The unbound of Aeternum

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Aeternum, a island blessed or maybe cursed by wonders. For there is a strangeness never seen before. Corpses of your crewmates attack when you wake and you alone. Dispatching your assailants brings you safety but it is only now that you think of the time spent with them. They told you stories of friends, family, and dreams. You ended that although you know that they are lost in mind.

After some time, you find someone who is clear in the head. They assist you with the wounds that you have only now realized that are there and point you to the nearest settlement. There maybe, you can take a rest and gather you thoughts.

Upon reaching what appears to be a basic settlement from what you have seen with walls made of wood and stone, you make haste to the nearest person who will talk to you about what you have seen. Too your horror, this is normal. You are the one who is unique. You find out that most people become mindless or worse and you are the true standout.

You gather your thoughts, push back the idea that maybe you where lucky and maybe the ones you slaughtered were mindless and your friends no more while gathering intel of what’s going on.

Some tells you of a creeping horror that is reaching the town. From what you have seen, you steel yourself and willingly investigate. After some time, you are greeted by a dark pit. The air around you is darken and black twisted horrors attack you. There lower body missing but they are able to leap at you using there arms. A barrage of torsos followed by another twisted being, a blacked body with a clear disconnect separating the torso and the legs at the hip. Gathering yourself you trade blows with the foul beings that resemble man, dispatching the things with no legs and gathering yourself in this moment. It’s only then then the bipedal abomination reaches for you. There arms reach out longer than any mortal man and grabs you, pulling you in.

The beast thrashes at you while you do the best you can to gather your thoughts. You can only defend, blocking what could be killing blows for strikes that you can fight when received. The man beast contorts and what appears to dislocate it’s joints to land a hit. This nearly works at first but instinct saves you as you block the attack.

With the block you have a moment of clarity and attack, for the heart is exposed if said being has one. You drive the tip of your weapon into the beast and it screams, fading to dust.

Returning to town beaten but victorious, you tell the people what you have seen. They say they have battled said foe but, the battle was not to there favor. They wish for you to speak to the factions. For they have the means to apply a unified defense.

You first come across the convent, a faction that wishes to spread the will of the “spark”. Although it appears that they wish to help the sane of this world, you see that the more devote resemble the inquisition of old and should be treated with caution.

The following encounter was easier to deal with out of the bunch. A commander from the so called marauder faction. The interesting part was when I was seen. They got word that someone was going to investigate a area they scouted beforehand. Although they noted that the battle was feverish, a win is a win. They wish for me to join the cause but, I moved on.

Lastly, I stubbled across what is now to be determined to be the syndicate. I was deep in thought and speaking aloud by mistake, He corrected me on many theory’s I had and told me the ways that have already been attempted to leave this hell of a island.

After may days, I see the truth. All of them are correct but they have taken it to the extreme. The convent wish the unify under faith, the marauders under strength, and the syndicate under knowledge.

They all have a twisted sense but are correct in there own way. But wrong in many others. Faith can not exist without knowledge. Knowledge can not exist without the strength of enforcement. And strength can not exist without the faith that you are doing good.

With this, I strike my own path. Not bound to a faction, but on my own path. I will strike out and discover this island of unknowns. The horrors and the gifts.

I

Will

Not

Be

Bound

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TLDR: You get railroaded into joining a faction to early in the game. The option should be available to remain factionless/unbound.

It amazes me that I have a quest from a soulwarden that requires me to use a azoth staff to harvest azoth when I do not have azoth staff. Also, I have the Skills grandmaster title, you would think that said soulwardens wish for me to join.

But naw,

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Now, i understand that this affects all of 36 of us in the world but. Should still be a option

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IMO no. If those 36 result in 360 hours of work, there should not be an option.

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Then all the the unbound players will continue doing what they are doing. Although, all we need is a option to skip the “Choose you allegiance” quest

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yea it’s not a clear system. But none of their roadmap they mention includes “we need to button up the lore and base some of the design choices around said lore since we pushed too far into no lore based design”. But my guess is the lore is entirely new and they are trying to force pve onto a sandbox pvp system instead of an attempt to weave some of those pve mechanics or decisions into the original game. Maybe they can’t since the old pvp side of the devs are gone or they are still there but actively working on content that is direct conflict with the pve side of changes hence the confusion in many of the systems.

Even the soulwarden main quest is very weird. They push you to go to group areas, but for some areas you need to be at the same part of the quest as others in your group so most go solo because fighting/dying over and over for 30min is better than waiting 1h for someone.

If I was designer here, I would have done:

  • locked faction selection. Increase your ability to read up on faction lore or give you more instances to experience both factions and their lore.
  • increase lore for factions. Add passives/trees to factions, including soul warden.
  • make faction gear visibly unique to each faction other than color.
  • make certain weapon combos highlighted for each faction (through intricate questline for a weapon or certain weapon combos unlock other passives, etc.)
  • soulwardens turns you neutral after a crazy questline and in turn unlocks other weapon combos not found on faction based decisions.
  • being soulwarden grants you a bonus to being in soulwarden forts/territories with a home.

And then with that, increase how lively the npcs interact with the world. Maybe there’s groups of soulwardens you can help out at POI, or theres a faction vs faction battle going on at a POI. Something is missing from the world that is not being replaced by player interaction, because players are too busy working on gear score increases, it actually ruins the world immersion that was sort of there at launch.

Though ultimately I would have removed the watermark system entirely in favor of more skill tree or passive systems that increase/decrease difficulty in end game, or just add more end game. But they definitely ran out of time and had to stop the bleeding lol.6

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I agree with the fundamentals of what you are saying. This was a PvP, full loot game before the release and the lingering hints of that are still here. The starting lore is a sign of this. This is why I have the story. I boils down to: this is weird, why do you want me in your cult. I wanna forge my own path and being forced to join a faction is not a part of it. It should be latter, when I know the world more and have some sort of fundamental understanding of why I’m joining

8

agree.

Another note, without spoiling the story for others, there is even a major point of the soulwarden questline that makes you think about if you should really join or not, and it has ZERO impact on your gameplay experience from that moment onward.

That is a huge mistake in an MMO. If this was ESO, there would have been 2 choices to pick, and your choice would actually be reflected in the end of the main storyline when you fight molag bol, right or wrong.

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The funny thing is, the main story takes no account for the selected faction. I was a CBT an OBT prior to the launch date. Only after the game was live did I go unbound to test what I would find.

From what I could remember, one of the story quest lines is to unify the factions. But the hermit will not identify that you already a part of a faction. He will then tell you to talk to a cov NPC

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The fundamental framework is there to play as a player without a faction but, can not be continued.

I get this is one of the drives of the game but, forging your own path to see were it leads is also a great experience.

Neglecting a path that could be stubbled accosted through botting is fair. But neglecting a path that the player takes, trying bypass the limitations. That’s something that could be cool.

Now, I do not wish to hate the devs. I’m actually on the other side. I love this game. I’ve tried FF14, cool but not my cup of tea. Looked at WoW, like the art but the “feel” is off. Maybe just a artifact of its time.

But new world, man I really like the way this game feels. No joke, my audio settings is (From top to bottom) 52 - 55 - 45 - 100 - 64 - 72 - 0 - 0 - 34 - 0 - 100 - “Headphones”. Ya, I do not hear the music. But the ambient sounds are great.

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I agree. I want this game to succeed because the artstyle is up my alley and I can make multiple versions of a paladin or templar (about 9 when you think about it, 3x3.)

But it’s missing that unlocked MMO exploration potential.

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Art 8/10 (I run a 1060 3gb, too poor for upgrade)
Story 6/10 (Mainly form the betas seeing i have no story as a unbound player)
Gameplay 9/10 - You will never be prefect but you can always improve

World 8/10 - This is most important. The grasp of what you are making and were it leads is were games die. Take the chances that are given and build on what works. What you have right now is cool and im looking forward to where it leads

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There are some thoughts that I have had over my play time. Like what if the soulgem is not all what we think it is and if the corruption is as bad as what we have been told

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Like, what if one leads to another. Seeing that this is timeless there may be cycles

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What I mean is, what if the soul gem is what led to the corruption. Not that it is a fundamental route but, a choice in the grand scheme of things. That would explain why people still fall to corruption with a soul gem.

What if the way that the soul gem works is the same way corruption works? IDK, spit balling here

16

Holy cow, what if that all the corrupted that we have encountered was the soulwardens doing? And that is what he wishes to forget.

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Like what he has convinced himself is they fell in combat but instead, they fell because of there false confidence in there soul gem

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