What do you want in Wander Thread - Wander

There isn't a huge amount of public information about Wander yet, but we will be releasing more soon. What do people want in a non-combat, collaborative game? Do you want to work in large group or small ones mostly? What should the feeling of being a griffin be like? What do you wish you could do in other games?

Small groups work best for me. I like working with a friend or two as its easier to coordinate a task especially with friends in different time zones. Occassionally if there's a big task joining a larger group can be fun but on the whole for me a small group means I feel I can contribute and thats important to becoming a part of the world. I would love to be able to hug my friends and to sit down, also for there to be no penalty for chatting (as opposed to being afk) A griffin should feel free and grand but not bossy, a noble bird, that has a serene aura

I wouldn't mind the occasional large and/or small group tasks, however I also would like individual tasks, quest, puzzles, etc. If our characters are to have levels, I'd not want my advancement to wholly depend on my ability (or lack of) to socialise within the game. I'd love for there to be plenty of opportunity for players to create their own art (in the game) using resources available. I agree with Fae above, a griffin should be a powerful but noble (humble) bird.
I also would prefer it if leaving the game doesn't negatively impact on my "progress". I dislike games that don't allow players to have a "real life", yes there may be times when I can play non-stop for hours, but there will also be times I may not be able to play for days, even weeks and I'd be disappointed if it meant I would lose all the hard work I had done playing previously. Ultimately I want a game that I can call home, that allows me to play at my own pace, doesn't cost me "real life" money to advance or make a significant difference in game play, allows for player crafting/creations and has a friendly community. Not asking for too much am I???

Awesome, everything so far seems to be in line with the plans we have.
Wander will be different to a lot of existing games in that we're really
focusing on a particular emotion and concept instead of traditional
mechanics.

There is no leveling system, so if you leave for a
while, or want to play with a friend who has just started that is
totally okay. The only somewhat level like thing is the unlocking of new
characters. You start off as a tree and as you discover new characters
and complete the required task you can unlock them. You characters don't
have to be unlocked in a specific order though some will be easier to
unlock if you have a specific other character already, or someone you
are with does. There is also the component of your understand of the
world and the plot, but this isn't something that you can be negatively
impacted by leaving, apart from not knowing some of the new people that
you might meet in the rain forests etc.

We were planning that
everything, or almost everything is solvable / doable as an individual
but that tasks would be easier as a group, so people can choose there
preferred play style. Wander is about beauty and joy and I think other
people are a big part of that, but you can find beauty and joy in the
environment and solitary experiences as well.

bumblebeez wrote: Ultimately I want a game that I can call home, that allows me to play at my own pace, doesn't cost me "real life" money to advance or make a significant difference in game play, allows for player crafting/creations and has a friendly community. Not asking for too much am I???

I'm hoping Wander will have all of that, alas apart from player creations. From what i'm seeing so far we already have a strong start on the friendly community part! We really wanted some way for players to express there creativity in the game but all the options we've been able to think up so far are too difficult to do technically in a way that we'd find the results beautiful, so we don't have that planned for the initial release in July. It is something we want to work out how to do though.

As far as as money to advance / change game play that something we feel very strongly about. Wander will be a once off purchase, with no pay to win/play components as I think they are very hard to do without corrupting the emotion we want to get across. If you later feel like you've got way more value from the game than what you spent, then you can either say nice things about the game / team and make us feel good, give the game as a gift to someone else or tell people about it.

I don't think you're asking to much, and i and the rest of the team are excited about delivering it.

I prefer to do most things individually but do enjoy group activities of all kinds and sizes. If most activities, quests, advancement, etc., require groups I probably won't play. I don't like having to hunt people to play with.

As collaboration is going be an important aspect of the game, communication between players will be vital, including players who are in some other region of the game. I guess what I'm saying is I'd like a really smart in-game messaging system, and like bumblebeez I want a strong community feeling and a place to call home - a game with a sort of social network attached.
I've noticed we will now be starting as trees rather than ents, as originally mooted (sorry ) I am wandering what other sort of characters you have in mind.

The first playable character is indeed a Ent, however the intro sequence (not to ruin the surprise) is that your first experience in the world is that you are a tree, that is made sentient / transformed by the planet wide storms that occur in Wander. You are transformed into an Ent. You can later find more of the flowers that are associated with the storms to transform between other characters, after you have completed a task to unlock that character.

The complete set of currently implemented & planned characters is: Ent, Butterfly, Elf, Griffin, Amphibious creature (it needs a name, it's a very large salamander-esque creature) and Dragon.

We are very focused on getting across the emotion that we're aiming for and we're going to test a few different ways of displaying communication in a way that enhances that. We're worried that any global chat would devalue the interaction with players close to you so currently global chat isn't planned.

BribAnnie: We want to allow different way to find joy and beauty, group play won't be required, but will be at points an easier play style.

I understand your point about global chat diverting from a local scenario. I am very intrigued by your emphasis on emotion, I can't wait to see what you have up your sleeves.
The planned character list is impressive.

Here are a few suggestions for your salamander type creature

Hynobiidae - family name for asian salamander so maybe, Hynobi or Hynoda
Urodela - amphibian sub order (frogs and salamanders)
Azartash - persian name meaning salamander
or something relating to fire
Pyrozard

Edited by: Faereluth

ohh! I really quite like Azartash as a name. Thanks for the suggestion. I also quite like Hynoda.

Snygyst: The characters are all already done apart from the elf which needs to be retextured and the butterfly. We also need to add more variants to the existing ones texture wise. Emotion is the focus: the joy of exploring a beautiful environment, being part of a community and doing stuff together.

I like what I'm reading - like snygist I like doing things in groups, and I definitely like there being a strong feeling of community (I'm another former Glitch) Like bumblebeez I also like being able to do things by myself sometimes.

I do like what artwork I've seen, too!

As the others said, I'd like a mix of single, small group and large group interactions. Sometimes I feel chatty and sometimes I don't.
I'm excited about what lokidavison wrote about no levels and finding beauty, emotion and joy in the game environment.

Being a Griffin... I imagine the sensation of wings catching an updraft and having the controlled strength to ride it. Expanded vision sharp enough to notice what moves on the ground below, yet able to scan the horizon. A Griffin would be elusive, wise and powerful.

Thanks for the feedback about the art, We're working hard getting it to look as good as possible and to make many beautiful areas to discover.

Ooola: Good idea about updrafts! I used to do unpowered flight (paragliders) so updrafts are pretty familiar. We've been play testing the flight mechanics a bit internally. Yesterday we tried a complex physics based flight model and today we tried a more arcade feel. The physics based one was a bit too easy to stall and spin. We're not sure about the trade off between acrobatic flexibility and easy to learn controls but so far we're leaning towards a simple mouse based flight system. We're excited about having all of you try it out in the next month.

We're also going to use a similar mechanic for the Azartash's swimming system.

As you might guess from my name I loved Glitch too! Like Brib Annie and Snygsyt I'd love to have small groups that could communicate (IM) in game. I want quests -- both individual and communal. You said there wouldn't be leveling. If we start out as Ents and get to be Griffins isn't that sort of leveling? (not that I'm opposed to that ) You also talk about a one-time payment. Will people be able to "test" the game before paying? (not all games are as good as they seem or might not be the right "fit" for a person). I'm certainly not opposed to paying for a game I like (I shoveled a ton of money into Glitch). It would depend on how large the one time payment would be also. All that being said I'm excited about Wander. It looks like the sandbox type of game I've been looking for. I've Beta tested two MMOGs and was a Greeter in Glitch.

Will we have the chance to regress to a former state after we unlock a new one, for exaple if we unlock and become a griffin will we then also be able to return to a butterfly or Ent if we wished?

Marlaglitch:
I guess you could think of the characters as leveling, but I think of it more as unlocking new parts of the map. When you can fly you have a whole new dimension to explore and also when you can swim. All the alpha and beta testers that sign up before the alpha is live will be playing the game for free, the "for sale" version will only be available from July, though we're contemplating running a crowd funding round (kickstarted / indiegogo etc) to raise some money to go toward a few (expensive) licenses we would like to buy. The crowd funding would involve people pre-purchasing the game. After July there won't be a free or demo version of Wander. We don't really want to spend time to create a slimmed down version of the experience, so we're hoping that there will be enough videos and reviews that people will work out if it's the type of game they would like. What do you think an appropriate price for Wander would be? We're aiming for under $25. I'm happy you're excited about the idea, we're really excited about it too.

Faereluth:
There isn't a clear ordering of the different characters. They are all good for different things, and you will like different characters more or less depending on what you enjoy and what situation you're in. You can morph between characters quickly using a very cool UI that Sarah, Shelley and YueYue have been working on over the last few days. To morph you must have already picked some of the special purple flowers.

I hope you don't mind me chiming back in with some replies, thoughts, etc

lokidavison wrote: We are very focused on getting across the emotion that we're aiming for and we're going to test a few different ways of displaying communication in a way that enhances that. We're worried that any global chat would devalue the interaction with players close to you so currently global chat isn't planned.

With chat/communication, I can understand not wanting a global chat to take away from the more one on one group interaction that you are obviously looking for, my only concern would be how you could communicate with not just each other but other groups of players or a single player who may be off exploring elsewhere? (if that makes sense). Would it be more of a local or regional chat compared to an overall global chat and would there be opportunity/ways to chat with someone "privately" or 2-5 people privately?

lokidavison wrote: What do you think an appropriate price for Wander would be? We're aiming for under $25.

I think between $20-25 (I'm assuming we are talking AUS dollars?) is a reasonable price... I would pay that much for a game from a game store and certainly spent well in excess of that in Glitch, I have no issues paying for something that I feel is worth it considering the amount of time I spend playing it.
Although I am curious to know if the game is a once of payment and download able only? And if so, is there no limit on how many computers you can download it too and would it have an "expiry date" so to speak?

Bumblebeez, it's great to have thoughts from everyone. Thanks for being involved!

We're going to test a few things with the chat system. We're really not sure what the most effective thing is. At the moment we've setup proximity only chat, so you just see chat from people who are close to you. We're contemplating a more "friends" or group style chat as well, but we want to test for a bit to see if it's needed, try it and then see if it's better or worse without it.

Prices are in AUD or USD, not much difference at the moment. It will be a once off payment and downloadable only, no expiry date. I'm not sure about if the partners we're keen to distribute through (Steam, Desura, IndiePub and others) control how many computers you can download it to but we're not keen to try and make it difficult for the player. If you want to play it on your Mac laptop, your windows office machine and your Linux home computer I hope all our distribution partners will allow that with a single copy of Wander.

What are the anticipated minimum and recommended system requirements? I should imagine that the graphics you are describing will tax many lower spec computers. Is there likely to be a low resolution option if the game is graphics-intensive?

We're testing on both higher end machines and cheap (recent) laptops. It will get more optimised as we get closer to release so in early alpha stages you'll be more comfortable with an faster system. We have a range of resolution and quality options in the Wander, so you can trade off smoothness and visual quality depending on your preferences. We're hoping that at GTX460 can run at 2560x1600 on high quality and get an ok frame rate. What kind of spec machine do you have?

OS: Windows Vista/7/8, Mac, Linux.

Very Approximate Minimum

• Video Card: DirectX10 Compatible ATI Radeon HD 3870 / NVIDIA 8800 GT / Intel HD 3000 Integrated Graphics

Recommended

• Video Card: DirectX11 Compatible, AMD Radeon HD 6950 / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460

My desktop has a NVIDIA GT 520 (Win 7 x86).
My netbook has integrated Radeon HD 6310 (Win 7 x64).

Great! It's good to have a tester with a low end DX11 card so we can see how everything performs on them. Hopefully you'll be able to play well on both machines.

I have to say, I agree with the other glitchen about having a global or group chat of some sort. Those were some of the best times when we played Glitch, being able to talk to people who weren't in the same location as you. I've been spreading the word to other glitchen to come check out Wander, and I know at least several of them have.

I have an Intel HD 4000 video card.

Thanks for the feedback Lily. Would you be okay with earning the ability to talk to another player or use more gestures by knowing that other player for a period of time in game or a mechanic like that? As i've mentioned we are worried about global chat distracting from the feel of Wander, but we want players that meet to be able to communicate well. I'd love to hear from everyone about this, and we can test different versions of it in the next few weeks.

I totally get not wanting to have a global chat taking away from the feel of the game. A mechanic where you gain the skill to talk to a wider group of people would be kind of cool, I just think a game without a global or group chat could end up being a lonely game if you're online in a different place and no one else is around in that location. A local chat just seems sort of limiting. I see that you're considering testing a group style chat, and I hope that you do, and that you love it I'm very excited about this game, I think the artwork is beautiful!

Edited by: Lily_Linguistic