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Trial Limited Review
Ozmodan
Member EpicPosts: 9,726
Obviously can only test a small portion of the game in a 7 day period. But it is enough to get the gist of the game. I acutally stopped playing after the 5th day which is not a very good sign at all.
The game deserves a better score, but because NCSoft has put so many restrictions on the trial I am going to give it a 4 from the point of view of a trial player.
You can basically only talk with other trial players. That means you can't ask questions, you cannot even send a tell to another player unless you are on their friends list. Which means, if you want to try the game, buy it, the trial will just frustrate you to no end.
The game is basically a third person shooter. The quests are plentiful, yet there does not seem to be any rating to them, hence you can end up dead easily if you take on one above your skills. There are quest instances and I highly recommend you find someone to do them with, they are very difficult to solo.
I tried two characters, one a soldier and one a technician. Was rather puzzled with the technician, there are healling tools and repair tools, but I could get neither to work for me. Of course there was no one to ask how to use them either. Didn't seem to be any health potions, so when you health bar runs low, get ready for the res screen.
Be prepared to die a lot in this game. There are resurrection penalties that last for 5 minutes after you die. I highly suggest you not proceed into combat before that 5 minutes is up. You are significantly impaired. Your equipment degrades on every death, so expect to make many visits to the repair shop.
There are teleports at different places around the map. Once visited, you can always use them.
Some of the bases are under attack and can change hands. If you attract enough attention at one of these battles you will die very quickly.
Running away is not usually an option, the npcs will follow you quite far, shooting you as you run, best to stay and fight. Also seemed to be bugged because they continue to hit you long after they are off the screen.
I tried the crafting, but since I could not get any answers, it was pretty much a flop. You get these schematics that you can upgrade weapons and armor with, but you need ingredients which it is not obvious how you obtain them. You can disassemble items you find in the field, but none of the items I disassembled gave me any usuable items. It is a bit pricey too to fabricate things.
Things that really irrated me: One, the target pointer is a faint white with no option to change the color. In a close in fight you have no idea what you are targeting half the time. For a shooter this is a major mistake on NCSoft's side. Two, not a very good online help system.
Just was not very impressed with this game. I can understand why it is struggling. Hopefully they can correct some of the problems with this game, but I am not sure that it will have much staying power in this contested genre.
Comments
I didn't know the trial was so limited. I remember when I played (which was quite some time ago) I invited many of my guild members to play the game with me. I sent them buddy keys to try the game before they bought it, and they didn't seem to be limited in any way. I guess that has changed since then and it doesn't sound like a very good change.
There were "health potions" of a sort back when I played. Vendors at the hospitals where you respawn sold various types of med kits and other items that would reduce death penalty or have other helpful effects. However the function of items was one of many small details that the developers seemed to enjoy making bizzare changes to on a regular basis, so I suppose its possible that they no longer function the way they did when I played or that they may be gone altogeather.
Crafting was always a major problem with the game. In perticular, the fact that it was more costly to craft a useful item than it was to simply buy one, thus making crafting pretty pointless. I know crafting has been changed somewhat since my day, but from your description it sounds like it is still more trouble than it is worth.
As for the difficulty issues... Maybe something has changed since my day and grouping has become more important. But back when myself and the other members of my guild decided to quit this game, it was largely because much of the content in the game was far too easy to solo and grouping wasn't really nessary. some of the missions were easier if you had 2 or 3 players on your team but almost none of the missions in the game required more than that... which leaves even a small guild with very little to do in the game.
You didn't mention PvP in your review but for the record, its pretty much a joke too.
The History of the Order of The Golden Shields
Sounds very much like it was when I was in Beta. The game *seemed* to be cool, in a sort of updated Anarchy Online sort of way. But it's missing the very things that make MMO's work. Unfortunately, due to its scope, I don't think they could ever deal with that:
What I found missing at the time (which maybe has been dealt with by now):
* A working and varied crafting system that intergrates with the economy and doesn't just mean that players are making disposable weapons for themselves only.
* A sense that you're not just in a central "hub" surrounded by instances (the same feeling I got with DDO).
* Social aspects to the MMO. E.g. The feeling that you're actually travelling to one of a number of large cities with housing etc. Not just small outposts with a few huts.
* Variance in the quests. Not just "kill 20 aliens", Fed Ex quests etc.
* Soloable instances.
* A "magical" aspect to an MMO that doesn't just involve collecting waypoints.
I don't know, it just felt like an online shoot em up to me. Perhaps I was expecting it to be an updated version of Anarchy Online. Unfortunately, that's yet to arrive and stay (SWG Pre-NGE was close but was too "Sandbox" for my taste).
Top 10 Most Misused Words in MMO's
Some responses to your points:
Crafting in TR is going through a change, but the changes they have listed are not enough for me to believe that crafting in TR will ever create a good player driven economy.
I never felt like it was a central hub. because the main world was not instanced and much of the game is outside the instances, but the game also lacks much reson for ever grouping so running into players in the world was common only in areas like CPs.
Social aspects to me include grouping and reasons for it, and TR has very little there. It is a war game supposedly so how about some epic battles that take tactics and thinking to defeat. TR is way too easy and requires minimal thought.
I too found many of the quests to be the same as kill me 10 wolves from the fantasy games people claim TR is so much better than. The world is too static, some missions to go behind the lines or something that actually effects the world we played in would have been a great step to take.
Most every instance is soloable and that is one of TRs biggest downsides. It is a war game and every Rambo wannabe is out there kiling Bane in wholesale lots. Hard to believe these enemies drove us from Earth no matter what the odds were. Even if you went without Logos ability you could still be an over the top killer.
This game is near it's own end I would say. I really liked many aspects of this game but I had to many issues with the social aspects of this game. Normally I do not care that much about population numbers but TR just got to much of a lonely experience in the end. I might continue later, but I'll stay off this game for a while now.