A Few Things You Should Know

[Shephard]

Hi Everyone,

I have taken some time to look through the reviews for the game, and have noticed a few negative ones which in some cases I personally believe were judged and written unfairly. Therefore I would like to point out a few things that I hope people will take into consideration and help see as to what the developers intentions and visions are for Malevolence before hastfully writing a negative review.

Beta: Malevolence has been launched under the Steam Early Access Program, this means the game is still in BETA. The game is not 100% complete and there are still many features, improvements and optimization that are still to be implemented into the game. Should you encounter any problems, please post either here on the Steam Forums or on the Malevolence Forums and Alex (The Developer) myself, the rest of the test team and the Malevolence community will help you in any way that we possibly can in as quick of a time span as possible.

Graphics: The graphics in the game may not be top notch graphics, but at the same time this is the developers intention. Malevolence was created to give the players the nostalgia, sense of gameplay and everything that you remember from the early days of gaming especially RPGs and Roguelikes. This goes for the graphics also. They are like this to give the player than sense of playing a game like back in the old days.

Load Times: As stated above, please remember this game is still in BETA and is yet to be fully optimised. Please also keep in mind that the entire world of Ahkranox is infinite, meaning there is huge amounts of data being processed at any one time during loading times. If you feel that loading times are taking longer than they should please attempt to play in Low Detail Mode as that should improve the load times. Please also take into consideration that due to Malevolence being an infinite game it is quite heavy on your computer. I myself currently play on a computer which is over 5 years old and it does take time for the game to load in places. This however in my case is not a problem on the developers side, but of my own computer. Please always take your computers configuration and specs into account especially with the likes of loading times.

No Tutorials: As stated above this game is designed to be like they were back in the old days where tutorials, hints and tips were not in games to add to that nostalgic feeling, therefore intended. It may not be to everyones taste, but never the less Tutorials were never in games back in the early 90s and before hand and Malevolence is aimed to be like such games. Should you require help in any shape or forum, you can post here on the Steam Forums, The Malevolence forums along with there being numerous guides here onthe Steam Forums along with, let's play videos, video tutorials available on the Malevolence forums and soon on the Steam Forums also.

Game Crashes: Again this game is still in Beta. Despite all the hard work by Alex and the testers to provide the best gaming experience possible for the Steam Early Access Launch, there is always going to be a few bugs and issues that may have been missed. Please remember that with video games, different computers, different specs, different set ups can all get different issues. For example you may unfortunately find an issue that I would not, and I could find you that you would not. This is unfortunately how video games work, but everything will be done to help you should this happen, please place a post on the Steam Forums or the Malevolence forums and the issue will be looked into as soon as possible. Should the game crash and you receive an error message, please post exactly what the error message says as it makes it all the easier for Alex to address the issue and have it fixed in the shortest period of time possible.

Help: There is always help available, should you have any questions or require some information or help or have any problems, please post here on the Steam Forums or on the Malevolence forums, Alex, The Testers and the Malevolence Community will help you in any way that they possibly can.

Thank you for reading, and should you have any questions please do not hesistate to ask.

I wish you all the best of luck within the world of Ahkranox :)

[CumQuaT]

[Also pinned for me to pretty up later... I swear I'll sort these all out soon!]

[1Nøey7]

In my opinion there's nothing to be worry about. people who buy this game are
warned, that this is a early access game. also there are some videos where they can
have a look at the game before buying. the developer had nothing done wrong.

still love the game.
who needs a tutorial? Where is the appeal of trial and error?!
the crashes. I just save one more time than normal and restart the game.
and graphic is still overrated. the content is much more important.

Some complain simply at too high levels.

I'm 32 now and I feel well remembered at the good old time. thank you :)

[Mizrach]

Sam, you can say there is nothing to worry about, but the reality of it is that there is ALWAYS idiots that buy early access games and cry about things being broken and then post idiotic negative reviews about the game. This most definitely hurts the reputation and sales of the game. At least the reviews made during Early Access now actually indicate that the review was written during Early Access so this MAY help somewhat.

[1Nøey7]

Sadly you are right. Maybe they should set the ability to write a review to 10 hours, instead of 5 minutes. All reviews after a playtime of 5 minutes are senseless. People, who just want to cry about an unfinished game, maybe won't wait that long.
Otherwise, the forum and its community make a good job. People who are really interested will recognize it.

[eliure]

there usually weren't tutorials no.
but manuals were.
at this time you can't even find one of those.
and these manuals had basic instructions on how to play the game in them.

[No Tutorials: As stated above this game is designed to be like they were back in the old days where tutorials, hints and tips were not in games to add to that nostalgic feeling, therefore intended. It may not be to everyones taste, but never the less Tutorials were never in games back in the early 90s and before hand and Malevolence is aimed to be like such games. Should you require help in any shape or forum, you can post here on the Steam Forums, The Malevolence forums along with there being numerous guides here onthe Steam Forums along with, let's play videos, video tutorials available on the Malevolence forums and soon on the Steam Forums also.]

[Smeggit]

It's unfortunate that this game didn't click with you, I hope you'll give it another chance when it's finished and leaves early access. Much of what you mention is already in the works. In fact every loading screen in the game states that there will be more monsters, more dungeon varieties and more types of quest. As for the music, well, it's excellent and there can never be too much so I agree, needs more music!!

[Malakite]

Tyrknight, try back when it is complete and if you hate it after it is at full release your complaints will be justified. The problem with comparing these to DM, EOtB and ESA is that you purchased fully finished products not one in production. What you have now is only an idea of what is going to be the final product. I used to do a lot of beta and alpha testing and I will tell you the crap they used to send me (yes they mailed me the disks and CD's) was usually painful to play, but the final products were marvelous (Everquest is probably my most fond one). So give it a chance at another date if you can and maybe you will be surprised.

[Luigi]

I don't see how that's a bad thing having no tutorals I learnet my self and I asked if I didn't understand something.

[Smeggit]

Hi everyone, in regards to the games progress feel free to check out this new page:

https://trello.com/b/1IWRTz5R/malevolence-project

It gives a nice clean view of the games state and a running log of Dev activity.

[FragPenguin]

I have a few requests/questions
1) Sound adjust option plz.
2)Anti-Aliasing. This game needs it badly, and yes, I know the graphics are supposed to evoke nostalgia, but the sharp edges are cutting my retinas.
3)Soft Lighting. Again with the graphics, but Legend of Grimrock provided the same amount of nostalgia and still looked really good.
4) I understand the need for such loading times, so I won't harp on that.
5) More support for higher aspect ratios and resolutions. Running fullscreen of 16:9 allows me to count each individual pixel in the static grass.
6) UI customization options
These criticizms doen't mean I'm unhappy with the game! In fact, I'm liking it quite a bit. Looking forward to future builds!

[Smeggit]

Originally posted by FragPenguin:

I have a few requests/questions
1) Sound adjust option plz.
2)Anti-Aliasing. This game needs it badly, and yes, I know the graphics are supposed to evoke nostalgia, but the sharp edges are cutting my retinas.
3)Soft Lighting. Again with the graphics, but Legend of Grimrock provided the same amount of nostalgia and still looked really good.
4) I understand the need for such loading times, so I won't harp on that.
5) More support for higher aspect ratios and resolutions. Running fullscreen of 16:9 allows me to count each individual pixel in the static grass.
6) UI customization options
These criticizms doen't mean I'm unhappy with the game! In fact, I'm liking it quite a bit. Looking forward to future builds!

Hi there, I'll answer as best I can.
1, There will definitely be sound options, separate for music, voice etc.
2, Anti-aliasing is something Alex would like to add but it may be tricky with the hand-written engine. It'll be investigated but may not make it if it becomes too much of an issue.
3, There will be a graphics overhaul, it'll still be old school but there is a lot of polish to be done.
5, A patch was just released that should allow the game to run at higher resolutions. The graphics update is still to come so it will still be pixelated, this is just the first step to supporting the higher resolutions.
6, What sort of UI customization would you be interested in? At the moment I don't think the UI will change much but suggestions are welcome.

[eliure]

suggestion if you haven't thought/done it already
magic- don't put points a spell uses, put a precentige of the magic bar it uses.

[FragPenguin]

Originally posted by eliure:

suggestion if you haven't thought/done it already
magic- don't put points a spell uses, put a precentige of the magic bar it uses.

When has that ever worked in an RPG? In a game where mana points need to be carefully managed, you need a precise number, not a vauge estimation displayed by a number from 0-100. To my knowledge, every RPG that utilized a mana pool uses a point system. Never a percentage.

[ravenscroftranch]

as for the negative.. thats always going to happen.. infact without doing a fair amount of research i was a little taken aback by a few things..
however much like M&M X this is a style that is an aquired taste though i loved the old games i found some i donot care for anymore.. though M&M world of xeen is still one of my alltime favorites...
so some come in expecting that same feeling of the games they loved but sometiems its not there...
this is early but some of the demands even on high end computers need to be adjusted so there arent thigns like the crashing on loading an area etc wich is due to memory problems (when i can run everything on full with my beast) and with this style going back 15 20+ years i do come in expecting less demand on my system then it currently takes to run it..
now as for the expectations.. as a early access supporter i realize you cannot have expectations with EA it never pans out and you will always be disappointed in the end...
once i realized i had to currently run on minimum in the game it dosent crash by the way.. a bit annoying btu nothing major..

as for the game so far.. im quite pleased it has the right balance however some dungeons i nthe begining make exploration fatal lol thats to be expected but balance might be made to that...
other then that you guys are doing somethign ground breaking so this is a process of trial and error the truely endless world is amazing..

i look forward to seeing the future i just hope you guys know where your going because this is like a chess game you must know where your going and see 10 moves in the future to get things right...
critique without being harsh i guess you can say ...
anyways i rambled now so i will stop now :)

[eliure]

Originally posted by FragPenguin:

Originally posted by eliure:

suggestion if you haven't thought/done it already
magic- don't put points a spell uses, put a precentige of the magic bar it uses.

When has that ever worked in an RPG? In a game where mana points need to be carefully managed, you need a precise number, not a vauge estimation displayed by a number from 0-100. To my knowledge, every RPG that utilized a mana pool uses a point system. Never a percentage.

this game doesn't give you a precise number next to the magic bar in this game
so precise numbers are worse than useless
if a spell uses 10 magic but you don't know the total magic points you have in the bar, how much use is saying it's 10 points for spell?
the only way you will know how much it uses is casting the blasted thing.
which won't help you if you are considering buying it in the shop before hand.
while a percentage might end up being a little vague it give you a better idea of how much
of your magic bar it's going to use than a precise number.