Over a year ago I posted about an upcoming steampunk mmo called Gatheryn. They went into open beta the end of last summer but I doubt few really noticed. It was a huge disappointment and the few times I logged in, it was rare to see another player. The last official posting came last October and the game suddenly went offline with no further posts as to why or the status. So I guess this one is done. It was to be the first released mmo using the new HeroEngine, but I guess that honor will now go to SW:TOR.
I'm not losing hope yet for a steampunk mmo. Though still in very early, rough stages, I continue to follow AIR and also found out about Clockwork Symphony. At least there's still official activity there anyway.
Also way back when, I was in the Gods and Heroes beta--another one which went kablooie. Looks like it may see the light of day yet. Heatwave Interactive has obtained the rights and launched a new website. No information yet, but my beta experiences were pleasant enough that I will watch the progress of this one.
I also recently gave City of Eternals a try. If you have a Facebook account, you can just log right in. It's a vampire-themed game and nothing particularly fancy, but hey it's free.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
Alganon Going Free to Play?
Even though I am mostly playing STO, I still log into Alganon to keep my studies updated and just generally tinker around a bit. Yesterday I noticed a new icon on my screen placed next to my total money display. A few discussed it in general chat coming up with some theories and a GM responded we will found out quite soon.
Today a dev posted to explain this was part of a new Tribute system as part of "the new subscription-free pricing model that Alganon is adopting, as seen elsewhere on the site." Unfortunately, there is no mention of free to play elsewhere on the site at this point, but I guess it's coming.
I was one of thoseidiots supportive people who purchased a one-year subscription in hopes of bigger things coming. I have yet to enjoy any free to play model I've tried to date, particularly the communities it attracts. But I'll have to wait and see how it actually evolves.
Today a dev posted to explain this was part of a new Tribute system as part of "the new subscription-free pricing model that Alganon is adopting, as seen elsewhere on the site." Unfortunately, there is no mention of free to play elsewhere on the site at this point, but I guess it's coming.
I was one of those
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Blowing Stuff Up and Putting Out Fires
Having spent much of the last ten MMO years stabbing bugs and woodland creatures for various farmers and citizens, there's been a lot of satisfaction in blowing up ships and vaporizing Klingons. One quest has you removing a fire extinguisher from the wall and putting out the fires in your way. Oddly, even spraying that extinguisher is heck of a lot of fun and I wished I could keep it once the quest was over.
I haven't been focused on leveling at all and am just enjoying the quests and story line. But by the end of the head start weekend, I did receive my first promotion which granted me my new ship. I went with a science vessel and first order of business was to customize my vessel, including my bridge.
Along with a ship upgrade, I gained an additional officer. I did have concerns about being overwhelmed managing so many officers or "pets", but even this aspect of the game has been fun. You can name them and play dress up, but I opted for a matched team in Next Generation garb.
The weekend wasn't without a few glitches. The server came down a few times both Friday and Saturday for emergency maintenance. But by Sunday it seemed they worked out some kinks and things ran fairly smoothly. Today is the official launch date. We'll likely be seeing even more subscribers come in to strain the server further, so we'll see how it goes.
I haven't been focused on leveling at all and am just enjoying the quests and story line. But by the end of the head start weekend, I did receive my first promotion which granted me my new ship. I went with a science vessel and first order of business was to customize my vessel, including my bridge.
Along with a ship upgrade, I gained an additional officer. I did have concerns about being overwhelmed managing so many officers or "pets", but even this aspect of the game has been fun. You can name them and play dress up, but I opted for a matched team in Next Generation garb.
The weekend wasn't without a few glitches. The server came down a few times both Friday and Saturday for emergency maintenance. But by Sunday it seemed they worked out some kinks and things ran fairly smoothly. Today is the official launch date. We'll likely be seeing even more subscribers come in to strain the server further, so we'll see how it goes.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Farewell Celebration on Risa
I had the good fortune of hooking up with a great fleet recently. Their roots are in SWG, where they still maintain a presence. The members are mature and I appreciated their laid back application process. The process of most fleets I looked into felt too much like a job application. So it's been a good fit so far.
As the final hour of open beta began to count down, the vacation planet Risa seemed to be the place to be. So popular, in fact, that several versions of Risa were generated. We hooked up in Risa #5 and made our way to a secluded end of the beach for some photo opportunities followed by dancing with the natives.
Head start begins this Friday. Can't wait!
As the final hour of open beta began to count down, the vacation planet Risa seemed to be the place to be. So popular, in fact, that several versions of Risa were generated. We hooked up in Risa #5 and made our way to a secluded end of the beach for some photo opportunities followed by dancing with the natives.
Head start begins this Friday. Can't wait!
Friday, January 22, 2010
Getting Quieter Around Here
While Alganon has always had a small player base, I logged in last night and there were 13 players on my faction's side. Considering even fewer people play the ugly faction, I'd be surprised if there were more than 20 people on.
With Star Trek Online being much more fun, I've been logging in less and less. I ran out of quests in Alganon at around level 44 so have been grinding the last five levels. I don't object to some grinding if only I had more places to go and see. I've been killing the same mobs in the same zone for all these levels. There is one other zone I suppose I could alternate the grind. But for some reason, whether by design or an oversight, chests don't drop at all there. So if I'm going to grind, I at least want to make a little money while doing it.
I've been sitting at 49 for awhile now, logging in now and then to kill more of the same mobs. There's really no reason to hit 50 any time soon. I've tried some alts, but with only four classes total, the other three classes just haven't been much fun. Dungeons are supposedly coming. They've released some screenshots of them this week. But considering no mobs were visible in any of the screenshots, I'm guessing this is still a long while off yet.
So I'm logging in mostly for the wonderful people in guild and the community in general. A very poor reason to stick around I know. But I keep hoping more and better stuff is on the way.
With Star Trek Online being much more fun, I've been logging in less and less. I ran out of quests in Alganon at around level 44 so have been grinding the last five levels. I don't object to some grinding if only I had more places to go and see. I've been killing the same mobs in the same zone for all these levels. There is one other zone I suppose I could alternate the grind. But for some reason, whether by design or an oversight, chests don't drop at all there. So if I'm going to grind, I at least want to make a little money while doing it.
I've been sitting at 49 for awhile now, logging in now and then to kill more of the same mobs. There's really no reason to hit 50 any time soon. I've tried some alts, but with only four classes total, the other three classes just haven't been much fun. Dungeons are supposedly coming. They've released some screenshots of them this week. But considering no mobs were visible in any of the screenshots, I'm guessing this is still a long while off yet.
So I'm logging in mostly for the wonderful people in guild and the community in general. A very poor reason to stick around I know. But I keep hoping more and better stuff is on the way.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Lag-Free in STO
I'm coming across so many posts and blogs regarding lag and stuttering in STO and I have to wonder why I'm not experiencing this. With my very mediocre system, I can't play Vanguard, AoC, or even LotRO without lag issues, but have had absolutely none in STO.
Missions have been a lot of fun and with open beta being much more populated than closed, there's pretty much always someone auto grouped with me when I enter an instance. I've met and spoken with more players in a few days here than I have in six months in most other MMO's.
STO is not without issues though. The first couple nights, the server was so overwhelmed that I was experiencing too many disconnects to bother. And there was one instance I've come across so far that wasn't functioning. The last couple days the server definitely seems to be behaving better and I've had no disconnects.
Similar to LotRO, they are offering a lifetime subscription deal. A bit too steep for me at this point and still not sure if it will be as fun six months from now. But for now, I'm having a blast.
Missions have been a lot of fun and with open beta being much more populated than closed, there's pretty much always someone auto grouped with me when I enter an instance. I've met and spoken with more players in a few days here than I have in six months in most other MMO's.
STO is not without issues though. The first couple nights, the server was so overwhelmed that I was experiencing too many disconnects to bother. And there was one instance I've come across so far that wasn't functioning. The last couple days the server definitely seems to be behaving better and I've had no disconnects.
Similar to LotRO, they are offering a lifetime subscription deal. A bit too steep for me at this point and still not sure if it will be as fun six months from now. But for now, I'm having a blast.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Unplanned Detour Into Space
I wasn't planning on playing Star Trek Online. While I've been a Star Trek fan since the original series, I've read all the previews over the past months and knew this wouldn't be the kind of Star Trek I had in mind. Plus, I hate to fly. Or at least I did in every attempt I've made in other games including SWG.
It was out of sheer boredom that I accepted a closed beta invite and began the long download. My husband even remarked, "Why are you bothering with that? You know you're not going to like it." I just shrugged. Maybe at least the ground missions might be somewhat fun.
I've gotten so spoiled with quest markers in more recent games, that sometimes I wasn't sure where to go in the tutorial. But nothing that a bit of exploration couldn't resolve. Once out of the tutorial and onto the space station, it astounded me the number of players asking where to find certain npc's on the station. The station is not that big and is easy to navigate. Yeah, we've gotten spoiled with quest markers and have become lazy.
I picked up some missions here and out into space I went. And I had no idea what I was doing. And I blew up. A lot. I logged off frustrated as I expected but was determined to give it my best shot for the duration of closed beta. Taking a better look at all my ship options, it really wasn't all that confusing relative to other games and after a few changes to how I was handling fights, I was the victor more often than the victim. I was flying and actually having a bit of fun.
One of the aspects to the missions I enjoyed was auto grouping. If someone else just zoned into the same mission, you'd be automatically grouped with them (however, you can change this in options). Usually, there would be three or four of us and it made the missions more quick and efficient. On easy missions, generally nothing would be said. We'd go in, get the job done, zone out and disband. On some of the more challenging missions, we'd talk about trying things differently and have a good laugh when we'd get blown up. Fortunately, at this point there was no death penalty and you could just fly right back in to join the fight.
Then I came across the larger scale missions. These reminded me of the public quests in Warhammer. There generally would be 15-20 players with a mission to kill several groups of enemies. After completion, the zone resets in 5 minutes so you can do them over and over. One of the final patches before open beta resulted in an increase in the difficulty of the smaller missions. They became almost impossible to complete solo and eventually everyone just seemed to stick with the large scale battles, as it was more efficient to level this way.
Ground missions weren't particularly exciting, but I hadn't been able to experience many of them since I just was not receiving many of them as quests. But oddly I was having enough fun in space that I wasn't missing it.
There's a lot of zoning. Everything is instanced. But the upside to this is that there is only one server and I like that. And as I said previously, you do need to do a bit of digging sometimes to find your way around. Sometimes a mission may take you to a certain cluster that's in a different system. You'll need to check the star chart to find the cluster, see what system it's in and determine what direction it is relative to your current point. It's nothing difficult, but just takes more time than what some players might be used to.
Unexpectedly, I did find myself having enough fun that I preordered. I know some players feel the missions are too repetitive and maybe my enjoyment will be short-lived. So we'll just have to see how long the fun lasts.
It was out of sheer boredom that I accepted a closed beta invite and began the long download. My husband even remarked, "Why are you bothering with that? You know you're not going to like it." I just shrugged. Maybe at least the ground missions might be somewhat fun.
I've gotten so spoiled with quest markers in more recent games, that sometimes I wasn't sure where to go in the tutorial. But nothing that a bit of exploration couldn't resolve. Once out of the tutorial and onto the space station, it astounded me the number of players asking where to find certain npc's on the station. The station is not that big and is easy to navigate. Yeah, we've gotten spoiled with quest markers and have become lazy.
I picked up some missions here and out into space I went. And I had no idea what I was doing. And I blew up. A lot. I logged off frustrated as I expected but was determined to give it my best shot for the duration of closed beta. Taking a better look at all my ship options, it really wasn't all that confusing relative to other games and after a few changes to how I was handling fights, I was the victor more often than the victim. I was flying and actually having a bit of fun.
One of the aspects to the missions I enjoyed was auto grouping. If someone else just zoned into the same mission, you'd be automatically grouped with them (however, you can change this in options). Usually, there would be three or four of us and it made the missions more quick and efficient. On easy missions, generally nothing would be said. We'd go in, get the job done, zone out and disband. On some of the more challenging missions, we'd talk about trying things differently and have a good laugh when we'd get blown up. Fortunately, at this point there was no death penalty and you could just fly right back in to join the fight.
Then I came across the larger scale missions. These reminded me of the public quests in Warhammer. There generally would be 15-20 players with a mission to kill several groups of enemies. After completion, the zone resets in 5 minutes so you can do them over and over. One of the final patches before open beta resulted in an increase in the difficulty of the smaller missions. They became almost impossible to complete solo and eventually everyone just seemed to stick with the large scale battles, as it was more efficient to level this way.
Ground missions weren't particularly exciting, but I hadn't been able to experience many of them since I just was not receiving many of them as quests. But oddly I was having enough fun in space that I wasn't missing it.
There's a lot of zoning. Everything is instanced. But the upside to this is that there is only one server and I like that. And as I said previously, you do need to do a bit of digging sometimes to find your way around. Sometimes a mission may take you to a certain cluster that's in a different system. You'll need to check the star chart to find the cluster, see what system it's in and determine what direction it is relative to your current point. It's nothing difficult, but just takes more time than what some players might be used to.
Unexpectedly, I did find myself having enough fun that I preordered. I know some players feel the missions are too repetitive and maybe my enjoyment will be short-lived. So we'll just have to see how long the fun lasts.
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