We're having a lot of fun with Medieval so far. It's bringing back that sense of excitement and exploration that has vanished for me with The Sims 3. Dueling, and exploring the kingdom is quite fun. The only thing we've really found lacking so far is some of the quests for Merchants. You know the type -- you're sent off to talk to this Sim, then go across the map to speak to another or do something silly in a rabbit hole just to run back across the map and find you're not quite done. Some of that isn't very exciting but the quests are of the same quirky nature with The Sims' signature humor. It is very reminiscent of World Adventures' China due to the walking time and the way Quests are often easy to complete. We've seen more depth to them, however, in that they sometimes involve multiple steps and you can choose in which order to tackle them.
Myself, I'm getting the itch to write. I can't wait to crack it open and figure out how everything works. Traits are very odd, and finding good uses for them will definitely take time. We're seeing an end in sight although a game is quite long. It'll take the average person a few days to finish up a Kingdom, and that's with some fairly heavy play. This evokes a sense of great replayability. You won't be able to pull everything off in one Kingdom, although you will still find better routes to improving the kingdom score. Strategy will be important and I can't wait to advise people against certain quest lines that don't offer the kind of payoff for the price.
At this time, I believe you are given 50 quest points to spend, and each quest you undertake will deduct from that, leading to an ending and score for the Kingdom. I'm not aware of any imposed time limit in days, so we'll likely find it's not worth it to rush through all of the quests. Meeting a Sim's needs and making them happier through buffs (moodlets) is still very important. We're down to 38 quest points and have only touched upon the Monarch, Knight, and Merchant. There's no juggling involved. You switch between characters with each quest you take on.
We tried a cheat, and do know that motherlode works. This lead to unlocking an achievement for Tom's account, raising his Watcher level which will represent how much he's accomplished in the game once it's been registered. This bug needs fixed asap before people start cheating their way to the top. That's not to say that everyone cares about achievements in games. I know for a fact many don't, but this will discredit Medieval's entire achievement system and make it irrelevant to folks who really want to work for them.
We'll be putting together a detailed review when we've got some more time in with the various classes. Right now, with the Merchant experience tainting it, it wouldn't be very fair. I'm sure that hero class does have its merits. It was kind of interesting hawking items to Sims, and they do visit the lot very often when a Merchant is open for business. For now, I hope my rambling gives you some insight into what we think of it until we can compose an organized review.
