The main story in The Exiled Lands lacks a lot of narrative direction and substance (relies far too heavily on guides/wikis to get through), it is even incomplete when it comes to the “Defeat the Mummy of the Ring” Journey step. The ending cinematic and other story elements (Razma’s “locked” door, general dialogue mechanics) are lacklustre and should be improved before they add more content in these “Ages”. I haven’t explored much of the added sorcery elements, but there is almost no narrative exposition to it.
Another matter is the default single player settings. The grind and waiting over 24 hours of game time (not server time, like in multiplayer) for thralls is not reasonable. They could also include basic settings like nudity, gather, craft and thrall rates when you select difficulty from more optional, advanced settings in Custom. I shouldn’t have to go into Custom or Admin settings to tweak a balanced experience.
I was prepared to purchase the most expensive Crom coin bundle and support the Battle Pass/Bazaar. The game is very fun and the world is compelling. After finally “completing” the main story in single player however, I’m questioning whether I should support a developer that leaves basic loose ends in their game design, especially 5 years after launch.
It’s a multi-player survival game with solo play support. There really isn’t a “main story”. The way the game is presented, with the experiences you have in completing the journey steps as well as Conan’s dialogue in the opening cinematic, is that you create your own story that exists alongside the story of the actual main character (Razma).
For the single player/server settings, I have only ever had to set them once. If you start a new solo save and select custom settings, it uses your last edited settings.
I totally agree that a more in-depth explanation of the lore in the Exiled Lands and Isle of Siptah was needed. The Conan and Razma scene in the beginning was awesome. I wish they would have made scenes like that accompanied with things the player discovers in the world. Plus, there are so many incredible stories and lore in the great Robert E Howard’s writings. I’m just a fan of Howard that would have loved to see more incorporated into the games.
I understand the focus of the game is on multi-player survival, I’m not expecting some super narrative driven game like Mass Effect. In no way does that justify poor, incomplete game design that disrespects the time players put into the game. Not having the final boss work at all is inexcusably bad and unheard of in any game I’ve ever played. No one should be defending that. I’m aware of the Custom settings for single player, which is again not an excuse for unintuitive, bad game design that would be easy for them to fix.
Because of these unaddressed, egregious issues, out of principle, I do not think I can support spending any more money on this game. Even though I’d like to purchase the Battle Pass and some Bazaar items. I don’t understand why there are always defenders of poor game business practises.
I’m not defending them, I’m offering a different point of view. There are issues present that I would like to see fixed/changed as well, but what you call unaddressed and egregious issues might be a minor inconvenience to others. In my case, they don’t really affect my enjoyment of the game. Based on your argument and point of view, it sounds like this game just isn’t for you.
If I recall correctly, very early on in its conceptual development, CE was envisioned as a Skyrim-esque RPG. But soon after, the decision was made to develop a multiplayer survival game instead. A number of NPCs have dialogue that hint at quest lines that were never fleshed out. Later on, there was a desire to try to introduce some RPG elements and so we get the quest to free ourselves from the exiled lands. While some may see this as an issue of not finishing these elements, others see the issue as not needing to introduce this in the first place. The fact that they appear half finished is the problem. Either flesh them out further or remove them completely.
A good example of this is Mek-Kamoses. His entire dialogue focuses on his losing sorcery and why people cannot practice sorcery in the Exiled Lands. It has been this way since early access. When 3.0 came out, I was hoping Funcom would engage that NPC in the way one gets sorcery. At the very least, I thought they would eliminate the dialogue that talks about how sorcery is impossible. But no. At least not as of when 3.0 came out and I checked. He still has the same dialogue. Either flesh it out or eliminate it. Seems like a wasted opportunity.
Without a “story” / “Narrative” to “direct you” (hold your hand or guide you … your choice applies), you’re left with your imagination and sense for survival to explore the map to find everything. This world has its own story but you have to search for it and see it with your own eyes to begin to understand what once was there.
This is the first game I have ever played that didn’t force me to go in an “end game” direction. For once, I can play a game at my own pace without being driven in a direction like sheep to a slaughter house against my will. To top it off, this is the first game I’ve ever had which was built with the best quality graphics I’ve ever experienced to this date.
Exactly. I can handle a game that isn’t heavily story-focused. It is expected from a multi-player survival game. What I can’t respect is a developer that doesn’t seem to care about such basic aspects of their game and leaves things very clearly incomplete and unpolished. They want players to buy lots of DLC, Battle Pass and Bazaar and grind a lot of time into it but can’t be bothered to complete basic aspects of it that every other, even much lower quality games have?
The Mummy of the Ring, nowhere to be found.
Toth Amon, still the Unfought.
Several characters have dialogue bits that indicate a greater story is there, but it’s just not.
This one enjoys games where one must actually strive to learn the lore and, if one desires, interact with the storyline. This game is not one of them. It’s a game with roads that end in places that are simply not constructed. It isn’t that they end badly or vaguely, they just cease to exist. So annoying.
Also, there are numerous locations where obviously something was going to be, that are just blank. A Black wall no matter the direction the light hits it. Or a Portal to the our realms that does nothing.
We used to get content updates that enriched the setting and added to the over all narrative. The Wine Cellar dungeon brought a lot to the game in many fronts.
Other additions were head scratchers. Bandits have invaded Seperemu!
Yes, and?
Was it just an excuse to add hostiles to the area?
Was there going to be more to it?
The game has been in early access for long enough. It’s time to let the full challenge list be completed.
No, not everyone will care, and not everyone will use it
Then again, not everyone uses Aquilonian Medium Amour.
Nor does everyone use Trebuchets.
Many players would not have even touched the admin panel if it weren’t for the Battle Pass.
If it does not harm anyone else’s play, then leaving the story in it’s incompletable state is irksome.
Yeah, I also don’t like games that do too much hand-holding and create a false sense of urgency with the story. I find it irksome when people try to justify incomplete storytelling or poor gameplay design/narrative direction by implying they are intellectually superior because they like the mystery or whatever. The game is just incomplete and feels very much like it never left Early Access, and since they can’t make money fixing the mess they just add more paid content. I really want to support this game and look forward to Dune: Awakening, but if they show this much lack of care, I don’t know if I should.
More lore would be welcome, especially closing the obvious gaps/bugs:
Mummy of the Ring missing,
Ghost of Telith missing,
Several apparent entrances, portals, caves that don’t open, end in black walls and so on.
The game’s story also leaves us with a lot of open questions:
Razma’s story is consistent until she reaches Dogs of the Desert territory. At that point, she must have found the mask of the Witch Queen. Why? How? What happened?
The story of the Kinscourge’s son is hinted to, but it’s completely unclear what happened.
How does the timeframe fit together? Some events seem to have happened millenia ago, while others appear to be pretty recent. Did the warmaker stand around the Unnamed City for 1,000 years? Did the Sobek cultists hide out in their cave ever since the human/giant king war? Or did they arrive much later? The Exiles and Treasure seekers obviously arrived fairly recenlty. But what of the other tribes? Are the Sons of the North descendants of the original Lemurian settlers? Why are their no children, whereas the bracelets apparently didn’t prevent “breeding” in the past? Why would descendants of the original inhabitants wear bracelets?
Why are there ships in the passage from the jungle to the frozen north?
It’s clear it is a multi-player survival sandbox game, that is no justification for leaving significant aspects of it incomplete, like a final boss that doesn’t even work (unheard of in any game)! The game is advertised as having a story, it has a story, characters with dialogue, voice actors, journey steps/a main quest, single player mode, notes, narrated lorestones, cinematics, is based on literature, etc. I’m not expecting Kingdom Come: Deliverance. I just expect them to deliver what they advertise and build up to in the game and not disrespect our money and time in such a ridiculous, unprecedented way.
More annoyingly, why do the good, honest folk of Sepermeru rush to defend the bandits, rather than the visiting player, when the bandits choose to jump the PC? I guess the whole city is full of bandits, some just are more proactive than others, who are simply opportunists.
I mean, I know it has the whole, escape from the Exiled Lands bit. But for the most part, I’ve never treated it as having a story. It’s just you against everyone else, for the most part.
If they want to improve stuff, make the little “notes” more visible to you. And give us an interface to collect and re-read them as they are unlocked.
There is no linear aspect at all to this. You can find them anywhere, at any time, and some semblance of order is needed. Otherwise, why care?
It’s like the collectibles in Horizon Zero Dawn, you get them, you get to review them in a tab when you want. So you can see it in pieces, then you can read it in a more linear format.
You can’t do that with Conan. There is nothing to retain the bits you’ve unlocked, except your own memory. And who’s gonna remember all this?
That’s probably the biggest issue. There needs to be a Lore tab, and all the lore bits and writings need to be accounted for in it. Maybe with hints on some of the more obscure ones, to give you an idea of “where” it might be.
I mean let’s be fair, for a survival multiplayer game there is actually a significant amount of lore present.
Yea there are gaps here and there but still what happened to the world and why is well explained and I did love to hunt for the lorestones when I played for the first time to find out why everything is as it is.
Ofc there could be more but we need to keep in mind what the game is, and that is not a narrative driven singleplayer game.
Compared to games like ark rust and co, we have a lot of lore
