Topic: List of things / impression of the game as a new player.

Tutorial issues

At some point the tutorial reaches the mining section where you have to:
"Right click on the geoscanner, then load the area-based geoscanner charge"
This option is not directly available to be found using the description found in the tutorial.
It should mention the submenu "ammo/charge" or "reload all"


Bugs / oddities:
* Sound is relative to your camera position, rather than your mech.
* Shadows update once every few seconds, this causes them to be very ugly and jumpy.
* Shadows are bland, not dark enough in some areas.
* Tooltip delay should be shorter.
* Windows should "come to the front" if they are clicked. Currently it seems they do not, e.g. the tutorial window needs to be moved to the side when you try to open other windows.
* After clicking the terrain window button, the submenu that shows up should stay open until something else is clicked, rather than close as soon as the mouse is moved away from it.

Features: (e.g. it would be nice if...)
* Font sizes should be adjustable so users with less good eye sight, or high resolution monitors are able to play the game as well.
* Robot colors were customizable.
* You could disable the blinking mode of chat channels.
* You could hide the "current users in channel" list.
* Left click to select targets, left click and drag to move the camera, right click for contextual menus.
* Ctrl+A in cargo, should select all items.
* It would be cool if the "view item details" window also had a "view in 3d" option.
* In Item Information, some items are listed with decimals, some are not. It
* Master volume in audio options.
* Ctrl + S to mute / unmute all sounds.
* After pressing escape, there needs to be a "Return to login screen" aside the "quit game" option.



On overall the game feels like it's an open beta, not a finished product.
I fear I won't be subscribing for an extra month just yet, but I'll keep it bookmarked and check back in a while.

The main improvements that need doing, would be an easier to follow tutorial, and a more user friendly interface which simply "works" rather than hides most features. Graphics are a good secondary, but much less important than the actual usage experience.

I must strongly emphasize that the dev interaction is GREAT, keep that up guys. It shows dedication and I know you'll get things up and running perfectly in no time.

Re: List of things / impression of the game as a new player.

This is a very good list and shows what would be nice to have if there was an UI overhaul.
Hopefully a new engine for the UI will be ready one day Soon™ right along with an API system.

smile

Re: List of things / impression of the game as a new player.

in my day or 2 playing... some early thoughts

Good points

The graphics/feel of the game feels very solid, and artist cool
Seems very open-worldly being an Eve-Pat i like idea of free-form MMO doing what i want, when i want.
Community seems decent enough, responses in help channel are good.


Could Do Better

As a trialist would be nice if we could use the market for npc/player orders, granted not being able to sell i can fully understand but not being able to buy makes it hard as a trialist to get a feel for the market community of the game (which i enjoy)

A little bit more in terms of PvE, whilst the training missions were fine to show you the basics once done your left, something like a small guide once finished.. IE So where would you like to focus now... then gives you some starter advice about where/what/how to go about it.


Bad Points

The Camera I would like/prefer a static option to choose.. ie follow/preceed my movement, then if i want to move camera as i walk/run then i can, whereas at the moment i often find myself stuck and struggle to move out of the objects without camera angle going AWOL

Targetting, being able to cycle through the npc/players with tab instead of click on them, playing on a smaller screen in can be a real PITA trying to click on a small NPC to target it. (off course if there is another way please tell me)

Final point, I think this game could offer a hell'ava lot, so far i am enjoying it, but will see what the following weeks offer, I will update after i go fulltime account and played fro a nice month does this game have the longevity of Eve i hope so.. smile

Good luck

Quaz

Re: List of things / impression of the game as a new player.

(2 days play)
Improvement request:  Control + click for targeting/make primary.
Tutorial request: A manufacturing/research/industry stuff tutorial.

Agree on the market.

The rest for me hasn't really been any issue.

Re: List of things / impression of the game as a new player.

While some of the points are valid alot are just asking for perpetuum to be made into Eve mark 2.

As an Eve refugee I want to say that we should be adapting to a new game with a different interface rather than asking for it to be made into what we just left.  Show a little respect and adapt not ask for things to be changed.

Like I said some points are good but for the main part were just being rude. Alot of the existing player base that I have spoken too are starting to get annoyed with the way we are behaving.

6 (edited by Tyrox 2011-06-27 17:06:00)

Re: List of things / impression of the game as a new player.

adriaans wrote:

Improvement request:  Control + click for targeting/make primary.

You can double click to lock/teleport/dock/whatever.
Much cooler than CTRL + click imho.

Re: List of things / impression of the game as a new player.

New feature idea :
- A mini-map which indicates objectives/NPCs/agents (seems obvious to me, but didnt read anything about it in the devblog)

Re: List of things / impression of the game as a new player.

Tag wrote:

New feature idea :
- A mini-map which indicates objectives/NPCs/agents (seems obvious to me, but didnt read anything about it in the devblog)

If I understand your request properly this is in the game -- you just have to put it on  your UI.

Re: List of things / impression of the game as a new player.

GLiMPSE wrote:
Tag wrote:

New feature idea :
- A mini-map which indicates objectives/NPCs/agents (seems obvious to me, but didnt read anything about it in the devblog)

If I understand your request properly this is in the game -- you just have to put it on  your UI.

*noob face* big_smile

Thanks.

10

Re: List of things / impression of the game as a new player.

Game needs auto next target primary. Really seems weird that you can have something locked activate your guns and not shoot because you didn't re click something as primary.

Also more market orders stock would be great. The ability to trade items remotely/contract is something that it seems the game should have.

Other than that double clicking a link and opening out of game browser is awesome, the directional part of the landmark tab is awesome.

Re: List of things / impression of the game as a new player.

Grevous wrote:

While some of the points are valid alot are just asking for perpetuum to be made into Eve mark 2.

As an Eve refugee I want to say that we should be adapting to a new game with a different interface rather than asking for it to be made into what we just left.  Show a little respect and adapt not ask for things to be changed.

Like I said some points are good but for the main part were just being rude. Alot of the existing player base that I have spoken too are starting to get annoyed with the way we are behaving.

ahhh, wasn't aware of that ^^

That deffo works too! Thanks big_smile

Re: List of things / impression of the game as a new player.

Might me nice to post some impressions as a new player, if I could ever bloody get to log in. Oh that can be my first impression, you can't bloody log in.

Re: List of things / impression of the game as a new player.

Hi hi.

It's not so much that we don't want to hear about changes, its just most of the existing player base came over from Eve at launch, and we've already had the discussions about how this or that works here compared with Eve.

First impressions here are still OK, as sometimes we just get used to how something works when it could easily be better. Other things are the way they are, because they are better, even if they don't seem like it at first. You can't possibly know the difference, so I think we can agree to be patient with each other.

Also, I can tell your all excited about the new game, we are too! But there is a search button for the forums here, it's case sensitive (did I mention this should be fixed?) so try capitalizing the first letter or all lower case if you can't find what your looking for.

Re: List of things / impression of the game as a new player.

As a new player with both experience in EVE Online and several other MMOs, I have to say that my initial impressions are not ones that have endeared me to this game.  Mind you, I can play EVE Online for free, essentially, using the in-game market to trade for PLEX, or I could play most other MMORPGs by paying $14.99 a month for a subscription.  This should color my perceptions adequately; as you read my notes, keep in mind that this game is cheaper than the usual MMO subscription, but it is not free to play - meaning, if I were going to pay for an MMO, would I choose this one at all over my other options?

Good Impressions
*The concept is intriguing; an open-world environment has many, many options by its definition and I think that with more options offered (such as agriculture, livestock) than simply combat and mining, Perpetuum has plenty of things to do in it (at least in theory).  I would like to see more high-level play to see what options are truly available to a player.

*The robot designs are neat.  I like the look and the feel of even the newbie robot as it skitters along.  The environment gives a really "big, wide open" sense, and the super-technical buildings set the sci-fi scene well.

*Missions are exceptionally easy to understand, although I've only played some of the tutorial ones.  Games these days often fail by having a poor mission interface or horrible quest tracking.  That isn't really the case here; I feel like I know what my missions want me to do without having to refer back to the mission log repeatedly, and I can locate the objectives swiftly and easily.

*I much prefer the spending of EP on Extensions to the actual queuing of skills a la EVE Online.  It means that no matter what, I can just distribute my skill points which accrue on their own.  No worrying over losing those precious hours not having a skill queued up while I'm away, I can just log in and pop in my points where I want them.

"Meh" Impressions
*This game is EVE Online on a planet.  It is in every aspect I can care to mention just a reskin of EVE Online.  The only downside is, EVE Online has had a few years to develop content while this game has just come out.  While it executes some things slightly differently, you may as well be playing EVE Online.  As someone who has played EVE Online, is Perpetuum unique enough to warrant a subscription?  No.

*The game's textures and shadows are, at times, pretty "meh" and occasionally run into some rendering problems like the shadows looking odd over hills or inclines.  While they look nice overall, it's not jumping out there and convincing me that this is a pretty game.  This isn't a massive point, however, because they're okay.  Not spectacular, not terrible, just okay.

Bad Impressions
*Holy crap, the avatar creation is a joke.  Is this Runescape?  Did I fall into a timewarp and hit some kind of bizarre rift in the void between the time I started creating my absolutely hideous-looking, poorly-rendered, cartoonish Agent face and when I entered the game to see relatively nice robot design and environment textures?  This game was released sometime in the last five years, right?  Even free to play MMOs out of a Korean programmer's basement often have better looking faces than this.  I would take the same 4 faces for male and female Agents if they were even remotely decent-looking.  Hell, I would take NO Agent avatars over this.  Holy crap.

*Trial players cannot find player-made orders in the market.  So, let me see here...I can't figure out if the player-driven economy is absolutely screwed or not, I can't reasonably purchase items or goods from the general market, and I have to rely on what appear to be NPC or seeded market orders that are ridiculously expensive.  This is a great way to draw in new players, guys: treat them like total criminals!  Before anyone jumps in and says "It's better not to allow Chinese gold farmers to make fake trial accounts to abuse the market!" let me just say, "Jump off a cliff."  There are better ways than to restrict potential PAYING customers for the possible illegal actions of individuals, like, I dunno, taking a proactive role in managing your game.

*The game hides 90% of its UI from the beginning.  Thanks, but no, I don't like being treated like an idiot by this game.  I'd like to be able to SEE things like my equipped modules, my ROBOT'S HEALTH, and the overview.  Sure, completing the tutorial missions will "enable" the UI elements over the course of ALL of them, but I have a better suggestion: TURN ON THE UI BY DEFAULT.  There is NO REASON to make the default behavior "You don't know jack" and expect people to turn on necessary knowledge, especially when the first 15 minutes of the game will generally be spent TURNING ON THIS KNOWLEDGE.

*Of all the things the game decided to do identically to EVE Online, it somehow managed to miss responsive or intuitive targeting controls.  When I have several targets selected, when my primary target dies, I likely want to move on to the NEXT target.  I don't want to have to double-click it in the overview or the battlefield or in my target list.  I want my focus to switch to that target.  Hotkeys or similar likely exist, but they are not made APPARENT in tooltips, the tutorial, or any other player interface.  IF they are customizable, the game has not yet mentioned these things.  If there ARE no hotkeys such as "Press CTRL+Click on a target to lock on," then this game is even worse off.

Also, the default newbie robot takes FAR too long to lock onto enemies.  I refuse to believe equipping a sensor booster on the NEWBIE ROBOT to target enemy drones in a reasonable window of time is a good idea.  Why does it take so long to select a target?

*The game is functionally BROKEN at the moment.  As of this writing, I have been disconnected, unable to log in, the game has crashed, the game has lagged out, and I have not finished the beginner missions directly following the tutorial.  Someone is going to post "Well they just received a lot of ex-EVE players, the servers are overloaded."  To that person or persons: Is this a beta?  Is this game still in stress testing or somehow expected to be unfinished?  I'm sorry, I was under the impression this was a 1.0 release.  I've seen Minecraft servers with better stability than this, hosted on some guy's laptop.  Lag and login troubles might be acceptable if this were, say, release day, or even release week, but isn't this game some several MONTHS old?

*Sort of related to the above, there is no petition system?  At all?  You have to find a GM ingame and PM them with a problem?  Guys, I've seen better support than this on private servers run by a guy out of his mom's basement.  You can't tell me a game got out of beta without a coherent way of reporting problems aside from harassing GMs in game.  PMs are the WORST way to track interactions!  What if you have a repeat issue?  How do you verify your GMs are providing adequate service or accurate resolutions?  How do you monitor ANYthing when it's all done via text chat interface without slogging through logs to verify it even happened?  C'mon.

Overall, I have to say that I am not subscribing to Perpetuum.  I am not suggesting it to friends.  If anything, I am pointing out the above flaws in the game and advising them to stay away from it.

Re: List of things / impression of the game as a new player.

All I have to say, is this is not "Eve in bots". Being in the SF genre, it uses technological names for things, but it doesn't matter if you call something "Web", "Demob", or "Icy Grip", the mechanic of slowing a player down is the same in all MMO's.

The reason it 'feels' like Eve, is they stuck with the industry standard look and feel for Sci-Fi GUI's.

As for the rest, everyone is entitled to an opinion, and some points are totally valid. I'll leave which are which as an exercise for someone not trying to chase down a rogue wifi point on their network smile

Re: List of things / impression of the game as a new player.

Hexxus, imho you are being very harsh on this game. This is a small indy team, not a world-class developer. Even those world-class developers experience "issues" that may fall under your "broken game" definition. A lot of your comments are very small issues, such as "targeting takes too long", or "should automatically make next target primary". I can't blame you because you only have access to trial forums, but we do hash out these problems with devs on the main forums. The devs also have priorities which issues need to be revamped.

I do commend on you on taking the time to write this post. You make a good observation about the UI being hidden initially. Would be useful for players to have a preset UI when they first get into the game, and/or have tutorial covering each module

Finally, I am sad that you will not recommend the game based on some of the above not-very-important issues. Since it is a trial, why not let your friends decide for themselves?

Re: List of things / impression of the game as a new player.

I want to say that I found the game to be very interesting, I think it needs more "fleshing out" but I'm definitely considering a sub, I'm encouraging many of my non-eve friends to try it out because while the initial impression screams EVE, once you play it, you see it isn't EVE, it is *fun* ... now I love and have fun in eve, but that's at a much larger level, pvp is heart pumping, but there is seldom the thrill of the hunt, that is where Perpetuum really captures something new in my opinion. 

I've love to offer support for some of these ideas:
* Font sizes should be adjustable so users with less good eye sight, or high resolution monitors are able to play the game as well. (PLEASE be UN-eve-like here, help us on laptops!!)

* Robot colors were customizable. ( I know you're adding this with MT soon, but if there were an in game way as well ... and/or player corp logos)

* You could disable the blinking mode of chat channels. (please do that, I tended to just minimize chat as I didn't like swapping back and forth, yet didn't want to close them either.)

* Left click to select targets, left click and drag to move the camera, right click for contextual menus. ( I found the right click to be a little odd, and didn't see a left click reserved use, so as an option, it would be quite nice!)

* Ctrl+A in cargo, should select all items. (I don't know how to say PLEASE more)

* It would be cool if the "view item details" window also had a "view in 3d" option. (neat idea)

* Master volume in audio options. (agreed)

* Ctrl + S to mute / unmute all sounds. (nice idea too)

* After pressing escape, there needs to be a "Return to login screen" aside the "quit game" option. (agreed!)

As to the website, when you aren't logged in, if it said login and register and those were links, it would be more convenient. 

To those who think the former eve players are being rude, I am sorry for that, I would say we're looking for a new game and want it to be awesome! (hence we see great now, and want more!)

best,
Ant

Re: List of things / impression of the game as a new player.

This is day 3 for me, and I did a paid sub last night.  A couple of the quirks are that trial characters do not have access to the market, certain chat windows, etc.  I think its more a matter of opnion, and maybe Perpetuum did it so the new guy can focus on the game instead of the deeper areas like market, etc.  But I think that the market should be opened up for trial accounts to utilize.  Again probably opinion but that seems kinda goofy to me.  On the flip side I really dont care because I wouldnt know what I am buying/selling anyway.

I like the idea that this is what I see as a EvE meets WarHammer.  Eve gives the open sandbox and I like how the world is one open area rather then "gated" areas like in Eve.  It gives the army strategy like Warhammer Online had.  (RVR battles)  I like that.  It is very appealing to me and this game will have much more tactics then who can bring the bigger fleet.  Clearly the zerg is always an issue but this game shows that there are more strategies involved in taking areas.

I have not had a chance to get into the PvP yet and am looking forward to it.

The tuturial is very informative and if you are comming from eve you shoudl be able to merge the two very easily.  I personally hate PVE so I am not going to comment on that aspect.  I do hate Daebin (is that it), I think the terrain sucks for traveling and resulted in me losing my first bot sad   But I do like that you are required to walk around, I believe this will result in some pretty awesome PvP fights/ganks/ambushes.

I personally like the Ui system.  You simply need to get the hang of it and arrange it the wya you want.  I have found a "flavor" of what I think I like and so far it has been working.  I plan to post a guide on starting out once I am done my final rookie mission tonite. 

The one thing I think, (and maybe this is good?) Is that the entire rookie missions take too long to complete, but then again they do do a good job going over the entire general gameplay.

Dev communication is great.

Re: List of things / impression of the game as a new player.

Alfredson wrote:

...This is a small indy team, not a world-class developer.

This is my absolute favorite part right here. A handful of folks putting out a game because they want to. No crazy corporate money hungry crap. Just a game.

Well, when you don't have the massive resources of a large corporate development team, you start out with less polish in some areas and more polish in others. I'm sure they'll get around to some of the less important stuff like your avatar. :-P

Initially I was a bit put off by the avatar creation. Seemed pretty blocky. But the moment I logged into the game itself, I couldn't possibly care less about what my login/forum avatar looks like. This game is gorgeous.

So it's got a vaguely similar skilling process? Who cares? That does not make it an EvE clone. IMO, every single mmorpg on the market could benefit from switching to an offline skill increase/pooling system.

Anywho, I find the game interesting, and I'm curious about which direction that the dev team will take. It's got a great deal of promise.

Re: List of things / impression of the game as a new player.

Depp wrote:
Alfredson wrote:

...This is a small indy team, not a world-class developer.

Anywho, I find the game interesting, and I'm curious about which direction that the dev team will take. It's got a great deal of promise.

That's the telling bit, when ever i have managed to stay the course with an mmo it has to have enough too interest me, the sandbox does this but the thing that keeps me is the investment of my time in keeping up with the devs, avidly reading the patches and going to a number of lengths to figure out what's happening next as well as adding my own little voice to the games evolution, i feel i am engaged and involved.

Re: List of things / impression of the game as a new player.

Eta Carinea wrote:
Depp wrote:
Alfredson wrote:

...This is a small indy team, not a world-class developer.

Anywho, I find the game interesting, and I'm curious about which direction that the dev team will take. It's got a great deal of promise.

That's the telling bit, when ever i have managed to stay the course with an mmo it has to have enough too interest me, the sandbox does this but the thing that keeps me is the investment of my time in keeping up with the devs, avidly reading the patches and going to a number of lengths to figure out what's happening next as well as adding my own little voice to the games evolution, i feel i am engaged and involved.

I'm getting that same vibe here about possibly being heard or being involved in some little way. That is a very interesting thing.

Re: List of things / impression of the game as a new player.

Actually, the community does a lot of the work for the devs, in pushing players to flesh-out good ideas and stomping out bad ones. At least in the forums, you're never sure if what your suggesting is going to get implemented until you see it in the blog, but if you can't get at least some of the community behind it, it's not likely.

Re: List of things / impression of the game as a new player.

My first impressions are generally pretty good, given PO's young age.  I like the concept, the lore, the art design (bots, architecture, landscape), the ambient music.  All quite nicely immersive.

Love the EVE-like nature of the general gameplay.  Why reinvent the wheel, when CCP did actually invent some pretty solid core sandbox gameplay design with EVE?  Yet PO's gameplay is different enough for it not to feel like a simple clone.  For example, the EP system is much smoother and more intuitive than EVE's.  Not having to worry about a skill queue is a blessing.

I enjoy the combat, much more than EVE's combat - although I would prefer the combat to be slightly more tactical.  For example, use of terrain is a nice little tactical twist, so far so good; however, one's instinct is to strafe, yet at the moment strafing is useless, one might as well stand still.  It would be good if transverse/angular velocity were factored into the game (so that if one strafes, the enemy may miss a bit more).

One little personal annoyance is that the grey selection bar doesn't settle on the thing you set it on in the Landmarks window, it "drifts".  Not sure how that works, as the Selection window retains your original selection.

Another little personal annoyance is lack of the option to have the radar window with absolute NSEW (like the main map).

Generally, the game seems pretty stable, except for regular crashing when using teleporters in fullscreen mode.  The crashing is diminished a lot when in windowed mode, but the tradeoff is fps.  It would be nice if this were fixed as a priority - it's especially annoying if one is doing a bunch of transportation missions.

Personally, I would prefer a little bit more variety in PvE missions, but it's not that important just now - more important would be to gradually improve the sandbox tools.  Certainly, there's enough PvE to get one started, so it's not one of those empty sandboxes - and the PvE is quite fun, intrinsically MUCH more fun than EVE's - but some more mission variety type would be nice.

All in all, pleased with the game, and will be subscribing.  It's definitely the best new MMORPG around at the moment, for my money.

Re: List of things / impression of the game as a new player.

For me it seemed like a literal eve clone when I started playing.

A week or so later, it seems similar but quite different in most aspects.

Re: List of things / impression of the game as a new player.

It is like eve in some respects.  But hey I was subscribed to eve for 5 years, so I must like this style of game play.:)
UI ought to be there  from the start( played 3 days before I found it).
Targeting is annoying, don't know if it's a bug or by design.
But when your shooting 1 target I.E. primary, then start to target another,
It switches the newly targeted drone to primary,
And your weapons stop firing.
Forcing you to reselect primary again.
other than that, mech warrior and eve combined, now that is AWESOME