How many of you have tried WISH beta?

[Peaches]

I logged in, played all of five minutes, logged out, uninstalled the game.


Its definately not my cup of tea, the interface is useless. Point, click, you auto move, rinse and repeat. BLEH![|-)]

[Ishar Xhaan]

come on be objective please 5 minutes is not enough to say definitely an opinion, I however dont seem to appreciate it neither, but it has very good features
dont forget it is only beta logins are FAST as well as logouts, point and click SUCKS big time but heir pathfinding is really impressing, mobs do agro for no reason on very big radius, but the game is full of good ideas ( just like Hz some even seem to be copied directly ) the graphics are nice and game is running smoother than Hz on my computer ( not really top end athlon"2K" 512 DDR ATI 9K6) the skill system however sound a little strange but i only played 2 3 hours so far, i dont think this game will drain ppl from horizons anyways .

[Blue Hasia]

same for you peaches, hehe we think alike[:D]

[LaughingOtter]

I logged in, played all of five minutes, logged out, uninstalled the game.

Same here, except that my wife & I tried for about three hours before frustration, anger, and motion sickness got the better of us.

[Varangaard]

Since everyone's been talking about it, I gave it a whirl.

The very first impression is that characters don't look as good as in HZ. There's more customizability on faces though, with sliders instead of 6-15 (or so) choices HZ presents us with. For some reason it worked only on female toons though. Tutorial is just as impressive as in HZ. That is to say, not very.

The engine seems heavier and demanding more memory. I ended up turning off all the fancy stuff and reduced max distance quite a lot, but it eats - in towns especially - more FPS than HZ still (I am running ~2gig AMD with 9600pro and 512 memory). Not very encouraging.

The combat effects are -very- unsinspiring and/or nonexistent. Low FPS as mentioned above did not help much. The PnC movement interface is a pain compared to HZ's keyboard movement.

Finally, the client has serious stability issues. First try ended to a crash to desktop. Secodn attempt ended to a BSOD. Not even HZ has managed to BSOD me, and Wish does this in ~30 minutes. It reported some cryptic stuff about gfx-card related DLL files.

Crafting, from what little I managed to test it out, is very alike to HZ. Did not yet figure, nor had the time to figure (see BSOD, above) where to get more forms.

This all compounds to a mostly unplayable game. Who knows, the system might be good, but getting to test it out is the problem. Verdict:[N]

[HratLi]

I can't say much about gameplay (wife is using the one account we have activated and she won't let go ;) ), though I CAN say I've spent a lot of time on their forums since the activation this afternoon.

A few general thoughts:

1. Point and click, it's set in stone, and there WILL BE NO WASD Movement.It's awkward to me simply because I am an hard core FPS player,but will give it some time, it remindsme a lot of the diablo and RTS type control.

2.I was getting motion sickness too, but I finally found the control tuning settings. Turned down the edge sensitivity. All good after that. By defaultcamera flies around like a spastic sparrow in a hurricane.

3. The writing.... WOW.... uhh.... did I mention I was a big time lore/RP freak? (As if most of my suggestions didn't show it hehe) They do indeed have professional writers in their employ to spin a story in game and OUT OF GAME FICTION/LORE.

4. They have a DAILY newspaper recapping events and progressions in the world and the PC's actions.... I can't express how impressed I am with this. By reading the paper I am starting to see how the quest system and 'story' work.

5. The devs and world admins are HELLA active on the boards. Almost EVERY thread has at least one dev/admin post in it. Often several. They are expressive on their thoughts, plans, and what's going in when. Comments on things like low end Bow range got a comment and a bump in the attack range.

6. PATCH NOTES COME OUT BEFORE THE PATCH GOES LIVE.....

7. Patch notes contain LOTS of good details, down to the techie stuff of hows. IT'S COMPREHENSIVE.

I don't know how much of this is 'Beta' Zealousness on the part of the devs/admin, but if this keeps up I will be VERY impressed. The game is not perfect, lots still needs to be addressed, IT IS A BETA, and shows it, but from reading the dev's comments, patch notes, and forum in general... wow... They are listening and the beta comments really make a difference ::cough cough::.

Anyways, I havn't played much since wife has it in her grips, but I can say I'm impressed so far by the incidentals. Nice fluff like 9 emotes I've seen so far. An active dev/admin community, and excellent writing.

-HratLi

[Pharcellus]

Well, as far as BSoDs go, no application should ever cause a BSoD. Those are bad/buggy drivers which cause that problem. It is possible that the game is catalyzing the BSoD by making a malformed call to the driver, but ultimately, no application can be rightfully blamed for them. It is a serious security/integrity hole in the OS to allow an application to crash the system completely.

That said, applications DO cause a lot of BSoDs, but that is because they often ask drivers and the OS itself to do things the writers of the driver/OS kernel never imagined, and thus cause an kernel-mode exception (also know as a "kernel panic" in *nix) which brings the system to a halt. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the driver/OS developer to patch the holes in their code that allows an application to cause them to throw exceptions, but when we are talking Microsoft, you can bet that such responsibility is non-existent.

[Kulamata]

Tried it. Only briefly as servers are unstable. This is a set of technology solutions posing as a game.

The point and click interface is awkward, but needed to allow them to make the huge shards. And they have activated >30k beta testers as of day before yesterday, and will activate all 68K eventually. I think the priority is backwards on this. I, as a player, don't care if there are 5k, or 20K per shard, but Hz handles movement much much better. For point and click, Dungeon Siege did it as well as possible; Wish is (so far) clumsier than DS.

The combat interface will, I expect, be changed. As it stands now, there are no repeaters, so every swing rquires a mouse click.

Bows cannot be used up close, so it's one shot to pull, then out comes the sword. Each of these three issues is a fatal flaw for me.

Graphics are just not as good as Hz. And, no surprise here, the interface is not as good as Horizons'; but then whose is?

As noted above, the dev interaction is superb. Prompt, open, and frequent.

I read a fair amount of the out of game lore. Background story is fine, but the writer seems to feel that if an adjective is good, three big ones are better.

It is very early in beta, with the load testing sensibly coming early rather than late, and the load testing results seem amazingly good for this stage. The rate at which they fix crashes and increase the population is extraordinary. It might function as a haven if Hz does not pull through, but I cannot see myself leaving Hz for Wish.

[Pharcellus]

RE: Bow use in melee

Well, that's just a taste of realism. If you get engaged by an opponent in melee, and all you have is a bow, you will get creamed. Try boar-hunting with a bow sometime, staying on the ground to allow the boar to enter melee range with you, and demonstrate how effective you are with that self-same bow.[:)]

There's a reason bows are considered "ranged weapons", and not "melee weapons". Bows have pretty much always been support weapons, or initial attack weapons. You fire off a few shots, then drop them and pull out your sword. That, or you have someone keep them engaged in melee and you support-fire from outside of melee range.

There's a reason the phrase "I bash it with my bow!" is a joke in RPG circles. [:P]

[imported_Frith-Rae]

well all I'll say...

is that about 85% of what you guys are complaining about is exactly 1-why we're in beta 2-being worked on 3-being tweaked 4-being totally overhauled.

Except for PNC - although camera stuff is being tweaked :).

And if you didn't bother to read and post on the beta boards - well then..don't let the door hit ya' on the way out. Its beta - not play for free. And I would suggest if you're having such connection issues to post about them, lots have gotten help or at least been told "we're aware and its supose to do A, b, C, and we're working on it" (and from MR they really are!)

And its not even a complete beta - far from it. The game is 6-8 months before live and they are going back into development to work on most if not all of the things you guys are having problems with - along with tons of other stuff.

Which is why I warn people before they play, "this isn't a complete game, its not even close"

[Peaches]

The interface is what makes or breaks a game for me. I found it to be extremely uh, stupid, to put it bluntly. Its not my cup of tea, and afterall, it is ME that has to enjoy using that type of interface, not you. If that is your cup of tea, then please, go for it, meanwhile I am entitled to state my feelings on the matter and simply state , this type of interface is NOT for me.

[Susan]

Also tried it the last two days.... seems to be not the game for me. I hate the movement via PnC and the UI is also nothing for me.
Seems to be a very complex game, but I don't like it.

[LaughingOtter]

well all I'll say...

is that about 85% of what you guys are complaining about is exactly 1-why we're in beta 2-being worked on 3-being tweaked 4-being totally overhauled.

I think most of us are well aware of what a beta is. Fact is, I did not consider Wish to be very fun or very friendly. I found it frustrating and annoying to the point where I didn't care what changes they made, I wanted nothing more to do with it. I don't care to make myself that crazy.

[Gunnyr]

I have to say Peaches hit the nail right on the head here for me too. The interface isn't...hmmm what word am I looking for here...appealing...comfortable...sane...PnC definitely doesn't make for a good mmorpg.

Kulamata,
from what was posted in the devchats about the combat system I'm betting there won't be any repeaters. They mentioned wanting the combat system to be a "make every move/choice count" system where you would have to think before making your choices. While this seems like a good thing from hearing it, experiencing it is an entirely different story.

[Amerelium]

...I think it looks like crap - at least for now...

[Jaraiden]

I like it. Use a skill to learn that skill is just like my Dungeon Siege days (as in not sculpting tools to learn spellcrafting or tools in general for construction levels).

The PnC is hard though (maybe if I switch mouse buttons, so use to right clicking on objects).

Right now, the chat system is driving me crazy as I can't understand the options . . . so trial and error in that (with any feedback). Crafting is at a standstill until I get a mule and saddlebags (taming/charisma and finding a set to buy).

And the 3 apprentice limit helps with player to player interaction . . . one character can't do everything.

The graphics are nice, comparable to Horizons.

More importantly, the inventory/bank panels (inventory/vault windows) open fast. No apparent memory leak to slug video performance.

In summary, just like back in November 2004 . . . TulgAE has a lot of work to do if Wish still goes live in May 2005.

[HratLi]

Wow.... check out the main page for Wish... There is also a forum post, but I don't know if it's a hack or if it's authentic. It says Wish is canceled. Well... guess we'll see at 6PM if the server goes away or not. Crazy.

At any rate. I like the interaction and a lot of the trade that goes on. The balance for Crafter/Adventurer seems VERY well balanced.

Adventurers need gear, and they can loot/collect the components that crafters need. There is item decay, so things NEED to be repaired, and adventurers have the means to do so. Also Raw materials are 'harvested' or at least CAN be harvested from dead Mobs.

Mage require reagents, Archers need arrows, etc. The combat between classes seems nice. Also as mentioned before there is a 3 apprenticeship limit (and I assume 3 for Jman, and 3 for master), so you can only have up to 9 classes, 3 in each level. It encourages interactions for sure.

Want to make a Healing salve (poltice bandage)? You need a Jman harvester to get dandilion leaves, and a weaver for 5 cloth bandages.

Want to make an antidote potion? You need Foxglove (yourself or a harvester), and a glassblower to provide bottles. Etc...

I am sure a lot of the ideas could be used to enhance HZ if there were enough resources to go around.

-HratLi

[Corelleon]

I logged in, played all of five minutes, logged out, uninstalled the game.


Its definately not my cup of tea, the interface is useless. Point, click, you auto move, rinse and repeat. BLEH![img]/Web//emoticons/emotion-20.gif[/img]

Aye , same here. I hated the interface. Made character, saw its all point and click and logged out and uninstalled.

[Ishar Xhaan]

dont bother with it Wish is game over

[IndyMan]

I always thought WISH was the yuck. I have been in the last 3 beta's and have not been shy about telling people to run away as far as they can. At least they chose to shut down and get out of the market. At least they did not choose to milk foolish players out of their money with promioses of changes.