My review of PS

[starrider]

Originally posted by NightWalker XI
Where does it say this is 1000 years into the future?

The Terran Republic

The Terran Republic bids you greetings. We are in the midst of turbulent times and need your support more than ever. For 1,112 years, we have maintained a Legacy of Peace. No other empire in history can make this claim. Enlist today and help us fight those who seek to destroy the peace. Only through the Principles of Unity can the spirit and values of the Terran continue on Auraxis. To preserve the union, we must smash the Separatists. The alien technology of the Vanu will only enslave us. The New Conglomerate's anarchy will promise nothing less than the mass destruction of our society. We must battle for peace! Reunification above all else!


from the TR website

[Bad Mojo]

Originally posted by TekDragon

FPS ASPECTS
Concept: Good. I love the concept of the game. Gives some spirit to the world. Too bad storyline doesnt seem to be a priority for the dev team.

Your idea that the game (or content) should tell a story tells me you've allready decided that MMOG's should fall into the Single-Player idealogy of telling a story. This is a preference and you've stated yours. But it's not objective. If I like games you like, and I agree with you, then this helps me know that I will like not like PS's "story".

Weaponry: Sub par. Relatively few weapons split over 3 factions. For a MMFPS game this is pathetic. The weapons also lack variety. My 6 year old neice could think up cooler weapons. Hell, why didnt they just hire someone from the Tribes team to help them think up some inspired weaponry?

You could just say there isn't much variety in weapons. I might not agree, but at least it wouldn't sound like you're trying to pick a fight with someone.

Fighting mechanics: Sub par. Emphasis on weapon firing cones over skill. Very little movement related combat. Any newb with a 2 minute discussion on how to fire in bursts will be a pro at fighting. No shot location mechanics is another step backward. To **completely** knock out twitch and skill fighting is a huge step backwards for a FPS. Even BF1942 had more twitch fighting involved, and its even more realistic than PS.

Knowing a bit about latency issues and how to best emulate a real gun shooting in a game, I can say that the cone of fire thing isn't unlike any other FPS Single Player game on the market today. Granted, PS's cones are more visible and emphasised more. It's a valid issue for hard core FPS players, but I think this is a trade-off due to the MMOG nature of PS. It's minor in the wake of the potential strategy team style play PS offers.

Vehicles: above par. The variety is good and they each serve a purpose. Driving mechanics need some work but overall this field is a good bit above average for FPS games. I especially enjoy the basilisk and i ph34r the reavers.

Good points. And well said. All I would add is that vehicles are a LARGE part of PS. No one walks anywhere. Vehicles in PS are like Cars in the USA. They are as much a part of PS as guns are. If the vehicles are good, then that says that PS got a lot of it's own design right.

Graphics: average. The graphics are pretty, no doubt. But AC2 had better graphics and so will Star Wars Galaxies. Plenty of other games have graphics just as good as this, if not better. The weapon explosion effects are poor and almost made me give this section a sub par rating. However, the scenery is pretty enough to bring it up to average.

Again, given what the game design is focused on, the graphics are perfect. Had the intent been for graphics to look good and impress people, I would think you had a valid point. But the dsign goal is to let people with decent hardware be part of a 100+ person battle, not look at their screen and marvel at the detail. This is a situation where you're measuring an aspect of PS against other game when those other games have a very differnet design goal in mind. Do you want to rank PS as it compares to other games or give it a review based on how well it meets the goals of it's own design and games designed just like it? PS couldn't exist today with AC2's graphics and more graphically intensive explosions. This is a perfectly acceptable level of graphics and while you can say they aren't amazingly good, they do their job as designed and the game shouldn't be slighted because of it? If you do, then why not take issue with the fact that not every has a jet pack? Are you reviewing here, or telling us your opinion of the game?

Content at release: Sub par. Uninspired, cookie cutter weaponry split across 3 factions. 5 bases. Thats it. The only thing going for the content was the vehicles.. but even that amount is small compared to what it could/should be for a MMFPS.

I can agree with this. It's all true. And it could have been better. But a small point to be made is that at least PS erred on the side of caution for release rather than releasing a beta. If that means cutting content some, then so be it. But, a valid point anyways.

MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ASPECTS

Communication: average. Other MM games have done better, others have done worse. The voice chat feature is the only thing that keeps it from sinking into sub par.

Hard to know what exactly you think is wrong with it. There's lots of ways to communicate. V-chat, multiple channels, command channels, forums on the official site. And voice chat. Seems like there's lots of it and it works like it's supposed to. What was missing or doesn't work?

Player interaction: sub par. The tools to organize outfits (one of the key features going for the game) are lacking, greatly. There is no way to see the equipment for your men and there is no way to organize them into sub squads and assign roles from there.

The lack of "classes" can make it hard to know who can do what. I suggest the squad bar having a cert-bar or vehicle-bar to help Squad Leaders know who can do what. But, as far as your review goes, a good point. It's not bad, but it could be better. I wouldn't consider it a mark against the game, though. Since it does what it needs to do.

Latency issues: average to above par. Coming from a guy that played UO when it first came out I can say this game doesnt have much lag. But when you look at other MM games that have 20 to 30 times more stuff running through the server with the same amount of lag you get the feeling that not much of your 13$ is going to the server bill.

Good point. It might change, but so could everything else. Emerald SUCKS recently with battles lagging people and weird warping effects. Even disconnects and lock-ups. But, if it goes away, it will rock. If it stays like this, it's a horrible black mark on PS.

Content after release: So far, terrible. All weve seen so far is patches that fix bugs that should of been fixed in beta. And patches that then fix the bugs that come from the previous patches. The only thing weve gotten besides that is the "promise" of some new vehicles and a basic pencil drawing of what one of them will look like.

If the new content sucked or it was 8 months after the game came out, I'de say you have a point. But this is just your preference. And they aren't missing a monthly content addition they promised. I'de rather have content added slowly with well balanced and quality assured being the priority. But, SOE never promised me that.

I think your post was more just what you want than objective reiview of the game for potential players. And some of the review comes off as anti-fan-boy rhetoric instead of honest, objective insight into how well PS was made and who would (or wouldn't) enjoy playing it. In my opinion I would re-write it and be more objective for a review, or call it a list of greivances and just let your real opinions all hang out. I don't know you, so I can't say your personal review really helped me understand or know what PS is about. But I do know how you feel about it. Which would help me ... if I knew you. Which I don't.

Sorry this was so long, and that I didn't really read everyone's replies to the original post. So I might be restating some things that have allready been said.

[starrider]

Originally posted by Bad Mojo
exactly you think is wrong with it. There's lots of ways to communicate. V-chat, multiple channels, command channels, forums on the official site. And voice chat. Seems like there's lots of it and it works like it's supposed to. What was missing or doesn't work?

the voice chat is buggy and crashes alot... at least when i use it.

but i mainly agree with your post there.... we need to have you settle more arguments.

[Strygun]

to Bad Mojo

[starrider]

indeed

[NightWalker XI]

Does not mena its 1000 years from today, it could be on an alternate universe or something...

[Onizuka]

Who cares what you think Tek.... I know I don't. Your just making yourself look bad. I mean i feel sorry for you.

[kidriot]

"FPS's dont have loads of content. But this game is an FPS and it has plenty of content. I don't know what else you want."

it doesn't have plenty of content. I think a lot of people have the wrong idea when they think about "content." I don't care about NPCs or an economy or any of the standard RPG shit in PS. what I DO care about is base variation and a change in the fights taking place. content means you sneak up over a hill with your sniper rifle and take a scoped view at a base completely different then any other.

all the bases are very uninspired like a lot of people have said. they're incredibly newb friendly. spawn at a tower, look for the front or back gate at a base and charge in. if you'll notice that's all newbs do. it causes zergs (which I despise). when I say zerg I mean people mindlessly throwing bodies at eachother.

as it is now the advantage is always to the attacker and not to the defender. in my mind something is very wrong with that when you're holed up in a base and a TOWER is draining your resources. these are outposts in the whatever century and they havn't developed the concept of gates? why not make all the 1 hop continental bases give an innate advantage to it's own faction?

do you think that a vanu designing its own base would have them similar to the terrans or NCs?

I think the SOI system is incredibly restrictive. someone on the official PS forums or here had an idea for SOI zones. notice when a base is about to cap that a zerg force just sits there for exp? I think zones are a great idea that would spread the fighting out to actually use the terrain for battle instead of travel.

I enjoy this game but it's missing.. something. a lot of something actually. you can say this has never been tried before but I think the idea of repetitive battles has been in FPS gaming for a long long time.

[Happy lil Elf]

Plasma rifle: shoot spheres of plasma contained in an electro magnetic field. The plasma projectiles are fast and have a small explosive radius with burn damage.

Taken straight from Tribes. Hardly original or inspired (faster projectile does not a new weapon make)

Chain laser: Fires a short burst of laser energy. The rotating barrels allow the weapon to keep up a stream of fire without over-heating. Eats ammo like crazy.

Somewhat original, although it sounds exactly like the TR mini-chaingun, except with different color tracers

Cluster grenade: releases small cluster munition that explode on impact. If used in a grenade launcher the cluster bombs can saturate a small area by timing them to explode in the air.

Not a bad idea but basically sounds like frag grenades with a larger area of effect /shrug

Mortor: Heavy weapon able to lob munitions over a large distance. Projectile would have an arc effect requiring another teamate with targeting beam to highlight area.

Ok first you spelled it wrong. Second of all do you remember the complaints about the Phoenix being used as artillery? Not only that but this is again something that is neither original or inspired. Also something that was in Tribes...

Target beam: Basicaly the targeting beam from Tribes. Highlights areas for players and allows them to target the area with weapons like the seeking missles or mortors.

Again, not original or inspired. And again something that, and you even point it out this time, comes straight from Tribes. I think I'm starting to see a pattern here...

Beacons: Act the same as a targeting beam but is localized on the area you place the beacon. Could be used by an infultrator to sneak up to the tower, place a beacon, and give friendly mortor units the coordinates needed to land some munitions on enemy AA units on the top of the tower.

Again, taken straight from Tribes. Yup definately a pattern forming.

Particle Cannon: A charge weapon. Holding the button charges up the particles inside. The longer the charge, the greater the power behind the projectile. After a certain period of holding the trigger the weapon would overheat and release prematurely. Holding the trigger would use more and more ammo.

Ok now here's something not from Tribes. It's also not an original or inspired weapon. Many games have had this concept on some of thier weapons.

Disc Launcher: Because it was so damn cool in Tribes

......I see we're going back to the tribes mentality.

You like Tribes. That's great, I loved it myself. Planetside is not Tribes though. It doesn't have Tribes weapons. It shouldn't have Tribes weapons.

[TekDragon]

"OMG this game is t3h sux because they used weapons that seem to be from Counter Striker or Doom or Quake!!"

Thats what id be saying if I used your logic, Elf. Fact is, you see no problem with them using chainguns (Doom/Wolfenstein), heat seeking rocket launchers (Tribes), grenade launchers (Tribes), rail guns (Quake), etc etc..

You basically said in your above post that plasma weapons were too "tribsey". Hello? Plasma weapons. 20 years from now when the government decides to make prototype plasma weapons i cant wait to see you parading in front of the white house with a sign going "Omg, its Tribes ripoff! Stop t3h suxage!"

This is the future. Why are we using uninspired machine guns and rocket launchers? The lancer and lasher are probly the only 2 inspired weapons in this game. I will admit, the rocklet is pretty original too.

You can shoot down an idea because you dont like it, thats fine. But dont knock my ideas for originality while a "futuristic FPS" game is running around shooting old fashioned lead.

SOE simply did not try. They put the minimum amount of effort into content, and it shows. Uninspired tried-and-true weaponry with 5 frigging bases. Thats the content for their MMFPS. I dont understand why the review sites arent ripping them a new one.

[starrider]

could you at least acknowledge that im agreeing with you here????? plz?

[TekDragon]

lol @ starrider

Dood, i totally acknowledged you. I even used some of your points while trying to make these children see the truth of their 'fan boy' ways.

I just wish the people who keep PMing me would post here, where the thread could use their support. *hint hint*

[starrider]

i know u used my points i jus wanted to kow if u were stealing them or acknowledging them.

[Happy lil Elf]

I must have missed where I praised PS for it's original weapons. I know that all the guns in PS have been done in other games. That's not really suprising though with the sheer number of games out there.

You proposed eight items. Five of them are striaght from Tribes games, one is already in the game just not as a laser, one is basically a weapon that's already in the game but with a larger blast radius and the other has been done over and over (I'll list them if you'd like). You've also as much as said you think Tribes is God's gift to multiplayer gaming. You rag on PS for it's "cookie cutter weapons" then fail to propose a single original or "inspired" weapon or item.

All I did was point that out and you jump all over me. Although judging by how you've jumped down the throat of everyone else who didn't agree with you I don't know why I'm suprised

[starrider]

may i propose a wepon???

ok for the Vanu since im a vanu

Black Hole genade

upon detination it creates a vortex that ddamges anything it its blast radius severly and almost instantly kills the person /and or MAX that is close to the blast's center.

k it needs balanceing and its a bit powerful but hey i dont know of anything like that being suggested before.


and a rifle

darkfire

fires a close to black beam that causes resonable damage but burns afterward like a plasma genade, has medium rate of fire and almost no recoil per Vanu norm.

also i think that origanl too, but please if these have already been thought of tell me so i can thnk of new ones.