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[Perpetuum] EVE - CCP - Spaceships + Mecha = This
KiTA
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So what the hell is this shit?
Perpetuum is a new science fiction MMORPG by indy developer Avatar Creations, in which you play as a robot and blow crap up.
Backstory
Direct from the source:
In the not-too-distant future, a strange anomaly opens the gates of the universe for humans. With this new technology, energy, information and atomic size objects can be transported to anywhere in space.
The most intriguing of all new discoveries is an Earth-like planet, where humanity discovers a new source of energy, vital to its unbroken advancement. However, this planet is inhabited by a synthetic, robot-like life form. Their technology and resources are the goal of humanity's new conquest.
Players may take part in various areas of the project. They may fight on the front lines for new territories, develop the already established infrastructure, trade goods or services, or even set their own goals and set up their own corporations.
Sum it up in One Line
It's EVE Online. With Mechs instead of Spaceships.
No literally. Everything about the game, from UI to the combat to even kinda sorta the storyline is clearly inspired by EVE. It even has the same Real-Time-EXP system.
Wait, real time EXP?
Yes, just like EVE, you gain skillpoints over real life time, not via killing monsters and grinding. This counts if you're logged in or not, as well.
PVP?
Open world. UO style.
Free trial?
Yes, 15 days:
http://www.perpetuum-online.com/Client_download
Due to the recent clusterfuck in EVE, a lot (a lot) of EVE players have jumped ship to Perpetuum, which is described as "EVE Beta, only the devs actually listen to the players." Not sure if there's a Penny Arcade / Goonswarm presence yet -- we should fix that if not, eh?
Anyone giving this a try?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCXEKspMzUQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-eQmyCkPKw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ3Xkh91BNQ&feature=player_embedded
KiTA on
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It was like EVE, so I quit.
Edit: The review in the OP is...kinda bad.
Thought about trying it then, but my computer was too old. Might give it a shot now.
Unlike in EVE, where bullets, missiles, and lasers go through titan sized asteroids like they aren't even there, rendering the game largely down to a basis of who has a better build, rather then tactics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvNslovTwNU
Anyone with which I should touch bases so I'm not just standing around getting shot at by pubbies?
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
Talking to people in general it seems like what faction you pick definitely determines what style of mech you're going to be using. Green (which I picked) is apparently long range missiles and armor, blue is speed and lasers, and I dunno what the third faction is about yet.
I'd like to see him review Eve.
Given his (rather dumb) complaints, i'm pretty sure EVE would destroy his soul.
Hell, there are probably corps dedicated to fucking with people like him.
I'd like to see what his impression is as to super-caps and caps in EVE.
"You mean I need to train for four months, minimum, to pilot this shit!?"
*Scanners style head explosion.*
Mech warrior was awsome
soul-crushing
also before anyone pipes up with "but they have a 'Play on Mac/Linux' link on their site!" I'll just say one thing:
emulation
It's not. MW The mmo, that is.
Care to say why?
No warp. In Eve if I have a bookmark or maybe an overview location I needed to go to, I could nearly instantly get there via warping around. In Perpetuum I have to walk. Now, that's not terrible except when I have no real direction, no "GO HERE TO KILL BAD GUYS". So I have to just wander around in a random direction for a while and hope that where I end up is some place I can fight.
No one is really that helpful. When I played, the locals I asked for information (what I felt was easy stuff that had an easy answer), I was told to get out of the game because I'm a noob. There was a general sense that I had that they wanted to burn the new player at the stake.
Getting new mech's seemed a prodigious effort, an effort which I had no idea where to start with. I knew I needed money, and skills. But didn't know where to start getting money, and when I finally did find a guy who lead me to things to kill, I got crushed. Then I started to earn money, but it took forever to get a small amount, and I needed huge amounts to get the "cool" mechs.
I don't know, I might give it another shot. But at the time it felt like when playing I couldn't push forward. I felt like I was equal in progression by not playing. I like being able to log into a game and progress myself with my time. Not log in and play, and find myself just a few fakebucks a head of where I was. To be fair, this was the same thing that eventually drove me away from Eve. Not being able to control my progression outside of skill choices.
It's worth giving a fair shake, and enough time has passed I might try the trial again just to see if it clicks.
They have a mission system now, so it does now tell you exactly where to go to kill bad guys.
The rate at which you skill up I can definitely imagine bugging some people.
Travel in Eve is instant because it's just "click click click" not "hold it down for 30 minutes while I run to a location." That is a big difference, one that frustrated me. Having to pay attention while I did something as simple as travel across a boring landscape was an annoyance. Warping around for 30 minutes was more instant and less annoying. Plus, I could read forums/books while I warped around if I knew it was safe.
Green (North America) is shields and missles (or cap drain for EW robots), blue (Europe) is armor and railguns (ECM, webbing, and remote repair), yellow (Asia) is cap and lasers (sensor scrambling, webbing, and higher damage resistance). Unfortunately, you can't fire weapons when your shields are up, which makes shields kind of stupid unless you're in a support robot.
One major difference between Perpetuum and EVE regarding skills is that every account gets one skill point per minute. These points accumulate, and when you spend them to train or raise "Extensions" (the Perpetuum term for skills), they train up instantly.
The selection of mechs is kind of meh, though. Each faction has the following:
Light robot
Light EW robot
Light combat robot
Heavy robot
Heavy EW robot
Heavy combat robot
There's also the noob robot, and seven faction-neutral industrial robots:
light miner
light harvester
transport
medium miner
medium harvester
heavy miner
heavy harvester
Amusingly, all of the industrial robots have wheels (harvesters) or treads (miners/transport) instead of legs.
Each of these is available in the base version and a Mark II version, which boasts improved stats (about 25% or so) and a new paint scheme.
Edit: quick clarification: when I say "North America", "Europe", and "Asia" above, I don't mean this game takes place on Earth, but rather on another planet. Each of the three factions is aligned with those three regions of Earth.
Also, beyond lasers, rails, and missles, there are normal shooty guns, but they suck. The only faction that uses them is the green one, and only to supplement their missle loadout. For example, the green light robot has four turret slots: 3 are exclusively for missle launchers (two small, and one small/medium), and one can be a missle launcher or autocannon (small). Conversely, the blue and yellow robots are 3 rails/lasers (2s, 1s/m) and one rail/laser or missle (s).
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
I had an old trial account I reactivated, because I figured "hey it's $10". I had 60k of their "EP" sitting there, I'm all excited because this means I can pretty much bypass the really stupid and underwhelming newbie robot. Unfortunately, the next lowest bot (which I can easily skill for, in fact over skill for) is 300k. While that doesn't seem like much, let me explain:
If you go out to kill something for a mission, you get 22k for the mission, and maybe 8k at most for the loot (newbie level stuff, things that won't flat out terminate you). In order to kill 6 things, I blow threw 10k+ in ammo. So I'm making maybe 20k per mission, usually more like 15k (because loot can suck). It takes about 15-25 mins to do a kill mission counting travel time. This is mostly due to the influx of new players all fighting in the same mission area, but even then, when I had the spawn to myself it took 10 to 15 mins to do it with upgraded from newb guns and the best recommended ammo (which I tested to make sure was correct).
It would take an average of 17.5k per mission, and 15 minutes per mission, it would take 4.5 hours just to buy the robot. Not counting the other gear required which would make it cost about 500k. While that doesn't seem terrible, you also have to figure in: Combat is boring as shit. It's no worse then Eve, but when you're stuck in a newbie boat, it really is discouraging.
I tried mining, that was terrible. 30 minutes for 10k, granted no cost, and I could take a mission to increase my profit to 23k, so hey! better then combat! But orders of magnitude more boring. You also have to go to the mining site. Now if you're going to do something boring, and you bring a robot that can't really fight, having to wander around mountains, navigate ledges and small pathways, wander into spawns trying to find ore, run back and forth to base, it is like Eve mining, but you're adding in the chore of having to navigate the landscape and not being able to just "WARP OUT!" if you're in trouble.
I really want to like it. I love mechs, I love(d) Eve, I like the concept, but there is a schism of haves and have nots. They retuned the mission rewards after a large number of people had made money off it. Now new players have to scratch by hoping to get out of their newbie robot. Forget about getting a full "Mech" (which all look bad ass) any time soon. Yes higher level missions reward more money, but anything past level 1 requires a mech or a group, something that means you need to farm level 1 missions for a long time, or join with a group of people. People like me, who are solo and just trying it out, are pretty much shown the door.
I can only imagine how fun the game could be if you're joining an established group, or jumping in with a bunch of friends at once. But going solo? Yeah...grinding missions in a dumb looking robot with dumb guns where my skills don't really help the robot I'm in at all (I want to use magnetic guns, the newbie bot uses firearms), doing very boring activities so I can get a non-dumb looking robot....not exactly my idea of fun. And I was the guy who would do Anomolies and Plex's all day in Eve. But I had a really cool ship and really cool guns, and that was fun.
It also sounds like there needs to be some folks in PA set up out in the open PVP areas. That's where all the drama and hijinks occur in games like this.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
Yep, that kinda sounds like my first day in Eve. If the game is truly open, I'd just get into my first robot the same way I got into my first non-shit ship.
Scam someone in local. :twisted:
My shiny new Prometheus issues lasery death to those newb zone drones like nobody's business. Time to move on I suppose!
You also get the proper weapons for your faction in one of those tutorial missions.
Aahh! I didn't know that! That's got to be newer, because I did the tutorial missions when I first started this account. Now, it has been at least 6 months since then. Good catch man, I might log in and do them again, I saw a button some where that was "do tutorial missions".
That abates some of the problems, making money as a newb is still a huge problem though. It doesn't change that it would take hours to make a few hundred thousand NIC, when you need millions. Nor does it change any of the more fundamental problems I mentioned.
Still, thanks for pointing out it's possible to get a faction light mech without blowing your brains out.
Though lord forbid the light faction mech gets blown up...
---
I've already uninstalled it. The graphics looks neat, but there just isn't enough content there right now. I'd compare it to launch EVE with almost no fast travel and no battleships, though admittedly Perpetuum is not very old.
I have two main issues with sandbox games: there is never enough engaging PvE content, and the quality of PvP content is directly proportional to the quantity of quality endgame players. Perpetuum lacks the former and doesn't have enough players for the latter, so it loses its luster pretty quickly.
Things I would add/change:
1) Add a LOT more mechs. At least double what they have now.
2) Make shields useful, or take them out entirely.
3) Add land carriers, a la Heavy Gear, to enable location-specific fast travel within wealthier corporations.
4) Allow fast travel between more nodes.
5) JUMP JETS!
6) Incorporate longer and more engaging PvE story arcs within "Empire" territory, so as to better engage players in the story and setting of the game.
7) Add multiple z-levels, such as bridges one can walk under, underground caverns, etc.
8) Include some sort of insta-warp get-into-the-action faction PvP, a la WW2 Online.
9) Lower the prices of the T1 mechs, as a brand new character can train to use heavy assault mechs from the gate if they so choose. This also encourages people to get out there and blow stuff up, rather than cowering in town worried their one and only mech might be lost forever.
10) Make the T2 mechs better, so that they are about twice as good as equivalent T1 mechs.
11) Revamp the targeting system. Allow for multiple targeting, perhaps only on specific T2 mechs.
That's a few things, anyway.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
Things it does nice:
-Skill system: Sure it's purely time based, but there's no worrying about skill queues, just apply the points whenever you log in for instant skills.
-Size: The world still feels big. Compared to Eve with it's region sprawling powerblocks, jumpbridges, and empire highways, travel really means something in perpetuum for better or worse.
Things it does wrong:
-Everything you hated about Eve: Interface, boring combat, obtuse skills, ect... They copied over the good, but also the bad.
-Starting over again. For Eve vets trying to escape CCP, returning to the bad old days of an auto attacking newbie ship is more painful than you remember as you try to desperately grind up a few mods through the mind numbingly boring day to day operation of the game.
e; It is really nice seeing such input from the GMs and Devs in chat channels, but for a game maxing out at 500 people online I would certainly hope as much. That's very much indie levels of playerbase.
I got my light faction bot, got all stoked, dumped my EP into skills so it could wreck face.
I go out and try to do a level 0 mission (because it will take me 30 more level 0 missions to get level 1 missions), I get a grand total of 8 attacks from my 4 guns before my "cap" runs dry and I'm shooting just one gun.
I go back, and refit for 2 guns. Now my bot looks retarded, and I only have 2 guns instead of the possible 4, which is also retarded.
I get a total of 20 shots before my "cap" throws in the towel. Doing the math it will take 10k EP to get my skills to the point where I can constantly run just 2 guns. 25k EP to run all 4, and 45k to run all 4 plus a burst repper.
31.25 days before I can take my light bot, and run all 4 guns at once, plus a repper when I don't want to die.
That's fucking ridiculous. Never mind the fact that it means I can't really make much money because my bot can't really run more then 1 god damn gun.
Flawed. God damn flawed.
Oooo, and the thing that really cracked me up? Some of the standard gear? Like, stuff to make you tank better? or maybe some Ewar stuff? It's like 200k+, a lot of the good armor tanking stuff (just good mod's not the top level of that mod, T1 versions of tanking plates) is as much as a light bot. I saw a T1 universal tanking plate that was 400k. 400k for a mod. When a bot costs 300k. The economy is so fucked up for a new player.
Edit: My buddy Cedarbridge was just IMed by a GM at random. Nothing bad, the GM just noticed he was new and wondered if he was having any issues. Pretty impressive.
Yeah, that's one thing that really miffed me as I was playing.
I don't know if I've just been spoiled by having a cache in Eve, or if I couldn't see the market due to being on a trial (something that really pissed me off), but from leveling a fresh mission alt, it would take nowhere near the time to jump from frigate-->cruiser-->BC as it would from starter light bot up to the generic assault bot.
Prices and progression are just downright absurd.
- No more dull background black.
- GM's who are actually in game and might listen to suggestions.
- Everyone is still pretty newb and the economy is not even working.
- No need to worry about clones and losing skills.
- Helpfull community, at least at the moment with the new players comming from eve.
The best way to make money without to much cost (but insanely boring at the same time) is doing transport missions between the Alpha terminals to get relations up and earn cash.
If development is handled right, it could become eve with mechs.