Brighter Shores - Point and Click MMORPG - Made by Andrew Gower (the creator of RuneScape)

[Magicat]

Launch day today. Some initial thoughts:
The tutorial's kinda boring and shows the game's very clunky. Post-tutorial's ok-ish. There's a lot of people and it's a bit irritating finding vendors when they don't have some kind of overhead tooltip, since they look like ordinary players. The combat's very simple so far. The make-x interfaces probably crush any chance of skilling tick manipulation. Plastic NPC faces are eerie, but nothing worse than RS. Heavy censorhip in the game chat. Pretty dull experience overall. XP and numbers going up is nice though.

Small studio so it's expected it won't feel magical and expansive like RS2. (at least yet)

Spoiler: lmfao

Some tips to make the experience a bit better:

• Drag and drop the interface icons (compass for the map, for example) to wherever you want. I've put it in the top right corner like RS. You can resize most interfaces to an extent.
• CTRL+S whenever to scan for interactables. Helpful for finding new fish spawns when there's player pollution.
• Click the enemy icon to see what they're susceptible to. Some weapons have magic dmg. It's probably more dpm to exploit the target's weakness.
• Right click and drag the screen to zoom in or out if you don't like scrolling. Everything else is controlled by the left click. There's no way to remap WASD through the game yet.

 

[Focken Kiwi]

Launch day today. Some initial thoughts:
The tutorial's kinda boring and shows the game's very clunky. Post-tutorial's ok-ish. There's a lot of people and it's a bit irritating finding vendors when they don't have some kind of overhead tooltip, since they look like ordinary players. The combat's very simple so far. The make-x interfaces probably crush any chance of skilling tick manipulation. Plastic NPC faces are eerie, but nothing worse than RS. Heavy censorhip in the game chat. Pretty dull experience overall. XP and numbers going up is nice though.

Small studio so it's expected it won't feel magical and expansive like RS2. (at least yet)

Spoiler: lmfao

View attachment 6611559

Some tips to make the experience a bit better:

• Drag and drop the interface icons (compass for the map, for example) to wherever you want. I've put it i the top right corner like RS. You can resize most interfaces to an extent.
• CTRL+S whenever to scan for interactables. Helpful for finding new fish spawns when there's player pollution.
• Click the enemy icon to see what they're susceptible to. Some weapons have magic dmg. It probably more dpm to exploit the target's weakness.
• Right click and drag the screen to zoom in or out if you don't like scrolling. Everything else is controlled by the left click. There's no way to remap WASD through the game yet.

In the character creator, is it Male and Female or body type 1 and 2 with gender selection? Given the sanitation of chat, I assume Andrew is trying to avoid any and all possible controversy.

Are there any social interfaces such as friends and ignore lists at this time? I'm stuck at work and haven't had the opportunity to see firsthand.

 

[Magicat]

In the character creator, is it Male and Female or body type 1 and 2 with gender selection? Given the sanitation of chat, I assume Andrew is trying to avoid any and all possible controversy.

Are there any social interfaces such as friends and ignore lists at this time? I'm stuck at work and haven't had the opportunity to see firsthand.

There's 2 body types but they don't say male/female or anything in the creation menu. Hovering over them doesn't say anything either, but they're most definitely man/woman. I picked the one that looked like a woman and it tells me I need to be level-X fisherwoman to fish things.

There's friends and ignore lists, but they're kinda buggy atm. Game thought me and a friend had unfriended and didn't let us PM one another just before the maintenance update. I don't think there's area/global chats implemented yet. You can create rooms with friends. idk

Edit: local chat works now

 

[winterfag]

In the character creator, is it Male and Female or body type 1 and 2 with gender selection? Given the sanitation of chat, I assume Andrew is trying to avoid any and all possible controversy.

Are there any social interfaces such as friends and ignore lists at this time? I'm stuck at work and haven't had the opportunity to see firsthand.

just the icon to flip between genders in character creation, I went to check the editor and the female option doesn't allow for facial hair. The clothes options were the exact same outside of character build, not even any skirts or anything. Here's the difference in body types, default female isn't particularly flattering

 

[hawkisnight]

Pains me to say this but the game doesn't look or feel very good. I had high hopes. Maybe it will change in the future. UI is very clunky. So many clicks to do stuff. There seems to be no hotkeys. Is this a mobile game? The music seems to 'skip' sometimes. Did they really not notice it during test?
Combat is what I fully expected it to be. Point, click and wait. Maybe it gets a bit more interesting later since you can move during combat and there seems to be different elements you can use but currently attacking a mob with element its vulnerable to doesn't seem to do much. So who knows.
Skills looked alright at first but then I tried cooking. There's no option to cook the fish I caught. So I bought ingredients for a sandwich. Cooked it. I cannot eat it. It doesn't give any buffs or does anything at all. it seems I can only sell it. What's the point of training this skill? I assume quests but really? No interactivity? Disappointing.

EDIT:
Also black people and what seems to be muslims on every corner? I know its non established fantasy world but it's still very jarring to see such multicultural paradise.

 

[Daddy's Little Kitten]

So, this seems like a "wait and see" game at first glance?

 

[Focken Kiwi]

So, this seems like a "wait and see" game at first glance?

From what I've seen and heard, the game has potential but needs a lot of time and work. You're probably not missing out on anything special by holding out for improvements but since the game won't have stat wipes when Early Access ends, you'd find yourself behind the early adopters should the game popularize. I do hope Andrew sticks with this game in much the same way that Sean Murray stuck with No Man's Sky.

 

[Mao Ze 'uge Dong]

I'm reading the reviews on steam and people are saying that your level progression resets when you progress to the next chapter. Who's the retard that thought this would be a good idea?

 

[Focken Kiwi]

I'm reading the reviews on steam and people are saying that your level progression resets when you progress to the next chapter. Who's the retard that thought this would be a good idea?

Doesn't sound like something that would be intentional.

 

[Not A Fed]

Game kind of sucks. Every area is a small room, making navigation around town a pain in the ass. Skills are seemingly locked to chapter, so going into chapter 2 changes your combat class and starts it over to level 1 along with your gear. Levelling up to certain levels unlocks higher level enemies, which is a clunky way to do enemy scaling which would have been bad even if it weren't clunky.

The game's design makes no sense. I kind of hate it.

 

[Cucktry Roads]

I'm reading the reviews on steam and people are saying that your level progression resets when you progress to the next chapter. Who's the retard that thought this would be a good idea?

Doesn't sound like something that would be intentional.

It doesn't reset. What's happening is the Skill set A is locked to Zone A and when you go to Zone B, you get skill set B. So your skills are useless in other zones, and Zone B has a different skill for Combat, so it kinda does reset in the since that you have to start over with combat in each zone, but the idea of the game is for you to backtrack and do the old stuff again.

Honestly, this game needs a lot of work and people won't stick around for a long time. It feels too closed box with the way it's doing zones/episodes. I also don't like how the game's map works where it's one area at a time, makes navigating slower than it needs to be.

 

[winterfag]

Haven't cleared the first episode but so far I'm enjoying it as a more skilling focused RuneScape type game. I imagine the whole idea of the progress resetting is that you'll get to feel that dopamine hit from the ground up every time you start the next one. But I'm not sure how that'll actually hold up as a core gameplay loop.

You can go back to previous episodes but I doubt those maps will get significant content after launch. Otherwise they'd just be linked together like a normal overworld. There's very high level activities in this first episode but I'm not sure how enticing it'd be to go back and replay

I like it atm but I'm definitely holding off on buying the subscription. At least free users can see the second episode as a taste of how the fresh start progression will work. Steam reviews were very positive this morning and suddenly dipped to very mixed over this, it's a major enough concept that it really should've been mentioned in the lead up

 

[FDR Hater]

I don't really mind the map being one area at a time because it keeps things uncluttered. What seems to be most likely to kill this game is that OSRS players are going to be the biggest audience and Gower doesn't look like he's going to be willing to change his mind on the design to make the game more familiar to them. UI is clunky, not being able to left click things to use them is RSI inducing but that's probably going to be fixed. I hope clicking the minimap to move around will be added back, as that would likely fix the area loading making it harder to navigate. Also, without some questing and wildy style content everyone's probably going get bored without something to grind for.

Steam reviews were very positive this morning and suddenly dipped to very mixed over this, it's a major enough concept that it really should've been mentioned in the lead up

I believe Gower did mention it, and I personally was hoping they would go for $5 a month no bullshit like it was meant to be. I think it's a pretty fair pricing model, unlike OSRS where they keep rising the price and using predatory measures like grandfathering and a cheaper annual plan to keep people subscribed.

 

[Focken Kiwi]

Alright. This game is nothing like I expected. I expected different but not that different. I am a bit mixed on it as some of the design choices seem a bit questionable to me. I can see why Andrew did things like pallet swapping creatures to 'upgrade' them in difficulty and exp in combat training areas. Wanting players training together is fine and all but without better sharding for each zone, it leads to congestion.

There are a few things that I'd like to see for this game as of now. For one, I really want to see WASD camera controls. It's strange using the same peripheral to both control a camera and interact with the world. Secondly, I'd like the skill knowledge window to not pop up when I complete an action that gives exp after dismissing the window prior. I know it's probably better to drop the points on money or exp when I get them but I'd like to have the option to hold out just a little bit longer to drop points into upgrading passive training methods for when I'm offline. Finally, I'd like to be able to just left click once with an interactable and just do the thing without needing a pop-up sub menu. If I wanted info for an object or npc I've already examined, then I'd like to get that information again by 'right clicking.' I know the pop up window is important in combat in case someone wants to fight a lower tier of a creature but I feel that functionality could be moved to the relevant combat skill pane.

Overall, I do like the game but it certainly needs a good bit more work. I'm likely sticking around to see what Andrew does with it.

 

[Cucktry Roads]

Alright. Got 8 hours in the game and gotta say. Andrew really needs to look at the feedback and re-evaluate some of the design decisions. All these skills are so damn isolated that this game feels like an idle game where you're just trying to make the number go higher for the sake of making the number go higher.

The main pillar of runescape was always combat. You could use combat to get items to level up your other skills, and those skills all feed back into combat (minus firemaking and agility in rsc, and even FMing into later versions). The problem here is barely anything is connected. I think in my 8 hours I only had combat drop a single flower to use in potionmaking, other than that, combat only drops armor and weapons for more combat, and people are noticing that the only armor does is maybe negates 10% of damage. 10% of 10 is only 1.

The others skills are completely disconnected. Foraging feeds into potions for combat and those are kinda 'eh, I don't need them" at best. Fishing and cooking are completely disconnected from the game as they seem to only feed into each other to make money. And what does money do? You just buy tools and that's it. Money has no real purpose.

I haven't left the first area yet, but I feel like this problem is gonna get worse since each area is completely isolated from each other.

 

[winterfag]

The potion that boosts xp should've had its effect given to food instead, and any other potion that's used outside of combat. Longer buffs like how FFXIV handles food, if it's not broke don't fix it

 

[Focken Kiwi]

The potion that boosts xp should've had its effect given to food instead, and any other potion that's used outside of combat. Longer buffs like how FFXIV handles food, if it's not broke don't fix it

Alchemy is disproportionately more important than most skills in this game it seems at a glance. That along with Foraging. I worked to get my level to 20 last night so I can train it passively while offline. It's going to be a heavy focus for me. I do think equivalent value should be brought to the other skills as well.

 

[RollerGator]

The graphics look very boring and generic.

 

[Focken Kiwi]

https://archive.ph/wip/LlXQu

Oh thank God. This will make the game much more comfortable to play. Glad to see it became a priority for him based on feedback.

 

[porkWellington]

10ish hours in. It's got good potential and I intend on playing for a while. As-is, I wouldn't recommend to someone who hasn't played RuneScape but you also have to realize this isn't the next RuneScape so temper your expectations. The UI and tutorial will likely need to be addressed first or it'll be like RS3 where you aren't getting new blood.

Regarding the UI, I like the idea of the 4 "panels", 2 on the left and right, but they should let you customize what's on each "panel" or put something more useful on the bottom right. Currently I just keep it to emotes. It'd be nice if I could put the quests or skills down there and have all four being in use.

The tutorial is confusing and I felt unprepared when the main quest set me loose since there's skills not used in the tutorial. Maybe that "discovery" was intended, but there was no "hook" to make me want to fish or cook other than seeing it as something I can do.

The faction choice had no buildup. You see one CryoKnight early on which I think you can avoid if you skip the side quest to be able to tune equipment, then there's nothing regarding any of them for a while, then you meet a Dryad while you're looking for your fellow guards, you decide to forget about the guards and work with the Dryad, the Dryad brings you to a cave, introduces the factions, and immediately makes you pick one to be forever. I've had history with that Dryad and I've seen a CryoKnight but unless I missed something I've never seen a HammerMage. A HammerMage just teleported in, said their specialty, and that's all I had. I appreciate the three character slots so you can at least make one of each on the same account.

I really like reusing the same monsters but scaling them up and letting you choose which version to fight. This takes advantage of the smaller map and allows locations to have more staying power. There's a gate being assaulted by goblins and due to this system you could feasibly stay there and level indefinitely.

The interplay of skills is nice. Fishing and foraging fuel cooking, cooking is good for money, and bounties give you a reason to cook certain things. Unsure if cooking has any other interplay. Skills being used in quests is always nice.