#1

Following on from our conversation yesterday Meg, I was looking into this last night. Not too sure about it though. Opinions are quite mixed. Also, we talked briefly about it here.

Below are some quotes I found...

Is it an MMO?

It's a question that hasn't had an entirely clear answer (to an outsider knowing nothing) until the game recently hit Steam. I know because I loosely followed the game but never got that one answered until recently.

Everyone plays in the same universe. However whether or not you are visible to others or not is based upon the setting you choose each time you play. If you choose Solo, you will never see any other players despite playing in the same world. If you choose Private Party, you will only ever see people in your group despite playing in the same world. If you choose Open Play, everyone else that entered the game using the Open Play option can see you when you're near and you them. But people in Open Play cannot see or interact with anyone playing in Private or Solo.

And yes, you can switch between the options each time you enter the game, even though you're playing the same character.

More useful info...

It's a game that's advertised as an MMO, but only lets you group with 4 players (and that's only since the last update), has no clans/guilds, and has only the most basic of communication. It's Open Play mode is PVP at all times. There is no open PVE mode, so you can have a choice between meeting other people (and having them kill you), or playing all alone in the 400 billion star universe. There is a Group mode, but this was designed to let you play with your friends and so you don't have the same potential for interaction with people you dont know. The most popular group is Mobius's, but it's admined by a single player. For reasons unknown, Frontier seem to have no plans to make an open PVE, despite it being much requested. It's also usually counter requested by PVP players who want to force everyone into Open PVP.

It's a game that's referred to as "sandbox", but all you can do is look at how much procedurally generated, and very shallow, sand there is. You can't actually build anything with that sand since there are no tools supplied to do this. Speaking of a lack of tools, the old pen and paper are a necessity if you want to be able to keep track of anything. A space trading game that doesn't have a trade computer. The only ones that do have been written by players.

A lot of the apologists for this game are still using the same excuses we saw all through Beta. Only back then it was "It's only Beta", then "It's only Gamma", "It's only just been released", "It's only been out 4 months", "They're still developing it", "This isn't the game for you".

It's a shame, because like a lot of other people I really want this to be a great game, and it just isn't. It *might* be in another 6 months, but equally it might not be because FD will have further split their resources developing for MAC, XBox and whatever else.

If this game were on sale for £20 and advertised as being still in development I think that'd be much fairer.

Last edited 7 Apr 2015 at 10:02.

#2

One to leave for the minute then i think

#3

I wasn't trying to put you off Meg, if you wanna get it then by all means do. I was just quoting what I saw on it. If you do get it I would be interested to see if it IS any good, but I shall not be purchasing it until then as I have other stuff to spend my money on... Sword Coast Legends, Pillars of Eternity to name a couple.