This week, I be mostly playing

[Anery]

Final Verdict: Battlestar Galactica Online

This proved to be popular enough that it got its own thread. However, here is my 1 week verdict:
As far as space mmos go, this is a damn good effort. Initially I thought the controls awkward and sluggish but that can be negated by training up flight skills and upgrading your ship with stablisers and other space stuff. The graphics are adequate and kinda impressive when you consider it is all being streamed to your computer through your browser, interior spaceship design and character models leave a bit to be desired but its a game all about space ships so that is easily forgiven.
Gameplay is fairly forgiving once you have a grip of your controls and you can easily take on, for lack of a better word, mobs twice your level and survive - albeit a bit battered and needing repairs. Each class has its own strengths and weaknesses too, liners are the biggest you can get but are vulnerable to small fast strike craft, these in turn are vulnerable to escort class which are easy pickings for the liners (aah the circle of life) which means that even at a low level you can contribute to the massive space battles taking place between the two factions - which are quite impressive when you get in amongst it.
The only thing that does worry me is a slight P2W situation with the best ships costing cubits which can be bought with real cash or earned in game thought mining and such.

For a browser based game this is a fantastic effort. As the only real alternative to Eve I am pretty sure this will grow in popularity, it is still in beta so what few kinks there are in the game should be ironed out soon.

[buzzmong]

I'd pretty much agree with that.

It does need more work though, both in content and polish as it's pretty evident it is in beta.

Polish wise it needs the physics revamped imo. It's great having mouse control and keyboard, but the way it seems to like flipping you back to a normal plane is ridiculous and actually ends up disorientating you. Anything bigger than a strike craft actually handle like submarines, they just tilt slightly to float up and down on the Z axis, which is quite odd as well as you'd expect them to tilt.

It also needs an option to turn off that bloody writing in the middle of the screen. I'd understand the red text popping up as it's generally important such as mining vessels being attacked, but I don't need to know there's constant heavy fighting going on when I can just read the ticker at the bottom instead.

I can immediately see ideas for extra content for other ships in the fleets. For the Colonials, gambling and black market items which are not available on the Galactica, Outposts or the Base. I don't know if the BSG licence might be detrimental to expansion in that way though. Obviously more resources can be added like food, and hopefully they do something with planets and moons because as it stands, there's not that much to do.

I'd also like to dock on the Pegasus at some point.

[Anery]

Any requests this week? Anything you were interestefin but didn't want to waste your own time trying out? (in the context of F2P games)

[Dog Pants]

Alliance of Valiant Arms! Picked out of Steam, because it looks different.

[FatherJack]

Might as well post what I have installed but not gotten around to doing much in, AoVA is there too, but it looks more shootery than RPG which is what I based my list on:

9Dragons, AikaOnline, Aion (may not be free everywhere yet), ARGO Online, EdenEternal, Fiesta Online, Forsaken World, Global Agenda, Grand Fantasia, Iris Online, Kingdom Heroes, LastChaos, LUNA Plus, Perfect World International, Prius, Rappelz, Rose Online, Seal Online Plus, Shaiya, Shin Megami Tensei Imagine Online, Sword 2

APB Reloaded is another shooty one.

With a lot of those, you'll find they do quite a range of free MMOs - Aeria Games, gPotato, GamersFirst and alaplaya being major ones. They also like using things like Pando Media Booster for the downloads, which you'll want to take off after they've installed.

[Anery]

I've been cycling round the lakes for a few days so nothing has happenened. However...
I am a bit bored of swords and spells, I want guns and er...sci-fi stuff. I actually forked out for one month of Eve but I think it's not really for me - it's not very tactile, I need to feel that I am actually in control of the ship. So, despite RPS's not very high opinion of it I am giving Dark Prophecy a bash. Will pass on details when I am signed up etc.

*EDIT* Client is 1.5 GB so won't be playing it until tomorrow. Might be worth a few beers and TS on a Sat night if anyone fancies it

**EDIT EDIT** Its a LOT bigger than 1.5GB

[Anery]

So, I said I was going to do this every week. Then I went to the lakes so one week went by, then I said I would be playing Dark Prophecy and due to a few issues another week has gone by - not that I am treating this as a deadline thing or anything, I just like to keep my word.

Instead of Dark Prophecy (which isn't too bad btw) I am going to report on something that I am not sure has ever been done here before. It's an Android app (and i-phone too apparently but I don't worship at that altar) it's also an MMO and it's free to play - on your phone
I didn't expect much of the game, but I was suprised at how much of a "traditional mmo" it was. First there was the character select screen, three archetypes - ranged, caster and twat with a sword (sadly it's a bit furry, the classes are a raven, elf and a bear respectively :S ) the inventory with the usual hats, weapons, shirts, etc... all of which have stats (ooh stats! nom) health potions, special powers, levelling up and even some crafting. For a mobile application I was pretty damn impressed. Then it crashed.
This may only be a feature of the Galaxy S II, the game lasts about 30 minutes then hangs - occasionally causing the phone to go with it. In another game it would be annoying but generally you won't be playing this for extended periods of time so it's not an issue and dungeon groups are as throw away as they come.
So, now I have mentioned it, I supposed I had better tell you how dungeon groups work - they are a drop in, drop out type of affair. You enter an imaginatively named magic portal and you are transported to a dungeon. This dungeon could be in progress or just started or anything, you don't know until you get there. In each dungeon there are several levels, you progress to the next level once all the mobs are dead on the current level. As your controls and abilities are fairly limited so are the enemies, though one or two take you by suprise by using some abilities of their own every now and then. So far I have never progressed beyond level 2 of a dungeon due to either levelling up, bags being full or the aforementioned crashing.
Outside of the dungeons I don't really see much to do. You can do some crafting if you want but the mats are not exactly easy to come by (unless I have missed a major point here) and there is some kind of story line to go on but it's a bit vague.
Control wise it is pretty much what you would expect, a psp joystick style button on the bottom left corner of the screen (it plays in landscape) an auto attack button on the bottom right with ability buttons above it. You can move by either the joystick or tapping a location on the screen, I've found both have their uses.
As for the paid for content, it is kinda there always in the background. The designers don't want you to be looking for somewhere to spend your real cash and not find it, thats for sure. But, it's easy to ignore, there are no flashing messages and no spam. Sadly some of the items you can get are potions that provide buffs and are not available any other way, this could only affect you in PvP really but its still a cunts trick.

All in all, its not a bad game. The crashing issue could well be my phone, if anyone else has tried this (http://www.pocketlegends.com/) let me know if it crashes for you, but as far as mobile games go - do you really spend over half an hour playing them? when you don't have to. The P2W thing is a black mark but again, this is the most casual of casual gaming, the Weeeeee looks hardcore compared to mobile phone games, fuck, a tamagotchi looks hardcore compared to mobile.

I can see it staying on my phone for the foreseeable future.

[Anery]

Fallen Earth

Recently went F2P and RPS did an article on it here so I thought I would give it a whirl. The full download (which is still missing a few patches) is 5GB so don't even think about it if you are on a shitty connection - I had to leave mine running overnight and its still updating now...

Half an hour later...
The screenshot on this loading screen does not give me much hope, then again - graphics aren't everything.
Character creator is not as extensive as some but gives enough I think, though my character seems to have some kind of explosive collar fitted to him...Oooh, look at them chops! Actually, this creator is far from bad, the EVE (hoc..tuph) creator was worse, this one lets me decide how much chest hair I want...sadly not available for female characters. And, and, Adidas Samba trainers? what?!
OK, enough faffing. ONWARDS!
WAIT! do I want black or blue Samba? or white? blue looks good, nice pale blue stripes and laces against the darker blue. I want these trainers I hope they exist...
PLAY!
Wow! adverts here are NOT subtle, that one came spinning out of the centre of the screen at me."buy buy buy, we have so many Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Men that we must get rid of them all to you at serious discounts, buy our Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man and receive a Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man completely freeeee"
Anyway, to the game! and why do I have this collar on? I seem to have emerged from some kind of pod, perhaps the chat panel can help me. Hmm, satanicfaceater seems worried that his horse won't eat granola bars, this seems slightly at odds with his name. I won't tell him in case he reverts back to character and eats me. A lot of people talking about stuff I have no idea about, I have been here five minutes and still no smack talk, do these guys realise they are on the internet? OK, onwards with the story, I'm being told to go on to the next room. I can see some scientist dude in there already, lets go talk to him.
Well, that was a bad idea. He attacked me, all defensless me n all. Not knowing how to fight I ran away, though I did learn that the pod I was in was supposed to be turned off, I wonder if I am a criminal.
I still have no idea how to fight, I have turned on a computer terminal and some sexy lady voice told me to go activate the other terminal before "they" get in and then there were some loud noises and warning sounds, I speak to the sexy lady voice again - now I have to go pick her up but it seems I've pissed off the BOFH techie again who is trying to kill me - again. Still no idea how to fucking fight! I am not leaving here until I kill this nerd! To the internets! still no idea seems the one boring walkthrough I watched didn't have a technician in it, and I have reloaded with better graphics options and now mine has vamooshed, hmm. Perhaps I will bump into him later.
Talk to the computer, oh, I am a clone! Mrs Sexy Voice is trying to help me escape - a likely story! but I will go along with it for now. It's a Clone Collar btw - nope, no idea either. ESCAPE! dun dun daaah, Sexy Voice is guiding me out of the facility.
Woohoo, I found an axe! and another sexy voice threatened unauthorised persons with death. Nice place. Nearly died yet again, although this time the game did tell me I had to be in the aim mode - who the fuck aims with an axe? Anyway, I ran away and I am waiting for health regen. Coffee time I think...

[Anery]

Woo, that was oddly satisfying and at the same time kind of annoying. Pressing the middle mouse button or the tab button locks the mouse into the aim which means when you clicky clickly the axe swings. Not sure about the mechanics behind it yet but I did manage to cleave some skulls. Also I have a gun! it looks like a paintball gun so not sure what help that will be, never mind sexy voice is talking...Onwards, sexy voice #2 is sounding irate and perhaps not so sexy after all. The aim cursor is different with a gun and r-click gives me a scoped view, interesting, still wondering how the mechanics of this work.
Voice acting is, umm, but at least it is there.
Uh oh, sexy voice #2 now needs to be renamed as "irate irene" she really is throwing a wobbly over the tannoy system. I should explain that I am in the Hoover Dam which is being used to create clones to harvest their organs, I am being freed whilst the facility is under attack from mutants and irate irene is not happy with this.
Character inventory acts differently, I have four weapons equipped at the moment - two knives in my belt, an axe on my back and a paintball gun in my hands...I switch between the two by ctrl+number button combos, interesting if not useful right now.
Blah, blah, blah, story, story, story - actually not that bad - and I have exited the newbie-island, the game has given me a choice of where to go, each location has a brief description and rather helpfully a suggested playstyle assosciated with it. South Burg - Rifle - The Vistas and the Finchers, a prominent local faimliy, compete for the trust of the locals. The Vistas bring farming and craftmanship, while the Finchers offer wealth from a newly opened quarry. Thats where I shall be heading, hopefully I can get some crafting experience in as well as some rifle experience.
**EDITZ**
Servers are down for maintenance which I am unsure whether is a good sign or not, but it gives me a chance to talk about the graphics and other bits to the gameplay.
Graphically it isn't fantastic, but it serves a purpose and doesn't make you want to tear your eyes out with salad tongs. The outside world (when you finally get to it) is reminiscent of Fallout with some very familiar sights but then again, a wasteland is a wasteland is a wasteland.
As for the gameplay, when you get used to the aiming and such it's not that bad, I've not progressed enough to tell you about the skills and such, but there are some kind of crafting and searching skills, some of which would appear to make vehicles. Which require fuel to run, I can see some kind of weird mad max two thing happening here where I end up in the middle of nowhere with no fuel and some cupcake with goggles on annoying me...

[Dog Pants]

Word splat!

Sounds.. um.. different. Sort of.

[Anery]

Feeding the lazy and sorting through junk.
Is what FE has had me doing so far, sure I had to go and kill a few people to, er, well, because I wanted to really but most of the quests so far have had me doing mundane things that have been introducing me to the crafting side of the game. Which, from what I have seen so far, is pretty extensive, I have 5 fully fledged crafting skills, from weapons to food and I suspect I am going to find another for armour soon, obviously at this level (uh...4) I don't have masses of materials or recipes and my skill level is pretty low but I suspect at higher levels the mats get a bit harder to find. Anyway, it has been pretty interesting so far, the crafting system works in the background and crafts whilst you quest, there are purchasable upgrades which speed this process up but I havn't found it any trouble whatsoever - I can set stuff off to craft and go and wander round for a bit.
Speaking of wandering, I have lost my horse.
A nice lady gave me a horse to ride around on, she also gave me some horse feed and a vets kit in case he gets hurt, which was jolly nice of her - but I appear to have mislaid is somewhere. I SWEAR I left him outside the bank (which incidentally looks like an old western shack building and the lines of horses parked outside it just ehance that Clint Eastwood feel) but now I can't seem to find him. Aargh. Unlike WoW and pretty much any other MMO, you can't just conjure a mount out of thin air, once you have a ride your ride is a permanent fixture in the world, the only way to stop that is to sell of stable them. This can lead to some embarrassing situations like the one I am in now...
"Here Binky Binky Binky"
"Here, Bink...Oooh, Ballistics trainer, perhaps I can make better guns"
I can, I buy the book that lets me build air rifles and after a little bit of comparing stats I can see that I need to improve my ballistics working skills to 18 to get a Competition Slugthrower - woo.
And I've just found the armour crafter, he wants me to get him some cotton from...GRAVES! you inhuman ba...ok...
I get the cotton, not from graves, I had it in my backpack all along, though I didn't realise until I had wandered off in search of buriels. Also seems that being close to the proper facilities - cooking fire, armour smith, ballistics expert - seems to speed up your crafting and wandering away from them slows it down, though the rate of slow down and you distance from crafting facility is not related.
"I know Kung Fu!"
OK, maybe not, but I do know how to may some snazzy belts and this armour crafter wants to teach me more, all I have to do is get more cotton and some leather...sod that, I want to make me some GEAR! Hang on, I should get this done, he is offering me more recipes as a reward, hmm, leather and cotton... I think I can get that by killing things! GUNS! to the weapon crafter...I need gears, literally, I need to get some gears from somewhere. Perhaps the science guy can help me?
I don't have a science quest yet, I will carry on shooting guys in the head to complete the armour quest and see if I can locate the science quest and...phew this is complicated.
Now, where the FUCK did I put that horse?!

"Here Binky Binky Binky..."

[Anery]

Yup, restarting an old hobby - MMO trialling!

So, I relapsed and I'm still playing Warcrack, not because I particularly like the expansion, but because I am enjoying levelling alts and skills. However, I am still looking for something else to be playing so I've decided to revist this thread and carry on evaluating the F2P MMOs out there. Right now I am downloading DCUO, anyone got anything they want to see me try?


In case you are wondering about Fallen Earth and the fate of Binky? I found him again and rode off into the sunset only to discover the world was so much cut and paste, so I logged off and never retured.

[Joose]

Right now I am downloading DCUO, anyone got anything they want to see me try?

Is DCUO F2P? I gave it a go in the Before Times when it was in beta, and it was moderately entertaining but laggy as all hell. I suspect that was mostly a betaism though. I wouldn't mind giving it another go myself actually. I would like you to try and create Disco Batman.

[Dog Pants]

Right now I am downloading DCUO, anyone got anything they want to see me try?

Lion taming!

[friznit]

Been trying out the very hack slashy but fairly pretty Neverwinter MMO. I got to level 40 before realising the game was already repeating itself and lost interest, fully in the knowledge that endgame would be an utterly mind numbing repetitive grind unless you splurge money at it, at which point there would be nothing left to play for.

[Anery]

So, DCUO. 18.5GB in size this took me overnight to download and now it is installing - very slowly which is annoying as it is going onto a Caviar Black so it's nothing to do with the hardware and everything to do with the software. Still, won't judge a game by it's patcher. Which is very much like the PS2 patcher if you are familiar with that.

Well, I may as well go and clean the car the rate this is going...oh it's actually patching, 4.5Gb more download. Deep fucking joy.

Car cleaned, trip to the supermarket - no, seriously - and it's ready to play.

Character creator feels a little bulky at first, the options are not clear to start with but I have created a character I think fits Jooses description, though I'm struggling to get a screenshot. Colouring your character is particularly strange and painful, they only appear to allow the use of three colours. Bastards.
I decide on the powers of martial arts (everybody was kung-fu fighting, ha, hoocha...) and mental, which apparently will give him a red Soul (brother) aura and the travel power of acrobatics which is umm...well it seemed appropriate for Disco Bat.

Backstory is, well, I have no idea. Brainiac is involved and Lex Luthor is a time bandit and there may be some nanobots in there too.

Graphics are so so, changing resolution does absolutly nothing and changing settings seems a bit clunky. Everything seems bright and colourful, which is fine for a comic based game.

I still have absolutely no idea what is going on, Disco Bat appears to be onboard one of Brainiac's space ships and somebody called Oracle (I dunno, I'm not a DC man) seems to be trying to break me out. I don't trust her, partly because she is female and as a matter of course they should not be trusted and "hey, who the fuck are you and why are you helping me?"
Belligerently standing here not doing as I am told is achieving nothing, so I'll have to go with what she says - beat some robots up.
Combat is a combination of clicking left and right, right is melee, left is ranged. Holding these down for a period seems to charge up a special move. Enemies have various tells that you should react to in different ways with different moves. This is starting to feel a little bit like Street Fighter the MMO.
One larger enemy down and I discover that my travel power lets me climb walls and ceilings like an Alien - also leads to some bizarre wall-moonwalking.
The starter zone devolves into furious clicking and some more moonwalking (and slamming a vending machine down on arobot, highly amusing) before I meet the big bad, which to be fair does prove to be fairly challenging. Defeating him produces a cut scene where Superman appears (apparently he can't get through Brainiancs shields - a likely story!) after some more frantic clicking whilst we hold off a few waves of bads and I am teleported to some safe house somewhere.

Still, I have no clue what the fuck is going on.

[Dog Pants]

The combat at least sounds interesting. Better than face rolling.

(I dunno, I'm not a DC man)

Rumour has it you're AC/DC.

[Joose]

I've discovered the combat actually works better with a gamepad. Its more like an open world GTA style effort with superpowers and a bunch of other players than it is a traditional MMO. Its not as deep as something like GW2 maybe, but its quite good for a quick dip into something that doesn't take a lot of attention or brainpower.

Backstory is, well, I have no idea. Brainiac is involved and Lex Luthor is a time bandit and there may be some nanobots in there too.

Short version: in the future all these hero/villain shenanigans have escalated to the point where the whole world is a warzone and all the big players (Batman, Green Lantern, Joker etc) have killed the shit out of each other. This finishes with Lex Luthor killing Superman and having just enough time to go "Hooray for me!" before alien superrobot Brainiac turns up. He has used the time everyone else has been beating on each other to become mega awesome and takes over the world. Lex manages to come back in time to before everything went completely pear shaped and reasoned that if there were more super powered people on the earth Brainiac would have a less easy time taking it over, so he unleashes nanobots that give loads of regular people super powers. Brainiac then turns up early for some reason, hence a lot of fighting Brainiac, especially in the early levels.

Oracle (I dunno, I'm not a DC man) seems to be trying to break me out. I don't trust her, partly because she is female and as a matter of course they should not be trusted and "hey, who the fuck are you and why are you helping me?"

Oracle is Commissioner Gordons wheelchair bound computer geek daughter. She helps Batman out quite a bit.

Still, I have no clue what the fuck is going on.

I know all this shit, I still find it very confusing. The DC wider universe storyline stuff is confusing as balls, even by comic standards, at the best of times. This is a bit like experiencing all of it all at once too.

[Anery]

Well, I had to reboot my character - seems to be the fashionable thing to do these days. I had mistakenly taken "Mental" powers instead of "Sorcery" so I couldn't have my Soul (brother) aura. Another quick tour of the character creator and I realised that Batman knows nothing of disco and that really, you can't get more disco than Wonder Woman - so I chose her as my new mentor.
It turns out your choice of mentor dictates where you will start out once you have finished the tutorial and instead of the grim and dismal Gotham I start in whatever city Wonder Woman is set to protect - no idea what it is called, a quick google will tell you.
Anyway, I am learning a lot about WW now, I'm guessing the way these early missions go you end up fighting her iconic big bad - which I am also guessing is this Faust chap. We shall see.

Combat is now starting to make more sense, it does play like an open world Street Fighter, you'r basic damaging attacks are combinations of clicks and button presses and your powers are not used as often. I can see this being as easy to play on the Playstation as it is on the PC - I'll see if I can download it onto my PS3 and see if the experience is the same, I can't see why not - or even why console players should be on a different server.

As for the inevitable comparison to CoX - it does seem very familiar, roaming the city hunting bads and doing quests feels comfortable like a battered old hoody. I've done a very small solo instance and that reminded me a lot of the CoX instances, whether they will prove to be as identikit as their predecessor will have to be seen. One major difference is the equipment, it does affect the way you look - no doubt you can re-style it somewhere but right now I have a right hodge-podge of hero-esque gear that makes me look nothing like my character creator.

[Joose]

One major difference is the equipment, it does affect the way you look - no doubt you can re-style it somewhere but right now I have a right hodge-podge of hero-esque gear that makes me look nothing like my character creator.

Ish. The basic way it works is that equipping any gear unlocks its "look". So if you want, say, an awesome belt with a skull on all you need to do is find any belt that uses the "belt with skull on" mesh and then you will be able to make any belt you have from then on look like a belt with a skull on. I think the idea is that everyone starts off looking like a grab bag mess of clothes and slowly becomes more like what they want to look like. Im not sure it quite works how they want it to though.