Slashdot Mirror
SOE Station Pass Reviewed
Geldonyetich, at Grimwell.com, has reviewed the pile of games that makes up the SOE All-Access Station Pass. The pass includes SWG, EQ, EQ2, Planetside, and the "Station" games Tanarus, Infantry, and Cosmic Rift. From the article: "In the interest of having a complete review, I installed and took a good look at each of the individual PC game offerings under the Station Access subscription. I didn't have the necessary broadband PS2 hardware to try out EverQuest Online Adventures nor the Apple hardware to run EverQuest: Macintosh Edition. Just because I didn't include them doesn't mean they aren't part of the subscription plan. Chances are if you're considering the Station Access subscription you are a PC gamer anyway, as otherwise you've only access to one or two of the games."
If you enjoy any three of these games then a Station Pass is a very good investment. I was an EQ addict for a number of years, and have kicked that habit, but often consider going back to Sony because I would still enjoy Tanarus (bzflag with better graphics) and Planetside (PS:UT2XMP::UT2XMP::UT2k4ONS).
Theres a lot of fun to be had in PlanetSide. Unfortunately, after a few days it wears off. There's no long term progression in PlanetSide like traditional RPGS. And as anyone who has played DOAC knows, it sucks not being able to choose your teammates... In fact having morons on your team regularly worse than not having them at all. Planetside is one game that gives me hope for the future of MMOGS. Its not something I'd want to pay monthly for, because it has some fundamental flaws, and the strategy is normally just zerging. Its something more for having personal fun, trying to go Rambo against the enemy without caring about the main objectives.
God spoke to me.
The reason they can offer these games at such low prices is because these games are dieing. Are they good games? For the most part - but their times have passed and they are, to say the least, not the best out there. Vanguard is your best bet (2006) - http://www.vanguardsoh.com/
rellix
Any links or numbers you can show that prove this 'theory'?
Ok mods, grow some brains here. He is speaking the truth.
McQuaid was the biggest proponent of "hell levels", xp grinding etc. Verant was the big pusher for all of that stuff. Once Verant was absorbed into the giant known as SOE things changed.
Hell levels were dropped, you could med without staring at your book, xp bonuses were granted etc. That was why Brad left. He thought Sony was making the game entirely too easy. His "vision" (TM) is to have you sit at your machine for years to reach that highest level or finish the hardest quest.
SWG, EQ, EQ2
Could you really hope to play all of these games and make worthwhile progression? Just 1 mmorpg is enough to rape your life away, nevermind 3.
I played PlanetSide for about 6 months solid before giving up my subscription.
Great idea, and MMO FPS games are definitely an exciting direction to be going in. However notable flaws:
1. Pricing - full price for the game and then a full-price subscription fee? I paid it, but I didn't like it. On top of that, paying another full-price for the expansion to the game? No thanks. That's about the time I quit playing, when the Core Combat expansion was released.
2. There's no victory - You take bases, while losing bases elsewhere. Perpetually. Eventually, highly frustrating. Especially after putting a few months of effort into the game to discover this.
3. System requirements are ridiculous - you actually do need 1Gb of ram to get the game to run acceptably, and even then, you're still going to choke in big firefights
But put all that aside. Sony are playing the Social blackmail game because they hold the keys to some of the best online social dynamics available. Gaming alongside friends and making new ones as you go along is a tight experience. I'll probably subscribe again in future.
Can someone who actually plays 2 NCSoft games confirm or deny something for me?
It seemed to me in the all the wording and documentation found in PlayNC that their 'default' was something like this.
You buy a game, but you don't subscribe to a game, you subscribe to PlayNC. Then you're allowed to play any game that you've purchased.
That seems really convinient, and it seems strange that they'd do that without charging the same premium that SOE did, but like I said, that's the distinct impression I had from their verbage.
(However, there's not a chance that I'd buy that crap Lineage 2 to ever find out. (And I wouldn't pay $15 for the 'half-MMOG' CoH, even though it's mostly a good game.)
Getting off track, when CoV comes out, what you're allowed to do will be based on whether you've purchased CoH, not whether you have an active subscription...so it seems to fall in line with the same structure.)
--Welcome to the Realm of the Hawke--
My only other gripe with SOE is there lack of an art/graphics department. SWG/EQ/EQ2 you look at the graphics and kind of just want to move along. Planetside lacked alot of detail, structures were very basic angular rectangles, but that was main FPS so it worked; but I would still want more detail to hold my attention.
Granted, EQ2 does have some nice graphical effects (Lighting/water/shadows). But the problem seems to be that their artist(s) don't use them. EQ2 looks very shiny and plastic, but the lack of attention to fine details is odd. I'm having trouble explaining, but the graphics just have this early to mid 90's CGI TV series feel to it... kind of reminds me of Reboot.
Hm, I got modded as a troll for saying what you just said.
Frankly, the reason I think Vanguard is going to be much less successful than people like rellix think is the near-total unquestioning devotion and intolerance of alternative perspectives that V:SoH anticipators display in threads like this.
It's established fact, to the point of being banal, that McQuad was the person at Verant that wanted to retain slow level grinds, item camps, hell levels, competition for a limited supply of spawns, etc, etc. You can like this and support it in V:SoH, or you can dislike this and prefer, say, WoW's design. But pointing out that the people who put that stuff in EQ are the same people designing V:SoH isn't a troll. It's just a fact.
And if you find that fact angering or threatening, maybe you need to reassess your opinion of how good V:SoH is likely to be.
Everyone is entitled to there own opinion and I wouldn't downtalk how wrong or right you may be. Also, my opinion of Vanguard will remain as it has for some time to come. Thanks.
rellix
haha. How long did it actually take them to fix that? It was Brad that kept saying that it was working correctly for months after release.