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In Short, what can we do in Perpetuum?
Ok if it wasn't for the Early Access news in the "news" section, i would have missed this game at all
so i began reading Perpeetum Forums and stuffs
but i would love to know what we can do in Perpetuum?
how sandbox is this game? compared to say, games like the upcoming Earthrise by Masthead Studio
thanks!
So What Now?
Comments
Ive been playing for a while and it pretty much goes like this: Grind for cash > Log off and wait for extension points > repeat.
I've played throughout closed beta, but I am not a huge fan (I don't like EvE either so no surprise there). This is not to say the game isn't great it's just not my style. Here's the list of the background and the features from off of their website. They are adding more features in the future (obviously it's an MMO) including the ability to create player made cities. If you have any more questions feel free to ask here or on the Perpetuum forums (the devs are very good with communication).
Background story
In the not-too-distant future, a strange anomaly opens the gates of the universe for humans. With this new technology, energy, information and atomic size objects can be transported to anywhere in space.
The most intriguing of all new discoveries is an Earth-like planet, where humanity discovers a new source of energy, vital to its unbroken advancement. However, this planet is inhabited by a synthetic, robot-like life form. Their technology and resources are the goal of humanity's new conquest.
Players may take part in various areas of the project. They may fight on the front lines for new territories, develop the already established infrastructure, trade goods or services, or even set their own goals and set up their own coprorations.
Features
Persistent universe
Every player is a part of one server, one scene, one storyline.
Formable planet surface
The whole terrain can be formed by military, agricultural or even aesthetic aspects.
Dynamically changing vegetation
The flora is changing perpetually, its parameters can be modified by the player, so even huge plantations - containing useful raw materials - can be established.
Time-based character development
No need for 'grinding'. You can be qualified despite you're not playing, since players get XP even if they are not logged in.
Active raw material simulation
The position of liquid materials change during exploitation. Controlled algorythms manage the respawn of raw materials.
Real-time, asynchronous combat
No turns, therefore no time restrictions of combat moves.
More than 30 various robots, hundreds of equipment items
Robots can be specialized in several kind of operations or tactics. The only barrier is your imagination.
Self-controlling economy
Exploitation, refinement and even manufacturing are all controlled by the players. The speed and efficiency of fabrication processes can be developed throughout the game.
Social networks
A complex corporation founding and management system is available for players, with additional communication systems in- and outside the game.
Career centre
Several missions can be undertaken on the numerous Syndicate departments. These varied missions provide challenge for every sort of specialties.
Steam: Neph
so far i have seen no human avatar, are you only controlling the Mech Robot? is there a human avatar?
because the story is about Human vs Mechs but i see no human so far on the Website's media SS
So What Now?
There will be no human avatar. Humans control mechs on the planet via remote network.
Game goes like the following...
Character pilots a robot or mech. No human character just a picture avatar.
Player can run missions, mine, and farm game currency, kernels and perform industry manufacturing, prototyping, and reverse engineer items while you waut for your Extension Point Pool (EP) to build up EP that can be used to further the progression of your character.
All of that and I didn't even talk about the PVP you can do on the beta islands that have outpost for corps to fight over control of them.....
This game looks extraordinary. Pretty much like EVE with mechs and a clean start.
REALITY CHECK
F242 rocks.
Also; I can't decide if I love or hate the no "grinding" aspect of EVE, once you are behind, you are behind for ever. But yeah, this is probably what Dust should be, EVE on the ground. I will most likely try it.
This
Waiting for this for long time now.
I found that EP gain or lack thereof holds up charater progression severely. It is 1 EP per min, logged on or off. Once the EP is spent for the day you can either run the same assignments over, or farm. I tried out the squad play in PvE. There isn't really a reason to form a squad, because each member of said squad must complete assignment objectives for themselves. in reality it is just easier to lurk an area waiting for someone with the same assignment to come around or just leach off of their farms.
basically, like you said:
log on. spend EP. Spend NIC (if you have any). farm/mine/harvest. run the same assignments. farm. log off.
rinse/repeat daily. nothing new to the genre.
This is only because it is in beta. You forgot to mention crafting which is quite impressive in this game. Once the game releases the pvp zones will all open up and you will be able to fight for territory control and construct your own stations. Similar to what you do in eve.
The game is a sandbox, so within the boundaries of what's possible in the game, you can do whatever you want. There are missions you can accept for corporations, which earn you NIC (money). The mission cover 3 or 4 of the basic activities in the game.
* Resource Exploitation - collecting minerals or harvesting plant materials for manufacturing. I found mining incredibly boring. You could do it while watching T.V. I would think when you're out of the nub zones, having NPCs and people actively hunt you would make it more exciting...or more frustrating. If you are doing it for a corp, they'll probably send you an escort to protect you. Maybe.
* Bounty Hunting - Kill X NPC mobs. You get NIC, some weaponry and whatever loot you can get from the mobs. I would think this could be extended to PvP as well...bounties on players of another corp, X number of miners to cripple another corp's mining, etc.
* Transportation - each hub is isolated. There is no global mail or delivery system in place, so if Corp A wants their product on another island, they have to pay someone to deliver it. This is what I'm doing right now. It doesn't cost me anything and they pay me with NIC and weapons. This will probably exist outside of the nub zone as well. I don't see corps giving you an escort since you'll probably be faster than whatever escort they send with you, and faster than whatever is trying to kill you. Again, maybe.
There is a whole other set of things to do with corporations involving group PvP, the market, etc. once you get out of the nub zones. I haven't made it out of the nub zones yet, so I don't know how much fun it will or won't be. The game is pretty engaging so far, but I don't have a frame of reference for long term playability and how much of a time investment it is once you're part of a corp and trying to hold land and bases from other corps.
* edit
I haven't found EP to be a limiting factor in what I'm doing. When I can spend them, it's cool, but it doesn't stop me from transporting stuff or killing anything. I do want to spend the EP to be able to run dual parallel missions, but that's so I can double my income. If I hadn't spent EP on being able to use missiles (which isn't upping my income at all, it's just cool), then I'd have to dual parallel missions EP spent.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I didn't forget to mention it, I Just din't think that I should post that, in order to have viable other professions it is almost mandatory to have a few alternate accounts. The main reason being, if you create another agent on 1 main account, EP gain, again holds you back severly because they share the EP pool from which you can spend.
the limit set for characters per account is 3. If you create 3 characters of a different profession, they all use the same EP pool. That is how the game system works. So in order for me to actually be able to craft anything "viable" for my use would have taken quite some time.
Of course there are ways around that. IE- make alternate accounts, which this game is making it as an almost standard practice. In fact, it seems like this is almost seems what the game developers want a user to do.
Most if probably all of the people who have been testing this game have quite a few accounts.
one for a fighter class
one for a mining class
one for a crafting class.
again, the reason for this is EP pool sharing and how it holds back charater progression.
-I hope this post helps some users as to how the game system works.
I'm sure the devs aren't going to argue with having multiple accounts per person. I'm not sure I agree with having a single pool of points to spend across all your characters for progression. However, I didn't design the game.
It is probably the expectation of the devs that each person not be a self contained unit. One of the main goals of the game is to form corporations so that you don't have to be a miner or a industrialist, you can just be a merc and the corp will hire the miners and the industrial people to fill the void. Or you can be a miner and the corp will send mercs to protect you.
Again, I'm sure they aren't going to discourage multiple accounts because it's more money, and who is going to say, "No" to more money? But their initial goal was probably to have people specialize so they would group up into corporations. Even people not interested in corporations (like me) would ally themselves with one so they could get the other resources they needed. Or get more accounts.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
That's essentially the same thing as EvE, and that never stopped EvE eh?
(Difference being that in EvE your EP go directly to a selected skill, in Perp they go to a pool that you then distribute at will)
if it were a system made/balanced properly would it really require a user to have alternate accounts? To a common gamer like myself all it seems is like a money grab based on a poorly archaic game design/system.
In a proper system you'd have one character slot, and only one account, and could do everything, eventually.. That would be "balanced" in the way you describe..
Nobody likes that though. Anyway it's not that hard to have 2 characters going in Perp, you'll get up there eventually, just a bit slower than someone dedicating all his EP to one character.
It is the same way eve works. This provides viable career paths for all types of players. Not a Jack of all trade playerbase. Similar to Darkfall. I understand your frustration. I went through the same thing when I first started playing eve, but I then realized it leads to more social interactions and a better variety of players.
While I was in game it was mentions that it could possibly take 4-7 years to get an agent maxed. I guess that number would double/triple then if you had more characters to work on using the same account. Not sure of this but I think someone made a calculator for progression.
/edit
At above poster (#19), it's not frustration I just have common sense
Just want to mention in Eve-Online it takes well over 25 years to train every skill that is currently ingame.
Thanks, but I wasn't beta testing eve. also I'm not a masochist
Personally not a fan of time progression for skills myself, but it is what it is, and it is what they have chosen. Given that I agree that I don't really see why it shouldn't have been locked to 1 char per account but again thats their choice.
Seeing as how there is no real cap on skills I personally would have prefered to have seen some kind of skill advancement on usage in addition to the time one. Skills advance as you use them and degrade as they are used less and less, it would have given a little further edge to those actually playing the character regularly.
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The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
The edge for players playing their accounts is given in NIC, or in researches for computer cores, that type of thing. EP by itself won't get you anything without accumulating some wealth and knowledge in game.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I'll try to sum up my experience of the game thus far. I've been playing in beta for quite a few months now, and came into the game with a small group and established a new corp to learn the game with. I later joined a larger veteran pvp corp when most of our members became disinterested.
I cannot stress enough that this game is CORP CENTRIC. You will find yourself struggling to find new things to do if you do not in a corp. The main goal for a newer corp is killing NPC's to attain their kernals which are researched to be able to prototype and eventually mass produce items and therefore be self sufficient. Even when you are "EP starved" you still have plenty on your plate if you are well organized, and getting new skills becomes a bonus and not your primary task.
Later game corp activities involve capturing outposts on islands not protected by the Syndicate, with FFA PvP and limited safety to load into the area from terminals and teleporters. These terminals have more efficient facilities (production/repair/recycle) and give a portion of all profits to the owning corp (sales tax, repair fees). They are captured based on a randomly timed 3 day cycle where corps can buy registration tokens and attempt to control all 3 capture points via various objectives.
The PvP is very involved with a lot of strategy based on your surroundings and target selection. Unlike EvE, using the terrain to your advantage is one of the keys to winning a fight. For example: If you are using missiles (arched trajectory) against someone using lasers, you will want either small hills between you or other obstacles like plants, so you are able to shoot over them while they cannot. Engaging your enemy in the right locations can easily change what looks like sure loss into a victory.
I'm sure theres points I didn't get to that are also important to note, but hopefully future posts will jog my memory and I can expand more. Hope this helps!
My questions involve imagining that there would be 1,000 people logged in at a time rather than 100 or so people logged in.
You mentioned a PvP corporation. Would a corporation be anything but a PvP corporation? If you don't engage in PvP, you won't hold any stations. Is there any PvE content that doesn't involve PvP?
What about solo or small scale operations? Mercenaries, delivery drivers, etc. Is there any room for solo operators to be hired out by various corporations for jobs? Would corporations even consider this or would they just become self sufficient in talent as well as resources?
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.