BP re-visit. Getting better... but...

Dirkzen

So, its been nearly half a year since I last tried this,  ever since that fatefull day I got my hands on one of the closed beta keys and piloted my first ship.

The game was a very eye-pleasing beauty of a game,  with rather impressive special effects and a somewhat fresh view on the whole 'space shoot-em-up' genre,   ...although it was quite litterally a broken, buggy mess.  Lag.  Disconnects.  Parts in the game where you'd actually just freeze for no particular reason and lose everything.  Broken missions.  Questionable customer support.  Poorly translated menus...    I could really go on,  but to sum it up,  it quite litterally had everything 'bad' you could think of to happen within a Beta test.

5 months later.   Where are we now?

Well then.. the log-on screen seems a bit smoother..   actually connected on the first try!

Character creation actually works now?  Huzzah!

The graphics seem nearly as picture-perfect as the day I left.  The Spire is still an awe-inspiring sight the first time you see it in detail.   They seem to've done some sort of compression with the textures now,  seeing as I can run it normally without a bit of lag.  

Ah... the lag..  its 'nearly' gone..   which is actually somewhat impressive,  seeing how the 'American' test server is still located in Europe  (..I think anyways..  I'm not sure if they've opened one up in the States here yet)    It still jerks and tugs on you a bit when theres more than a couple dozen ships on screen,   but its not nearly as horrible as it used to.

The missions..  they work now!

The voice acting is still spot-on,  though a little awkwardly translated at times.

Collecting loot is still as much of a pain in the ass as it used to be.   Ah well..  guess you can't really expect to hang around the smoldering wreckage of your enemy for very long since this A.I. is still as fu%^$#^ing brutal as it was since last time.

The faction-change mission works now!    This was a very important issue...  part of the main story where you get to choose which side you'll fight for in the rest of the game,  used to be completley busted,  but it seems to be working now!

PvP is still in place...  though I feel it'll be much more exciting when there's actually people flying around,  instead of the same 4-5 guys.

 

Overall,  I think they've actually progressed quite a bit with the game,  though its still a bit too rough around the edges for a full out release.  

They've got the base of the game working.   The flying and fighting.  The controls and menus are nearly spot-on,  and the groundwork for the main story is very solid.

...the same old problem still remains though..  the filling.

Aside from the main story itself,  the side missions seem a little...  off..  Something is still lacking.    Instead of feeling like you're doing something at least 'somewhat' important,   you feel like you're just 'going over here,  then here, kill this,  come back'

Now, its perfectly fine if thats what the mission is calling for,  but I at least want the feeling that i'm accomplishing something,  instead of just hanging in space and grinding endlessly in the same scenarios.    Does that make any sense at all? 

 

Anyhow,  its getting better,  but they've still got some work to do.