Hey all,
First of all, thank you
@Bleash and
@Thagarr for the welcoming messages and directions.
At first, moving around the numerous versions and names can be a bit confusing, so your links were most valuable.
I've given a go at HoO pre-alpha 1.9, HoO 1.8 (with the steerable ship!!) and HoO Combat.
Here are my thoughts:
HoO 1.9
In "fantastic" mode, the graphics are awesome, specially the water - being a seafaring game, this is something I was curious about, and it is indeed really beautiful. Something weird about the scene was that the water seemed very fluid (and did I already say "beautiful"? I think so!) but the seagulls above were really dragging around. Also, the movement of the character - in his underwear! - was really slow and laggy. No doubt this was due to my not-particularly-recent rig, so I went directly to the "low" graphics.
In "low" mode, the water was still pretty neat and the seagulls gliding about as supposed to. The character's movement though, still felt really heavy, though not so laggy.
HoO 1.9 seems to aim at showcasing a bit of the dialog mechanism, as well as a port and small village. I'm yet to read the articles... my bad.
The dialog mechanism seems to be in it's early stages.
Pardon me if I'm mistaken, but here's why:
- hoovering the mouse over the Mayor offers no visual hint that it's an object you can interact with;
- when the Mayor has two sentences, the first one rolls in word by word, but the second simply appears after a while (it's probably rolling in somewhere, but only shown after completion)
- the text is kind of unstable, increasing and decreasing it's size at several occasions.
Regarding the village and movement, a bit of wandering around off-road got me stuck in several places, and while still in the road/pier, trying to jump while walking would regularly get me under the road/pier, often unable to get back up. I'm not versed in Unity, but it could be something related with collision detection or irregular meshing.
The design of the village was cool, and the different levels are well achieved as they make for an interesting walk about the dock.
All in all, it looks good, even in "low" mode, but there's something about the movement that heavily hinders the experience.
H0O 1.8
What a difference! The character runs, and feels manoeuvrable as does the ship - OMG, the ship!! And when that first barrage of canon balls is fired at the barge... awesome! I don't think I've landed a single cannonball in the barge, but what the heck, what a felling to fire those cannons
There was something weird with the mast flag though, which was going around as crazy. Also, after a bit going through the positions in the ship, I got a black screen, although the game was still "going" since I could fire the cannons.
HoO Combat
It is interesting to be able to punch people around, but that dude with the sword, if he were to use it, would be the end of me.
This game mode is really tricky, as it risks being too frustrating with the current character controls - but hey, it might be that I'm just not used to the controls yet, so pay no mind to these lines!
Regarding the QA, I would much like to know what the current process is like, and what automation is in place.
I imagine these are sensible topics, so we should probably discuss them in private.
Well, this is all for now!
Sorry for the long post, and I look forward to hearing from you
Cheers,
Atrium601
