For those in need of a good-looking action-RPG that offers tons of loot, Last Epoch [Official Site, Kickstarter] certainly seems interesting. There's also now a Linux demo available.
I'm always wary of crowdfunding games myself, although I have personally relaxed my rule for games where the developer is quite obviously trying to get Linux support sorted. Last Epoch is now one I'm now tempted by, since they offer a working Linux demo and after trying it I was reasonably impressed for such an early build.
Last Epoch combines time-travelling antics, with deep character customization, crafting and an "engrossing" item system that "guarantees endless replayability". Some pretty bold claims, but it seems in terms of the item system there really is absolutely tons of loot to find. Weapons of all shapes and sizes, amulets, shields—you name it, they've likely got it.
The skill system seems pretty fun too, especially the hammer throwing skill that made me feel a little like Thor. There's a good bit of depth to it too, considering you have your active skills which you can choose to specialise in, giving you the ability to further enhance those specific skills.
If the skill specialization system wasn't enough, there's also a passive skill system to place attributes in as well. Here you're able to place Axis Points in the middle section as well as Node Points, the character skill system as a whole is pretty damn big.
I won't link to the demo directly, since the link may change. You can find it on the Kickstarter, below the big download button is a link to the Linux demo. I actually thoroughly enjoyed my time with it, especially taking down some of the bigger creatures, I could easily see myself losing many hours to it. It did feel a little easy, but that's likely due to it being a work in progress demo just to show it off.
They've got a little way to go, with 21 days left and they haven't hit even half the $210K they're requesting in funding. Hopefully now they have a Linux demo, more funding might come in from Linux gamers needing another realtime RPG fix. We could certainly do with another good action RPG and Last Epoch is extremely promising.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
However, I'm surprised there's no mention of the business model in the article (i.e. not plain buy-to-play).
Quoting: Pay Model:The planned pay model for Last Epoch upon release is for the game to be free to all players until level 20 with restrictions on player interaction in order to deter spamming. To advance beyond level 20, players may spend $14.99 to unlock the rest of the game's content and full social features!
Quoting: Cosmetics:The only form of real money microtransactions Last Epoch will ever have are cosmetic, our currency for such is even named Cosmetic Points (CP) to emphasize this point. We will continually add in new exciting armor skins, skill effects, companion pets, and whatever else we dream up that can make your character visually more awesome and unique. No experience speed items, stat boost items, character boosts, or any other source of player power will be purchasable with real money. We do not believe in pay-to-win models.
Since, I've seen devs (presumably) answering in the comments here, I'm curious as to how the pay-for-loot/cosmetics will be balanced with play-for-loot/cosmetics?
* Will it be pay-for-specific-item, or will there be a gambling store (aka. loot-boxes)?
* Will these armour skins, effects, pets and such be exclsusive to the in-game shop?
* Depending on above, will every purchaseable items be lootable and/or craftable?
And, yes, I'm quite distrustful of anything microtransactiony.
Despite the claims of loot-box apologists, cosmetics are important, especially in a game such as this ("loot based", "character building" ), proven by the fact that there's actually a huge market for charging extra for skins.
Last edited by Appelsin on 26 April 2018 at 7:10 am UTC
liberodark Apr 26, 2018
Quoting: Spud13yAre they selling this game for money or are they giving this game away for free? Because if it's the former, why do they have microtransactions? I don't care if it's cosmetic only. If they're selling the game there is no excuse for this.
From what I understand they plan to sell the game for $15 and also have cosmetic only microtransactions. I believe the microtransactions will be there to fund continued development of new content for the game after it's been released.
Are you saying that if they charge $15 for the game there is no excuse to have cosmetic items?
Quoting: hercQuoting: Spud13yAre they selling this game for money or are they giving this game away for free? Because if it's the former, why do they have microtransactions? I don't care if it's cosmetic only. If they're selling the game there is no excuse for this.
From what I understand they plan to sell the game for $15 and also have cosmetic only microtransactions. I believe the microtransactions will be there to fund continued development of new content for the game after it's been released.
Are you saying that if they charge $15 for the game there is no excuse to have cosmetic items?
Yes. If they need more money, they should sell it for more money.
Quoting: Spud13yQuoting: hercQuoting: Spud13yAre they selling this game for money or are they giving this game away for free? Because if it's the former, why do they have microtransactions? I don't care if it's cosmetic only. If they're selling the game there is no excuse for this.
From what I understand they plan to sell the game for $15 and also have cosmetic only microtransactions. I believe the microtransactions will be there to fund continued development of new content for the game after it's been released.
Are you saying that if they charge $15 for the game there is no excuse to have cosmetic items?
Yes. If they need more money, they should sell it for more money.
Are you saying they should charge a one time payment for all future development of content?
Quoting: hercQuoting: Spud13yQuoting: hercQuoting: Spud13yAre they selling this game for money or are they giving this game away for free? Because if it's the former, why do they have microtransactions? I don't care if it's cosmetic only. If they're selling the game there is no excuse for this.
From what I understand they plan to sell the game for $15 and also have cosmetic only microtransactions. I believe the microtransactions will be there to fund continued development of new content for the game after it's been released.
Are you saying that if they charge $15 for the game there is no excuse to have cosmetic items?
Yes. If they need more money, they should sell it for more money.
Are you saying they should charge a one time payment for all future development of content?
Yep. Like every other game and possession I own. If they don't want to, they can charge more or give the game away for free.
Plus the debut of the game will be free, it's like a demo, but that's mean you still can play (until the level 20) with friends who bought the complete game. So it's better than a simple demo IMHO.
Quoting: monnefTried demo, but apart from bad performance, which is expected in alpha builds, there are some issues with keyboard. For one, when filling a character name, every letter I type is doubled. And a second issue, using skills doesn't seem to work for me - I press a key 1, nothing happens, tried even shift+1 and still nothing (shift+1 is character 1 on my layout). Any ideas?
As someone said, it doesn't work well with Azerty keyboards, but i don't know yours. You can try to remap the keys on the game launcher, there is a "Graphics" tab and an "Input" one. I tried on mine but still doesn't work (I'm on Azerty layout).
But there is a workaround, type this in a terminal : "setxkbmap us" to change your layout on Qwerty and now you can use the 1, 2, 3, 4 etc. To reset at normal, I type this : "setxkbmap fr".
Edit: But for the doubled letter issue, I don't know, I don't have this one...
Last edited by Cyril on 26 April 2018 at 4:32 pm UTC
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