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My thoughts on the game so far.
Note that i haven't progressed too far and things are likely subject to change as one plays along or the game getting patched. Hence i say "first impression", i don't claim my points to be definite. These are also rather lose thoughts typed down in a hurry, so without too much coherency.
For a 2013 title, the game is bad -and not in a good way. In a nutshell, "Starship Troopers would like to meet Borderlands".
In my opinion Trion repeats some of the basic mistakes they already did with Rift 2 years ago. And like Rift, Trion invents nothing on their own, but borrows every idea from other games -and is not very good at that in every respective aspect of Defiance (they did that copying way better in Rift i think)
Ok, another "dynamic" world -full of a few constantly repeating events and objectives. I wonder what happens with people who come late to the game once the crowd moved on or the playerbase goes down. Again, alot of the content, immersion and experience relies on having tons of other players around you. You won't be able to solo arkfalls or objectives in those bases (destroy 5 pheromone pods etc) and people will cry nerf on the forums.
Besides from riding around and shooting everything like a maniac you don't do much. In combat, the AI leaves little room for some tactical approach or thoughtful gameplay. My EGO ability was rather used as an "oh shit" button instead of defining my character or giving me feeling of character progression.
The open-world missions are pretty much all of the same kind and have little variation. They are rather just an excuse for even more mindless shooting. The world, despite being pretty huge and good looking here and there, is quite shallow in design.
As far as i saw it, it lacks meaningful locations (in lack of a better term)...like places you like to visit over and over again in your favorite game, areas where you like to hang around in for days or don't get tired to kill stuff in.
I don't get the urge to "kill'em baddies, get 'em big'uns" like i had in Borderlands, nor does the world invite me to explore like i did in i.e. Fallout.
I expected a little more interaction with the environment like opening boxes, entering buildings, stealing vehicles, setting up turrets or building blockades or such. Where are jetpacs? Storywise, everyone talks about terraforming, so why can't i even blow up a phone booth? I don't see any excuse for a 2013 title to not have all this. Climbing ladders and activating terminals is as far as it gets.
Everything about the game screams 2005 to me. The character does feel a bit clunky and not really as "live and direct" as one expects from a supposed to be AAA shooter. Many NPC-models and animations are just terribad and like many other approaches look like someone was just lazy...no fall damage?? Makes sense for vehicle jumps, but therefore disabling it altogether...come on.
Verdict:
For my taste, it is too much of a blunt shooter in disguise and too little of a shooterrpg or whatever some people praised it to be. It's a singleplayergame in which you run into other people, but without being given reason to even talk to them or remember a name. Probably this comes with being a console-game, as the console players wouldn't want to type much i guess...
I can see this game being played by a small dedicated crowd and fans of the tv-show (which looks like one of these typical B-grade SciFi shows to me to be honest), but it won't be the huge hit some expect. It'll be a good title for me to grab on a steam -35% discount when i've got nothing to do on a weekend.
I expect it to get nothing less than an 8 on this site, i'd give it a 6.
Comments
Because this game is fresh, i would stress what you said in the begging. That you should play through it more and rereivew this game once youv grasped 60% of it or higher. Because if you give people false feelings and gameplay of it,
it can turn people off just because of a misconception.
When they say terraforming in game they mean changing the earths make up to suit the aliens. They do not mean raising and lowering the ground as a game mechanic. This is why you see wired shit all over the ground some times. Its not a reference to the sandbox game mechanic where by you make rivers and moats around your base and defensive hills. Its literal terraforming as a story mechanic.
Also, the game is basically a themeparkw with guns, take it or leave it. Its more like Rift than anything else..at least thus far mechanically.
You might not have liked Rift, or dislike themeparks...either way it seems the game hasnt matched your exact vision for what it was going to be, and therefore dislike it. This is a common occurance these days. Play the game for enjoyment for what it is. You end up enjoying your time online much more that way.
Im not saying this game is going to end up as an awesome game, and im really not all that thrilled for it. Ill probably pick it up simply because its not a high fantasy game and theres not much else thats new about to launch.
So picture the game as rift with guns. Alternatively you could call it GW2 like with the events, since their events are the same as Rift events basically. My hope is that its not nearly as shallow in gear, character progression, and skills as GW2 was, thats something we learn later on in game though so its hard to tell.
If your looking for something new and unique, well you havent seen anything new or uniqe in about 10 years anyway so it should be no surprise by now. If your looking for a solif pvp FPS, or a FPS in general...this isnt a game your going to like.
This is a themepark, very much like Rift in game mechanics, with guns and a scifi setting tied into a tv show. Nothing more nothing less. If what i just typed doesnt sound interesting dont even bother.
It still looks lightyears better than, let´s say, SWTOR..
"speeders" are fast, characters have ragdoll animation, they´ve got dynamic events, obviously tons of story and cutscenes...
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SWTOR was a well made game up untill endgame. Endgame ruined SWTOR as it didnt have the replayability it should have, as its decent campaign storyline was the only replayability the game offered.
But yeah, still hard to tell if this games going to at least match SWTOR in leveling up, let alone endgame. If endgame actually works in Defiance its going to be in a far better postion than SWTOR was in retaining players. Top it iff with B2P which wont have the stigma of the obvious subscription drop off once people get bored..which they will...people will always get bored with themeparks after a few months (unless its your first themepark)
Spot on there man - well worth the purchase!
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All that matters is if you like it or not, who cares what others think. I personally think it's a linear MMO, but it's also something I was kind of expecting since most of the New MMO's released now are just that... linear. I found that Firefall had a lot more to offer, but that is probably because it has more RPG elements. I don't think Defiance was made to have very much RPG elements and that is probably why I find it linear, so maybe it's just me, and I'm getting too old for these games.
I'm glad people like it, hopefully that will allow the game to grow. This game certainly doesn't deserve all the heat that it is getting though, there have been much much worse games released, and this one is hardly that bad at all.
Agreed, it feels like it's not ready for release yet, the movement isnt polished at all, it feels a bit clunky overall. You'd thought you polish the movement earlier in the development when it's a 3rd person shooter, not so big of a deal in 1st person shooter.
Though I like the world a lot better than the cluttered pile of stuff in Firefall, and it feels like it propably wouldnt be a huge work to make the animations better. Sadly sometimes the devs think it's fine, in their eyes, but just a little bit more work into the stuff that you see on your screen all the time and I can see my self spending some time with this game.
Firefall with it's better animations and slightly better shooting mechanics still didnt get me even half as excited as I am for this game though.
He isn't reveiwing this game he is posting his thoughts on the game "so far". Perhaps you didn't read the Topic Post? I also don't believe a person has to sit for 10 to 20 hours playing a game in order to grasp the mechanics of the game enough to know if or how he feels about it. That is just Rediculas. Most people can figure these things out in about an hour or two.
This is nothing like Rift, have you people even played Rift? Rift actually have -classes- and a crapload of abilities on a single class. Defiance's "RPG" part is alot more simplified than Rift.
I'm also a little concerned in terms of the environment, it certainly looks like a bland Fallout , but not as interesting. Fallen Earth (another indie MMO) has a more interesting environment than this. I never felt once i want to climb off my quad bike and check out anything. The mob packs are all placed in a predictable pattern and all that. It's a bit of a copy paste imo. I don't know if it gets better, maybe a big capital city? (i.e. Defiance?), but at least Rift had zones changing from forests to deserts to snow to dark gloomy forest etc etc. Anyway, i drove to the end of the starter zone (near the Crater inn) and without warning got killed , so i suppose the beta only got the one zone going?
The actual combat is fun enough, plays like a 3rd person shooter. The story seems interesting and only reason i drove all across the map. The side quests / "open world quests" felt a little like GTA or NFS where you drive to the marker and do some "gauntlet" like activity. Not so sure i would do that very long, i much rather follow the story than stop at these "too obvious" side shows scattered over the map.
I'm not yet convinced, it is not terrible, but i wasn't fascinated by it. I'm still trying to find something "unique" about this game (and a reason why it should not be a F2P game like Planetside 2 ).
^
+1
You are wise my friend, and well informed.
Have to agree with you here as well as the OP. In addition the controls didn't feel very smooth at all and the lack of much difference between the different character classes other than weapon choice turned me off pretty quick. I'll be sticking with Firefall myself.
i'm not a huge fan of shooters to begin with but yea overall firefall is a more enjoyable game for me especially with the new pve progression system... i dunno something about defiance just doesn't feel right to me think it's the look of the characters and their overall movement.. i really liked Rift and trion but i dunno so far don't see myself playing this one... ill give it a bit more playtime to decide though
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I was thinking about getting this game until your post. New account and sounds like a sales rep. ::Plonk::
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I still think the TV show should have dropped before the game to give players some backstory and help to build up some excitement for the game.
I'm a fan of Trion as a company but always thought there was something lacking in Rift. I wanted to like the game but I'd grow bored within a few weeks everytime I'd try to go back to it.
Unfortunately, I have a feeling that Defiance will be another lackluster game from Trion but at least it will probably have good support and regular content updates.
I have to say, if you want that, Planetside 2 is a million times better for Open World PvP.
its beta i know but still,i was asking from my self all the time,why am i here,what is my purpose? i understand that kind of things in Ultima IV but this was bit different,but it wasnt a bad game,no.
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I am gona have to pass. I had high hopes but it just feels dated and clunky to me. I'm glad I din't toss out the $$ for a preorder. In its defence I am a bit picky about my shooters and 3rd person is hard to do in my opinion. I am a big fan of Fallout so in the post apocalyptic relm it falls short as well. I think my 15 yr old kid world love it if it were on console.
I will dvr the series and set my hopes on a cool scifi show.
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I played the game for 30 minutes and uninstalled. Complete waste of my time & bandwidth. The animations were terrible, the engine is a huge resource hog (like Rift but worse), the story was nonsensical (no backstory about your character, the NPCs, or the world given at all) and worst of all (to me anyway) the weapons were terrible. They had no 'weight' to them whatsoever, feeling about as ineffectual as your average water pistol or cap gun. In a game where I'm supposed to shoot everything, the guns need to feel good. It's very obvious to me that nobody on the dev staff has ever even held a gun, much less fired one. Or even played a shooter before for that matter.
My search for a shooter / RPG MMO as fun as Tabula Rasa continues I suppose...
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When the topic of Defiance comes up I always see people disapointed or even bashing the game for being a PvE Shooter in an open world. As in complaining that it isn't a sandbox, a fullblown RPG or any other thing it was not advertised to be. I mean even though the NDA was up for a long time, information on the game was never hard to find so I don't get why so many people assumed the game would be different.
As for me, I like it. It's a shooter in which the shooting mechanics feel very nice, the light rpg elements seem to be fairly interesting, the tv show/game idea is intriguing, the vechicles are actually pretty fun to drive so for once "mounts" aren't just ways to get from point A to point B quicker (the motorcycle in WoW...). The PvP looks fun, some people complain that there is no cover mechanic, but quite frankly I am glad. No cover mechanic means that you have to move to survive, not just camp a nice piece of chest high wall.
I do wish the game looked better though. I mean, the graphics are fine, but it's no Planetside 2. The character creation is also pretty lackluster, but I have kinda grown used to the fact that a good character creator is still a rarity.
I wonder what Trion has in store for the future since they have done an amazing job with content patches for Rift.
The B2P model is also a major advantage as far as I am concerned. Ive noticed in recent times that my opinion of "if it has a sub, its better" has changed to "is there really a point to pay every month."
Oddly that has been my reaction as well.
I like Defiance and would like to see it succeed, but what playing it mostly does is make me nostalgic for Fallen Earth.
Honestly, it's not hard to see why. They are similar in more than a few respects -- both shooters, both post-apacolypitc, for starters -- but ultimately Fallen Earth is a far deeper game. FE has cities, crafting (one of the best crafting system in any current MMO, IMHO), one of the biggest game worlds ever (both a plus and minus, to be honest), meaningful progression (an AP system similar in some ways to TSW's), an AH, in-game mail, banks (too many different ones, to be honest), a functional chat system, and a minimally modable PC-based UI, among many other things Defiance entirely lacks. Not to mention unique things like the nicely handled 3rd-to-1st person transitions between normal and combat modes, the persistent mounts, and all that.
Ultimately I suppose that's the problem. For all that FE was a miserable commercial failure, it had quite a lot going for it, some ideas of its own -- if nothing else, no one was ever going to accuse it of being a WoW clone, which probably helped lead to its near dead current state -- and quite a lot of game depth. Defiance lacks any of that, and probably more than anything it's the not-even-parking-lot-puddle depth that makes me thing I'd be better off loading up FE.