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Review: Free Steam Weekend

MendelMendel Member LegendaryPosts: 5,609
I have about 2 hours left on the Steam demo (according to Steam).  There have been issues, some with Steam, some with Eve.  Here's a quick list of some of the problems I faced.  Aug 19-21, 2016.

Steam Issues
  • Downloading.  This is a small client to download, but that isn't all of the game.  About the first thing Eve wanted to do once started, is to download 51579 files.  This ate most of my 'game time'.  I don't know how Steam was populating those 51,000 files (3.4 GB total) -- it seemed slow enough to suggest that the files were stored elsewhere (CCP servers??), transferred to Steam, then to my PC.  Elapsed time from starting download to entering game was over 28 hours on DSL.  Unacceptable.  (Non-Steam downloads of 4GB are usually under 6 hours -- yes, a substandard DSL, but usually not 28 hours substandard).
  • Preview Time.  Steam started the 'clock' on my free weekend the moment I put it in my Steam Library, not when it started downloading.  I had another download started when I added Eve.  My Steam preview time had run off a couple of hours before I noticed that the timer had started on Eve, so I rearranged the queue to get started sooner.
  • Steam vs CCP.  If I had downloaded the game directly from CCP, I would have gotten a 14 day trial.  In fact, it appears that I did get a 14 day trial for the account, only Steam is just shorting me.  Why not sync the Steam trial with the CCP trial?
  • Login.  Steam wanted to supply its own login, a STEAM::000000000 number.  I set up an account to run the game, through the Steam Interface, but every time I restart the game, there's the STEAM::000000000 user account hiding my actual account.  I didn't need your help, Mr. Steam, nor did I want to use the login account you tried to force down my throat.  Annoying.

Eve Issues
  • UI sizes.  I have vision issues.  But there didn't seem to be any way to increase the size of the UI -- specifically the standard minimize / close icons or the font sizes.  I really struggled with seeing the Overview, which seems to be a substantial portion of the game's Interface.  Almost every time I needed to read something on the Overview panel, I had to resort to eye drops.  I did find one control for the Overview panel -- to make the font smaller!  Even the floating text from mining operations was too small for me to comfortably read.
  • Background.  I like the Hubble images a lot.  But I don't need to see that nebula all the time.  It made a lot of the UI invisible with the nebula image glaring through the fine lines on some of the views.  Worse, there didn't seem to be any way to disable this background or even change it.
  • Camera.  None of the views did what I needed it to do, and there weren't adequate instructions / directions for a new user to come to grips with controlling the camera.  And some auto-pilot features switched from whatever camera perspective I was using to a 1st person perspective when using a stargate.   Any time the warp drives activated, the warp effect overlaid the display in whatever direction the ship was headed.  When orbiting an asteroid for mining, this frequently seemed to be random.  I really wanted a 'Follow' camera for movement, and a 'Star Trek' planet view (ship in view, orbited object in background) for mining.  I didn't have the time nor instructions to make that happen.
  • Missions.  One of the Agent Missions -- Mountains from Molehills -- had information that was incorrect.  I was playing a Gallente, and the quest told me I needed Mexium, mined from Pyroxeres asteroids.  Only problem, Pyroxeres aren't in the Gallente sector.  I needed to mine Pyroclase asteroids.  Simple error in the quest text, but caused me quite a bit of grief looking the information up via the internet.  I expect a game to display correct information, especially an older game like Eve.  Basically, the mission text is correct only for 2 of the 4 races.
All in all, I found Eve to be a head-pounding experience, and not in a good way.  The visual issues, coupled with the insufferable Steam hijinks made this a combination I would not really want to continue.   Too bad, because other than the PvP emphasis, I think I might enjoy Eve.

Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.

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