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[arnienet]

                    

Hello All,

Just to let you all know that the 1st game play alpha for Dawn World Online is out now.

A closed alpha test has been completed with many bugs already fixed, so now I would like to invite and welcome a wider audience of alpha testers for feedback

[EDIT]
The main concept of Dawn World is that it should be a true MMO, that is it is driven mainly by player interaction. In this way the skill paths are not constricted and you will be able to choose which way your avatar develops with out any artificial restrictions. The key planned components are: the obligatory skills/leveling, trading (locally/internationally), trade building, business building, empire building, missions/quest solving, village and town building and local/regional/neighbouring government issues. In short to provide a rich and diverse game world where players interactions will have a direct effect on the game world. No one player will be able to do everything, but they will be able to freely choose what they want to do and when, and choose by their actions how much affect they have on the world around them. The concept is also intended to grow with the community.

There is a youtube channel at: http://www.youtube.com/user/dawnworldonline with video tutorials showing the game play concepts. Any constructive criticism in keeping with the main concept will be most welcome.

If you would like to try out the game as is, just go to http://www.dawn-world.com/Forum/ and sign up for an account and PM me (arnienet), I'll set up a game account for you, and you can find install details at http://www.dawn-world.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=862. There is of course also a website at: http://www.dawn-world.com

The game is just at the real starting point now with a lot of the effort having been put into the game play elements and server code, but I think there's enough to get the ball rolling now. I suspect there will be some minor server problems to start with as although the server performed well in the closed alpha, it hasn't really been stress tested yet, so please bear with me on that one. The graphics will also steadily improve along with website and forum look and feel during the alpha and beta stages.

So I look forward to any interest in the concept. I'm particularly interested in feedback on the general concept and game play, along with any server issues, and hope the game meets with some approval,

cheers.

[ghostwheel]

I'm sure a great amount of work has been put into the coding and it looks like things are working fairly smoothly.

However, conceptually it seems extremely vague. What I gathered is that you're a normal guy in a somewhat realistic pre-industrial world. Maybe I'm not the person this is aimed at but I can't say I find that terribly compelling. I think you're going to have to spend more time and thought into giving people a reason to play this. I doubt "some dude wandering the realistic medieval countryside" will draw many players. Even Mount & Blade, for all it's realistic battle simulation, has drama. Raising an army and battling enemies, taking on quests for your liege. We wander in a post-industrial world and real life is actually pretty boring. You take out all the fantasy, lore, history and such and you're left with all the dull daily stuff we deal with in real life. What fun is that?

You need a hook. You need some drama.

And work on those graphics.

[arnienet]

Yes, good points and thanks for the feedback,

One of the alpha testers pointed out that I hadn't really explained the plot properly in the post, and perhaps the website isn't clear enough, so I will sort that out too. There is a lot of discussion on the game forum on how the project is intended to be player driven also, together with member's ideas.

The aim of the game is to build your character for three main reasons:

1) For personal satisfaction and accomplishment
2) To have a positive influence in the game world, as there is intended to be a good degree of social and world interaction between the players.
3) As the fantasy element is removed, and the game is more realistic, the aim is for the player to gain experiences through the game play, which can make the real world more interesting to them, showing them they could have a positive influence on the environment around them.

So for example if you build up a business and village and reach a position of responsibility, your decisions will affect the environment and players around you. They in turn can choose to agree, disagree, take action, set up in competition with you or move on depending on the situation. For example, real world monopolies (of which there are many) can be broken by people just voting with their feet, but people tend not to for many reasons, mainly lack of unity. Playing Dawn world could show people that if you stand together and do what's best, everyone benefits.

It is intended that you could in fact act out your goals in an environment that would be more fair than the real world, and in turn learn how to make them happen in the real world. And if we introduced real currency exchanges, you could perhaps have a successful business.

So the alpha is very much just the beginning of the game play development, mainly to test the server and environmental interaction. and the concept will continue to grow.

Thanks for the nod to amount of hard work that has gone into the game so far, you are right there has been a lot. Regarding the graphics, I agree with you and on the game forum there are details of improved graphics that will be introduced shortly. I realise that many people expect stunning graphics these days, but I've always preferred game play over graphics and you have to launch an alpha at some stage, otherwise it'll go straight into beta   , however there is as you say room for improvement which will happen shortly

[bart_the_13th]

The concept is good, but I dont know what is wrong, the frame rate looks bad(in the video at least) Maybe decreasing the view range and hide the visible border with fog will fix it.
Yes, I agree about the gameplay over graphic but from the video, I cant find the gameplay, will it be like GTA free styled game or will it be Final Fantasy epic styled game?
Since there arent many player playing, how about adding some NPC or maybe bots to spice up the game?

[arnienet]

Thanks about the concept, I think I should also explain it a little more (I'll edit the original post).

The video was recorded at 15 fps and perhaps I should up the next ones to 30fps for smoothness. The actual game runs at between 120 and 160fps in windowed (1024x768), and about 100 to 147fps in full screen mode (1280x900) on a nVidia 8600GT/512mb/128bit. Frame smoothness is particularly important to me and once more detailed graphics and shadows are introduced the fps should only drop by 25-35%.

I agree also about not being able to find the game play. The real concept is that Dawn World should be a real MMO game, driven by the community, where player actions will have a real impact on the world. Although primarily the game was meant to be trade driven and the videos show details of character building / leveling, crafting, resource gathering, trading and fast travel between towns, it will be the real interaction between players which will build Dawn. This of course will need a kick start from NPCs (as you say )and there will be more added in due time. I think once world missions have been finished off and the village/town building module has been introduced, Dawn should become more interesting to play.