first impressions

[krest]

Greetings all - had a play for 30 mins yesterday and noticed several things.

Starting at any level other than level 1 seems that you miss the best levels in the game. Unsure why level 3 is the starting point in this realm.

Starting with 1000 gold seems strange since i'm a lowbie scout - it would take you until level 10 odd to amass this much wealth! surely a generous 30 gold would be more than enough?

The lag myself and a friend witnesses could only be described as catastrophic. My friend left after the first encounter where he cast 3 spells but nothing happened for around 30 seconds!

I fought on and the lag was an `acceptable' 1-2 seconds until entering a cave i was fighting several beasts and then it spiked again to 15-20 seconds!

Obviously someone is aware of the problem as there were (lag test) messages now and again but is this common and what is the reason and are there any plans in sorting it as at the moment the world is unplayable!

[Feydakin]

Greetings all - had a play for 30 mins yesterday and noticed several things.

Starting at any level other than level 1 seems that you miss the best levels in the game. Unsure why level 3 is the starting point in this realm.

Levels one 1 and two are by most considered to be "uneven". As a wizard, you will find that one crossbow bolt is enough to kill you, and the spells you have available are very few. This goes for many classes. Sundren has chosen to skip this section by choice.

Starting with 1000 gold seems strange since i'm a lowbie scout - it would take you until level 10 odd to amass this much wealth! surely a generous 30 gold would be more than enough?

Gold is hard to come by in Sundren. A generous starting amount is needed to get started and to find those pieces of equipment that you need. Healing potions and other consumable material is quite necessary. Thus, a larger starting sum will allow players to stock up more on what they need to survive, and even the playing field a little.

The lag myself and a friend witnesses could only be described as catastrophic. My friend left after the first encounter where he cast 3 spells but nothing happened for around 30 seconds!

The lag appears to have deepened after the latest content update. Be assured that the staff is working to correct this problem.
In the meanwhile, please read up on what you can do to help with lag. Avoiding WASD keys is a good way to help Sundren stay lag-free.

I fought on and the lag was an `acceptable' 1-2 seconds until entering a cave i was fighting several beasts and then it spiked again to 15-20 seconds!

As before.

Obviously someone is aware of the problem as there were (lag test) messages now and again but is this common and what is the reason and are there any plans in sorting it as at the moment the world is unplayable!

The lag is a top priority for the Sundren staff. Saulus and GodBeastX are testing every way they can think of to reduce lag. In fact, a large part of the lag-reduction information available to Obsidian has been gathered by those two.

At the moment, these two are buried kneedeep in trx and 2da, sorting through and looking for the smallest glitch that would cause undue lag.

[Aux]

Hmmm odd that, im in uk and have had alot of lag free gaming here recently- since the update and beta patch- and thats with full party.

On the gold thing.. if you dont want it dont spend it.. ill have it

Low level adventuring is fun, keeps it real eh, but ive found that its far too easy to spend more time waiting for a respawn than playing on alot of PW's when your wandering around at lvl 1. I personaly dont know why they start you at lvl 3 here, but i see it as your character having a little bit of experience under your belt.

[Ithildur]

To the OP:

points 1 and 2 are opinions, not observations. Opinion 1 I could share to some degree with; I usually like starting at lvl 1; it's a challenge and that much more meaningful when you survive and make it to the lvls beyond and separates the men from the boys to some extent. But lvl 3 isn't too unreasonable; other servers start you off even higher.


point 2, hmm... well the DMG i believe stipulates that 3000gp would be about average wealth for a lvl 3 adventurer... so I have no idea where you're basing this opinion on. 30 gp for a lvl 3 character? sure, if that lvl 3 character was just robbed by lvl6 bandits I suppose. As someone already mentioned, you can give the gold away if you really want a vow of poverty style pc.

the lag issues, obviously, are being worked on, eh? There are capable and talented people on staff- it will be worked out.

[Saulus]

I'll make a point that most lag issues are out of our control. Even with our high-end server the bugs in the game can sometimes flood clients and cause delays.

There are many reasons why this can happen, and many contributors (IE people with slow internet connections)... If you hate the lag as much as us, then keep up on our tips and policies both on our forums and on the Obsidian forums to help reduce the lag, because most of it falls on our players to do.

As for everything else? Well, to each their own. Everyone is entitled to their opinion , that's why we have a forum.

[undeadsteak]

O_o... Uhh, hi ithildur!

First off, i love the "I played for 30 minutes and the impressions are not good." Yeah, thirty minutes isnt quite a long time....


1. Starting off at level one, as stated before, gets you killed by a single crossbolt. I doubt we even have Areas for level ones, and it'd be stupid... What would you kill? Rats? >_>.

2. As Feydakin said... Its pretty much for equipment and all, you can simply pretend you had all this junk before coming to Sundren..

3. The lag is usually light now, and it doesnt appear much. Avoid WSAD OR click N Drag.

[Kaybrie]

1. Starting off at level one, as stated before, gets you killed by a single crossbolt. I doubt we even have Areas for level ones, and it'd be stupid... What would you kill? Rats? >_>.

I don't know, almost any human NPC that would exist in a standard campaign setting? *Rants for a bit on how a level 1 class character is actually significant in standing in most worlds before wandering off again.*

[krest]

Seems that i've created a storm

Which wasn't my intention- only to give a few views from a newbie to the realm. The fact i posted after only 30 mins was due to the lag - normally i would base my opinion on at least several hrs of playing but this simply could not be done and the DMG of 3000g for a 3rd lvl sounds like its for 5 year olds who want good kit to start with and cba playing and building the char up from scratch, which lets face it is much more fun than having everything handed to you on a plate.
(indeed why not go the whole way and give out a nice new shiny +5 weapon with each new character )


Ahh well - will keep playing now and again and post any further findings...

[Venture]

theres also the totally viable option of not taking your free levels at the start, throw he gold in a trash can, then level up when you feel your character deserves to hit the next level, nobody is putting a gun to anyones head to take those levels right away. personally I hate levels 1-3 so It's a big perk for me.

[GodBeastX]

I recommended level 3 for a simple reason. Weapon Finess. That's the only reason we start level 3. I don't know why they decided to make all dex based classes unable to attack anything until level 3 (Especially after Kasso's rant). It encourages diversity in classes if people don't give up from dying over and over because their characters are weaker.

Warlocks will start at level 0 soon if I have my way, however

[Kaybrie]

Which wasn't my intention- only to give a few views from a newbie to the realm. The fact i posted after only 30 mins was due to the lag - normally i would base my opinion on at least several hrs of playing but this simply could not be done and the DMG of 3000g for a 3rd lvl sounds like its for 5 year olds who want good kit to start with and cba playing and building the char up from scratch, which lets face it is much more fun than having everything handed to you on a plate.

Eheheh... Alright, what the hell? In the grand scheme of things for a peasant 3000 gold is enough for them to kick it easy for the rest of their lives and live in a wealthy home in good conditions... For an adventurer? That covers the cost of their armor, a couple high quality weapons, and maybe a magical gizmo (Not even a really helpful thing, but some trinket that may occasionally come in handy in the life of an adventurer.) Obviously, you play far too much world of warcraft to consider 3000 gold a significant amount, oh and that +5 weapon? In typical DnD terms what's the enchantment alone worth? like 50,000? Great compare and contrast. (1000 gold = 50,000 gold in the form of an ultra-rare and unique weapon.)

[Raksha]

It's also worth noting that currently, unless you're not picky about base weapon type, you can't even buy a +1 weapon in stores. Everyone "ooohs" and "aaahs" at a character that I know who was lucky enough to find one that did 1 sonic damage.

Thus, Sundren's compromise is to allow a character to buy decent mundane gear so as no to die horribly over and over, while still heavily restricting the abundance of heavy magical stuff. To me, that's a great deal, because I really don't like the rat-killing grind as a way to get a character to the point where they have some tactical options.

Kasso's entirely right; from the standpoint of the world, a level 1 PC is exceptional. But the game is scaled entirely for exceptional people up to level 20 and beyond, and in the game your exceptional level 1 PC just doesn't have many options.

As it's also been said, a matter of opinion only. ^^ To each their own.

[Ithildin]

Can't see how having 1000 starting gold is a bad thing, I went through just about all my starting gold buying basic gear and potions/healing kits and for a while I barely had any gold since every time I got any it went toward more healing kits and potions, and it doesn't take until level 10 to make 1k, most people playing likely have spent several thousand already on healing kits. They might not have it all at once but they would have if they saved up.

Also no one is forcing you to take the levels, if you want to say level 1 for a while then go ahead just don't take your level until you feel your character is ready for it. For reasons mentioned above I like that we start at level 3. It's pretty annoying making a rogue and not being able to hit anything since you have to wait until level 3 for weapon finesse.

[Scourn]

How ive allways seen it is, the less you have, the more you want. Starting off pretty nicely helps atleast I think the new player by not wanting to rush out right away to kill things and instead look for others to RP with. For me personally, starting at lvl 3 with 1000 gold was a very nice welcome so to speak. The 1000 is spent rather quickly by most classes on as stated before the needed potions and healing kits.

[Ithildur]

Which wasn't my intention- only to give a few views from a newbie to the realm. The fact i posted after only 30 mins was due to the lag - normally i would base my opinion on at least several hrs of playing but this simply could not be done and the DMG of 3000g for a 3rd lvl sounds like its for 5 year olds who want good kit to start with and cba playing and building the char up from scratch, which lets face it is much more fun than having everything handed to you on a plate.
(indeed why not go the whole way and give out a nice new shiny +5 weapon with each new character )


Ahh well - will keep playing now and again and post any further findings...

erhmm... opinions again, are generally fine and all, but... what are you smoking? So you think the DMG is written for 5 year olds, then I don't understand why you'd playing any kind of DnD game? That's like saying, oh, I don't know... lol... that's so out there I can't think of a comparison.

+5 item...?? Do you have any idea how much a +5 item is worth?

Heh, anyway, keep on with the comments; it's rather enter... err, interesting.