Topic: New Player, 2 days and done
things that made me say no, find another game:
1. Costs of robots versus insurance payouts.
Learning the game takes some time to figure out what enemy NPC's are don't mess with.
Twice I was killed by simply passing too close to an area where my mission was and the targeting range of tough NPC's was overlapping, out they came. So I lost a Cassel (sp?) and then the Waspish I replaced that with. The 400k price of the waspish set me back to near nothing so I thought let's get insurance. It was quoted at $80k and payed out like 270k. (may not be exact, going on memory) Well that makes the total payout of 480k to get insured back 270k, costing me 210k if I lose the bot. Total w/o insurance 400k, not really what I would call insurance. Insurance should be available in levels based on what I pay, NOT my skills!
2. Doing missions sometimes had me on the 1 hour timer and a few to go when other much larger player(s) would zip in and start killing everything that spawned before I could even lock on. Not a good way to retain newbs. Obviously since it's a sandbox environment this is not something you would care about if it was not mission NPC's. But in a little red circle, it had to be these and so I was hosed. Really NPC's that are part of a mission should not drop a single loot if killed by someone without the mission OR if the level of player is considerably higher than the NPC.
3. As long as the game has been out I expected more than 204 people in general chat on a Sunday afternoon. Terrible player base. And generally that indicates players have been let down by slow changes, lack of end game, bugs, etc. Part of what I seen on my Waspish could be along these lines. I had near zero cargo space, yet I had 4 slots for head and 6 arms. No cargo extensions available at all? Are you kidding me? So I thought well at least I'll be able to kill stuff, I'll put 2 medium missile launchers on, and 4 small. Nope. 150 reactor per medium launcher, I can't even get 2 of them by themselves. So my 1st question was 'why the hell do I have the slots then?' I understand how skills could ultimately lower requirements etc, but by the time I trained up all that, I sure won't want to still be in that ship now would I?
4. The world is very small. Let's face it, compared to say Eve, it is but a drop in a bucket. So I began thinking what happens if they did get a huge player base? Think you have trouble doing your missions now?
That's it really, the 2 blow ups really put a nasty taste in my mouth along with the lack of players. Makes me feel the game will soon be a memory. I'm not going to spend months/years to have it vanish with my work like SWG did.
The graphics are fine. The combat mechanics are great. The fact that everytime I went to fight an NPC I had more of his buddies join up was disappointing. I'm alone, why the hell can't you find some of them alone? That contributed to the overall bad feeling I had.
I think had the insurance been more reasonable and the NPC's that are killer mobs weren't so close to newbie mobs, I'd still be playing. But having your hard work go poof like that does not add up to fun.
I hope I am wrong on the longevity issue. Time will tell.
