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Scrobbs

Anyone got into Glitch Beta yet?

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Played for an hour or so. Didn't really grab my interest, although I'm not a huge fan of MMOs/social games. Neat art style, it's just that everything seemed rather ordinary gameplay-wise: do quests, develop skills, buy stuff, plant seeds, feed animals, harvest things. There were also hints of weird endorsement of trolling behavior - you can buy some potion to kill other people's plants.

There was an interesting quest I got early on to

eat a clove of garlic and then kiss ten players with a teddy bear used for interacting with other players physically. Felt a bit uncomfortable and decided not to do the quest, since that's the kind of thing that would make me seem like a total creep to random players.

Not sure if that's indicative of the kind of stuff they're going for, since that was literally the only interesting thing that happened in my first hour.

There were also some platforming sections in a visually interesting Macro-zone style dining room, but the controls were nothing to write home about.

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It's out of beta now, although I was in the beta (I missed this thread earlier). I'm kind of deep into it. I wouldn't sweat the

kissing people thing

as everybody gets the same quest, so people should understand. And as for the endorsement of trolling...while the tree poison can be used to grief, it's also a way to let players alter the world since once you kill off a tree, you can plant a different type of tree in its place.

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Okay, so it's more of a "reshape the world" deal. Cool.

Started playing again. Found my stats reset, but with a nifty weird beta-tester only item in my inventory. Fooled around with it and started

hiccuping beans for a solid minute

. Neat!

I must have been in a bad mood when I first played it, because this feels really charming. Seems like a lot more thought has been put into making this an actual game, rather than a psychological trap.

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Yep, it's really very good, and seems quite happy to let you pootle about as little or as much as you like.

I'm probably only saying that because it's properly got its claws into me though.

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what're your glitch usernames, Noyb/Justin Leego?

Can never have too many in-game buddies. If for nothing else, there's achievement for reaching a certain number of buddies.

Glitch is the king of the gratification loop.

Early on, you can't spend 10 minutes doing anything in it without inadvertently completing a quest or gaining a level or hitting an achievement milestone. It tones down later, but even as someone who generally doesn't care about achievements, they do this so right: the achievements aren't just vanity status thingies, they give you xp -> levelling up gives you money->there's achievements for having a certain amounts of money.

In more cynical hands it would be just about the worst thing ever, but Glitch doesn't really lock much away from you if you don't pay.

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Is Cheese Yonts one of us?

Edit: Damnit, this is sucking me in. Starting to remind me of the time I had to quit cold turkey and forcibly stop myself from playing WoW just two weeks into a free trial.

Edited by Noyb

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What is this, and what am I doing. :erm:

It's kinda like farmville, except you have a dude(tte?) that walks around in 2d. There's no fighting or puzzle solving, but there's crafting, quests, resource gathering, that kind of stuff. Also the art & lore is neat. Paying gets you extra avatar clothing options and teleports but nothing essential to playing.

There's a new player tutorial video:

HzclVdVBQDQ

also a new player guide (but beware, there's lots of spoilers on that site and a lot of the fun IMO is figuring out how stuff works for yourself)

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It's definitely quirky and weird. That's kind of what it is banking on. It does seem limiting in some ways from what I've played so far... limiting gameplay wise I mean. Obviously not a direct "cow clicker" game, but in the same school of thought.

I'm glad it's not forcibly tied into Facebook directly.

Here's me: http://www.glitch.com/profiles/PHFVG1UTQ2D2GCS/

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I played it a bit more, as in, a lot more and discovered that my main points were pretty much spot on. That doesn't stop me from playing it though. The gameplay is so rewarding. Every minute you are getting a weird quest, a randomized rare item, getting resources, an auction that you started has sold (auctions are amazing by the way), getting an achievement, finishing a quest. It's like a sensory overload, but I guess that's what they need to do to get players from realizing that it's just a clicky-click-click game.

That may not be a bad thing, because overall, this feels more enjoyable than a lot of full-scale MMOs that I have tried recently. The quirkiness and oddness of it is definitely playing in it's favour as well. I doubt it will be anything other than fleeting come a week or two, but the aspect of skills keeps you coming back for more even when inactive (strategic email notifications).

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Good review over at RPS: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/10/04/review-glitch/

That's good as in making valid points about the grind, not good as in glowing with praise.

I'm surprised they didn't mention that in the bureaucracy quest

you had the option to skip the bureaucratic hassle and just outright buy your papers from someone else at the auction house. And at the city hall, you can clearly see one of the bureaucrats playing Farmville in the background. Nice touch.

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I feel ambivalent about it. It's fairly charming, and the controls didn't get to me, but it didn't take very long at all to sense the grind underneath then instantly exhale any remaining motivation to play.

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I feel ambivalent about it. It's fairly charming, and the controls didn't get to me, but it didn't take very long at all to sense the grind underneath then instantly exhale any remaining motivation to play.

Precisely my experience. Nothing about it bothered me but I lost interest in it almost immediately.

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Same here. I played it in one of the pre-beta windows where they had it opened for a few days and quite enjoyed it, but then they closed it off again, and by the time it re-opened I found I had virtually no desire to play it again. It might be interesting if they keep adding enough new things to the world, but as it was I felt like the grinding was becoming pretty transparent and there wasn't really much else to it.

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I feel ambivalent about it. It's fairly charming, and the controls didn't get to me, but it didn't take very long at all to sense the grind underneath then instantly exhale any remaining motivation to play.

This is the impression that I have got from reading everyone's posts above.

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I feel ambivalent about it. It's fairly charming, and the controls didn't get to me, but it didn't take very long at all to sense the grind underneath then instantly exhale any remaining motivation to play.

That is my feeling towards every MMO I've ever played since maybe before I knew what a grind was.

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:tup::tup:

I think, probably, that some children somewhere will really enjoy this game for a while. Then move onto something else.

I like Adam's writing on RPS, but his comments about the controls and unchallenging platforming have been niggling at me. It might just be me, but they seem to be written as if he thought the game was aimed at him, not kids.

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Gone are the days of the booming caterpillar market on the auction house. It costs either ~120 energy or 400 credits to get a butterfly egg. When less people knew animal husbandry, caterpillars could go for up to 800 credits. They've dropped down to under 500. Barely a profit in terms of credits or energy. Now I don't know how to efficiently make money anymore. #firstworldproblems

I also don't know what's best to donate to shrines. Been doing caterpillars, too, but they've been giving around 70 favor points per donation, which has been a bit of a grind.

Edit: Shops give more money for caterpillars than players. Interesting. Guess there's a large contingent of players who undervalue their time and intentionally lowball prices on the auction house just to get their goods sold. :blink:

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