Wolcen now on Early Access on Steam

[medierra]

No, Zantai is working on the other, other project. Grava is working on the first other project.

[powbam]

Interesting… so that means there are 3 new projects total.

1. The town-builder
2. A ‘Grava’ project
3. A ‘Zantai’ project

Can you give any hints about the Grava one?

[el_critico]

Interesting… so that means there are 3 new projects total.

1. The town-builder
2. A ‘Grava’ project
3. A ‘Zantai’ project

Can you give any hints about the Grava one?

Nice. Cant wait to see who comes up with the better final product , Zantai or Grava Let the CRATE GAMES begin!

[medea_fleecestealer]

Oh, so 2 possible projects in the works. Nice Medierra. Don’t be shy about telling us MOAR! We’re all ears.

[Gumshoe]

Is one of those other projects the xbox version? Just want to set appropriate hype expectations…

Also, will either of the other projects open up to the GD style community interaction/feedback in future? Because Crate are awesome at that, even though I assume it can be quite taxing to deal with that

[medea_fleecestealer]

No, I don’t think so. That’s been in the pipeline for some time now and Rhis has been working on that. Not sure if anyone else has been helping him except for the other programmers.

As for commuication on future games well, that did get discussed in another thread a while back.

Mysterious uptick in sales since Nov 2nd...

I for one hope Crate will continue this with their other games. We haven’t heard much about the new town builder and I can understand the team wanting to concentrate on that and not be issuing updates all the time, but I would love it if for another project Crate would consider letting us in on the early development as we’ve had with GD. For me, following the game as it’s been developed has been as much fun as playing the game itself.

Mysterious uptick in sales since Nov 2nd...

As to the question someone asked about the “new project” - well, part of why we haven’t shown much of it is due to team size restraints. When you announce / begin to show a game, you want to have some marketing art, a website or whatever set up so people interested can start following the game after that initial buzz… We have none of that yet. So far it’s just seemed too painful try to take someone off development to put in the time for that peripheral stuff - yet, until we do that, it doesn’t really make sense to announce / show the game.

We do need to get to it pretty soon though as it’s nigh time we announced it.

In terms of early community involvement / showing development, there is also some hesitation since, now that we’re more known as a company and more eyes are watching, there is some fear that if we show early, really rough-looking stuff like we did in the past, the wider audience may not get it. Early on with GD, it was a pretty small group of mostly TQ fans, so I think people were more accepting of where things were at, although we did get shit on to an increasing degree as word got out, until after the KS, when the current artists managed to redo a lot of the cruder early art.

Mysterious uptick in sales since Nov 2nd...

Been thinking over what you said Medierra. I totally see your point re team time constraints. Re the early developement yes, the initial followers of the game were mostly TQ fans and tolerant of progress. The community’s grown since the Kickstarter, but they’ve also come to know how Crate works (at least for this game) in communicating with the fan base.

So it could work both ways. Yes, you got flack as development went on for GD, but there’ll probably be some flack anyway when the new game is revealed. Few people here on the forum seem to know about the new project, never mind the greater potential audience out there and when it hits some will be saying “Wtf why are Crate making this instead of another ARPG?” because that’s what your reputation’s been built on so far. Maybe if they’d been in on the development earlier it could have generated interest and got people hyped. We’ll never know.

Whenever I tell people who’ve just bought the game or are thinking of buying it that Crate communicate regularly with the fan base via the GM’s and live dev streams the reaction is always positive. They like the fact that Crate does tell people what’s going on. To nick a comment from Zantai (mistress of quotations that I am ;)), it’s working well for you. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Blizzard aren’t kinda wishing they’d done the same.

Will we hear more during development of future projects? We can only wait and hope so.

[Ptirodaktill]

I tried the last beta they had. Its a completely different game from alfa.
1)Can’t build a character. Can’t even create a girl. Dafuq? I’m suppose to farm on guy butt for 100500 hours?
2)Art look exactly like Warhammer.
3)No rotation of camera. Horrible.
4)combat is click to win. Probably that’s what a mobile arpg feel. Creeps do nothing, just roll and die.
5)Game lag horribly on my gtx1060. Even on all settings on low.
6)To skip a cut scene (they are horrible, btw) holding a button for few seconds is required. >_<

[Awsumpossum]

I tried the last beta they had. Its a completely different game from alfa.
1)Can’t build a character. Can’t even create a girl. Dafuq? I’m suppose to farm on guy butt for 100500 hours?
2)Art look exactly like Warhammer.
3)No rotation of camera. Horrible.
4)combat is click to win. Probably that’s what a mobile arpg feel. Creeps do nothing, just roll and die.
5)Game lag horribly on my gtx1060. Even on all settings on low.
6)To skip a cut scene (they are horrible, btw) holding a button for few seconds is required. >_<

It seems that you didn’t explore any of the new information about the game before posting. I’ve been hyper critical of this game in the past because of the constant changes in direction, but I think they’ve come a long way and I think it is absolutely worth checking out if you’re a fan of the genre.

1. You can build a character, both male and female, with some customization options. Certainly more options than Grim Dawn. They temporarily disabled it awhile ago to finish some polishing, but it will be coming at launch on the 13th.

2. Not going to comment on the art as different people like different things. I’m a huge fan of GD art style, but many people complain about it.

3. I agree that the lack of rotation feels bad after playing GD, but most games in the genre don’t have a rotating camera so I don’t necessarily think this should be viewed as a deal breaker. They did originally have the rotating camera, but I think they had to remove it because they were struggling with their environments.

4. I find this point to be completely incorrect. There are many, many enemies with a variety of differing abilities/attacks that require positioning and active response. Yes, early game is very much click a target and it dies, but is that surprising? Every game I have played in the genre is like this (it’s been my favorite genre since Diablo 1), and the enemies quickly become varied. I don’t know how you could remotely compare this to mobile. It is NOTHING like a mobile game, especially once you play for over an hour.

5. Can’t speak on this, I have no technical expertise. I have a 980 TI and I am playing on the highest settings, with almost no issues, though I did have issues in earlier builds.

6. Most games require you to hold a button so you don’t accidentally skip something that you had hoped to watch. This criticism seems to be a tremendous reach.

That said, I do think there are some issues that will hopefully be addressed at launch. The biggest issue is game balance. Some skills are grotesquely OP (look at videos of turret) and others seem completely worthless (Stings, for example) because of long animations/low overall damage. I anticipate many of these will be non-issues at launch or cleaned up shortly thereafter. Stats seem to have similar disparities in power – many people build with ferocity because Crit damage/Crit Multiplier is strong (this same issue existed in GD, I might add. I’ve been around long enough to remember when OA was just OBSCENE).

Anyhow, we can get into the entire backstory of Wolcen and whether our hopes and dreams were shattered about what was originally promised when we backed the KS (which I did), but I think if you’re able to get beyond those feelings (or never had them), you’ll find a solid title. Hopefully the release is smooth because this game has massive potential. I had completely given up on it, but reinstalled at the beginning of February since I saw release was 2 weeks away and the Steam reviews had risen from Mixed (nearly negative) to Mostly positive (very positive in last 30 days) and I was shocked to see it given my previous feelings. I played from 7 hours to 40 hours over the last week in preparation and I’m still excited about build ideas/concepts and those ideas/concepts are only going to become more varied at official release when all features are implemented.

Hopefully this clears things up for people on the fence.

[vizix]

My experience with the game is looking at streamers that played the game. I have seen quite a bit. The movement speed seemed a bit slow to me. Also the game kinda wants to be half warhammer half diablo? i dont know but the gunplay in my opinion just doesnt fit. Some of the effects i like and so on but I mostly what i worry about is that it improves very little and also is like sort of undecided what it wants to be. Ow yeah and not worth 30 bucks

[Ptirodaktill]

Not sure about passion and stuff. The beta i played feelt like a poor D3 clone and D3 was the only game i tried to refund and the reason why i sold my BN account and said blizzard good by.
MB something would change on release. I hope ppl that worked on alfa got paid .

[vizix]

I do want to ad that i am excited about wolcen, because level cap will raise from level 20 to 90 so there will (hopefully) be a lot more to do especially endgame. That is when i would consider jumping in if you can comfortably do stuff in end game, that its fluent and stuff sure but does it hold up until the later levels and beyond is the question. Right now you can do whatever combinations and do anything you want basically, i 'd rather see that there is more defined paths to take that are better so basically more restricted but more suitable for endgame, more specialized.

[Awsumpossum]

My experience with the game is looking at streamers that played the game. I have seen quite a bit. The movement speed seemed a bit slow to me. Also the game kinda wants to be half warhammer half diablo? i dont know but the gunplay in my opinion just doesnt fit. Some of the effects i like and so on but I mostly what i worry about is that it improves very little and also is like sort of undecided what it wants to be. Ow yeah and not worth 30 bucks

There are a variety of ways to increase movement speed – particularly “rogue” armor types – and it is just as fast as most other ARPGs, especially when you factor in rolling/movement skills. If you don’t like the 30 dollar price, you’ll be sad to hear that it is increasing upon official launch to 45 I believe.

I do want to ad that i am excited about wolcen, because level cap will raise from level 20 to 90 so there will (hopefully) be a lot more to do especially endgame. That is when i would consider jumping in if you can comfortably do stuff in end game, that its fluent and stuff sure but does it hold up until the later levels and beyond is the question. Right now you can do whatever combinations and do anything you want basically, i 'd rather see that there is more defined paths to take that are better so basically more restricted but more suitable for endgame, more specialized.

I don’t understand this criticism. You haven’t played the game, have watched some streamer footage, are upset that there are a variety of viable builds and want it to be more restrictive? Also, there are plenty of things that are not viable at this point as you can push monster level higher and higher. Help me understand what you are saying because I don’t get it.

Not sure about passion and stuff. The beta i played feelt like a poor D3 clone and D3 was the only game i tried to refund and the reason why i sold my BN account and said blizzard good by.

Definitely seems like you are hellbent on not enjoying the game, which is fine, it is your experience. However, given that you didn’t play it long enough to have an informed opinion – as demonstrated in your earlier criticisms/complaints – it seems odd that you are being so outspoken about the game. The skill system certainly has more depth than diablo’s and the passive tree is far more interesting than anything Diablo offered, but is not as complicated as Path of Exile’s. Well, I’d argue PoE isn’t that complicated, more so just punishing, but most tend to think it is.

[vizix]

Well it is still not yet clear what the game at full level cap will be but lets say in my experience it is that games that make that freedom of creating builds very great often fail at making more specialized paths that are more restrictive but in the end more rewarding. Right now i have the impression(which can change ofcourse) that almost anything goes. its not so much a criticism yet but a worry. Specifically about endgame.

[Awsumpossum]

Well it is still not yet clear what the game at full level cap will be but lets say in my experience it is that games that make that freedom of creating builds very great often fail at making more specialized paths that are more restrictive but in the end more rewarding. Right now i have the impression(which can change ofcourse) that almost anything goes. its not so much a criticism yet but a worry. Specifically about endgame.

What do you mean by “more restrictive” and more rewarding? Like building around a single skill or damage type?

[vizix]

well lets say its all gonna depend on how the game is at max level(lvl 90) what kind of end game builds are there and are there a nice variety and balance of different builds available which we can fiddle with what i mean not a full melee guy that can also use fireballs, it seems rather odd to me. But we will have to see right now there isn’t that much to talk about yet so i am walking ahead of the game but we will see how they have arranged endgame gear and skills to function. Playing til level 20 seems fun and fluid. lets just hope that they keep that up.

btw you have seen these turret builds right? what do you think of that.

[Awsumpossum]

well lets say its all gonna depend on how the game is at max level(lvl 90) what kind of end game builds are there and are there a nice variety and balance of different builds available which we can fiddle with what i mean not a full melee guy that can also use fireballs, it seems rather odd to me. But we will have to see right now there isn’t that much to talk about yet so i am walking ahead of the game but we will see how they have arranged endgame gear and skills to function. Playing til level 20 seems fun and fluid. lets just hope that they keep that up.

btw you have seen these turret builds right? what do you think of that.

Ah, okay, I guess we just differ there, I like the hybridization concept.

I mentioned turrets in my post above as an example of the major problem with the game currently: Skill balance. All indications is the skill balance isn’t something to take too seriously in this beta and that it will be improved upon release. Turret is totally stupid at the moment. Lots of people posting their builds and their clear speed and as soon as I see turret, I just ignore everything they say because the skill is completely broken.

[vizix]

i see yes i would like to see classes like in grim dawn or other games that have set trees instead of right now only 3 real classes that also don’t really restrict you(they don’t really determine your identity either instead of saying restrict lets say i find it kind of roleless if that makes sense) AND i worry for this games endgame if they actually thought it through sorry but i just don’t trust these developers that has to do with the years of silence this game has gone through. It looks gorgeous but i don’t know what their problem is, is it lazyness? Other projects? Just not communicating/sharing what they are doing IF they are doing anything? Passive tree looks pretty cool though i wonder what the last turning disc will be.

[Awsumpossum]

i see yes i would like to see classes like in grim dawn or other games that have set trees instead of right now only 3 real classes that also don’t really restrict you(they don’t really determine your identity either instead of saying restrict lets say i find it kind of roleless if that makes sense) AND i worry for this games endgame if they actually thought it through sorry but i just don’t trust these developers that has to do with the years of silence this game has gone through. It looks gorgeous but i don’t know what their problem is, is it lazyness? Other projects? Just not communicating/sharing what they are doing IF they are doing anything? Passive tree looks pretty cool though i wonder what the last turning disc will be.

I think the distinction that you’re looking for is in the passive tree. A small preview of the 3rd wheel has been released and offers quite a bit of customization.

[vizix]

There is some customization in the passive tree sure. But you start out with three classes basically thats it and its not really a class just the starting items basically. The skills you can just use whatever they are only restricted by the weapon. There is no identity.

[Awsumpossum]

There is some customization in the passive tree sure. But you start out with three classes basically thats it and its not really a class just the starting items basically. The skills you can just use whatever they are only restricted by the weapon. There is no identity.

I guess we just have differing views of identity. For comparison sake, since we’re on their forums, Grim Dawn gives you less starting customization. In GD, you always start with the same weapon/shield and no skill. In Wolcen, you select 1 of 3 archetypes, and begin with a corresponding skill. Then, as soon as you level, you get attribute points + passives + skill levels that allow for you to tailor your build to the exact identity you specify. So, for me, in some ways, there’s actually more identity. You absolutely are building around damage types, skill types, and weapon types. If you’re a ranged archetype, you’re not suddenly arbitrarily swapping to melee. But, yes, there is some degree of imagination required on your part, you’re not just being told: you’re X class/mastery. You’re getting to build X class/mastery based on your own fascination with various passive abilities. Also, while skills are restricted by weapon type – which is an additional identity piece – there are also modifiers that allow certain abilities to be used despite your weapon selection. For example, using ice spells while using a bow which allows even greater customization.

GD is my favorite game in the genre and has been for a long time, though I haven’t put much time into it recently because I did most of the stuff that I wanted to do. Ultimately, you’re going to like a system or you’re not going to like a system and then we all invent reasons why we think it is good/bad. If your critique is about customization/class, there’s plenty of that, you’re just not being told what you are.