Centauri
   |
Posted - 2004.05.31 00:13:00 -
[1]
Edited by: Centauri on 31/05/2004 00:16:27
Well I've seen some excellent points. We obviously all enjoy the game, or we wouldn't be here. But here are the negatives:
1. Small play area.
Now this may sound ridiculous in a game with thousands of systems, but how many of those never see any action at all? How many are empty void with no other players, no interesting places to visit, no tough NPC's, and require literally hours of travel to reach? Quite a few. There's no point in going to about half of the systems in the game.
2. "Closed" areas
Those alliances who won't let you mine, hunt, or travel through their space help to ruin the game for some people - not everyone of course. Same with the handful of entrances to 0.0 which are religiously guarded by the alliances or pirates. It doesn't matter who you are, to them, you're just a target. The new player is confined to empire space, and isn't even reasonably safe there either. Even for the experienced player, running those blockades and making it through alliance space during peak times is almost impossible. I'm no carebear, but how exactly does that encourage new players, or players who don't have huge ammounts of time to get out and have fun, when they're assured of little else except certain death at the hands of entire legions of battleships commanded by under-sexed, over-weight computer geeks? And you can't say "tough, that's life". When an alliance member loses a ship, they're often just given another. What about the newer pilot coming out from empire for the first time? Where's his support? He has none. Too many people just can't have much fun this way, and I feel sorry for them.
3. Complete lack of role play.
Sure, if you're in an alliance you have plenty. Or if you're in one of the few "large" corporations. But the average player, and the average corp have little they can do to get any recognition in this game. You can't work in 0.0 - you'll get killed. You can't work in empire space - the belts are stripped, the NPC's are tiny, and you can't shoot at anyone you feel like.
This game was designed by, and engineered for the "power gamer". I believe this has been touched on already. Sure, they may roll their eyes at this and say "bull****", "carebear" or any of a multitude of other terms, but I think they must be forgetting just how much time, effort, and perhaps even money that they've pumped into this game. Many of the largest corps and alliances in the game moved into "their" space way back when 0.0 was still sparsely populated. They didn't have the gate-gankers or 0.0 alliances to contend with. With no competition, no wonder they managed to monopolize everything.
The average gamer cannot log an hour here. He cannot go to 90% of most of space without likely meeting an unpleasant end that could ruin a nice evening he or she has set aside for some fun.
Sad but true as they say...
Centauri,
Former Fleet Admiral of Star Control |