All Posts by Rabiator

Originally posted by Xix13

Oh.  Damn.  I really had hopes for this one since they advertised the best crafting since pre-CU SWG.  How you gonna do that kind of crafting with no-safe-zone, full-loot PvP?   Couldn't even get to the mines on Siege Perilous to start chipping away at the rocks in UO, so I can't see how this could possibly be the crafters' paradise they're advertising.  Oh well.  At least maybe there'll be a game for you folks who enjoy this kind of torture...er...fun.

Depends on the skill system.

If it allows you to be a miner and efficient fighter, I see no problem.

If not, only guilds who can put up guards may be able to gather their materials safely.   Like in EvE Online's 0.0 areas (in the case of EvE, it is because you can fly a mining barge OR a warship, not both at the same time).

The mail says that your char will be stored for least 6 months, but from all I've read elsewhere CCP keep the chars longer. Often for years.

I bet if they CCP start cleaning out old chars, they will start with expired trial chars. Because they must have tons of those, and with a trial char it is least likely that someone will give up on EvE because he lost years of leveling.

I also think of trying something else in the not too distant future. Eve PvP is great, but grinding the ISK for the ships is a bit of a drag. So is camping at a gate for hours hoping a target will show up.

Being active in a 0.0 alliance requires a bit more playtime than I'm willing to commit to ATM.

So I'll probably try one of the following when they come out:

-Earthrise

-Fallen Earth

-Jumpgate Evolution

...and BTW I like the EvE skillsystem, because you cannot run into a level cap. Earhrise seems to have a loosely comparable system, which makes it interesting.

Originally posted by daarco

I get depressed when i read how good SWG actually was. Years before anyone else.

Anyway, FE is on the right track.

Good features alone do not make a good game. Feature-wise, Neocron was ahead of its time as well, but due to the lousy implementation it couldn't keep me. Ended up in EvE for now

Aside of that, the linked article gives a nice overview over what we can expect. More FPS-like combat sounds nice. Free for all PvP also, even if replacing looted items can be a bit of drag when you are on the loser side.

And I'm definitely looking forward to a game with deep crafting system, especially considering the history of EvE which has left latecomers like me with a lasting disadvantage (no more new Tech II BPOs). So I will probably take a vacation from EvE when FE, Earthrise or Jumpgate Evolution come out. 

Originally posted by lkavadas

Originally posted by tvalentine

Originally posted by bluealien1

Doesn't EVE have full/partial loot? That game seems to be doing just fine with it... Besides, looting makes it that much more exciting.

 

the difference is that Eve has safe zones, and Earthrise doesnt.

 

A bit disingenuous.  While there is no mechanic in the game which technically prevents a player from opening fire on another at any time there are strong, and harsh, NPC countermeasures in place in certain locations (like Sal Vitas, the capital of the city-state Continoma). 

So if you want to kill some newb get ready to have an NPC storm on top of your head.  Plus you lose all of your gear if killed whether it was insured or not.  And the massive repercussions with reputation., et cetera.

That makes it a lot like EVE. Actually there are players in EVE that will start kamikaze attacks on transports with expensive freight. If successful, a buddy of the attacker will loot the victim. But it always costs the attacker's ship.

Apart from that, EVE has both safe zones (exception from "safe" see above) and unpoliced areas with completely open PvP.

Originally posted by Boneserino

Exactly why IMO opinion the PvP player community is the fringe community in MMO gaming.

Whenever you have open PvP it will always degenerate into total chaos.  Obviously that is just human nature.  And most gamers, especially us older ones play games for fun and to relax.

Actually, if you add some support for taking and defending territory, new player-generating structures will arise. Like the 0.0 alliances in EVE. Since you obviously know EVE, I'm a bit surprised about the above statement.

Now I'll admit that EVE is not perfect, because it allows only large alliances to persist in 0.0 space (for no-EVE players, that is the unpoliced fringe with totally open PvP). But it works at least for those who like being in such an organization.

Probably Solrain, as I like playing an industrialist and it would fit best in that faction. 

But if other factions have nicer ships, I might be persuaded to join the Octavians or Quantar...

Originally posted by Nerf09 

Instanced housing is useless, breaks continuity, creates invulnerability issues where everything has to be reballanced.

The low level stuff would be useful if everything were destructable in a vibrant PvP war with no carebear rules.  Carebear rules are put in place because of the grinding.

I think the apartments in Neocron (postapocalyptic/SciFi MMORPG) were meant as a safe zone for the owners. So they worked as intended.

In general, it turned out that Neocron needed some safe zones, otherwise the crafters would be griefed to death as you had to specialize: Someone who put lots of skill points into science and production did not have much for weaponry skills left.

About the low level stuff: Sure it is useless for a halfway advanced player who has access to advanced stuff. But as a fallback after bad luck (lost your high end gun in combat?) and to ensure newbies can get something to start with I think it is a must have.

Edit: Sorry for getting somewhat OT but the principles apply to any MMO. I think JGE will need to have some (halfway) safe zones and fallbacks as well.

There have been no news from FE for a while, so don't be surprised when people adopt a "wait and see" attitude. After all, most topics from the existing newsletters have been discussed to death.

Personally, I found the graphics OK and would have preferred a launch instead of more eyecandy. But as this is not my decision to make, I'll join the wait and see group. So it might take a few weeks or even months until I post in this forum again

Originally posted by DonnieBrasco

Well, there are many, many FPS MMO's: Battlefield series for starters :)

But as for MMORPG that is FPS, the only 1 knew is/was Neocron.

I wish there will be a spiritual successor to that game, it could have been Da Bomb, pretty bad they screwed it :(

True, I played Neocron and in term of features and atmosphere it was outstanding. 

Unfortunately, the implementation sucked donkey balls. Frequent crashes, bugs that went unfixed for many months and too much lag for a FPS finally drove me away.

With better coding quality (and better adjusting of quests in Dome Of York), I believe Neocron could have had a steady increase in popularity, like Eve had over the years.

Originally posted by Nerf09

decay

100% player made

Housing and factory structures (space structures of course)

No Instancing

 

Without all 4, it just wouldn't work.

1) Decay or item destruction on losing a fight. Eve has the latter and it works too.

2) From my experience with Face Of Mankind, it is a bad idea to rely 100% on player economy. Because when the market for low level items runs dry, newbies are out of luck. So let NPCs sell some basic equipment and leave the better stuff for players to make. You get a 80%-90% player economy and overall happier customers.

3) Definitely yes.

4) Agree, except for housing in large apartment blocks:

Here you can have an elevator that takes you right to your instanced apartment, without a glaring break in the logic of the game. Because who cares about one more apartment in a big block?

This worked well for Neocron.

Originally posted by Tikigod

In responce to AI mining for you..... your kidding right???

 

Why would a game thats main focus is on players performing the tasks themselves introduce a system where people type a command and sod off for a day or two whilst the game does the job for them?

We have already been told that the mining system in JGE will feature a more 'active' role, where the player will not only have to find asteroids to mine, but then find veins on that asteroid in which to extract ore.

So th player has to scout the asteroids, find veins and then...

1) you could do it Eve style, with the player having to stay at the asteroid and unload the ore every  few minutes into a container, or

2) the player could deploy a mining unit on the asteroid that works automatically, with less grind. I'd pefer that one.

In both cases, the system does not need to be sod off-friendly. Every few hours, let some NPC pirates spawn that are too strong to simply ignore. Then the AFK miners will frequently find themselves without a ship .

BTW this is something I would recommend for EVE too. Macrominers are a problem there, because the better mining barges can tank the NPC pirates in highsec space.

Originally posted by Ariolander

In that case I am turned off. I was a HUGE fan of freelancer's intuitive mouse/keybopard combat system and though I got both flight sticks and a joystick I always prefered Freelancer's mouse/keyboard setup over X3's joystick or Eve's overworld view.

I think which control style is appropriate depends on the rest of the game design.

Freelancer had a combination of dogfighting and guns that could be angled away from the current flight direction by 30 degrees or so. The mouse aiming/steering was great for that, even if I tended to get a cramp in my index finger after a few hours.

X2 (didn't play X3) had fixed guns, no aiming separately from the ship. In that case, you need something to control the flight as accurately as possible. Like a good joystick.

And finally, EvE has way too much lag to be twitch-based, as well as a lot of larger ships that are not suitable for dogfighting. Actually, I think only the frigate class of EvE would be fun to play freelancer-style.

Played the Open Beta to lvl 10 last weekend. So far, Requiem

-didn't show bugs except a few disconnects. I have seen games after beta in worse quality

-has decent graphics. More that I expected from a free to play game

-and is completely unoriginal in its gameplay during the first 10 levels.I have not checked out the DNA system or crafting yet (is there crafting? The "item reduction smiths" must be good for something) , but I'm skeptical if they can boost the game from completely bland to halfway interesting

Originally posted by impulsebooks  
Why do you laugh about PVE being fun? Remember all those (admittedly non MMO) old games like Elite, Wing Commander series, Privateer series etc etc etc. They were all player vs environment and they were great fun. They didn't have online versions then. There are some people who would enjoy those games updated to current standards with the ability to chat and group up to do stuff.

Sure, PvE in these games was fun.  They also had one thing in common:

They had joystick control and twitch-based combat. Which is pretty rare in MMO games. In other words, they required a bit more concentration than selecting the enemies in the right order and let your weapons blow them away.

Offhand, I can think of one "space" game that had great PvE without twitch combat:

Homeworld.  But even in that game, I played only through the campaing twice. I think the third time around it would have gotten old. 

So I think Jumpgate Evolution has a chance to do better than most in PvE.  But this also brings a challenge for the developers. Twitch-based games need to have MUCH less lag than others. Based on what I saw in the Auto Assault Beta, NetDevil might be able to pull it off but it won't be easy.

Originally posted by NotNiceDino

Frankly if they make this game exactly like EVE, but with joystick based twitch combat, I'll be on it like a fat kid on a Twinkie.

Out of ship content would be a bonus, but I think EVE is actually going to get that before JE does.

That's why I watch the development of Jumpgate Evolution too. EVE is very nice in many ways, but now and then I'd like a bit more immediate control of the ship.

If NetDevil can pull it off to include flight/combat in Wing Commander style, I might be tempted to switch games.

In terms of out of ship content, CCP(Eve) have hinted at a possible release in late 2008. But it will be for eyecandy and RP opportunities rather than lots of new gameplay features.

Originally posted by Kyleran

 

Originally posted by Lobotomist

Actually losing the cargo  is a hefty "death penalty"

 

What can i tell you. It is still not announced.

Hopefully there will be PVP servers for hardcore crowd, where dying carries hefty penaltyes

 

 

Not if you aren't carrying any cargo.  Let's hope that they come up with a better model than this, otherwise the gankers will have no risk at all while the poor hauling schmoo is gonna bear the brunt of everything.

But like you said, they haven't announced their model yet, but I think its safe to say they won't take the total hardcore route because they have a real desire to succeed with this game. 

Good point about the risk for the ganker. In this, they will have to be completely hardcore (lose the ship too) or not at all (no loss of cargo either). Otherwise, it will become griefer's paradise. By comparison, Eve is nasty enough, but there you can get lucky now and then and cost the ganker a ship.

I played Auto Assault in the beta.

It was promising, but not quite ready at release - still too many bugs and the content was a bit thin in the higher levels. My impressions of the gameplay were rather mixed:

Pro:

-nice, fast action

-innovative, and I didn't mind the "roleplay a car" bit

-interesting crafting system

Contra:

-a bit too limited by level: only fighting mobs near your own level made sense, with absurd scenes near the limits: I remember taking down a watchtower 4 levels higher where I was standing before the tower and missed 4 out of 5 times against a non-moving target

-absolutely no penalty for dying, no logistics to handle. A little bit more hardcore would have been nice (I'm playing EVE atm, which is mostly at the other extreme of the scale)

-too little room for player skill: The driving physics were half-decent (a bit cartoony but OK) but the crude joystick interface seemed to know only two degrees of turning the steering wheel. Keyboard was worse. For me that really damaged the driving aspect, which could have made a nice in-game pastime of its own.

 In the end, I didn't buy Auto Assault but I still think Net Devil have the skills to make a good game. They just need to drop the idea that their games have to be completely skill-free 

Originally posted by zenaphex

I have to play TR on low settings, otherwise I crash. There seems to be some particular setting when Normal and higher that locks my system up.

Well... assuming that your system is OK, this is the kind of thing that really needs to be fixed.

High quality graphic may slow down a system but should never crash it. Looks like the developers might have forgotten a few checks that tell if your system can actually handle the high level graphics.

At least 'Id expect a message that tells me "Sorry, cannot use high def graphics because your graphics card misses feature X"

Originally posted by leshtricity

 

Originally posted by deedelechach

it sounds like closed beta is ending soon... any guesses as to when Open beta will be?

 

I wouldn't invest too much stock into that idea. I won't comment on the actual game, but I will say that the game is coming along very nicely, but the developers are still getting a lot of good reports and feedback from closed beta testers, so much so, that I would be very surprised for them to let in a huge influx of  people just looking for a game to play, not test.

A few days of open beta are often done as load test and/or promotion.

It really sucks if you go live with paying users and suddenly find out your server will collapse under more than 500 users