http://www.malevolencegame.com/

Don't know if anyone else saw this but the infinite RPG, Malevolence, hit open beta, which means we can all try it for free!

I'm currently downloading the demo which is evil but oh so clever. Apparently it's the full game sans one feature. Saving.

And I've also read that the game is infinite in the sense that it's generated procedurally but it isn't random meaning that if there's an, I don't know, a shrine at the coordinate (30, 556) on your screen, it's at that coordinate for everyone else, too.

I'm pretty excited about finally giving this a shot.

So I finally got a chance to sit down with the beta. Here are the bullet points.

- The graphics are pretty bad. From where I was sitting, the grass texture looked a bit like green and yellow plaid. And the 3D graphics are extremely grainy and the lighting is bizarre.

- Due to the way the game loads chunks, if you're walking, you'll have to go through loading (during which the game temporarily freezes for a second or two) every 20-30 seconds.

- To get to just about anything, you have to traverse obscene amounts of land (I'm talking 5-10 minutes to the first quest).

- You're left pretty much defenseless with no money and no clue how to get more cash during the early quests resulting in pretty much inevitable deaths. The only way I would have seen to get more cash would have been to leave the first dungeon with the opal I got, walk 5-10 minutes back to the town I was last at, sell the opal, buy what I needed and then walk all the way back out to the dungeon.

- The quest log gives you coordinates but there's still an arrow at the top of the screen to guide you.

- Lots of wandering around aimlessly, checking every townsperson, hoping someone has a quest for you (only one person in the first town had one).

Overall, not very good first impressions. Especially not for a game that costs $25.

I mean, obviously, YMMV, as it's an infinite game but I feel that if you're going to strongly hint that players go in a specific direction, you should make sure they have a better idea of how things are going to work once you send them in said direction.

How infinite is infinite though? From the site's bullet points: So I can expect to see the same dungeons thousands of times? If that is their definition of infinite why should I care? It just sounds odd.

Well, I can imagine that in the game's lifespan, you won't see a whole lot of, if any, dungeons that seem like they repeat.

Each dungeon is different. They just are generated in a manner that is the same across each copy of the game.

Theoretically, though, yeah, you'd need infinite content to cover infinite amounts of space.

Depends how they do it. with enough items, you can create a pretty massive area using procedurals. But, that has it's own issues.

Map thread - last 4 maps took him 4 days to cover. That should give you a feel of just how big. :)

Okay, so I've been forging on with the demo of this game and it's getting better. Visiting the forums and being given a bit more info on how the game works helped.

I'm still not stunned by the graphics (I finally figured out what I can equate them to - the lighting makes them look a bit like the real-time version of old pre-rendered sets) but apparently part of it is a resolution issue.

The game is tough but it's seeming less insurmountable. It's tedious but it's slowly getting better. I just wish I didn't have to restart every time I quit the game. :P

And then apparently it's not as close to completion as it seems from the outside. Apparently it's still got a ways to go.

Oh cool it's in open beta already. Thanks bro, gonna try it out later.

Procedural generation doesn't have to be random. In other words, you can generate the same world for everyone by using procedural generation and still have it be the exact same.

Shaddup about Necromancy!

>_>

Now, has any one else played this? What are your thoughts? Personally from what I've played so far, I really like it. I just need more time to get into it and not die -_- Seriously, the first place I found with an iron gate to go underground, I entered and moved about twenty steps toward a green light and fell through a trapped floor onto spikes. Instant death but I love it :D

I like the idea of the online option where you can see if someone has found the place before you (I think that's how it goes?)

No-one?!?

I pledged to this Kickstarter and own it, but I don't generally play betas, I prefer waiting for the full release. I'll gladly share my thoughts about it when it hits 1.0 though.

To be honest, it's not really worth playing at the moment if you're not willing to play a game with rough edges which may or may not be resolved and graphics which most certainly will not get better (the devs claim it's a sacrifice they have to make in order to do an infinite world).

Also, I got involved and read through a thread posted by the OP on the official forums - unfortunately, the devs were quite rude to the fellow, saying things which amounted to "grow a thicker skin or get off our forums. Our game is what fans of indie games want." Both the OP and the devs calmed down, and things got more civilized, but, as you might imagine, it gave me a new-found disrespect for a dev team I formerly praised to others.

I've been perusing the Malevolence forums over the past two or three days and was surprised to read what you wrote, so I had a look myself and I've got to say this: you're speaking about the situation incorrectly and non-factually and by doing so you can damage a Devs reputation wrongly, just like you are now

The Devs weren't rude and didn't say, "grow a thicker skin or get off our forums" at all; a moderator did. What the moderator actually said was, "This game isn't made for the average gamer. It was made by Alex for Alex. It's still in Beta. You could have tried it for free and researched before purchasing. Then you could grow a thicker skin."

The other part of the comment, "Our game is what fans of indie games want" (your interpretation) was made by the user Lomi, not any of the Devs

The rest of the comments that may be construed as slightly condescending/condescending/unhelpful were made by users, the one main offender being the user Lomi

Alex, the creator, actually seemed helpful, showing johnki evidence of a tutorial/tips that were to be implemented further on in development (this was one of the concerns johnki had)

Excellent. Since I know you can be a harsh critic, I look forward to your thoughts