Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem (PC)

1,784 Views | 31 Replies | Last: 3 yr ago by WGann3
WGann3
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I know we've got some big Diablo fans here so figured this was worth mentioning. Wolcen leaves Steam early access tomorrow at noon central time and is a very promising looking new entry to ARPG world. I haven't played a second of it yet (waiting for full release) but have followed it pretty closely since it was kickstarted back in 2015. It went through some development hell at times, to the point where I'd almost written off the game, but I'm actually really excited with what I'm seeing and reading from early access reviews. Enough so that I purchased the game yesterday.

By all accounts it borrows quite a bit from Diablo 3 and PoE and it has both online and offline play. Online play will have server side character storage so hopefully there's a nice little item economy. Visually, it's about as good looking an ARPG as we've probably ever seen.

If you are interested, the price tag is going up from $29.99 to $44.99 once it goes live tomorrow.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/424370/Wolcen_Lords_of_Mayhem/

EDIT: Live Now, looks like it's $39.99 and not the $44.99 mentioned above so that's a plus.
Cromagnum
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Looks like they smooshed D3 and Grim Dawn together and then prettier it up. I'll wait for initial reviews when full version launches, but looks potentially pretty good.
Madmarttigan
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Online only portion sounds promising. My issue with most new ARPG is the online community is non existent because of local character storage and cheating on characters. That's why only diablo and PoE seem to have a healthy community.
WGann3
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tv1113 said:

Online only portion sounds promising. My issue with most new ARPG is the online community is non existent because of local character storage and cheating on characters. That's why only diablo and PoE seem to have a healthy community.
I'm a huge Grim Dawn fan (over 600 hours in it), but that was my biggest issue with it. I had 3 buddies I played it with so we just shared loot between the 4 of us but man would it have been nice to have closed multiplayer and an actual trade economy on that game to try and find that missing best in slot piece you need. Just not the same for me to trade for what might be a hacked item or just create it myself with an editor.
Madmarttigan
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Just curious is it a fresh reset tomorrow?
WGann3
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tv1113 said:

Just curious is it a fresh reset tomorrow?
I've read that it's a complete wipe, even of single player characters. Their early access version was a Beta similar to the Diablo 3 Beta if you have any familiarity with that back in the day. Wolcen only allowed a level cap of 20 and to play through Act 1 in the beta, full release tomorrow has 3 acts and a level cap of 90. I think the Diablo 3 beta way back in 2012 just allowed you to play through the Skeleton King and level to like 12 or 15? Something like that.
Cromagnum
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And how do you pronounce this?

Is it woahl sin?
Is it woahl ken ?
Madmarttigan
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Eh I bought it steam name madmarttigan. ARPG addict so will give it a shot.
WGann3
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Cromagnum said:

And how do you pronounce this?

Is it woahl sin?
Is it woahl ken ?
I had to break down and Google it at one point and I feel like a pro at pronunciations (what a claim to fame...) Here's a response directly from a developer on the Steam Forums about it:

Wal-ssen

But you can say it as you want.
It is old English for "Celestial", and can be pronunced : Wol-ssen or Wol-Ken
javajaws
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Downloading...will try out tonight
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Ben Franklin
WGann3
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Sounds like the servers are getting annihilated. I figured online play would be sketchy on launch day, glad I'm stuck at work until this evening when they might have it all sorted out. Suppose that's a good sign for the interest in the game though.
Cromagnum
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WGann3 said:

Sounds like the servers are getting annihilated. I figured online play would be sketchy on launch day, glad I'm stuck at work until this evening when they might have it all sorted out. Suppose that's a good sign for the interest in the game though.


Yeah right. Any new game launch that requires servers takes a beating these days. I'll check it out in a few weeks after a couple patches and the new has worn off a bit.
WGann3
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I'm planning on giving it a whirl with some buddies tonight through the weekend if possible... I'll report back.
Madmarttigan
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madmarttigan on steam, madmarttigan.2457 on the game
WGann3
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2 of my buddies and I were able to get a 3 hour play session in from about 9 central to midnight with zero connection interruptions. It probably took us 5-10 minutes to successfully party up and then another 5-10 minutes for our game to actually create but once we were in, we stayed in. We encountered some minor bugs here and there but I was shocked at how smooth of a session we were able to get in after the issues I was reading about earlier in the day.

We had an absolute blast. TBD if this one holds my attention for the long haul, but as an ARPG junkie I really like what I'm seeing so far.

**SYSTEM SPOILERS BELOW**

I was really skeptical at the whole "classless" system and have to admit, I'm really encouraged by the freedom it allows. You pretty much find active skills out in the wild and level them up if they're on your skillbar. Not that dissimilar to the Diablo 1 spellbook system. Certain active skills can only be used with certain weapon types equipped. The passive skill grid is what you are rewarded a point for every time you level. It looks like the Path of Exile or Final Fantasy X sphere grid, only this one can be rotated. It's circular with 3 tiers that can all be rotated to take you down very specific paths you want to combine. That's where you are pretty much creating your class.
javajaws
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Played a few hours last night...to level 15. Online...just had to retry a couple times to get it to start in a game. Mostly minor bugs - some movement glitching of bosses and my own character while in the safe zone areas. But overall combat was smooth (turn on Basic Attack in settings!).

Have had some issue with item levels - not sure if its a bug or the way the game is designed. But From lvl 9 to 14 os so I never got item drops higher than level 9. Then around level 15 I started getting some level 13 items. Not sure what's up with that.

Overall enjoying it so far, hopefully they work the bugs out for everyone having connection issues and losing of progress ( and hope it doesn't happen to me).
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Ben Franklin
Artorias
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Haven't played but watched a stream for a bit today. Looks like a pretty blatant D3/PoE clone.

Is there anything different about this one?
Madmarttigan
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It kind of takes elements from multiple games, d1,d2, d3 and PoE. I really like it so far.

If you are a fan of the genre its worth checking out, however servers are still a **** show at the moment.
PatAg
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isnt PoE a kind of blatant copy as well, at least in the major ways
Madmarttigan
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launch is acting like a d3 clone
tamusc
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lol, that was a painful launch. I might give this one some time to smooth things out first.
AtlAg05
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How many can be in a multiplayer game?

Madmarttigan
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I think 4
Madmarttigan
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servers working finally
WGann3
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tv1113 said:

launch is acting like a d3 clone
Right? Bringing back Error 37 memories.
Madmarttigan
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soooo anyone want to play together?
WGann3
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Going off of memory here, but I think my in game tag is Phant.1676

I'm 7 hours in now, had another long online session last night with my same gamer buddies from launch night and we had zero issues with the servers. I have to say, the gameplay is buttery smooth. I'm playing Ranger/Archer type and I am loving his play style. The skill animations across the board are really awesome, loving what an ARPG in Cryengine can do so far.
javajaws
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After my first session "online" on Friday...couldn't get back online Saturday so played offline. Ended up getting a melee build up to lvl45 over the weekend. Servers came back up Sunday - but I played a bit of the same build with an online character and couldn't stand it - the lag delay between online vs offline regarding skills (particularly 2h melee builds) was too slow to feel smooth. So back to my offline char and stopped after I died to the act 3 boss a couple times (too late, too tired for that long fight).

Kind of surprised that they didn't patch the infinite gold bug or the block skill that gives a massive damage boost (looks like devs made a typo in the decimal point placement). Both of those are game breaking imo. Both should be easy to fix I would think so hopefully they'll patch them soon.
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Ben Franklin
Madmarttigan
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Level 65, I think it is a really fun game but needs some serious polish as well. Online in particular is kind of a mess with some lag and ability glitchiness. Also the game creation and joining in on people and general online UI sucks in comparison to something like D3.
WGann3
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You're way out in front of me, I'm just level 26 and barely into Act 2. Probably going to hit it a lot harder this weekend if the servers hold up.

My feelings are the same though, I'm thoroughly enjoying the game, the gameplay feels fantastic but there are so many inexcusable bugs for an official full release of a $40 game. I'm encouraged because there's a really killer foundation here for an awesome ARPG. I'm probably patient to a fault so I'm going to cut them some slack since this is the studio's first official game, but man, there are just some almost laughable issues with the game. Luckily a lot of the major issues others are encountering haven't hindered me at all but I get the frustration.
Cromagnum
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So I havent purchased this yet due to all the bug complaints. Have a lot of these been worked out or is the game still a mess? Is anyone even still playing it?
Madmarttigan
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I quit a while ago no idea, also it appears to have already lost 95% of its player base so doesn't look like it got better.
WGann3
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I've bailed for the time being as well. I enjoyed it for the most part during my ~30 hours played but this is one I'm going to probably give 6 months and then come back to. A lot of the gamebreaking bugs have been addressed but I think itemization needs an overhaul and something like leagues/seasons needs to exist. They're working on the latter so that's good. My recomendation would be to still wait a while.
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