Hi~
I played on a fresh character for an hour or two this evening, using a new character and completing the first few quests. I happened to notice a lot of issues, mostly with the text, so I wanted to post them in one place. Sorry if most of these issues are already known or if there is an existing thread I should have used.
Text Issues
Fair warning: The majority of issues here are about commas missing, being unneeded, or comma splicing.
Randel
- The very first line in the game is, “I’m told to help you get your feet under you CHARACTER.” There should be a comma before the character name.
- When turning in the second quest (meet Sicilus/Darius), Randel uses “lets” instead of “let’s.”
- When turning in Randel’s kill quest, there should be a period after “Good.”
- When obtaining Randel’s crafting quest, there should be commas around “for the last task.”
- When obtaining Randel’s crafting quest, you could remove the word “also” and simply state “and the ingredients you’ll need to craft it.”
- When obtaining Randel’s crafting quest, the orange state should state “your compass” instead of “you compass.”
- When obtaining Randel’s crafting quest, he uses the phrase “3X” instead of “three times.” This is theoretically fine, but seems informal for dialog.
Sicilus
- The intro dialog says “won’t be” twice in a row when explaining the new monsters.
- The intro dialog has a comma splice after “if you want to know more.”
- The intro dialog has a comma splice after “see me again once you’ve completed more of my races.”
- The intro dialog ends with a “…”, but the previous message has “Continue” instead of text. Move the “…” to the end of the last sentence in the previous dialog, and then have that message end the dialog.
- In the Lost Memories dialog, a comma is not needed in “why, or how.”
- The sentence “Figure out where you’ve been hiding these last 20 years” sounds like a command. It should be joined to the previous sentence with a comma + “and”
- I believe there should be a comma after the phrase “if we can unlock my memories”
- The Lost Memories reminder text from Sicilus says “its not much help” instead of “it’s not much help”
Signs
- The player house sign says “Transmog gear and others”, but it makes more sense as “Transmog gear and more.” You may also want a comma here after “Transmog gear.”
- The Apprentice Smith sign says that weapons and armour take durability damage, but I believe a change was intended to remove weapon durability so that players would be able to receive loot as a ghost.
- The Portal Pillar sign faces the opposite direction of the way a player approaches it.
- The Portal Pillar sign mentions that spells can be added to the Journal, but does not tell you how to do so. The music that plays when you discover the Portal Pillar makes it seem like the other pillars may automatically add themselves to the notebook. I would add another bullet point explaining the rest of the runes can be added to the Journal by rubbing the book on them.
- The Portal Pillar’s first sentence should have a comma after the word “allowing.”
- The Portal Pillar’s second bullet point needs a comma after “once discovered.”
- “Recorded” makes more sense than “Captured” when referring to adding spells to the Journal on the Portal Pillar sign.
- “Market stalls are player owned and operated” needs a period at the end.
- The 3rd point has a comma splice at the phrase “through your player menu.”
- The first two points on the Dragon Emporium sign need periods at the end.
- The fourth point on the Dragon Emporium board needs a comma after both “and” and “always.”
Other Conversations
- The first conversion with Chef needs a comma after “No matter.”
- Darius says “when your reputation level two” instead of “you’re reputation level two” or “your reputation reaches level two.” This makes no sense with his initial dialog of being glad to see us again, especially since his later text says there is a new stranger. That other dialog also should have a period or comma after “Hmmph.”
- Helga’s introductory text says “How have you been.” instead of “How have you been?”
- Pierre Cern says he is a collector of “the creatures big and small which…”, which may want commas around “big and small.”
- The mayor says “Glad to see your return CHARACTER, these are dark times that lay ahead.” The comma should be moved to before CHARACTER, and the other clause should be its own sentence.
- Local says, “Fine day isn’t it” and has a comma splice. Replace the comma with a question mark.
- The Beginner Weapons Dealer does not have a Goodbye/Never Mind option.
Journal Pages
- Lost Memories Journal Page has a comma splice on “Sicilus lost her journal.”
- Lost Memories Journal Page states “last memory she has as” rather than “is.”
- Lost Memories Journal Page has a comma splice on “believes it may be there.”
- The Code of Conduct should use a colon instead of a semicolon after “including but not limited to.”
- The Code of Conduct should use “or other personal identifiers” instead of “and other personal identifiers.”
- The Code of Conduct may want an oxford comma after “discriminatory.”
- Compass page says “channel’s” instead of “channels.”
- Compass page says “a audible” instead of “an audible.”
- Compass page has comma splice after “pull the trigger with the hand holding the compass.”
- Dying page should not have a comma after “souls who are able to come back.”
- Player House page needs a space in “town ofHighsteppe.”
- Player House needs more words before “Dragon Breeding” and “Transmog station”, as otherwise the text implies that they are crafting tables.
- World PvP page should use “when you have World PvP on and die” instead of “World PvP on, when you die.”
- “But, can be a dangerous place” should be “But, it can be a dangerous place.”
- “There are Safe Areas around the area around graveyards and other areas” is a total mess. Maybe just make it “There are Safe Areas, such as Graveyards and the town of Highsteppe.” The use of “such as” will imply that others exist.
- “Do not have to have World PvP enabled” to “You don’t need to have World PvP enabled.”
- Warrior Tips needs period after “maximum damage”, “move your shield while attacking”, and “described on the next page in your journal.”
- The Warrior page has a period after the first block of text, but on none of the others.
- The Warrior page should have commas around “once highlighted.”
- Remove “an” in “an increased shield protection.”
- The Warrior Page does not explain Shield Bash or its Super.
- The Warrior Page does not explain what the combos do.
- The Ranger page should have “Charged shot is performed by” or simply “Performed by.”
- The Ranger page should have “Yellow Super bar” changed to “yellow Super Bar” or “yellow super bar.”
- The Ranger page should have a comma after “fills up.”
- The sentence with “and during this time you do” to something simpler. Perhaps the ending clauses could be “causing increased damage and faster ability recharge speed.”
- The Musketeer page should change “free Hand” to “free hand.”
- Several orbs have no cooldown notes.
- Lifewell should say “a healing area” rather than “an healing area.”
- The Musketeer page should have a period after “Ice Lance.”
- Scoundrel ability names are in blue, but the Ranger’s abilities are given larger text instead.
- Showing Off mentions a debuff but does not explain what the debuff does.
- Either remove “when used” or add commas to both sides of it in the Cards description.
- Several Scoundrel abilities do not have periods at the end of their explanations.
- Bard and Shaman have no ability information.
- The Bard, Shaman, and Paladin are the only classes that have a class description at the top of their classes.
- Half of the Paladin abilities have names, while the other half have images.
- Weapon Interface “indicates when class ability are off cooldown” to “when a class ability is” or “when class abilities are.”
Character Creation
These are mostly potential updates and feedback you’ve already received. I would say this is a low priority area, but it is unfortunately the very first thing a new player does, which makes it rather important from that perspective.
- The blue dots to adjust features should not be sticky items. In general, I think I would only want a sticky hold for something I am going to be holding for a long time, such as a Fishing Rod or the Harvester.
- Cannot view character from side without twisting my head and shifting my eyes. This makes it hard to get a gauge on what the character looks like when adjusting the chest.
- On the Oculus Rift, I have to hit a trigger button to select an item from a menu. On the character select screen, I would be expecting to press the X button (or the A button, if using my right hand). Once we get into the game, the trigger becomes more intuitive, because we can see that X is used to teleport, but I would expect new players to get confused and try it at least once.
- The highest blue dot seems like it may be for hair length, but instead turns us into Megamind. Similarly, there is no way to adjust the mouth, eyes, nose, or ears.
- The pointy ears remind me of elf ears, but are both thicker and shorter than I would expect from that kind of style.
- It would be nice to have bald, twintails, and a long braid as hair options. I feel like some of these were even in base Orbus, so I’m mostly just confused as to why they no longer exist.
- A darker blue and/or purple colour would be nice. I feel like I know several people with dark blue hair, but none with sky blue hair.
- I had a lot of trouble making the character’s face seem feminine, but that may have just been me not really understanding the science of facial shapes. It may be nice to have some kind of “default female.” My intuition was just to use thinner options, but it didn’t work out very well. I think I was looking for something a bit more rounded without looking fat, but the head overall seemed too large when I made the waist smaller. Maybe larger or rounder eyes, more eyelashes in the Eyes options, and a smaller mouth would help? The red lipstick mouth seemed off to me as well, but I can’t put my finger on it. Sorry that this piece can’t be more constructive. Speaking of round eyes, the oval eyes also looked kinda “dopey” to me. Is that the intended effect?
- My friend made a character and completely ignored the Discipline section. Looking at it myself, there’s zero information at all here. It’s hard to tell the Bard and Wizard apart, the Musketeer and the Scoundrel are just “big gun” and “small gun”, and there is no way to know what the Sword vs Hammer means. My default assumption here would be that the Hammer user is a two-handed fighter, based on other game experiences. One of the icons is also just a circle, which I assume must be the Shaman? However, it’s impossible to tell what it is supposed to be. One might even assume it’s the default Tank class.
- Skin tone is presented as a slider, but I didn’t seem to be able to click and drag left/right, like I could with the blue dots.
New Player In-Game Issues
These are potential issues with the tutorialization aspect of the game.
- There is a glowing object right next to the spawn area, but the player cannot interact with it. Based on old Orbus knowledge, it is a quest item that I need to pick up later, but it is one of the first things a new player may see, and it even has an “interact with me!” particle effect on it.
- My friend instinctively tried to harvest a mushroom with her hands before she went and got the quest. She thought it was very strange to be using a pickax to harvest them. I had a very similar reaction in the old Orbus the first time I saw someone harvest a pinecone. Perhaps letting some items be harvested naturally would help?
- When I pressed a trigger button while holding the compass, lightning effects began shooting out, but there was no indication of what this was or meant.
- I picked a Bard, and I did not seem to be able to deal AoE/passive damage to the Test Dummy. Any new player that happens to pick the class (and, with no text on the Discipline screen, assume this is roughly 1 in 8) is likely to find the dummy before any actual enemies.
- Speaking of the Bard, it is listed as an Advanced class by the Beginner Weapons dealer. However, players will have already picked a class by the time they get here, which is a bit late to be telling them. They can switch, and likely haven’t done much combat if any, but it’s still off.
- Similarly, Magical doesn’t really make sense with the grouping of Tank/DPS/Support. The Runemage is primarily a DPS class, and, at least in head-canon, I imagine Bards are using Magic to make their weapons be a combat instrument.
- The chef providing fishing rods is a definite “???” moment.
- Multiple NPCs will provide text along the lines of “Welcome back!” before the player is likely to find Sicilus and have the lore explained, which can lead to a…mysterious first 20 minutes. It may not be that bad if that’s what you’re going for.
- The chest in the Fellowship hall may be accessed by players who are not in a Fellowship and have never visited their house. This could lead to some confusion about whether it is private storage or a public dropbox.
- Level 1 players can wander into the dungeons before they ever fight a regular monster. Is there a way to block this off until they at least have a bit of experience?
- The Player House instructions tell you how to open a door, but you need to open a door to enter Highsteppe, making it a late tutorial. Could this point be moved to a new sign outside of Highsteppe, maybe?
Quest Issues
- Mission Seeker should have a line that says something like “head through the door near Randel to enter Highsteppe.” My friend’s character got a pop-up that showed them how to use a door, but my new character did not.
- There is no indication of how many creatures should be KOd for Bronze/Silver/Gold for Darius’ missions.
- When multiple missions are available and I select the one furthest on the left, the UI has the one of the right disappear. Instead, the one on the left should disappear and the others should visually move over.
Other
- One time, I grabbed my compass either immediately before or after entering a zone. The compass did not drop when I let go, and holding it upside down caused it to play the journal open animation repeatedly. I couldn’t reproduce this on my second attempt, though.
- I was able to clip through the steps next to Chef, the net next to Reporter, and the table next to Reporter. Talking to Reporter was actually somewhat difficult when I did not clip through the table, but moving around a bit and waving wildly worked.
- Tutorial pop-ups move when I rotate my head to the right, making them difficult to close. I am left-handed, so I have to reach across and cannot move my head to reduce the amount of space I need to move.
- The Infusions Specialist does not explain what infusions are. There is also not a sign explaining it next to the specialist.
- There is no visual difference between the 250 dram and 500 dram Pet Treats.
- Both Highsteppe map pages were empty.
- I obtained a page in my quest book when accepting Darius’ Vermin quest, but I did not obtain one when I accepted Sicilus’ dragon racing quest. I was able to complete the dragon racing quest without incident, though, even though no times were displayed on the leadeboard.
- I was able to obtain the Lost Memories quest, but the dialog button didn’t seem any different from before, leaving no real indication that talking to Sicilus would trigger a quest. Perhaps have the border turn Blue instead of Green when a quest is ready?
- Clicking the Sword icon in my Journal takes me to Safety Features instead of Warrior Tips.
- When completing Randel’s kill quest, there are many notifications about getting items. Would it be possible to shorten this to just one message per type of item, or even ideally say “X Roto Spores”?