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."

Comments

Planetside is worth a trial run

[CrazyJim1]

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.

Re:Planetside is worth a trial run

[Anonymous Coward]

The first six months of Planetside from launch were fantastic. As players started to figure out strategies and strategic assaults, it was awesome. I still remember my first assaults, packed in a dropship with my buddies and going out and kicking ass.

Then gradually SOE brought out the nerf bat. My favorite class - the cloaker - was nerfed so that it became ineffective without 4 enhancement slots (except that you can only have a max of three - and I need / want Darklight, Melee Booster, Advanced Targeting and Sensor Shield to be effective). So my favorite class became impossible for me to play as I wanted to.

Then the nerfing continued. The sniper rifle now sucks. You can't easily run people over in a tank anymore. They reduced the rocket load of aircraft. They sucked the fun out of the game in their obsession to apply RPG rock-paper-scissors mentality to a first person shooter.

So it then teamwork became next to useless since there were no unique weapons and everything was the same. Specialization became pointless and everyone started choosing the most generic, flexible - and boring - weapon loadout. I went from stealth cloaker with a knife, pistol and my wits - to running around with a sweeper shotgun (one of the basic weapons) and reenforced armour suit. I could do that in Doom.

So anyway - Planetside it was really cool at first, but I agree that it sucks now. And if they ever do a Planetside 2, I'll be all over it.

Re:Planetside is worth a trial run

[Dachannien]

Having a specialty "class" be more powerful than a generic, well-rounded "class" isn't really all that different from vice versa. Either way, if one is more powerful than the other, tons of people will go with the more powerful way.

The difference is that dying in a stand-up fight is a lot less annoying than dying to the cheese factor. When I played waaay back during beta, the sheer vast number of stealthers, snipers, and Reaver pilots was ridiculous, and you could bet dollars to donuts that you'd die to one of those three things. Now, the game is more balanced, and while people still use stealth, sniper rifles, and Reavers to score kills, it's not any more than the people Gal-dropping towers with heavy weapons and MAXes. Those specialized tools are just that now - specialized - meaning they are situationally very useful, but don't mean an automatic win anymore.

Re:I wouldn't

[Harlockjds]

EQ was only a hit because it was the best game of it's time. It's only alive now because of station pass and people that don't want to leave behind years of work.

This has nothing to do with Brad leaving, the next generation was improved on EQ and took players away while expanding the audience (wow has toped 2 mill players, eq toped out at around half a mill). Heck EQ left such a bad taste in peoples mouth that EQ2 is having problems because people equate EQ2=EQ=pain in the ass, despite eq2 having learned the lesions of EQ better than Wow (esp. with the more recent changes to EQ2 to make it even friendlier than when it launched). These pains in the ass elements were in the game from the start and are in Vanguard, the difference is gamers don't have to put up with them anymore.

Vanguard will be good for one thing, it'll take the people bitching that EQ2/WoW are too 'casual' and put them on a game I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole

Re:So...

[rellix]

I'm not sure how I can argue the fact that some games are better, without pointing to their "amazing" features on their websites - but I'd rather not advertise for them.

If you want some strict subscriber information, you can check out http://www.mmogchart.com/ - if you look at a few trends, EQ is slowly declining in subscribers. SWG was never that popular and has been declining as well.

EQ in the last few months combined their servers and got rid of at least half (I believe), which is more than enough proof for me that they are losing players.