I was lucky enough to get into the Beta (started on Saturday 29th) and I am VERY impressed.
As it is a game in development albeit at Beta, I expected a lot of problems/issues but haven't found them. The game has been rock solid. When the devs need to upgrade/patch and you're online you get enough notice to get back to base and log off. I personally haven't experienced any lag problems but I am aware there is only a small playing community atm. and server pressures may be an issue when there are lots more folk playing.
Character creation was very easy, in fact there are so many options for your chars features that you could be ages getting just the right look for you. As I moved on to choosing a faction the information available about the 3 factions was well done, it is quite brief but tells you all you need to know. Having chosen my faction I was then able to decide what sort of char I wanted to play in that faction - and once again this was easy to do - the information about the various charachter types and the stats that each type had was easy to follow and I was able to create the type of char I wanted. As I want to be an industrialist I created my char with those skills in mind and I was very pleased with the way that they have panned out. It will be quite some time into the game before all those skills wil be able to be used to there full potential but at least i have a strong foundation on which to build.
There is a basic tutorial to get used to moving, shooting, scanning, camera angles etc. which is easy to use but is VERY basic.
The graphics are very good, the handling of the 'bots has been very good. Any problems due to my lack of knowledge have been quickly answered by the guys in the help chat channel - who are helpful, have a good sense of humour, and seem happy to share their knowledge. The market is easy to use and although I haven't yet got the resources I need to manufacture the process looks easy to use/learn.
The only small issue I have is the font sizes in chat, I'm an old man (60) and my eyesight isn't what it was , so larger font sizes would be good for me.
I do recognise that I have only been playing a very short time, and am still in my starter 'bot, so I still have LOTS and LOTS to learn but for a first impression this game has everything I need to become a long term player.
You should post on the EVE forums if the game goes too open Beta
Everyone I talk to in Eve already knows about this game.
CCP should be more worried about Perpetuum than those piece of shit lame Twitch space games (JGE, BP).
This game could grab a whole mess of people from Eve if CCP isnt careful.
How many people do you know in Eve that simply play it because its a sandbox game and not for its setting? yeah those people will be indanger of leaving.
Kind of scary tbh.
Edit: I did a quick search in my Email and actually found a beta invitation from a month or so ago lol!
Downloading now.
Edit2: The Updater is slow as shit, Im pissed already.
I've been playing for a day now. sadly I have an older system so the game doesn't look or run that great.
I am loving what im seeing so far.
I've been killing drones, mining and failing at doing missions.
I even got killed by a player.
I learnt real fast that speed kills in this game since you have to manually keep you own optimal range using the wasd keys if your slow your gonna get owned really fast.
So far so good. its bascially a Mech version of Eve online, has the same chat system, Overview, targetting system, module buttons.
So far Perpetuum seems to be the ultimate alternative for Eve players that would rather crawl around in robots than fly in ships.
It's extremely complicated just like Eve is so if you hated the learning cliff in Eve, dont say I didnt warn you.
Edit: If I continue to enjoy this beta ill upgrade my PC for the release, I could use it anyway.
It's extremely complicated just like Eve is so if you hated the learning cliff in Eve, dont say I didnt warn you.
Edit: If I continue to enjoy this beta ill upgrade my PC for the release, I could use it anyway.
I cant really agree with you, in fact perpetuum is relatively easy. You have a little tutorial for the basic control (5 minutes).
After that all you have to do is decided what you want to do:
you can simply farming kernel (drop from drone), for some cash or reserch them. You can do some mining or you can do some mission from the police (beginner mission). You will learn quite fast what you have to do.
It's extremely complicated just like Eve is so if you hated the learning cliff in Eve, dont say I didnt warn you.
Edit: If I continue to enjoy this beta ill upgrade my PC for the release, I could use it anyway.
I cant really agree with you, in fact perpetuum is relatively easy. You have a little tutorial for the basic control (5 minutes).
After that all you have to do is decided what you want to do:
you can simply farming kernel (drop from drone), for some cash or reserch them. You can do some mining or you can do some mission from the police (beginner mission). You will learn quite fast what you have to do.
Eve as by far a longer learning curves.
Dude the "tutorial" teaches a player how to target, move and mine. Then leaves the game totally up to the player.
It says nothing about the skill system, 90% of the UI or any of the industrial aspects of the game besides mining.
The assignments are virtually impossible to do with the starter service bot lol.
Imagine a player that never played Eve trying perpetuum. It leaves a player confused and not knowing what the fuck to do just like eve.
Is Eve more advanced? of course its been out for seven years but Perpetuum is just as difficult to grasp early on for a new player.
With all that said Both games are freaking awesome but I think its fair to warn the "I want my hand held" gamers about this game before they try it and blitz this forum with QQ like they do the eve forum.
It's extremely complicated just like Eve is so if you hated the learning cliff in Eve, dont say I didnt warn you.
Edit: If I continue to enjoy this beta ill upgrade my PC for the release, I could use it anyway.
I cant really agree with you, in fact perpetuum is relatively easy. You have a little tutorial for the basic control (5 minutes).
After that all you have to do is decided what you want to do:
you can simply farming kernel (drop from drone), for some cash or reserch them. You can do some mining or you can do some mission from the police (beginner mission). You will learn quite fast what you have to do.
Eve as by far a longer learning curves.
Dude the "tutorial" teaches a player how to target, move and mine. Then leaves the game totally up to the player.
It says nothing about the skill system, 90% of the UI or any of the industrial aspects of the game besides mining.
The assignments are virtually impossible to do with the starter service bot lol.
Imagine a player that never played Eve trying perpetuum. It leaves a player confused and not knowing what the fuck to do just like eve.
Is Eve more advanced? of course its been out for seven years but Perpetuum is just as difficult to grasp early on for a new player.
With all that said Both games are freaking awesome but I think its fair to warn the "I want my hand held" gamers about this game before they try it and blitz this forum with QQ like they do the eve forum.
The graphics are awful and the tutorial definately needs work. Yes, this is in beta, but we all know that what you see is largely what you'll get at release.
The UI heavily reminds you of Eve, but the difference being that Eve's UI is a little more user friendly because the UI elements are intuitive, unlike those in Perp.
I'm sure some people will gripe about this next statement, but the lack of "starting quests" that are simplistic to start with (easy kills for relatively low money) will turn many away. Imagine Eve without the tutorial quests or starting quests, where you fight opponents who are in groups and you have a very limited amount of ammo and you get the picture.
Yeah, I'm sure some like the lack of "hand holding", but its that "hand holding" at the start of an MMO that can make the difference between an ok game with a very small playerbase, and a great game that gets a large revenue that can sustain it for years.
In short, Perp isn't at the Eve standard, let alone anything else (Eve itself has its own issues).
Tried the game again for a few hours and got nowhere even on a lowest level assignment:
You start with 0 credits 200 ammo and a clutch of mining stuff. Which quickly runs out. And without credits you can't buy more. Only option, make your bot blow up to get them back.
Assignments are very tough when trying to solo, mobs are often grouped with rocket launchers, and you've got 2 poxy peashooters on your bot. This was a lowest level assignment. And those launchers never miss, unlike your peashooters.
The mobs more often than not have a larger aiming range or shorter locking timer than you, so kiting is very difficult when they hang around in groups.
Armour regen takes about 5 mins from empty. I'm all for "downtimes" but thats ridiculous. Theres a fine line between sufficient downtime and an excessive timesink.
You have 200 ammo when you start which is quickly depleated because: 1) you are busy keeping out of the range of other mobs only to keep losing your "lock" on your target because the target keeps going out of range, 2) it takes a lot of newbie ammo to take down 1 single mob and 3) your bot wastes ammo trying to shoot through hills at the mob.
When your assignment marker turns green (indicating completed) and the UI tells you that you've gathered enough tokens from the kills, you trek all the way back to the depot, only to find that you don't have enough tokens gathered from the loot because your bot "died" during the assignment and dropped the ones you were carrying (droppoing "loot" when you die is one thing, losing quest tokens due to avatar "death" is just plain frustrating). So you spend another few mins getting back to the place where you were, and start the killing all over again to gather the tokens from the wreckage.
And when you DO get the drop on a mob, you get it down to 20% only to find someone else tags the mob with a final shot.
This game needs a lot of work. For starters, its devs need to look at the tutorials and starting quests for Eve. Its not a sin to provide easier assignements at the start of the game. From there, they need to make the UI more intuitive.
I'm not a person who wants everything on a silver platter, I do expect to have to put SOME effort in, but at the same time I (as I'm sure many others) expect a game to be fun in EVERY activity it provides and at least attempts to lead the player into the game at the start in order to "hook" them in. I don't expect to be top level / rank / whatever within a couple of hours, but then again I expect to be able to complete at least 1 assignment at the start.
Being heavily outgunned, outnumbered and having to tediously start an assignment again after every death, is not my personal idea of fun. In short, this game is NOT user friendly at all and I personally don't consider it fun in the slightest. Even Eve's 2 dimensional PVE content is more fun than this. This game would need some serious work to be considered a mainstream popular game.
Tried the game again for a few hours and got nowhere even on a lowest level assignment:
You start with 0 credits 200 ammo and a clutch of mining stuff. Which quickly runs out. And without credits you can't buy more. Only option, make your bot blow up to get them back.
Assignments are very tough when trying to solo, mobs are often grouped with rocket launchers, and you've got 2 poxy peashooters on your bot. This was a lowest level assignment. And those launchers never miss, unlike your peashooters.
The mobs more often than not have a larger aiming range or shorter locking timer than you, so kiting is very difficult when they hang around in groups.
Armour regen takes about 5 mins from empty. I'm all for "downtimes" but thats ridiculous. Theres a fine line between sufficient downtime and an excessive timesink.
When your assignement marker turns green (indicating completed) and the UI tells you that you've gathered enough tokens from the kills, you trek all the way back to the depot, only to find that you don't have enough tokens gathered from the loot because your bot "died" during the assignment and dropped the ones you were carrying. So you spend another few mins getting back to the place where you were, and start the killing all over again to gather the tokens from the wreckage.
And when you DO get the drop on a mob, you get it down to 20% only to find someone else tags the mob with a final shot.
This game needs a lot of work. For starters, its devs need to look at the tutorials and starting quests for Eve. Its not a sin to provide easier assignements at the start of the game. From there, they need to make the UI more intuitive.
I'm not a person who wants everything on a silver platter, I do expect to have to put SOME effort in, but at the same time I (as I'm sure many others) expect a game to be fun in EVERY activity it provides and at least attempts to lead the player into the game at the start in order to "hook" them in. I don't expect to be top level / rank / whatever within a couple of hours, but then again I expect to be able to complete at least 1 assignment at the start.
Being heavily outgunned, outnumbered and having to tediously start an assignment again after every death, is not my personal idea of fun. In short, this game is NOT user friendly at all and I personally don't consider it fun in the slightest. Even Eve's 2 dimensional PVE content is more fun than this. This game would need some serious work to be considered a mainstream popular game.
There is nearly no truth or fact to any of this post ........
Starter missions are very easy repeatable and they really need to boost the difficulty , lol credits(you can accumaulate 200k+ in a few hours of play) flow like water even for a raw n00b...
You cant KS , they had the mobs aggro 1st ........
etc..
Had to take 3-6 npc mobs to ever put a strain on armor regen.......
you sure you are playing the same game .. I never lost any loot on death either..
Did you bother to exploe the UI at all , check your extensions , swap out your mining gear for a 2nd turret weapon that is given to you ..... Install standard turrtes from the npc drones that drop like candy ..
Did you train any extensions .. ..
Read anything that the devs have provided tio help you get started ...
The comparisons of a game in a CB to one that has been out 7 years leaves me scratching my head. This expectation that CB has turned into a way to preview the game and not for actually helping the devs find bugs and exploits is laughable. The devs of Perpetuum, while a small team, are very responsive. They touted the recent big patch, but every few days there is another small update and they are constantly looking at feedback from the CB and adding it to their list. A list that actually gets addressed.
This is not your typical "mainstream" MMO, it challenges players to use their head. After my first attempt to complete a mission and failing miserably I realized I either needed to A) Group or Increase my firepower, preferably both. It only took a half hour of farming NPC's to upgrade my weapons and I was off and running.
The biggest complaint I hear is from players trying to solo everything. At this point and time this is not a solo friendly game in the sense that everyone thinks of it and it remains to be seen whether they will change that. That is a huge turnoff for many gamers. I haven't had that much trouble solo'ing and for one welcome this type of gameplay, the community is friendly and generally everyone is excited about the game.
Overall this game is a fresh air for this old gamer. I will no doubt play one or many of the upcoming triple A MMO's but will definitely have a presence in this game!
@Scorchien: I never exaggerate things. I spent a few minutes trying to take down 1 single mob, only to have another player destroy it and the container have a lock code on it. When my avatar blew up, the items that were in the bots cargo hold were no longer there and the equipment loadout went back to the original one. So I'm guessing you WERE playing a different game.
Tell me, do you honestly think its wise for the assignment tokens to be lost when your bot blows up so you have to start the whole gathering of tokens again? Seriously? And should a new player need to grind mobs and do research on drops just so they can do a single assignment? Shouldn't there be a starting set of quests after the tutorial for killing, mining, etc? The assignment rewards could be items that give a boost to stats (or in the case of mining assignements) provide the player with a small amount of raw materials which they can then refine and sell to an npc to get a small amount of credits, thereby showing the player how to interact with their bot and the UI in the game. These suggestions are nothing new. CCP realised that Eve needed them. Just like every other MMO on the planet does.
Now, no doubt you will hate such suggestions because to you they are "holding your hand", and if the devs don't wish to implement such things, then so be it. At least the suggestion was made.
Lastly with regards to ease of play, consider this, just because YOU found things easy, doesn't mean that you are a typical player.
@xSagai: I am personally not wanting to "solo everything". However, it is quite reasonable to expect to be able to do one assignment at the very start without struggling a great deal. Grinding mobs at the very start just to get off the "starting blocks" is not a good "hook" in my opinion. People want to at least accomplish something like a quest / assignment or two in the time that they have.
As for comparisons with the likes of Eve, sorry but the whole "its been out for 7 years" is a very poor argument. We're not talking about comparisons in the amount of content, we're talking about elements that are inherent in all MMOs. The UI design and the first hours of gameplay are things which EVERY single player will witness. First impressions last.
Game testing isn't just about bugs. What's the point in a bugless game if no one is going to play it because the UI is not user friendly and the learning curve during the first few hours of the game is too steep.
Being classed as a game that "doesn't hold your hand" and has a very steep learning curve, is all very nice. But it doesn't necessarily put money in the bank. And lets face facts, THAT is what matters. Income.
So I've never played this game before, but now I am truly interested and I hope to get a chance to beta test it. To address an interesting debate that seems to be ongoing in this thread... you can deduce a few things here. But let's point out the obvious.
1 - It is very possible the skill level of the 2 gamers here could be drastically different. Some may find it hard to learn the concepts of 'not your typical mmo' style games simply because they havent experienced it.
Personally, I played UO for years and I dont think I ever did a single quest in that game, nor did I ever think about doing a quest. The game was open range enough to allow me to do whatever I wanted through the available gameplay mechanics. Now if you take a person who started playing MMOs with let's say... WoW. A game like this, EVE, or UO could be extremely difficult for someone to adapt to. If that's the case.. I say take the time. A good sandbox MMO is definitely worth playing and you'll probably find your freedoms to be much more lucrative than what you can find in say WoW for example.
2 - The posts between the 2 gamers are exactly the opposite of eachother. Either they are playing 2 different games, or 1 person has absolutely 0 idea wtf they are talking about. So can someone please clarify what this game actually possesses? I.E. - Item drops upon death? level/skill based system? FPS style twitch or WoW style shooting? How PvP intensive is this game? Is it true Sandbox style MMO? Sorry for all the questions, but this is literally what i look at as their are so many crap games out these days and this one actually looks to be promising for what I'm looking for.
- when you die, there's a chance that some of your items will drop, but to have them all drop requires a lot of luck.
- The game is based around skills (extensions) you can buy for extension points that collect at a rate of 1 per minute even when you're offline
-shooting is select target and use weapon style, however obstacles and the ground can block certain types of shots so realtime movement also plays a big part
-the game is fairly pvp intensive, however new players are safe on the starting areas
-Perpetuum is a true persistent sandbox mmo. You do what you want, and it stays that way until someone else changes what you did. You'll even be able to change the terrain and move mountains, etc
As for the first user experience, we're well aware of the problems and that area is currently one of the areas of the game getting the most attention. Bare with us, we're a small team
Afro, if you've played Eve, then you'll have a general idea to some regards. However, unlike Eve, movement is typical MMO style, using the W, A, S and D keys.
Granted I've only been playing a few hours, but the following is from a newbies perspective....
The game is a sandbox game (i.e. the players make the history, no story line involved). You pick up assignments to complete and when done, you pick up another.
You target a mob or piece of ground and click the lock button. After a few seconds your target is locked and you can start firing.
Resource gathering is similar to Eve. You scan, lock onto a piece of ground or plant and click the button to begin resource gathering. You need the right charges to scan and gather though for each type of mineral you want to gather.
Incidentally, I think i've found why I struggled so much at the start. The "Extensions" system is basically like Eves character progression. You have a number of points to spend at the start which you put into various skillsets (mining, marketing, etc, etc). If you don't spend any point at the start, you're gunna struggle, especially when you happen to choose an assignment which is more difficult than the basic missions handed out by the "Police" (my second mistake). And I think perhaps that's where some confusion lies, the assignments don't give much indication as to their relative difficulty, aside from a Confidentiality level, which is very vague indeed. Yes, this could imply that you have to be "cerebral" and know thine enemy and all that, but it could put new players off when they inadvertently choose a high difficulty assignment.
And so, I stand by what I said earlier, the tutorials need work (especially to explain the UI) and there should be "newbie" assignments which the tutorial leads the player to pickup and complete (just to get the feel of things AND to get some credits in their pockets) for each type of gameplay (one for mining, one for search and destroy, etc). Eve does something similar in order to get the player "off the ground" so to speak.
@BoyC, thanks for chiming in. As an aside, perhaps the "Landmark Information" window could be renamed "Target Information". After all, its used not only for locking onto mining areas, but for gaining locks and setting a moving target as your primary target.
Thank you both for the replies. It truly helps a lot.
@Tarka - no worries man - it makes absolute perfect sense on how certain games like this could cause newer players to this genre to struggle. I did play EvE for about 6 months. Had 2 accounts, etc.. and I will say that even while playing daily in EvE - there were so many terms and lingo I simply did not understand, and i've been gaming hardcore for over a decade. So I absolutely understand where you're coming from. The truly amazing part imo, is that you were able to fully explain what you had learned since you initially started playing, and then apologized (im still in amazement) and corrected your post. Bravo to you sir.
@BoyC - This is intended in no way to be a suck-up or anything of that nature, but THANK YOU! Thank you for taking the time to create a Sandbox style MMO that has promise. It's been too long since I've played something that truly grasps my attention, and I have a feeling this game will. Bravo to you and your team as well.
EvE has been out for seven years, has an amazing amount of features, is polished (or was) to hell.
Perpetuum is a great alternative for current eve players because it shares many simularities while offering a completely different setting (Robots/Mechs).
Does Perpetuum need work? yeah it could use polish.
With that said, Unlike other recent sandbox games perpetuums core gameplay is awesome.
- when you die, there's a chance that some of your items will drop, but to have them all drop requires a lot of luck.
- The game is based around skills (extensions) you can buy for extension points that collect at a rate of 1 per minute even when you're offline
-shooting is select target and use weapon style, however obstacles and the ground can block certain types of shots so realtime movement also plays a big part
-the game is fairly pvp intensive, however new players are safe on the starting areas
-Perpetuum is a true persistent sandbox mmo. You do what you want, and it stays that way until someone else changes what you did. You'll even be able to change the terrain and move mountains, etc
As for the first user experience, we're well aware of the problems and that area is currently one of the areas of the game getting the most attention. Bare with us, we're a small team
I was told the three center islands of the game were "safer" areas while the outer three were FFApvp.
This is still true? if so I wouldnt call those areas starting zones. Those three islands together are as big as most mmos these days lol.
You guys have done a great job.
My only issue is that there should be sometype of bounty on NPC drones to make farming more interesting.
this would also give players incentives to travel to the harsher areas of the game.
I'm an honest person and believe in "holding my hand up" if I'm incorrect. And whilst I chose the wrong level of missions to start with and didn't realise the full effect that the lack of points in the Extensions system (a.k.a the Eve style skillpoints system) would have on my abilities, I believe that the mistakes I made will probably be made by many other new players as well. Especially ones who are not used to the "Eve Style" of progression.
Everyone knows that the first few hours of play are crucial to "hooking" a player in. Comprehensive tutorials that lead into simple starting assignments / missions / quests are vital to that. If Perps devs are able to dedicate sufficient resources to getting a comprehensive tutorial package in place before launch, then this may very well help with the games popularity.
@Rockgod: Arguing about Eve's age is irrelevant in specific regards to the very basic elements that all MMO's need in order to survive. Many recent MMOs have been developed which have foresaken such basic elements, and suffered the price because of it: Star Trek Online and Age of Conan to name two. If an MMO cannot even encompass basic elements such as a comprehensive tutorial system and sufficient gameplay to keep players entertained for longer than just a couple of weeks, then the devs may as well pack up and go home, because they are wasting everyones time.
Dude the "tutorial" teaches a player how to target, move and mine. Then leaves the game totally up to the player.
It says nothing about the skill system, 90% of the UI or any of the industrial aspects of the game besides mining.
Come one you have what 20 icon on the UI, if some one just take 5 minutes to check what their are he will see the is nothinghard to understand there.
The assignments are virtually impossible to do with the starter service bot lol.
The police assignement are for noob with sthe starter bot. All you have to do is kill the newbies drones. Everyones can do this.
Imagine a player that never played Eve trying perpetuum. It leaves a player confused and not knowing what the fuck to do just like eve.
When i first play eve the tutorial was like 1 or even 2 hours of text to read so that was harsh for a tutorial. Perpetuum is nothing like that.
Is Eve more advanced? of course its been out for seven years but Perpetuum is just as difficult to grasp early on for a new player.
I can admit new player can be afraid but if they take the time to read or even just ask question in the help channel the will learn very fast. Seriously for me this game was easiest than eve to learn.
With all that said Both games are freaking awesome but I think its fair to warn the "I want my hand held" gamers about this game before they try it and blitz this forum with QQ like they do the eve forum.
That being said yes your right some player will find it difficult because they never take the time read the manual and just cry because nobody take their hands as game like wow do. In any case warn them is useless they will not listen.
Come one you have what 20 icon on the UI, if some one just take 5 minutes to check what their are he will see the is nothinghard to understand there.
Its easy for YOU to say that Silok because you're obviously already used to the game. But put yourself in a new players shoes who's never experienced a skill based progression system before. Would you want to turn them away?
The police assignement are for noob with sthe starter bot. All you have to do is kill the newbies drones. Everyones can do this.
And how do YOU know about the police missions being the easiest? Nowhere is that explained. Think about that for a moment. And then imagine 20, 000 new players all asking on launch day "Why can't I do even 1 single mission?" because the "confidentiality" level system is too vague and no one has told them about the police missions being easier than others.
When i first play eve the tutorial was like 1 or even 2 hours of text to read so that was harsh for a tutorial. Perpetuum is nothing like that.
And neither is Eve like that now. Why? Because it now has a much better tutorial system that leads the player through the intial stages of getting set up. So you see, even CCP realised there was a problem.
I can admit new player can be afraid but if they take the time to read or even just ask question in the help channel the will learn very fast. Seriously for me this game was easiest than eve to learn.
Yes, the "Beta" chat is always civilised and helped by GM's who camp it. The difference between beta and post-launch chat can be stark.
So let's imagine what it will be like on Launch Day, with everyone asking the same questions over and over again. Some will nerdrage because they can't be heard over others, who just want to shout their mouths off and wind everyone up. Oh yes, and lets not forget the obligatory morons in chat who will refuse to be helpful, and just tell people to "QQ more noob! Read the forums or go back to WoW!" Meanwhile, the GM's wont be seen because they will be busy with their post-launch duties.
Now, wouldn't a comprehensive tutorial system be more helpful because everyone will have the answers to most of their questions, without resorting to asking the same question for the 20,000th time (although to them it will be their first time asking it).
There is no such thing as providing too much information to a potential customer, however you can lose them if you don't provide enough. Likewise, Perps devs can help themselves by giving the players the information they need before they need to ask the questions.
Comments
You should post on the EVE forums if the game goes too open Beta
I was lucky enough to get into the Beta (started on Saturday 29th) and I am VERY impressed.
As it is a game in development albeit at Beta, I expected a lot of problems/issues but haven't found them. The game has been rock solid. When the devs need to upgrade/patch and you're online you get enough notice to get back to base and log off. I personally haven't experienced any lag problems but I am aware there is only a small playing community atm. and server pressures may be an issue when there are lots more folk playing.
Character creation was very easy, in fact there are so many options for your chars features that you could be ages getting just the right look for you. As I moved on to choosing a faction the information available about the 3 factions was well done, it is quite brief but tells you all you need to know. Having chosen my faction I was then able to decide what sort of char I wanted to play in that faction - and once again this was easy to do - the information about the various charachter types and the stats that each type had was easy to follow and I was able to create the type of char I wanted. As I want to be an industrialist I created my char with those skills in mind and I was very pleased with the way that they have panned out. It will be quite some time into the game before all those skills wil be able to be used to there full potential but at least i have a strong foundation on which to build.
There is a basic tutorial to get used to moving, shooting, scanning, camera angles etc. which is easy to use but is VERY basic.
The graphics are very good, the handling of the 'bots has been very good. Any problems due to my lack of knowledge have been quickly answered by the guys in the help chat channel - who are helpful, have a good sense of humour, and seem happy to share their knowledge. The market is easy to use and although I haven't yet got the resources I need to manufacture the process looks easy to use/learn.
The only small issue I have is the font sizes in chat, I'm an old man (60) and my eyesight isn't what it was
, so larger font sizes would be good for me.
I do recognise that I have only been playing a very short time, and am still in my starter 'bot, so I still have LOTS and LOTS to learn but for a first impression this game has everything I need to become a long term player.
Best wishes and travel safe.
Everyone I talk to in Eve already knows about this game.
CCP should be more worried about Perpetuum than those piece of shit lame Twitch space games (JGE, BP).
This game could grab a whole mess of people from Eve if CCP isnt careful.
How many people do you know in Eve that simply play it because its a sandbox game and not for its setting? yeah those people will be indanger of leaving.
Kind of scary tbh.
Edit: I did a quick search in my Email and actually found a beta invitation from a month or so ago lol!
Downloading now.
Edit2: The Updater is slow as shit, Im pissed already.
Does this game have a NDA?
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
I dont think this game as NDA, anyway i didnt see anything about it. For the upadater it was fast enough for me maibe 1 hours.
The game is good so far, the only think who bother me for now is the landscape look.
There is no NDA.
Graphics are bit old-look, but check the client size
I've been playing for a day now. sadly I have an older system so the game doesn't look or run that great.
I am loving what im seeing so far.
I've been killing drones, mining and failing at doing missions.
I even got killed by a player.
I learnt real fast that speed kills in this game since you have to manually keep you own optimal range using the wasd keys if your slow your gonna get owned really fast.
So far so good. its bascially a Mech version of Eve online, has the same chat system, Overview, targetting system, module buttons.
So far Perpetuum seems to be the ultimate alternative for Eve players that would rather crawl around in robots than fly in ships.
It's extremely complicated just like Eve is so if you hated the learning cliff in Eve, dont say I didnt warn you.
Edit: If I continue to enjoy this beta ill upgrade my PC for the release, I could use it anyway.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
Anyone know if they are still sending out keys?
Applied for beta but never heard back.
Or is it just a case of waiting for open beta now?
I cant really agree with you, in fact perpetuum is relatively easy. You have a little tutorial for the basic control (5 minutes).
After that all you have to do is decided what you want to do:
you can simply farming kernel (drop from drone), for some cash or reserch them. You can do some mining or you can do some mission from the police (beginner mission). You will learn quite fast what you have to do.
Eve as by far a longer learning curves.
Dude the "tutorial" teaches a player how to target, move and mine. Then leaves the game totally up to the player.
It says nothing about the skill system, 90% of the UI or any of the industrial aspects of the game besides mining.
The assignments are virtually impossible to do with the starter service bot lol.
Imagine a player that never played Eve trying perpetuum. It leaves a player confused and not knowing what the fuck to do just like eve.
Is Eve more advanced? of course its been out for seven years but Perpetuum is just as difficult to grasp early on for a new player.
With all that said Both games are freaking awesome but I think its fair to warn the "I want my hand held" gamers about this game before they try it and blitz this forum with QQ like they do the eve forum.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
Still waiting for beta key
still waiting too
The graphics are awful and the tutorial definately needs work. Yes, this is in beta, but we all know that what you see is largely what you'll get at release.
The UI heavily reminds you of Eve, but the difference being that Eve's UI is a little more user friendly because the UI elements are intuitive, unlike those in Perp.
I'm sure some people will gripe about this next statement, but the lack of "starting quests" that are simplistic to start with (easy kills for relatively low money) will turn many away. Imagine Eve without the tutorial quests or starting quests, where you fight opponents who are in groups and you have a very limited amount of ammo and you get the picture.
Yeah, I'm sure some like the lack of "hand holding", but its that "hand holding" at the start of an MMO that can make the difference between an ok game with a very small playerbase, and a great game that gets a large revenue that can sustain it for years.
In short, Perp isn't at the Eve standard, let alone anything else (Eve itself has its own issues).
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Tried the game again for a few hours and got nowhere even on a lowest level assignment:
You start with 0 credits 200 ammo and a clutch of mining stuff. Which quickly runs out. And without credits you can't buy more. Only option, make your bot blow up to get them back.
Assignments are very tough when trying to solo, mobs are often grouped with rocket launchers, and you've got 2 poxy peashooters on your bot. This was a lowest level assignment. And those launchers never miss, unlike your peashooters.
The mobs more often than not have a larger aiming range or shorter locking timer than you, so kiting is very difficult when they hang around in groups.
Armour regen takes about 5 mins from empty. I'm all for "downtimes" but thats ridiculous. Theres a fine line between sufficient downtime and an excessive timesink.
You have 200 ammo when you start which is quickly depleated because: 1) you are busy keeping out of the range of other mobs only to keep losing your "lock" on your target because the target keeps going out of range, 2) it takes a lot of newbie ammo to take down 1 single mob and 3) your bot wastes ammo trying to shoot through hills at the mob.
When your assignment marker turns green (indicating completed) and the UI tells you that you've gathered enough tokens from the kills, you trek all the way back to the depot, only to find that you don't have enough tokens gathered from the loot because your bot "died" during the assignment and dropped the ones you were carrying (droppoing "loot" when you die is one thing, losing quest tokens due to avatar "death" is just plain frustrating). So you spend another few mins getting back to the place where you were, and start the killing all over again to gather the tokens from the wreckage.
And when you DO get the drop on a mob, you get it down to 20% only to find someone else tags the mob with a final shot.
This game needs a lot of work. For starters, its devs need to look at the tutorials and starting quests for Eve. Its not a sin to provide easier assignements at the start of the game. From there, they need to make the UI more intuitive.
I'm not a person who wants everything on a silver platter, I do expect to have to put SOME effort in, but at the same time I (as I'm sure many others) expect a game to be fun in EVERY activity it provides and at least attempts to lead the player into the game at the start in order to "hook" them in. I don't expect to be top level / rank / whatever within a couple of hours, but then again I expect to be able to complete at least 1 assignment at the start.
Being heavily outgunned, outnumbered and having to tediously start an assignment again after every death, is not my personal idea of fun. In short, this game is NOT user friendly at all and I personally don't consider it fun in the slightest. Even Eve's 2 dimensional PVE content is more fun than this. This game would need some serious work to be considered a mainstream popular game.
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There is nearly no truth or fact to any of this post ........
Starter missions are very easy repeatable and they really need to boost the difficulty , lol credits(you can accumaulate 200k+ in a few hours of play) flow like water even for a raw n00b...
You cant KS , they had the mobs aggro 1st ........
etc..
Had to take 3-6 npc mobs to ever put a strain on armor regen.......
you sure you are playing the same game .. I never lost any loot on death either..
Did you bother to exploe the UI at all , check your extensions , swap out your mining gear for a 2nd turret weapon that is given to you ..... Install standard turrtes from the npc drones that drop like candy ..
Did you train any extensions .. ..
Read anything that the devs have provided tio help you get started ...
The comparisons of a game in a CB to one that has been out 7 years leaves me scratching my head. This expectation that CB has turned into a way to preview the game and not for actually helping the devs find bugs and exploits is laughable. The devs of Perpetuum, while a small team, are very responsive. They touted the recent big patch, but every few days there is another small update and they are constantly looking at feedback from the CB and adding it to their list. A list that actually gets addressed.
This is not your typical "mainstream" MMO, it challenges players to use their head. After my first attempt to complete a mission and failing miserably I realized I either needed to A) Group or
Increase my firepower, preferably both. It only took a half hour of farming NPC's to upgrade my weapons and I was off and running.
The biggest complaint I hear is from players trying to solo everything. At this point and time this is not a solo friendly game in the sense that everyone thinks of it and it remains to be seen whether they will change that. That is a huge turnoff for many gamers. I haven't had that much trouble solo'ing and for one welcome this type of gameplay, the community is friendly and generally everyone is excited about the game.
Overall this game is a fresh air for this old gamer. I will no doubt play one or many of the upcoming triple A MMO's but will definitely have a presence in this game!
@Scorchien: I never exaggerate things. I spent a few minutes trying to take down 1 single mob, only to have another player destroy it and the container have a lock code on it. When my avatar blew up, the items that were in the bots cargo hold were no longer there and the equipment loadout went back to the original one. So I'm guessing you WERE playing a different game.
Tell me, do you honestly think its wise for the assignment tokens to be lost when your bot blows up so you have to start the whole gathering of tokens again? Seriously? And should a new player need to grind mobs and do research on drops just so they can do a single assignment? Shouldn't there be a starting set of quests after the tutorial for killing, mining, etc? The assignment rewards could be items that give a boost to stats (or in the case of mining assignements) provide the player with a small amount of raw materials which they can then refine and sell to an npc to get a small amount of credits, thereby showing the player how to interact with their bot and the UI in the game. These suggestions are nothing new. CCP realised that Eve needed them. Just like every other MMO on the planet does.
Now, no doubt you will hate such suggestions because to you they are "holding your hand", and if the devs don't wish to implement such things, then so be it. At least the suggestion was made.
Lastly with regards to ease of play, consider this, just because YOU found things easy, doesn't mean that you are a typical player.
@xSagai: I am personally not wanting to "solo everything". However, it is quite reasonable to expect to be able to do one assignment at the very start without struggling a great deal. Grinding mobs at the very start just to get off the "starting blocks" is not a good "hook" in my opinion. People want to at least accomplish something like a quest / assignment or two in the time that they have.
As for comparisons with the likes of Eve, sorry but the whole "its been out for 7 years" is a very poor argument. We're not talking about comparisons in the amount of content, we're talking about elements that are inherent in all MMOs. The UI design and the first hours of gameplay are things which EVERY single player will witness. First impressions last.
Game testing isn't just about bugs. What's the point in a bugless game if no one is going to play it because the UI is not user friendly and the learning curve during the first few hours of the game is too steep.
Being classed as a game that "doesn't hold your hand" and has a very steep learning curve, is all very nice. But it doesn't necessarily put money in the bank. And lets face facts, THAT is what matters. Income.
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So I've never played this game before, but now I am truly interested and I hope to get a chance to beta test it. To address an interesting debate that seems to be ongoing in this thread... you can deduce a few things here. But let's point out the obvious.
1 - It is very possible the skill level of the 2 gamers here could be drastically different. Some may find it hard to learn the concepts of 'not your typical mmo' style games simply because they havent experienced it.
Personally, I played UO for years and I dont think I ever did a single quest in that game, nor did I ever think about doing a quest. The game was open range enough to allow me to do whatever I wanted through the available gameplay mechanics. Now if you take a person who started playing MMOs with let's say... WoW. A game like this, EVE, or UO could be extremely difficult for someone to adapt to. If that's the case.. I say take the time. A good sandbox MMO is definitely worth playing and you'll probably find your freedoms to be much more lucrative than what you can find in say WoW for example.
2 - The posts between the 2 gamers are exactly the opposite of eachother. Either they are playing 2 different games, or 1 person has absolutely 0 idea wtf they are talking about. So can someone please clarify what this game actually possesses? I.E. - Item drops upon death? level/skill based system? FPS style twitch or WoW style shooting? How PvP intensive is this game? Is it true Sandbox style MMO? Sorry for all the questions, but this is literally what i look at as their are so many crap games out these days and this one actually looks to be promising for what I'm looking for.
Thanks in advance,
To answer your questions:
- when you die, there's a chance that some of your items will drop, but to have them all drop requires a lot of luck.
- The game is based around skills (extensions) you can buy for extension points that collect at a rate of 1 per minute even when you're offline
-shooting is select target and use weapon style, however obstacles and the ground can block certain types of shots so realtime movement also plays a big part
-the game is fairly pvp intensive, however new players are safe on the starting areas
-Perpetuum is a true persistent sandbox mmo. You do what you want, and it stays that way until someone else changes what you did. You'll even be able to change the terrain and move mountains, etc
As for the first user experience, we're well aware of the problems and that area is currently one of the areas of the game getting the most attention. Bare with us, we're a small team
Afro, if you've played Eve, then you'll have a general idea to some regards. However, unlike Eve, movement is typical MMO style, using the W, A, S and D keys.
Granted I've only been playing a few hours, but the following is from a newbies perspective....
The game is a sandbox game (i.e. the players make the history, no story line involved). You pick up assignments to complete and when done, you pick up another.
You target a mob or piece of ground and click the lock button. After a few seconds your target is locked and you can start firing.
Resource gathering is similar to Eve. You scan, lock onto a piece of ground or plant and click the button to begin resource gathering. You need the right charges to scan and gather though for each type of mineral you want to gather.
Incidentally, I think i've found why I struggled so much at the start. The "Extensions" system is basically like Eves character progression. You have a number of points to spend at the start which you put into various skillsets (mining, marketing, etc, etc). If you don't spend any point at the start, you're gunna struggle, especially when you happen to choose an assignment which is more difficult than the basic missions handed out by the "Police" (my second mistake). And I think perhaps that's where some confusion lies, the assignments don't give much indication as to their relative difficulty, aside from a Confidentiality level, which is very vague indeed. Yes, this could imply that you have to be "cerebral" and know thine enemy and all that, but it could put new players off when they inadvertently choose a high difficulty assignment.
And so, I stand by what I said earlier, the tutorials need work (especially to explain the UI) and there should be "newbie" assignments which the tutorial leads the player to pickup and complete (just to get the feel of things AND to get some credits in their pockets) for each type of gameplay (one for mining, one for search and destroy, etc). Eve does something similar in order to get the player "off the ground" so to speak.
@BoyC, thanks for chiming in. As an aside, perhaps the "Landmark Information" window could be renamed "Target Information". After all, its used not only for locking onto mining areas, but for gaining locks and setting a moving target as your primary target.
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Thank you both for the replies. It truly helps a lot.
@Tarka - no worries man - it makes absolute perfect sense on how certain games like this could cause newer players to this genre to struggle. I did play EvE for about 6 months. Had 2 accounts, etc.. and I will say that even while playing daily in EvE - there were so many terms and lingo I simply did not understand, and i've been gaming hardcore for over a decade. So I absolutely understand where you're coming from. The truly amazing part imo, is that you were able to fully explain what you had learned since you initially started playing, and then apologized (im still in amazement) and corrected your post. Bravo to you sir.
@BoyC - This is intended in no way to be a suck-up or anything of that nature, but THANK YOU! Thank you for taking the time to create a Sandbox style MMO that has promise. It's been too long since I've played something that truly grasps my attention, and I have a feeling this game will. Bravo to you and your team as well.
I would never expect Perpetuum to compare to EvE.
EvE has been out for seven years, has an amazing amount of features, is polished (or was) to hell.
Perpetuum is a great alternative for current eve players because it shares many simularities while offering a completely different setting (Robots/Mechs).
Does Perpetuum need work? yeah it could use polish.
With that said, Unlike other recent sandbox games perpetuums core gameplay is awesome.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
I was told the three center islands of the game were "safer" areas while the outer three were FFApvp.
This is still true? if so I wouldnt call those areas starting zones. Those three islands together are as big as most mmos these days lol.
You guys have done a great job.
My only issue is that there should be sometype of bounty on NPC drones to make farming more interesting.
this would also give players incentives to travel to the harsher areas of the game.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
I'm an honest person and believe in "holding my hand up" if I'm incorrect. And whilst I chose the wrong level of missions to start with and didn't realise the full effect that the lack of points in the Extensions system (a.k.a the Eve style skillpoints system) would have on my abilities, I believe that the mistakes I made will probably be made by many other new players as well. Especially ones who are not used to the "Eve Style" of progression.
Everyone knows that the first few hours of play are crucial to "hooking" a player in. Comprehensive tutorials that lead into simple starting assignments / missions / quests are vital to that. If Perps devs are able to dedicate sufficient resources to getting a comprehensive tutorial package in place before launch, then this may very well help with the games popularity.
@Rockgod: Arguing about Eve's age is irrelevant in specific regards to the very basic elements that all MMO's need in order to survive. Many recent MMOs have been developed which have foresaken such basic elements, and suffered the price because of it: Star Trek Online and Age of Conan to name two. If an MMO cannot even encompass basic elements such as a comprehensive tutorial system and sufficient gameplay to keep players entertained for longer than just a couple of weeks, then the devs may as well pack up and go home, because they are wasting everyones time.
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Come one you have what 20 icon on the UI, if some one just take 5 minutes to check what their are he will see the is nothinghard to understand there.
Its easy for YOU to say that Silok because you're obviously already used to the game. But put yourself in a new players shoes who's never experienced a skill based progression system before. Would you want to turn them away?
The police assignement are for noob with sthe starter bot. All you have to do is kill the newbies drones. Everyones can do this.
And how do YOU know about the police missions being the easiest? Nowhere is that explained. Think about that for a moment. And then imagine 20, 000 new players all asking on launch day "Why can't I do even 1 single mission?" because the "confidentiality" level system is too vague and no one has told them about the police missions being easier than others.
When i first play eve the tutorial was like 1 or even 2 hours of text to read so that was harsh for a tutorial. Perpetuum is nothing like that.
And neither is Eve like that now. Why? Because it now has a much better tutorial system that leads the player through the intial stages of getting set up. So you see, even CCP realised there was a problem.
I can admit new player can be afraid but if they take the time to read or even just ask question in the help channel the will learn very fast. Seriously for me this game was easiest than eve to learn.
Yes, the "Beta" chat is always civilised and helped by GM's who camp it. The difference between beta and post-launch chat can be stark.
So let's imagine what it will be like on Launch Day, with everyone asking the same questions over and over again. Some will nerdrage because they can't be heard over others, who just want to shout their mouths off and wind everyone up. Oh yes, and lets not forget the obligatory morons in chat who will refuse to be helpful, and just tell people to "QQ more noob! Read the forums or go back to WoW!" Meanwhile, the GM's wont be seen because they will be busy with their post-launch duties.
Now, wouldn't a comprehensive tutorial system be more helpful because everyone will have the answers to most of their questions, without resorting to asking the same question for the 20,000th time (although to them it will be their first time asking it).
There is no such thing as providing too much information to a potential customer, however you can lose them if you don't provide enough. Likewise, Perps devs can help themselves by giving the players the information they need before they need to ask the questions.
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