A friend convinced me to try E&B over the weekend. I have to say at low level at least it is pretty cool. Especially compared to AO.
Amazingly, these low level quests are actually fun to do. They have plots and stuff. There are conversation trees which do something. The NPCs know about one another. Things in the world reference things in the quests. There are useful rewards for the quests. There is a huge star cluster to explore. There are cool warp graphics.
There are some downsides I observe, too. It takes a long time to get from point A to point B for most professions. It looks like there is something of a leveling grind after level 30. No one ever really gets a chance to look at the cool color scheme on your ship because in the hangar you can only see your own ship anyway, and in space you just see a dot or something zooming by. And people will only learn my cool ship name if they pretty much dock with me to read the text on my wings. Twinking is going to be huge in this game because at low level at least you have cash problems unless you spend all your time scrounging money. The game space is very flat, you can’t change Z coordinate by any substantial amount. Everyone at least at low levels has exactly the same skill set within each profession. There are various minor UI annoyance. The world doesn’t change in response to what you do (of course this is the case for most MMOGs too.)
The upshot of all the negatives is I tend to doubt its longevity as regards holding my interest for more than a couple of months. However, on the other hand, for now I enjoy playing, and the cost per time spent is much lower than some random $50 game that I might play for a week or two and forget. Also, you never know, they might add more content. Since there is after all basically no conventional “terrain” in the game, just scatterings of asteroids and installations floating in space, it should be reasonably easy for the designers to add content over time without breaking the bank.
I’m sure I could come up with more negatives about the game given time, but for now at least I’d rather go back to playing it. If I hit a leveling grind period at level 30 as I suspect I will, I will certainly try at least one new alt to level 30 just because the early part of the game is quite interesting and leveling is fast to begin with.
-Duquesne, Progen Sentinel, PRS “Objection Overruled”, Orion Server
Yeah, it felt like a three month game to when I played the beta. Asheron’s Call 2, which I will play, feels a bit like that too.
As much as I like these games, they are losing their ability to hold my attention for a long time. At this point I think I’d like to play these kinds of games no more than 3-6 months before moving on to something new.
One of the best things that I recall about the excellent LPMud I used to play (Marches of Antan, RIP) was that one of the goals of playing was to become a wizard. After you did all the quests, you could apply to become a coding wizard on the mud and add your own areas and quests and stuff. I wound up becoming one of the senior wizards on the mud, and eventually did stuff like flying to San Diego to meet some of the other people I had only known via the telnet window.
Of course in a big commercial game world, no random player is going to be able to code anything themselves. But nevertheless, if higher level players can not only add some minor bits of decoration like their own houses, but can do something creative that substantially and more or less permanently changes the world in a way which affects gameplay for other players, then I think there will more “staying power” to the game.
I predict the first online game which comes up with a way to do this right will have a big following. I remember a year or two ago I heard that the Myst guys were working on such a world. However, I got the impression there was little gameplay to the world, it was more like a shared roleplaying space than a game. In other words, more like a typical MUSH than a MUD if you know what I mean.
I just hit level 30 and I’m still pretty much enjoying it, in a low-key sort of way. Bigger engines means less time spent between places, and having guildmates who can wormhole you places is also a plus. The quests are a mix of kill and FedEx, no big surprise there, but at least the story linking them is pretty decent.
One good thing about a nice guild is the stuff you can get. The game really isn’t that bad for twinking, because you can’t use the good stuff without the appropriate levels. Level III (of 9) beams for instance require a combat level of 15, which you’ll probably hit somewhere in the mid-30s overall level. High level shields, engines, reactors, and devices follow similar trajectories only with overall levels generally; some skills require explore or trade levels. So yeah, you can get the best level II stuff from your guildmates maybe, but you can’t get level V beams or anything because you can’t use them.
OTOH, because making items is a big part of some classes, and the items carry the maker’s name, there’s some incentive to build a lot of them. And, user created devices/engines/weapons/reactors/shields can be up to 200% quality giving a big boost over bought stuff. Thus, you actually get a real incentive to twink because you want everyone to use your cool items, and they don’t cost much to make when you’re level 74 or whatever.
Still these are piddling issues. The biggest draw for me is the laid back atmosphere, the pick it up, drop it off dynamic that doesn’t require hours of investment at a sitting, and the relatively entertaining overall game dynamic. It’s less work than EQ, less stress, more satisfaction (easier advancement, higher reward/work ratio, etc.). It’s also somewhat sterile, though the upcoming humongo patch/change is supposed to add skills and all sorts of stuff including some form of PvP, somehow, somewhere. We’ll see.
There is no stick option that I’m aware of. Combat is simply clicking on a target once to acquire it and then executing different attacks in a phased-based attack mode. It’s sort of like simultaneous turn-based combat.
It’s more like Final Fantasy attack timers or any other MMORPG, really. Though at least there are bonuses for getting in close with your enemy when using beam weapons, etc.
OK, I now have a level 45 Terran enforcer and level 31 Progen sentinel. The enforcer has basically run out of quests, so except for a few more that are level locked higher up, the remaining 100+ levels will be basic gameplay.
I suspect my initial enthusiasm will wane somewhat as the decent early-level content is replaced by a lot of trade runs and mob slaughterfests, but I will probably play the game for a while to see what kinds of patches and content additions EA has in store. This month’s patch is mainly game system oriented, with 3 new professions and 6 new skills for the existing professions, but apparently they are adding some new content as well.
I’ve joined a decent little guild of the kind which is more interesting in messing around and having fun than in coming in #1 in the guild listings, and we’ll see how things go for the next month or so. Feel free to give me a tell in game if you want to join, or tell Wiggum or Fezzik on the Orion server.
There are certainly some points in the game in which your combat capabilities increase dramatically. I hit CL 12 and level 40 at the same time, which enabled me to more than double my shields (that Progen marathon shield rocks) and I more than doubled my damage output by moving from level 2 explosive missiles to level 3 plasmas (huntsman type.) It makes a big difference in some cases to get 200% QL player crafted items, especially weapons because it dramatically affects the weapon recharge delay. Some other ship systems aren’t so important to be high quality, but it never hurts.
PS: I was shocked to get an immediate positive response from a EA staff member to some random suggestion I posted in the official EA forum. I am used to AO customer service of the type which typically consists of completely ignoring any request or suggestion, and at best amounts to a form letter saying “thank you but go away.”
