The Timer

[K. Kas]

It's not a big deal, prospective buyers.

I just finished my first playthrough. Did nearly every quest (maybe missed 2 or 3). Took me about 30 hours of playtime, and I still had a fifth of the timer left after scrounging the map of all content.

All you have to do is plan a route to do quests. Don't want to say any spoilers, but the game pretty much tells you the main places you should go. If you do everything you can in each area before proceeding to the next, you'll be fine.

It's there for narrative (and probably balance) reasons. I don't think it's going away, so don't wait for that. It's a good game, ignore the people complaining that the timer restricts you. They probably haven't played very much of it.

The real reason not to buy is the bugs. They never broke my game, but they ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up a couple quests. Wait for next patch if you're on the fence, but the timer is not the issue.

[The Hat]

The timer honestly turned me off a purchase. I am glad I saw a review with it in! I hate timers with a fiery passion in RPG's. Looks a like a game i'd enjoy besides this. I may pick it up in a sale to try because of what you've written here, so thanks for the words.

[ALWAYS_ANGRON]

Tl;dr

if the timer counts down before you had a chance to do everything you want.
Gkys

[K. Kas]

Update: I wrote this on May 7th. There have been two major patches since then. While I haven't started a new game (yet), the patches look comprehensive. The most notable fix would be the camp event update. I was unable to do any of the companion quests since I didn't realize they existed; not until I already finished the game. I'm glad to see they're fixing the issues; they've even added a work around to the timer.

Though my stance is still clear: The timer is there for important narrative reasons. I respect that the developers are willing to revise their game for the sake of consumer interest in spite of the undermining effects it has to quality. Don't fear the timer, people! It gives you, as a player, a real reason to worry about your homeland, about your goals. It gives you motivation to succeed.

That said, everyone has their own preferences. If it absolutely hurts your experience, turn it off. I only suggest that you keep it on for the early game, at least. Maybe you'll find out that looming deadline isn't so intimidating.

[wwiiogre]

I also hate timers and had I known it was in, (not listed as feature on store page) I would not have bought the game.

The latest patch allows a way to disable timer in config, you do not get achievements (boo hoo, do not care) but you do get to play the game the way most rpg's are supposed to be played. By using your skills, you know the ones you bought for your characters to use when you camp. To actually help out in the game.

Otherwise the Dev's should not have even included them other than as a way to torment players and punish those who think long game instead of quick and easy min/max chracters to thrash their way thru a game.

I like to actually play a game I buy. Not just once, but multiple times in every possible way, attempting each and every game style and character build and interaction with npc's possible.

I do not care if I ever finish the game. I never finished Fallout 4 or Skyrim. I just play and have fun on the map.

So the timer was horrible and immediately pissed me off. The same happened with Tyranny.

Timers are for games like time travel is for sci fi stories or movies or tv shows. Its a cheap way to cheat the audience of possible content of for it to make sense.

Timers allow the developers to slide by and not actually produce content for the game. Because they can say, the players will never be able to see this or that village since they will not have time. How nice for them to cheat us out of all of the land area of Denmark and Britain and instead give us merely a handful of places here or there.

I would much rather have had more choices before leaving Denmark. Perhaps Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Germany, etc. All of those were viable choices during that time.

Yet we are to believe that only Ribe and your village are the only places you can go in Denmark. Horse Hockey.

Once again using a timer to replace gameplay options and lore. Sad but true. Plus it punished characters for using skills paid for. I have scouting skill rank 5. I must camp to use it. It allows me to find cool things and resources so I can bump up my village.

How do you stop abuse. Well you can have random raids continually hit the village, slowing down or even destroying village improvements the longer the game goes. Not some Horse Hockey small dialogue box that appears and says oh hey by the way you lost, start over.

You know how upset I was that happened the first time. Especially when I had a quest that would not show up on the world map, yet kept telling me to go east. So I explored and tried to get the map location to show up while I explored and camped when I got tire. Oh you lose because of a bug, start over.

Then another bug where I cannot enter Ribe to gather men. So timer combined with bugs, combined with skill system you dare not use because it will cost you the game, seems silly to me. I own Conquistador, I love its open format and play style. Vikings while it has more story, it has less options and is what I would refer to as a rail system, you have to stay on story or you lose.

So for me this is not an rpg, since typical rpg skills are here, but you are punished if you use them. No matter what choices you make you still must move down the path line. If you do not progress down the single rail line, game over.

But after the last patch it fixed the two bugs that were keeping me in Denmark. I can now enter Ribe and the Tomb/Swamp location finally showed up. Unfortunately once I complete Ribe and attempt to leave city game freezes. New Bug. No fix yet.

I recommend this game and now that the timer fix is available I am mostly happy and I am just waiting for them to fix the problems and truly support Modders.

This game needs a modding community desperately so all of the lands can be fleshed out.

Chris

[Slim Shady]

You do know there has always been a cheat to move the timer back right ? If you just looked for a solution you would have already finished the game instead of wwasting time writing drama on the forums ^^

[wwiiogre]

@Slim Shady,

yes I knew there was a cheat, I do not use cheats. I waited until the Devs supported it and allowed it.

I hope they will allow modding and give it full support, otherwise this game falls way short for dollar vs entertainment value. Even if I do attempt to play it in every style with every character type. I keep seeing people beating the game in less than 40 hours.

That makes this game an almost F on my scale for rpg's. If you cannot get a minimum of 100 hours per dollar spent on a rpg game, then the game is a complete failure and is short beyond belief.

Allowing no timer will give it some legs, but because of bugs for me personally I have still not been able to leave Denmark.

First no swamp/tomb location, then crashing while attempting to enter Ribe first time. Then crashing while leaving Ribe.

First two are fixed, but I still cannot leave Ribe and so until next patch I am once again stuck. And then will have to restart my 4th game.

Replay value is not having to replay the game over and over because of bugs. Each patch having to restart game again.

I enjoyed Conquistador so much I will keep giving these guys some more time to finally fix this. I just hope they do not do what the Dev's of Dead State do. Which was to early release, barely patch then disappear. Dead State was a great game, had so much promise, then the way they finished and with no mod support it literally made the game barely 20 hours long and almost unreplayable. It was sad, and I enjoyed the game as I was part of early access and helped test it. But in the end they took the money and then ran. sad.

I doubt that will be the case here, but it seems after Conquistador they made choices that intentionally allowed them to deliver extremely less content for Viking. So I hope it changes.

Chris

[Revan1977]

Originally posted by wwiiogre:

I also hate timers and had I known it was in, (not listed as feature on store page) I would not have bought the game.

The latest patch allows a way to disable timer in config, you do not get achievements (boo hoo, do not care) but you do get to play the game the way most rpg's are supposed to be played. By using your skills, you know the ones you bought for your characters to use when you camp. To actually help out in the game.

Otherwise the Dev's should not have even included them other than as a way to torment players and punish those who think long game instead of quick and easy min/max chracters to thrash their way thru a game.

I like to actually play a game I buy. Not just once, but multiple times in every possible way, attempting each and every game style and character build and interaction with npc's possible.

I do not care if I ever finish the game. I never finished Fallout 4 or Skyrim. I just play and have fun on the map.

So the timer was horrible and immediately pissed me off. The same happened with Tyranny.

Timers are for games like time travel is for sci fi stories or movies or tv shows. Its a cheap way to cheat the audience of possible content of for it to make sense.

Timers allow the developers to slide by and not actually produce content for the game. Because they can say, the players will never be able to see this or that village since they will not have time. How nice for them to cheat us out of all of the land area of Denmark and Britain and instead give us merely a handful of places here or there.

I would much rather have had more choices before leaving Denmark. Perhaps Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Germany, etc. All of those were viable choices during that time.

Yet we are to believe that only Ribe and your village are the only places you can go in Denmark. Horse Hockey.

Once again using a timer to replace gameplay options and lore. Sad but true. Plus it punished characters for using skills paid for. I have scouting skill rank 5. I must camp to use it. It allows me to find cool things and resources so I can bump up my village.

How do you stop abuse. Well you can have random raids continually hit the village, slowing down or even destroying village improvements the longer the game goes. Not some Horse Hockey small dialogue box that appears and says oh hey by the way you lost, start over.

You know how upset I was that happened the first time. Especially when I had a quest that would not show up on the world map, yet kept telling me to go east. So I explored and tried to get the map location to show up while I explored and camped when I got tire. Oh you lose because of a bug, start over.

Then another bug where I cannot enter Ribe to gather men. So timer combined with bugs, combined with skill system you dare not use because it will cost you the game, seems silly to me. I own Conquistador, I love its open format and play style. Vikings while it has more story, it has less options and is what I would refer to as a rail system, you have to stay on story or you lose.

So for me this is not an rpg, since typical rpg skills are here, but you are punished if you use them. No matter what choices you make you still must move down the path line. If you do not progress down the single rail line, game over.

But after the last patch it fixed the two bugs that were keeping me in Denmark. I can now enter Ribe and the Tomb/Swamp location finally showed up. Unfortunately once I complete Ribe and attempt to leave city game freezes. New Bug. No fix yet.

I recommend this game and now that the timer fix is available I am mostly happy and I am just waiting for them to fix the problems and truly support Modders.

This game needs a modding community desperately so all of the lands can be fleshed out.

Chris

You never responded to me when i objected to what you were saying on one of the other threads. You are saying the timer makes skills that you put points toward while camping, make those skills a waste of points since the timer makes camping something you cannot do. That is false. You have to camp to eat. You have to camp to make medicine. You have to camp to heal wounds. Now maybe you cannot just camp for a whole month, just trying to cheat a bunch of loot while in camp, but you can easily camp and scout and hunt and so forth ans still easily stay ahead of the timer.

[Slim Shady]

If i ever win lotto i am going to publish your posts as a book 'for chirs sake' i think we got like 1/4 of the material so far huh ?XD

I think if youd only try to stop beeing a negative obssesive silly gussy gaugan you owuld enjoy your life alot more. Also I dont understand why do you think anyone would agree with your crazy opinions coming clearly from your own disfunctionality, why do you even bother to write that ? If we were to follow your logics we would still be in the stone age.

Ps - EA has officialy annouced they will be adding timers to all their games just to spare themselfs from your presence on their forums ^^

[K. Kas]

I disagree with almost all assertions you've made, Chris. Besides complaints against bugs (which I agree with), I feel you're vastly overstating the pressure of the timer, as well as putting little faith in the designers of the game.

Still, as I said, we all have preferences. You may not want to play the game the way the designers intended, and that's perfectly acceptable. I respect your opinions, but I feel rationalizing your own taste by deriding the design choices of the game is out of line.

[wwiiogre]

@ all of you,

I can only comment on how the game has worked for me so far.

I have had three play thrus, I have not been able to leave Denmark. Two times I have lost because timer counted down due to bugs not allowing me to progress. Meaning All Icould do was travel around map and explore and camp. Since I could not enter Ribe and could not find tomb/swamp.

After last patch it fixed both of those bugs for me. I completed all quests before entering Ribe. I completed all quests in Ribe. I was still way under the timer, having camped just a few times to make travelling across map from tomb/swamp and to Ribe not leave me exhausted.

Once I finished Ribe, I attempted to leave. Yes I save game before entering and leaving any new map zone. Unfortunately, I crash any time I attempt to leave Ribe.

I do not cheat, I do not use no timer to just camp for a month. I however do like to use skills I purchased that are somewhat esoteric. In other words not min/max combat oriented to help defeat the game quickly. I like to role play on a role playing game even if its single player. Baldur's Gate is a good example.

So currently I am once again in a place I cannot play the game. I have gone back and launched saves from just about every spot and still end up with crash and freeze while leaving Ribe.

So until I can actually get past this part of the game I can only comment on this part of the game.

I am happy for you if your game works perfectly and you beat it in 40 hours or less. I cannot do so. Since I cannot progress. I spent many hours attempting to get past this situation in many ways. But it appears I have a bug. Like when I could not enter Ribe. Or when I could not locate tomb/swamp location. Nothing I can do.

As for my opinion about timers, it is mine, I am not alone, but I have my own reasons. Does not make my reasons or opinions any more important than yours or anybody elses. They are just my experience.

I bought Conquistador. I bought this game. But I doubt I will buy another game from this developer. Because in my opinion they are creating smaller games with less choice and replayability. But then again it is my opinion based on a very short game play distorted by game ending bugs. Which I know they will fix because they have a good history about that. So I wait.

The nice thing about different flavors of ice cream is? Even tho I may disagree about which is my favorite and which is your favorite. Doesn't matter, its still ice cream.

So far my ice cream in this game, every time I try to taste it, someone knocks it out of my hands and I cannot enjoy it. YET !

I do not like timers, I believer they are a reason for Developers to not produce a bigger more fuller game. Just like games made for consoles and pc become smaller or less than what they could have been. But my opinion. You can have yours. I do not think you are wrong, nor do I feel the need to insult you for your opinion. It is called intellectual honesty. I can disagree with you but still respect your position and also understand that by doing so I leave open the possibility of debate where you or I may change are previous opinion based on new information or merely better understanding of existing information.

Yes I was a writer and editor in another life therefore I can throw up a wall of text like you wouldn't believe. But only when I care enough to put the effort out. :) Sorry about typos but they happen to anyone. I type extremely fast but I am 195cm and 130kg with rather large hands inherited from my Neanderthal DNA. Yes 4% of us around the world have Neanderthal DNA, and they say they went extinct like the dinosaurs. Wait I see a dinosaur right now, its a hummingbird. :)

Chris

[Slim Shady]

Well if you dont like to cheat and like to Roleplay on a Role Play game then nip the ♥♥♥♥ up and get everything done ON TIME because your under pressure from king and the people who want to kill you no time for ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ picnic :P

And as to game beeing smaller yes it probably is but in this case I dont think its because developers got greedy and rather its for the fact that it is more story oriented and i think it is very well written engagin story, and in most cases game is either focused on story or on exploration so it is a set in a different direction from conquistador.

As to using timer as an excuse to cover it up, I dont think so, I still finished all the quests well before I ran out of time and I dont think they were boring or overly short, the game has alot of flavour. This is the first itme I ever meet timer in any game and i think its a cool addon that gives it a bit of more realistic feel to everything.

I think we all just like you encountered some bugs that prevented us from advancing in game but instead of getting angry we just found simple solutions for them. Allthough I do understand your furstration as the game wasnt released smoothly, I rember myself not believing how badly skyrim was relaesed(not that this was as bad as skyrim :P) while at the same time I did like the game, fiding workaround for various bugs took alot of time and fun out of it.

I can imagine I would enjoy this game a whole lot more if I just held of 2 months(and that is what I ussualy do with games, because theres no point geting angry at something you cant do anything about :P) but I just got so exctied about it I conciously sentenced myself for gampley with bugs :P

In the future I suggest you wait like I do before you play the game :P And I think you should wait another month or two before you start playing this one, because apart from bugs there are also ballnce issues in the game so if you really want to enjoy it you just have to wait, you cant win and you have more than enough time to do that right ?XD



Real Slim Shady

[wwiiogre]

Generally I do wait, unless of course I have owned a good game from the same company. Then I give them the benefit of the doubt. Wish they had described the timer as a feature, not hidden it until you started playing.

Tyranny is another rpg game from a company I owned a previous game from and then bought. It also switched to a timer to force you to make decisions. But in reality it just severely shortened the game and made it much harder to replay.

Turning a game company with a great rpg record into a rush job. That is what looks like happened here. But, I have not gotten past the first part of the game because of bugs. So I cannot be sure.

As for skills, sure I can use them, but the camping skills are so limited based on the timer that they really should never be purchased unless you have maxed out combat skills already. There is no point. Since you can buy rations as soon as you complete the tomb and then enter Ribe. Money does not become an issue for rations and hunting and preserving is not necessary. Same for meds. Not necessary. But use the small skills your characters start with and then buy combat skills.

Unfortunately, that is what a timer forces you to do. Not invest in generic esoteric skills but forces you to focus on combat and win at all cost. That is what I am lamenting. Sure I can use them, but each time I do I have less combat ability and I get very little for it.

This is the point I was making about the skills being impacted by the timer. You will not build a real rounded character, you will instead just min/max for combat above all else knowing after a certain point money will not be an issue and you can buy supplies.

But, I have yet to leave Denmark so my opinion is very shortsighted and only applies so far to the basic first part of the game.

I would have liked other options than being forced to sail to the Orkneys, perhaps explore Denmark and actually find more than a farm, a swamp and a single small burnt out town. I am pretty sure Denmark had way more in it than that. But no.

So I hope the next patch fixes my issue so I can play again. Although once again I will start over. Apply what I have learned and hopefully get farther before the next game breaking bug halts my adventure.

For now I wait for alpha 16 release for 7 Days to Die so I can go kill more zombies to survive the apocalypse. 7 days cost me $20 is still in early access and I have almost 2200 hours playing. About 100+ hours of entertainment per $1 invested. That is how I measure rpg's and 7 days is a rpg, its also survival, its also horror, its also a fully destructible world and craftable world. So I know Viking could have been better, could have stayed in beta/early access longer so it would have more stuff.

Chris

[_Vigil_]

Originally posted by King Kasai:

Update: I wrote this on May 7th. There have been two major patches since then. While I haven't started a new game (yet), the patches look comprehensive. The most notable fix would be the camp event update. I was unable to do any of the companion quests since I didn't realize they existed; not until I already finished the game. I'm glad to see they're fixing the issues; they've even added a work around to the timer.

Though my stance is still clear: The timer is there for important narrative reasons. I respect that the developers are willing to revise their game for the sake of consumer interest in spite of the undermining effects it has to quality. Don't fear the timer, people! It gives you, as a player, a real reason to worry about your homeland, about your goals. It gives you motivation to succeed.

That said, everyone has their own preferences. If it absolutely hurts your experience, turn it off. I only suggest that you keep it on for the early game, at least. Maybe you'll find out that looming deadline isn't so intimidating.

But you've already set out the fundamental issue with the timer in your opening post: it's not really an issue if you effectively meta-game/min-max your way through the entire campaign screen, effectively doing all of the content in an efficient fashion. You're basically just solving an optimization problem. I think I did about everything in the game with a week left - which also had a bit of random travel time - but that's not really creating a narrative reason. It's just an annoyance, effectively forcing you to get clever to do a work-around for the entire thing.

The truth is that, because of the timer, you're essentially working through the campaign map as an annoyance - camping and resting are things you do as an absolute emergency, occasionally considering whether it's worth it to just blow through rest/starvation using potions - which does not really create a sense of urgency so much as it does a resource management problem.

Originally posted by Revan1977:

Originally posted by wwiiogre:

I also hate timers and had I known it was in, (not listed as feature on store page) I would not have bought the game.

The latest patch allows a way to disable timer in config, you do not get achievements (boo hoo, do not care) but you do get to play the game the way most rpg's are supposed to be played. By using your skills, you know the ones you bought for your characters to use when you camp. To actually help out in the game.

Otherwise the Dev's should not have even included them other than as a way to torment players and punish those who think long game instead of quick and easy min/max chracters to thrash their way thru a game.

I like to actually play a game I buy. Not just once, but multiple times in every possible way, attempting each and every game style and character build and interaction with npc's possible.

I do not care if I ever finish the game. I never finished Fallout 4 or Skyrim. I just play and have fun on the map.

So the timer was horrible and immediately pissed me off. The same happened with Tyranny.

Timers are for games like time travel is for sci fi stories or movies or tv shows. Its a cheap way to cheat the audience of possible content of for it to make sense.

Timers allow the developers to slide by and not actually produce content for the game. Because they can say, the players will never be able to see this or that village since they will not have time. How nice for them to cheat us out of all of the land area of Denmark and Britain and instead give us merely a handful of places here or there.

I would much rather have had more choices before leaving Denmark. Perhaps Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Germany, etc. All of those were viable choices during that time.

Yet we are to believe that only Ribe and your village are the only places you can go in Denmark. Horse Hockey.

Once again using a timer to replace gameplay options and lore. Sad but true. Plus it punished characters for using skills paid for. I have scouting skill rank 5. I must camp to use it. It allows me to find cool things and resources so I can bump up my village.

How do you stop abuse. Well you can have random raids continually hit the village, slowing down or even destroying village improvements the longer the game goes. Not some Horse Hockey small dialogue box that appears and says oh hey by the way you lost, start over.

You know how upset I was that happened the first time. Especially when I had a quest that would not show up on the world map, yet kept telling me to go east. So I explored and tried to get the map location to show up while I explored and camped when I got tire. Oh you lose because of a bug, start over.

Then another bug where I cannot enter Ribe to gather men. So timer combined with bugs, combined with skill system you dare not use because it will cost you the game, seems silly to me. I own Conquistador, I love its open format and play style. Vikings while it has more story, it has less options and is what I would refer to as a rail system, you have to stay on story or you lose.

So for me this is not an rpg, since typical rpg skills are here, but you are punished if you use them. No matter what choices you make you still must move down the path line. If you do not progress down the single rail line, game over.

But after the last patch it fixed the two bugs that were keeping me in Denmark. I can now enter Ribe and the Tomb/Swamp location finally showed up. Unfortunately once I complete Ribe and attempt to leave city game freezes. New Bug. No fix yet.

I recommend this game and now that the timer fix is available I am mostly happy and I am just waiting for them to fix the problems and truly support Modders.

This game needs a modding community desperately so all of the lands can be fleshed out.

Chris

You never responded to me when i objected to what you were saying on one of the other threads. You are saying the timer makes skills that you put points toward while camping, make those skills a waste of points since the timer makes camping something you cannot do. That is false. You have to camp to eat. You have to camp to make medicine. You have to camp to heal wounds. Now maybe you cannot just camp for a whole month, just trying to cheat a bunch of loot while in camp, but you can easily camp and scout and hunt and so forth ans still easily stay ahead of the timer.

The skills are traps, though. The way to do it right is to have part of your hird as non-combat mules at the start, farming all the non-combat skills you need for support while you have a combat hird to deal with encounters. it's just another level of artificiality, and makes the whole experience very "game-y". They're a waste on a combat character, until you get late enough in the game and just get so many skill points you run out of things to put them in.

[wwiiogre]

@ Vigil,

yes I agree, the game rewards min/max combat characters and gaming the system with mules (characters created for non combat use). All of this to implement a timer. In viking lore and history you could always challenge in a duel those who upset you. So the story line could be ended with a duel. Not all northmen were honorable tho.

Like I said instead of the timer ending your game, increasing raid activity destroying your upgrades and harming your village would have been better for the story instead of a single pop up line saying your game has ended, start over.

Everyone says this game is story rich, yet the way the timer is implemented and how it ends the game is the most immersion breaking thing possible. Especially since nothing in game really makes it feel like you are on a deadline and the end of the world is coming. Quite the opposite really. First time my game ended because of time there were no indicators and in fact I did not even realize the timer was there, just thought it was a date line so I could track my village upgrades. But I was wandering in the wilderness trying to find the tomb/swamp location that was bugged.

We need mods and modders to flesh out this game and make it what it could have been. A vast sandbox of the medievil world and dark ages that brought us the time of the Vikings. The small ice age was upon the world, the sky was literally darkened, crops failed, it was colder, glaciers advanced. Yet none of that is in the story rich game we have.

The Northmen did not go to the Orkneys to raid, but to live since the North was finding it much harder to survive and farm. Raiding was needed, but land to settle was needed more. Yet none of that is in the story of this game. Do you think Erik the Red or Leif Eriksen travelled to North America to raid? No, looking for lands to settle better than where they were.

Yet that is sorely missing from this game. Finding and settling Iceland should or could have been an option as well. Raids into France and Spain and even the Med could have been in this game. Trading could have been in this game. So much history and story line lost to a timer.

Chris

[The Hat]

I hate them because I prefer to take my time in RPG's, especially on the main quest chains or game. Nothing complicated. Timers are too much like work and there is enough of that outside of my gaming time.

Others have different preferences and that's great.

Thanks for letting me know about the ability to turn them off.