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hello kitty canyon II - the good, bad, and ugly emo sequal
Greenion
Member Posts: 39
- i couldnt in good conscience leave a review of the game at simply what i'd written in my first hello kitty canyon melodramitc epic drama.
i'm angry about it really, damned angry. i gotta be truthful, i really like the game, alot. when i look at the environment it just screams open pvp zone and its frustrating...so damned frustrating that it isnt one. so im angry about it. damned angry, i guess i mentioned that. so damned angry i got banned from their forums and came here and posted an emotive review that really isnt totally fair, i am here to ammend this wrong. i am still damned mad about it though. im not mad about getting banned for a week for going off half the day on their forum though, i deserved this and was being an asshat.
i left here looked at some games, meh, played planetside for an hour - got tired of teh zerg, played eqii a bit, tired of crafting and keeping up as an exile, its a grind but i cant bring myself to join a faction...got a bit bored.
...staring at my desktop icons, i squinted at the dood in the gasmask knowing it.
it : that i wanted to play the frigging damned pve game, it just irks the crud out of me that the realness gets taken out of my gameplay. i do understand other people having preferences, and the dichotomy between the pve and pvp crowds is historic, and historically pvprs ride in the back of teh mmorpg bus. this irks me this time especially. because its a good game.
i need to be fair if im going to review it, especially as publicly as this site. im a bit embarrassed that i reacted the way i did, i apologize to them (devs and peeps) and you (mmorpg reader) and can only say that like everyone else i am beyond this pixelation you see, only human.
i still contend my opinion about the limitationality of pvp in the ruleset, and there being only a single ruleset and server. however after some retrospection of my initial post, i realized that the connotational tone of what id said, especially considering my personal state of mind, did not do the production justice.
i am banned from their forum for a week (prolly a good thing) but not from the beta.
as i said above i was staring at my desktop icons and wanted to play FE, because i really like their environment, it is hard for a pvpr like me though to play in a pve only environ, its hard to explain to pvers but i know pvprs understand.
i decided to start a fresh character from scratch, for the hell of it, and give it another go to really decide whether i want to play the game. im going to try and look a bit past the limitationality of the ruleset and not focuson it as i have been, give an honest look at the rest of teh game than the zonelines.
i really decided to come back here and write this as i ended the tutorial with the fresh nooblet clone, and watched the intro movie again...and i thought about the story, the premise, and it hits me again, and i got damned mad again, lol...
...i'm going to play now, im going to come back, daily or every other day or so and update my thoughts on the gameplay and im going to be fair and honest in my observations. this title is a good game, it doesnt have everything i want exactly, but i wouldnt be honest if i didnt say it was cool to play it. im not going all fanboi or anything...but itd be an offense to the online horde (tm) at large to misassess a game due to a hissy fit.
i shall return...
Comments
Nice post about discovering yourself.... now please never post that much useless information in one place ever again, and I mean that in the NICEST most FRIENDLY way possible. Serious.
Jeezus....get a blog man! j/k
reading my threads is optional.
pick an option and stick with it.
- have a nice day.
I have to agree I felt the exact same thing Greenion. I wanted a world that was scary, a world where I had to fight simply to survive, where I had to band together to stay alive. A world where finding some vital supplies for my guild meant something because we needed everything we could get to fight off the other factions and keep our land we toiled to build for one more day. Sadly it is a safe no danger world.
You've got a right to be irritated about the game. I had the exact same reaction after I started playing in the closed beta. I've never actually got angry about a game due to sheer ignorance from a developer... I really loved the concept of the game, and I could look past the weak graphics and sketchy combat system... then I read about the PvP system. Then I read about the lack of item loss/decay in a heavy crafting environment... then I read posts by the devs that this was the game they intended to make... I got kinda mad, which is kinda silly all things considered, but it was so frustrating that they took this perfect opportunity and spat it away.
The game could of have really interesting, now its just a weak PvE game, with horrible PvE based PvP, with a weak combat system, weak graphics, a broken economy system(which screws over crafting), and no end-game content. Such a disappointment.
Yeah, in Sector 1 and 2. Try living ins Sector 3 once the game has a a decent population there. I've seen people knocking others off while harvesting, for instance.
As for building your own land with a Clan, that's not in atm. That said, the Icarus team doesn't strike me as one adverse to adding in an EvE-esque 0.0 space Sector or two where Clans can establish dominance over territory and fight for it. Understandbly them being a small developer they didn't have the time or funds to add it in now. That and it makes more sense to me to get your "safe" areas in and established and then add in high threat PvP sectors that more often than not drive customers away. *shrug*
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
it depends on what you consider useless. if you are going to read opinionated commentary about any given thing it is best to consider the source and perspective of the commentary. i certainly employed this axiom in considering yours.
- this op has exactly to do with that, it reflects on my perspective when authoring the former thread.
and further, i intend to continue to talk about the game here with a different perspective, one less stuck on seeing a single definciency in the game, in an effort to make a fair assessment of it more as a whole than discounting it totally by being deficient in a single part. i continue to contend that single part deficient in the way previously cited however realize that the game is more than just that.
i tried this once, but it seemed to me that it was a bit concieted to think that my bitty and at times pithy murmurings were at all important enough to deem necessary or warrant a place of their own...that and there is no money in it really. therefor as an amateur, like others, i am simply a part of the crowd on forums. granted sometimes an outspoken part of teh crowd, but only that nonetheless.
yep, im damned angry about it. there is some pvp but this game is deadset on being a generally safe pve game with a sideshow of zonal pvp - the majority of it at the endgame.
the playerbase is well - struck by a visionary design that is admittedly tailor made for their preferences, i can't say i blame them too much because if the ruleset were on teh other foot so to speak, i'd be the one quite unmoved by any suggestive changes and they would be damned angry.
- the pvprs are always teh ones getting stuck with the role of being angry due to their preferences being secondary. this is due to either simply a faulty perception on the business end of things that pvprs do not represent much of the mmorpg marketshare, or the accurate perception of same...im not a market analyst nor am i qualified to question ones results. my perspective is that of a pvpr and my opinions therfor reflect that.
so, i agree with you, but am attempting to look past this at the game entirely instead of this single facet, no small trick to being objective in this sense being a pvpr on a forced pve march toward endgame pvp.
so teh noob clone is now about lvl 4 and i began the game significantly differently than i had before.
before : ive always tended to attempt to be self sufficient in game environments, often in games that are really designed to be played in groups - i solo a lot, a good illustration would be eqii pvp, i played all exiles with different classes and tradeskills, the tradeskills were to outfit myself(s). but when i first approached FE it was as a beta...to test it, so i didnt really begin playing it as i would approach playing my account or character when live. i did do missions realizing i had to xp and buy things...but i outfitted myself completely from vendors without crafting at all...because im interested in the pvp and want to see it, and its at endgame.
this is i think one of the reasons why i did not like my first run and was not ultimately entirely successful in the environ. that character eventuallly financially piddled out, or at least began to...due to not fully developing the persona within the environment by way of making use of the crafting system.
and so when i began this noob clone i chose a crafting based starter city instead of a combat based one like i had done before, as well as noting all the pvers on the forums pointing at craftin being a focus of gameplay. nearly grumbling audibly in rl i clicked on the choice of midway as a start city and was wisked off leaving only a poof of dna.
the missions...surprised me, they were a mix of pve and crafting goals, i took several at a time (as opposed to taking on a single mission at a time before, finishing it, getting another, etc) having a crafting assignment while having a pve based assignment allowed me to know and look for the types of nodes i needed to harvest for the crafting missions while accomplishing the pve. basicly i was killing two missions with a single trip afield.
i noticed that even low level items, some like armor require a bit of real time to finish, when the crafting system was originally explained to me it sounded very watered down and convenient, i mean...your crafting continues offline? that s very convenient to me...but once i began to do it ingame, i realize it isnt too convenient at all. if you are doing this to outfit yourself to make a full set of first tier gear weapons and all would take several real hours. you can stand in a single place while this goes on, continue missions or whatever, log on to an alt, or log off and take a nap. in this sense it is convenient...you arent standing over a crafting mechanism clicking erratically at buttons that ultimately make little difference anyway other than something to click during the time sink.
there is a lot to the itemization - some items even in the first tier of craftable recipes require multiple combines, an example being shirts...you have to make a dye using a science kit, a shirt using a sewing kit, and then combine the two to make a final dyed shirt, each of those three combines takes an amount of real time.
- so the crafting system is less a time sink in relation to gameplay time although has realtime constraints built in, is very widely itemized and complex as far as managing storage space and materials. now that i have tried it i have to say that as a crafting system i like it. what ive historically not liked (and likely why i attempted to sidestep it running the first character) was the timesink that has existed biting into gameplay time in previous games.
more later...
I have to ask, was there anything aside from your assumptions that made you think the game was more PvP centric than it is? Because I've followed it fairly well and never expected it to be full openworld ffa pvp.
Personally, I love pvp - but I prefer a structured approach of the sort that FE has taken (or the way old DAoC did it or how EVE does it) No game out there to date has done FFA pvp "right" and honestly no one probably ever will because of the coding hassles and the harsh penalties it would need...the ones that have tried are either not really MMORPGs (such as WW2OL or Planetside) or totally fringe and marginal (like Darkfail).
i guess largely it was assumption, i was not following the game's progress for a long period of time. i came here to look for my 'next game' from the game list, checked out ones listed as in beta, not because im a beta junkie - ive been in several but dont beta hop, i usually play what ive tested because its my interest that causes me to sign up for a beta...
anyway, i looked for what was in beta because i like to start a game at its launch, eve for example is one i missed out on, i probably wont try it because its already so owned, not because it doesnt appeal.
fallen earth is listed as having pvp...but the game list doesnt really give much info. the game's motif leads one to think it will be a pvp game especially in combo with the pvp designation on the game listing.
it is a pvp game, but its a hybrid single server. im doing my best to deal with it, it still irks me because the more i hang out in the game the more the landscape looks like the perfect strategic pvp battle ground as far as the digital eye can see.
edit> my main issue is with the pvp ruleset mostly, its a good game really - especially for the people the ruleset was tailor made for. if they pull out a more pvp focused ruleset and change a few things that would make pvp more strategic...itd be a very popular title with both camps of players pve/pvp.
an example of what i mean by other things, i refer to mandatory graphics settings for a more focused pvp server, meaning a few things combined : everyone would have to have environmental bushes and shrubs to a certain clip distance so when someone is sneaky prone...the other peeps dont see them in the open due to their graphics settings. another is neon names on PCs, shouldnt be on a pvp server...you can see the opponent's name in battle text and in the target window, a target window shouldnt reveal teh level of another PC targeted. also i think it would make pve more skill based if no npcs on teh server showed their names overhead...this way animals in the brush would be partially hidden, it would make the envrionment more real and tactile instead of video gamish, as well these changes on a pvp server make gameplay more strategic, the environ means more and it actually concievable a PC could hide behind a rock - without the giant neon sign floating above their head to give theri position away. (sry for the rant)
in eqlive on rallos zek server not everyone attacked the next PC the saw...an open pvp environment doesnt have to be full loot either, in FE factions should matter, alot imo...many games make the mistake of letting lore go due to the wants and whims of playerbase, all the sudden the game doesnt resemble the story it simulates at all and you cant tell who is who or friend from foe.
...for FE i had suggested the above few things as well as a white name in a target window for the same faction, gray for allied factions, red for enemies. and meaningful penalties for killing your own as well as allies...itd be best to penalize per damage done by friendly fire if possible instead of per friendly kill.
- but they arent going to even think about an alternate ruleset for awhile, so i have a choice to make, support them for their core game because it is an admirable peice of work in a lot of ways, or qq as i walk away to the next thing...
at this point i have to say i might play it as is and really hope they take the preferences of pvprs seriously in their future plans. because other than the limitations of the pvp ruleset i have no major issues with it, its a novel environ and done well. many complain about the graphics but i think they are fairly cool. it does lag some but its a beta, lolz and lag doesnt kill in a pve zone anyway.
at the same time im eyeballing earthrise, checking its forum...that game sounds like its going more directly in my preferential direction.
- i really just didnt want to walk away from the former thread and initial post without further explanation, it wouldnt have been honest to other gamers here, nor would it have been fair to the people behind FE. its a good game that isnt going to get the pvp system its environment deserves imo, but is still a good game.
- i know i ramble...sry about that.
the above brings me back again to my original initial post...and while i intend to continue as i have other facets of FE that i think interestingly vital to what is a novel environment there are several points to make while near my first impression.
i could fill pages writing about pvp rulesets, but im not going to here. what is obvious not just to me is that this is a lite pvp ruleset and that is nearly understating it. i said in that initial post's first line that i play games primarily to pvp.
- one thing that grabs me is the premise of the game, as well as the outcome of the tutorial every single character in teh game goes through. every clone saves the dam...without venturing philosophically too far into this oortish cloud bit of the backstory i only want to emphasize that basicly every clone dies in doing so...and is recloned. its a very key mechanic to the game. it is part of every single player's initial experience. npcs throughout the game world at large comment via voice overs about clones in the context of nonmortality. im not making this stuff up folks, the devs did.
i think its a great premise but lacks a single totally key thing explained to each player, and i cannot comprehend how in a factional war that it is not a major selling point to any faction in the favor of clones...that they respawn indefinately. if i had a group of soldiers that needed trained for combat, that if mortally wounded simply respawned...i would train them the hard way.
this brings me to the pvp issue...it should be obvious in the design and the presentation of the story that this little thing like nonmortality is a bit of a divergence from the norm. i feel it should be impressed upon each player through the presentation of tutorial gameplay that the death of a clone is...meh not a big deal. because killing one doesnt do much more than respawn it a half mile away and pisses it off.
the tutorial ends with a suicide mission. i love the intro movie, honestly no jest...the chick is hot and her voice is sexy, me likey. i also like the implication that could be utilized that isnt being to create a playing feild for virtual pvp gameplay truly unencumbered by these namby pamby notions that death ingame has at all a sting other than less than two minutes of lessened stats or so. sheeesh.
- consider this storyline's theme in this light juxtaposed against a famous line from the movie conan, relating that game title and its ruleset : 'do you want to live forever?' - and just think about it. - the chick that said it was hot, yes, and dead...permanently, not gonna be cloned back to life, dead. they made an ffa game out of it...im so confused!
more later...and i intend on staying off the above and talking more about FE features that i like, because i wouldnt bother with even saying the above if i didnt like the game.
In response to some of your comments, especially about the community, I have to disagree in part.
Yes, there are some "caustic" fanbois and rabid defenders...but they are being constantly provoked and engaged by those who want the game to be something other than what it is. I have been critical of several aspects of FE openly on their forums as well as here, especailly the bad decisions behind the fileplanet silliness. Yet I have not had a single "hateful" response from the fanbois directed at me, precisely because I state my case in a calm, rational fashion and don't engage in the emo-raging and cursing at the devs that far too many of the complaineers have been doing.
After considering it for a bit, I have to say that Icarus is in part guilty of drawing this down on themselves. A whole lot of people came to the game expecting something other than what it is. I came from MMORPGs expecting a fairly standard MMORPG with some factional PvP and a combat system similar to Tabula Rasa...thus I was not terribly dissapointed. However, Icarus has been far from clear on that in official press and it's hard to find clear statements of what their "vision" is on their site; so to a degree I can understand the people who came looking for an open PvP game or the FPSer being disappointed.
I'm with Eric. You can't judge the entire community by the voices of a dozen players or so. If you look close, you'll see it's the same rabid fanbois over and over bashing any suggestion of any change to the game no matter how great or slight.
I just give them the rasberry and tell them I will not be bullied. Just have a think skin and say your peace in a respectful way.
the thing is, i didnt suggest a change to the game at all, not a single one.
- i suggested an alternate ruleset.
and to this i must assume, as a fan of the highlander, there can be only one?
apparantly thats part of the vision too...and as ive pointed out in a business sense is a risk as much as an investment in an alternative.
Just have a think skin and say your peace in a respectful way.
- heh.
forget about the fanbois, i think i'll be ok (the point overall is that freeform feedback is muted, in fact, editing that out will be the next thing i do to illustrate that any point made by it has been)
id much rather focus on the first (now only) point of that post, which is pertinent to design.
now teh noob greenion is lvl 4 and poking about boneclaw in search of more missions having traversed the distance between on foot gamely harvesting along the way.
one thing that is really cool about this game is harvesting. the pvp zonelines may need flogged to a bloody pulp, but harvesting is more fun in FE than i've seen in a game. with some ingenuity they have made something generally in other games mundane one of the most interesting presentations of the game aspect of resource aquisition ive seen displayed. i like the crafting system as a whole especially combined with this.
i did a mission for the local shaman into a nearby cave...full of mutated giant ants, roaches, and some breed of sentient sewer dwelling humanoid. i even used my handy 'f' flashlight, which i think a cool feature.
i hear alot of people not liking the graphics in FE, i dont see why...to me the graphics are done rather well, considerably so imo, the landscape is totally full of detail. there are barren areas, its a desert. the buildings, inside them, under them, around them...all kinds of stuff litters this game graphically. graffiti all over half crumbled walls...they put a whole lot of detail into it. there are buildings all over the place, i have seen posters saying the world seems empty...it isnt of detail. where i get a singular sense of emptiness is only i don't sense that claustrophobic like adreniline associated with potential danger around the corner. this is due to teh pvp ruleset as well as the radar screen giving the position of npc targets.
the pve in this game is done well in ways, i think it depends on perspective. i have heard others comment about teh lack of ai and i both agree and disagree. the mobs move and require aim to hit with ranged and maneuvering when melee...i think they have done rather well in this regard. i did encounter an npc who hit me with a ranged attack (it was 3 lvls over me i was lvl 3) as i ran toward it to melee it kept trying to shoot me with an xbow backing up...never hit me once. i killed a second one also. then went on harvesting...
the combat is a pretty cool little system imo...i love using the two mouse buttons for each hand. perfect, i so dig this part of the game. i like the way weapon groups are changed out...it intuits some inherent skill and reflex into the gameplay. also, i like how you can melee with one hand while weilding a pistol in the other - although i only rarely employ the strat, i like it for its realness and versatility. i also very much like the fact that while you are using those handweapons of any kind proper aim, as well as the proper type weapon for a target's range in aim is required. and peeps wonder why i scream for an open pvp server...
on pve one thing i sense in the design of the environment combined with the speed of xping is that the game tends toward a type of pve, or leans toward it more than most mmorpgs traditionally is single player games. i say this because the mobs for their level in relation to mine seem easy singly, like im a bit in godmode, multiple adds are where the challenge really comes and the nailbiter pve battle leaves one a sliver away from reanimation. the kinds of scrapes you frantically look side to side for more adds after...if i adjusted anything in a general sense, itd be to make the mobs ingame a tad more likely to agro suddenly and a tad more distance.
more later...
The way I describe the graphics is "well done, but technically dated". FE has a solid art team and a very nice overall look and "feel"...but it is a good 3-5 yrs behind the current generation of graphics capabilities.
The PvE is about on par with most MMOs these days really...anything remotely near your level solo is a fairly easy kill and mob aggro and "BAF" (bring a friend) code ranges are ludicrously short. I don't like it, because it is moronic to be able to pull one guy from a campfire while his 3 buddies just sit there and watch him die...but that's the dumbed down standard of MMOs these days.
Eric the BAF and aggro ranges seems to grow exponentially the higher the mobs levels get. Most stuff around the starter towns and in the south of secter 1 are easy kills for the low levels.
Heading north to kings and reststop and further north I quickly had to switch from what I thought aggro ranges and BAF were to what the new mobs were doing. Yea and they start going after the horse a lot too, where before they always ignored him.
That may just depend on comparative levels...I found the stuff around Reststop no different from further south, if anything it was even easier to kill solo because all the corrupted clones come pre-snared. They also completely ignored my horse, I'd leave it parked for hours while I slaughtered stuff and they'd walk right past it.
Clones yea, thier little more then zombies. Mutants, throwbacks, coyotes up there had a much higher aggro range and BAF.
Do they? Or is it just that they are packed much more densely into the area? I just went back to Kingman and the raiders there were as oblivious as ever...yeah they'd "bring a friend" but only if they were virtually on top of each other to start with...I was pulling guys out of rooms and others in the same room would ignore it...same with aggro range, I could walk down the middle of a street and guys on either side would ignore me.
Anyways, I have to agree with feeling rather "meh" about this game...the more I play, the more bored with it I seem to get..not sure if it was area driven or what but was having rather more frontend crashes today too.
the graphics engine might well be that old, im not technically inclined enough to know this or not. i have heard it said more than once though. i think FE's graphics, or appreciation of them also has to do with perspective (like many things do).
- i do not at all attempt to detract from your assessment, one thing ive made quite clear is that everyone's opinion matters...when i consider the opinions of others the more i know of their perspective, the more i can infer from their stated opinion. (i once asked a fellow poster how many pvp environments they had played in and they were insulted - however what i wanted to know better was their perspective)
my perspective on the graphics is from a fairly dated machine, i have a dell xps gen 2, a pentium 4 processor that im nearly certain is single core. i have 4 gbs ram and a raedon 1650 card w 512 mbs vram. quite often i do not have graphics notched all the way up in any game i play, it is always a balance between eye candy and lag with me. the graphics look fairly good in comparison with what my machine's top end is.
what also looks fairly good is the detail in which they have painted the landscape, i dont mean this literally of course...the landscape is a barren wasteland. what i mean is that they have portrayed the apocolyptic environment visually in excellent fashion.
as to the ai, you have noted also that the mobs are a bit easy, like i said compared to other mmorpgs it seems im a bit in godmode, this could be quite intentional in the design, or could be the result of a tankertruck worth of qqing - im not sure which. if intentional by design i can see some sense in it, but as i mentioned above, they should make the mobs a tad more likely to agro, and as well agro from a tad farther away. i noticed the other post also about npc to npc logical commo - i feel as well this is something for them to look at as far as an improvement toward a more challenging pve experience.
this evening's game session was cut a bit short as i had to go to work in the real world - im a professional killer by trade, lolz, its true, considering perspective.
during the session i had gravitated back toward midway to lvl up a few harveting skills to be able to hit the next tier harvestable goodies. i have come to the point that im carrying all the weight i can and finally must bank - i hate this part of gameplay - managing all the incidentals, the stuff, that is both precious resource and a pain in the arse. (i know i know, if you want to have a complex crafting system...im not whining)
anyway i'd already taken to potshotting at peeps for fun along the way when i ran past...and then i see a player in a prone position...at what would gauge to be 20 mph going up and down the streets of midway. i took this opportunity to rediscover the new player chat channel i'd had collapsed and almost always do while i play.
many things were being said...one player asked why there were nodes in teh pvp area...i replied that those are called /carrots in an effort to be helpful. the next player scoffed : 'pvp in this game sucks'.
here i paused a moment (still watching the player do his proneshimmy through the streets of the town) and i thought about it...and i have to potentially disagree. the pvp doesnt necessarily at all suck in this game, from what i have read of others telling of it its very balanced as far as combat, what i would agree with and what i think that player meant is that it should be much more widely enabled. there is quite a difference.
i asked in the chat (as id seen a few mods names mixed in the bustly stream of text) if anyone else had noted this prone speed phenomena and was it a new game feature...
after a moment of postulation i began chasing the prone player repeatedly shooting him in the ass with my xbow. after using about 40 or so rounds of ammo i took a few screenshots (to get the name) and headed to the bank...
in the bank a naked character named pillow pants was wildly rocking out to muzak that i must assume only he could hear on top of the vaults...and i mentioned this oddity as well in new player chat...noting that pillow pants was obviously looking for attention.
this is when i got scared.
what scared me was the sudden and stark appearance of a tall svelte woman with a giant hammer named morgana directly in front of me. she idly looked about the room, seemed to giggle a bit at pillow pants and left hastedly off on some unknown errand i prefer imagining had to do with a player in a prone position.
i must admit to feeling a little owned as i completely failed the opportunity of the screenshotting of a CM.
what i noted this evening is a key element in game design, testing, and production...it is staff paying attention to the players and i must say, it was a beautiful illustration. this is such a major plus to their production any attempt to quantify it would be an understatement...and as evidenced this evening, they seem to be paying attention - especially to what new players are saying while playing their game. /thumbs up for this.
more later..