point to the battles, not just "I got 50 EXP, 20 gold and a dagger".   The question is, with all the people playing games like WoW, and being used to that kind of game, will this game be too different?   Will people not play it because you have to actually think and follow a story? Are players afraid of change?

You are right to ask such a question, and yes people ARE afraid of change, and there are many aspects to consider. Casual gamers are usually people who have a busy life or simply don't have a "gamer's mindset" and won't play a game if it needs a lot of work, most games nowdays are dumped down for this group of people because it's the largest player base. In the past only those who actually liked games played them, now almost everyone does. From what I've seen so far the city area will provide something to do for these people like the hangout places and mini games that they can engage in when they don't have much time to spare, if they put enough work into mini-games, the mini quests that can be started and finished in a relatively short amount of time, and lots of social elements (clothes, emotions,the theater, the bath, and lots of other areas discussed before)  they'll win a good portion of this group.

Another aspect would be the target age group, most MMO's are played by mainstream younger teenagers who like to compete amongst each other for levels/equips/PvP skills. This group will want the destination not the road, they usually hate to read and if they have to do quests they'll skip the story, read the requirements, and jump right into the grind looking for 10 rats to kill. Its a little harder to gain (read keep, because most of them would try anything new) but I also recall you can go out trapping monsters or hunting bounties or competing against each other in the arena but they will feel crippled for not being able to get instant crating or character development. Good news is, some of these people might eventually (even secretly) ease into this type of game but it will take time..

Now about those who don't like to play the hero, who prefer to lay low randomly doing professions comfortable in their own daily routines and do minimal fighting, this group will need to look for a different game because this one has a different outlook on crafting and does not have the routine other games can have, it's constantly changing, constantly developing, the world is alive! Well, you can't please everyone (and you shouldn't try).

Those are just a few examples of the biggest market groups that might have a problem getting involved. My personal expectations, in the beginning many will try it out, some will quit, those who don't will form a loyal group that will continue supporting the game forming a greater attachment to it than cookie cutter games who can lose loyal customers the minute a new cookie cutter game with cooler graphics comes out. With time it might gain more and more loyal customers so even if it doesn't start big it will start stable and gradually grow throughout the upcoming years.

Edit: I have noticed that kind of attachment (although entirely different in style and gameplay, more for those who prefer professions and routine as it has no combat at all) in a game called a tale in the desert, even if it's not big you can see the same people paying for the game year after year even though those who can't handle it try it out then quit, those who like it are extremely loyal forming a solid base. and the average age is relatively high. A huge part in their success was providing what no other game can provide for a specific group of people (CoS does that providing truly engaging personal adventure for adventure lovers that no other game can provide and it's an even bigger group than profession lovers) another part is their excellent communication with the player base which I see a strong point in CoS as well so far (I hope it continues that way).

Originally posted by DkLadyKitara

All my friend will tell me is 'Soon'... the bastard..

 

Trust me I feel you! Woman curiousity is a tough beast to tame!

Great! I feel flattered and can't wait to see more and more art I wish patience was one of my virtues when I get excited about something.

As for the race the game is more of a life story, life stories have successes and failures, or even little quirks of bad luck which I think would be fun and add to the unpredictability. I don't even mind failing because rather than losing in a game it would feel more like an event in my hero's life.

Personally I don't like everything to go as I have planned all the time and being plain unlucky is fairly realistic. I would invite such a race to my group, hell! I would even make a character of this race because I find it interesting. But that of course depends what tributes other races have.

Are you allowd to share some other tributes? even without specifying races, just quick headlines. My curiousity monkey just won't sit still.

Oh I'm totally aware it's concept art, I just really like the way the artist visualizes the characters and gives them a personality.

Has anyone noticed the art direction on the lower left of every page?

I for one never noticed before, and when I decided to re-read the lore page again something suddenly struck me! The art is pretty good! It's original and different and has personality! This was the art that made me revisit each and every page on the website again, notice how it has personality, the cold expressions on her face, the colors shadows and proportions.. it all fits too well

Here is another one, it has a surreal feel to it and something just draws me to it.. The orange aura just adds to the feeling you get from it

A third one with a unique art direction, notice the sketches on top of the painting. Leaving them there gives a unique and an original feel.

I'd say well done! Continue working with this artist. What do you think? have you enjoyed it as much as I did?

To keep everyone informed and so this forum doesn't die I'm quoting the latest update here. What does everyone think of the newest developments?

April progress
20 April 2009

* As stated in the previous post, we're in a long development cycle right now. However, here is a little information on what is happening on CoS.

1) The new client update system is working well now. We're going to be adding the 'news' system to it in the near future. This is a daily newspaper that comes out telling players what is happening in the game world today, and what transpired yesterday. What towns fell, or were liberated. What players did, what guilds were formed, what new offensive Morphael is rumored to be planning, etc. Players can read this while they wait for any file updates, this way they know what is happening before they get into the world. Right now programming is adding the news display system to the client updater. Later the news generation system will be worked on as well.

2) Art is working on several areas. We're creating the structures for the first questing territory, villages, towns, forts, castles, ruins, towers, etc. In addition work continues on the Citadel as well, adding some headquarters for the strange 'commanders' of the Citadel forces. We haven't released information on these nasty guys that you work for as a player, but we will down the road. We've also started modeling some of the commanders as well.

3) Level building is eagerly awaiting Enact. Though the tool is working, it has not been turned over to them for use as design and programming work out some of the issues with this new piece of technology. However, we expect to give it to them in the next few days.

4) Design continues to expand the player Abilities and will do so for month to come. In addition a new element of the game is under design, the Spirit World. More on that later.

5) Quest writing goes on, the system is now generally in place and we just continue to fine tune it and add more content to the system.

6) New team members! We added two new people to the team (one quest writer and one artist, a modeler/texturer). We have also added three new interns recently, one to Level Building and two to Quest Writing. They are learning the ropes still, and we hope to get them up to speed soon. Of the previous round of Interns,five made it through to the second internship (a one year stint).

7) The new game, update and database servers have run into some hardware snags, but we should have the new systems up and running soon. We got a couple of bad pieces of hardware, but should have the replacements back soon. This is a necessary upgrade so that we can stress test the game with larger groups of players later this year. We need to get these new servers up and running so that the testing phase can happen on schedule. No, we're not signing up testers yet, though we have been compiling a list of people who want to be notified when that time approaches.
 

Originally posted by mike470

It would all be voulantary too, cause the #1 fanboi doesn't need money!

Sorry for the necromancy, but they have just gained their first #1 fangirl

Thank you alot, this has cleared up a lot of haze i had about CoS.

I see you have excellent communication with players (potential players at this point), this can't be praised enough!

Please don't give up gamers' dream can and will come true

Originally posted by Jatar

 I've seen one of those Google translations of it, but that's pretty rough and hard to understand.

I could offer you human translation if you point me to that magazine web page. Russian is one of the languages I speak.

About the combat, how fast paced is it?

It happened to me on a few games that I would get a phone call, or a family member would enter the room to ask me something and during those few seconds I would look at the screen and find myself dead (or very close to dying that I can't be saved).

I am not the kind that would just spam the same spells on the same target but at the same time I hope this won't become the type of game that would force me to do just that because I don't have enough room to think about my next move. That said, I also don't want to be waiting too long between spell casts that it becomes a waiting game.

Have you reached a comfortable balance between the two extremes in CoS?

Originally posted by firesnake77

But you just asked a bunch of questions....

Do you see me pulling out my money yet? :p

This is a HUGE plus for me. In addition to being unique and fun it also indirectly gets rid of the problem of bot companies farming game currencies. Finally a game that has an effective core content to limit that kind of behavior instead of constant battles and anti-bot measures that hinder the players' experience.

I've found this game when I was very bored with MMORPG's I'm playing, to the extent where I downloaded 7 MMO's in 3 days and spent a big amount of money during the last year trying to find something that's not a copy of everything else. It was a website that listed a number of games including those still in development. After I exhausted all the categories literally opening every single game website they had to offer in search for something different I decided to check what to expect from games soon to come and stumbled upon this!

I was amazed and surprised that the promises hold most of what I usually daydream about in an online role playing game. I have read (and re-read) each and every section of this game's website, I even went mental opening the dev's log every 10 minutes to see if there is another update acting like a kid waiting for her christmas present (and I'm 28).

The sample quest on the website got me involved and I felt like I was a part of that story even though I wasn't directly. When I saw the news dated back to 2005 I was a bit concerned that it could be an abandoned project trying to come back to life, but then when I followed the dev log from start to end I saw there was ongoing serious work and no considerable time cuts to endicate devs are giving up, they even report problems they are facing as the project continues to evolve while tweaking and designing their own set of game creation tools. Also noticed available job positions and team growing, and focusing on the right things at the right time instead of building the roof before the foundation is solid or getting lost in unimportant - at this point - details. Add to that not going to a publisher yet which allows fine-tuning of the project before it's rushed into a deadline.

In short I have seen a group of dedicated and highly organized people doing things right while having fun at the same time (the holiday event) instead of some bored devs just wanting to get by and get it done. That means they are worthy of my trust.

Now that said, a few things remain unclear to me and a few remarks :

If you can take part in someone else's quest, how is it going to affect your personal story? Specially if you have a NPC as an enemy but that person has them as a friend? Will the NPC refuse to help the group because you are in it? Or will you be like "disguised" and NPC doesn't notice you but remain your enemy? Or will they become friendlier after you have helped them through this group quest?

Same as above, if NPC's do die (which I think might present a whole lot of logical errors in group questing), will you be banned from participating in a quest that involves that NPC being alive?

If the world is as large as stated won't it be "burren" and lonely during regular hunts with players scattered all over the globe?

Is grouping up for regular hunts (not quests) possible?

If the monsters don't "pop" right back does that mean you would have to run far distances to find them after other players have killed every single monster in that area?

If you are not likely to find the same enemy in the same area how would you know where to hunt and find enemies that suit your current abilities?

It has been stated that the publisher will decide how this game gets published, which worries me a bit because if the publisher decides with selling it as a hard copy only (due to the large size) chances are it's not going to be available in my country and I'm not going to be able to play it unless it's also available through direct download online purchase. And trust me, for a game that's going to set a whole new standard for online gaming you have my paycheck no questions asked.