Repop has been in development for many years, and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if there have been a few changes of direction along the way. Sometimes a concept looks really cool in a design document. Not so much when implemented. So it is changed, but that change may require a rework of a whole bunch of systems. A mountain of work for a small team, so it is fudged a bit in certain areas to make the rework easier.
The "semi-cosmetic" armour system sounds suspiciously like something that was reworked after a great deal of development had already been done. Perhaps it was just too big a task to refactor the armour shells as 100% cosmetic items. It is relatively easy to prevent the player making mistakes, just add a few popup warnings to alert the player to the consequences of their armour mixing.
However, the core "magic" of SWG's crafting system was the resources system. There were loads of stats on the dozens of resource types and subtypes. The fact that those stats changed every 14-21 days is what made the crafting system unique in MMO history AFAIK. Not only did the stats change, but the spawn locations moved randomly. There were no resource nodes to camp, every time a certain spawn was exhausted, you had to manually criss-cross the map to track down the high-concentrations of the newly spawned resource.
These changing stats made it vitally important to get as much of a certain material as possible, as fast as possible, before it vanished, quite possibly NEVER to be seen again in that exact stat combination. That system is a fantastic driver of conflict, because you compete for truly unique items.
If Repop only has static resources, then the crafting itself will become formulaic very quickly. Requiring 50 parts and 20 sub-assemblies to make a pistol is just tedious if every pistol comes out the same.
Very well said about the crafting. Repop's crafting system is over complex in all the wrong ways IMO. It's stupid that I need 20 different sub components from a few different people to craft essential items, but what's the point when I can click like 3 times and just buy them without any human contact/traveling... it's just an over complicated time sink. And the worst part is is that they probably wont change it much before launch not only because people apparently love the current system and support it, but because it's so complex the system would likely need an entire rehaul to change it in any major way.
If I wanted to make something in SWG, it was fairly easy. However, to make something that was good or the best took a lot of time and dedication, all of which was pretty fun
Repop has been in development for many years, and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if there have been a few changes of direction along the way. Sometimes a concept looks really cool in a design document. Not so much when implemented. So it is changed, but that change may require a rework of a whole bunch of systems. A mountain of work for a small team, so it is fudged a bit in certain areas to make the rework easier.
The "semi-cosmetic" armour system sounds suspiciously like something that was reworked after a great deal of development had already been done. Perhaps it was just too big a task to refactor the armour shells as 100% cosmetic items. It is relatively easy to prevent the player making mistakes, just add a few popup warnings to alert the player to the consequences of their armour mixing.
However, the core "magic" of SWG's crafting system was the resources system. There were loads of stats on the dozens of resource types and subtypes. The fact that those stats changed every 14-21 days is what made the crafting system unique in MMO history AFAIK. Not only did the stats change, but the spawn locations moved randomly. There were no resource nodes to camp, every time a certain spawn was exhausted, you had to manually criss-cross the map to track down the high-concentrations of the newly spawned resource.
These changing stats made it vitally important to get as much of a certain material as possible, as fast as possible, before it vanished, quite possibly NEVER to be seen again in that exact stat combination. That system is a fantastic driver of conflict, because you compete for truly unique items.
If Repop only has static resources, then the crafting itself will become formulaic very quickly. Requiring 50 parts and 20 sub-assemblies to make a pistol is just tedious if every pistol comes out the same.
Very well said about the crafting. Repop's crafting system is over complex in all the wrong ways IMO. It's stupid that I need 20 different sub components from a few different people to craft essential items, but what's the point when I can click like 3 times and just buy them without any human contact/traveling... it's just an over complicated time sink. And the worst part is is that they probably wont change it much before launch not only because people apparently love the current system and support it, but because it's so complex the system would likely need an entire rehaul to change it in any major way.
If I wanted to make something in SWG, it was fairly easy. However, to make something that was good or the best took a lot of time and dedication, all of which was pretty fun
The crafting system isn't that bad! For instance, there's a quest to get an early mount near the end of the tutorial area, but the mount they give you is kind of slow, so let's say that you need to upgrade to a slightly better cycle, here's how you'd make the next tier up from the quest one- this is the cheapest/easiest crafted mount in the game:
First, you need 1810 credits. Buy the following from the crafting supply vendor:
Basic Metalworking
Cycle Chassis Mold
Engineering Vehicles
Foraging for Survival
Hacker's Reference Manual
Mining: Tricks of the Trade
Modern Robotics
Vehicle Control Development Kit Software
22 Bonding Agents
3 Parting Agents
Double click all the skill books to learn them. You should have a high enough robotics skill from doing the tutorial that you can train the salvage parts ability- it lets you loot technical parts from humans and robots. Grind bandits in the tutorial area and use that ability to loot their bodies until you get a Standard Power Distributor. Copper wiring will come in handy if you get it, but you don't necessarily need it.
Also collect the following before leaving the tutorial area:
8 Calibrite Ore
26 Pyrite Cluster
18 Contaminated Water
18 Hudson Fir
You should also hit T- right now, the battery cell crafting situation is a little messed up- it's fixed next patch, but in the meantime there's a GM auction to purchase Lithium-Cadmium Battery Cells for cheap, so pick one up from the auction house. Actually, they come in batches of a hundred for 1200 credits, so get another 1200 credits and pick a hundred up.
Go to the crafting station and
Do 8 crafts of Logging's Softwood Lumber skill, to get 160 softwood firewood
Do 2 crafts of Chemistry's Distilled Water skill, to get 20 Distilled water
Do 26 crafts of Mining's Mineral Breakdown skill to get 140 Sulfur
Do 5 crafts of Mining's Ore Refining skill to get 5 Refined Calibrite bars
Use Metalworking's Heat Sink skill to get a Heat Sink.
Leave the tutorial area, and find the following:
1 Gypsum Cluster (mined from Sarnium deposits, located just outside Freedomtown)
4 Kosha (extracted from Kosha Plants, located just outside Freedomtown) - for this, you might need to grind up your Foraging a bit. You need Kosha that are mid-D quality, and you might need extras in case the craft doesn't work out.
2 Gold Ore (mined from Alluvium, located just outside Freedomtown) - this is a rare spawn, so you might find it useful to check Bog's Edge and Claw Canyon, even though you might die.
1 Tungsten Ore (mined from Tungsten deposits, located in Twin Hills)
2 Copper Ore (mined from Copper deposits, located in Twin Hills) - If you found at least one copper wire on the bandits, you can make this just 1 copper ore. If you found 11 copper wires, you don't need these copper ores.
Here you have a choice- you'll need a pair of decorative metal bars for this cycle, and I would say that either brass or gold are the easiest. Gold ore can be hard to find, but brass requires a Mining skill of 200. I'm going to continue this tutorial as though you're going with brass, but if you find three more gold ore before you hit 200 Mining, I'd craft two extra refined metal bars and go with those. If you go that way, you'll need more Kosha, etc. For the brass you'll need:
3 more Copper Ore
3 Sphalerite Clusters (mined from Niurevium deposits, located in Ollaseca)
You'll also need to grind up 30 skill in Hacking, and 50 skill in Vehicle Engineering.
Head back to the freedomtown crafting terminal, in the Workshop. You need to:
Do 4 crafts of Foraging's Chemical Extraction: Foraging skill. This should process Kosha and Distilled Water into 4 Sulfuric Acid and 20 Cellulose, but Cellulose is only produced if the product is D-quality or higher. You might need to get more Kosha (and therefore more Distilled Water (and therefore more Contaminated Water and Softwood Firewood (and therefore more Hudson Fir Wood))) to get the 20 Cellulose you need.
Do 2 crafts of Mining's Decorative Metal Refinement to process Gold Ore, Cellulose, and Softwood Firewood into Refined Gold Bars.
Do 2 crafts of Robotics' Microwires skill to process Refined Gold Bars and Softwood Firewood into Gold Microwires.
Do 2 crafts of Metalworking's Welding Rod skill to process Calibrite Ore and Cellulose into 10 Welding Rods.
Use Mining's Ore Refinement skill to process Tungsten Ore and Sulfur into a Refined Tungsten Bar
Use Metalworking's CPU Socket skill to process your Refined Tungsten Bar, Distilled Water, and Bonding Agent into 5 CPU Sockets.
Do 3 crafts of Mining's Multiform Alloy skill to process your Sphalerite, Copper Ore, and Sulfur into 3 Refined Brass Bars.
Use Robotics' Electrode skill to process 1 Refined Brass Bar and Cellulose into 10 Standard Electrodes
We need 11 copper wire- only do the next two steps if you need them:
Do 2 crafts of Mining's Ore Refinement skill to process Copper Ore and Sulfur into 2 Refined Copper Bars
Do 2 crafts of Metalworking's Wires skill to process your Refined Copper Bars and some Softwood Firewood into 20 Copper Wires.
Use Metalworking's Power Core Frame skill, and use the "shop" button in the crafting dialog to buy a Power Core Frame Pattern for 100 credits. Then process the pattern, a Refined Calibrite Bar, and 3 Welding Rods into a Power Core Frame.
Use Mining's Electrode Plate skill to process a Refined Brass Bar and 3 Cellulose into a Standard Electrode Plate.
Use Robotics' Battery skill to process one of your hundred Lithium-Cadmium Battery Cells, Electrode Plate, Sulfuric Acid, 3 copper wires, and 3 Bonding Agents into a Standard Battery.
Use Mining's Mineral Breakdown skill to process your Gypsum and Softwood Firewood into Molding Plaster.
Use Robotics' Power Infuser Mold skill, and use the "shop" button in the crafting dialog to buy a Power Infuser Pattern for 10 credits. Then process the pattern, Molding Plaster, and your Parting Agents into a Power Infuser Mold.
Use Robotics' Power Infuser skill to process your Standard Battery, Power Infuser Mold, Standard Power Distributor, and Copper Wires into a Power Infuser.
Use Robotics' Power Coupling skill, and use the "shop" button in the crafting dialog to buy a Power Coupling Pattern for 100 credits. Then process the pattern, a Refined Calibrite Bar, and 3 Welding Rods into a Power Coupling.
Use Robotics' Power Core skill to process the Calibrite Power Core Frame, Standard Power Infuser, Standard Power Coupling, Heat Sink, Wires, and Bonding Agents into a Standard Power Core.
Use Hacking's Circuit Board skill to process a Standard Electrode, CPU Socket, Refined Brass Bar, some Welding Rods and Gold Microwires into a Circuit Board.
Use Robotics' Linked Circuit Board skill to process your Circuit Board, a Standard Electrode, CPU Socket, and some Gold Microwires into a Standard Linked Circuit Board.
Use Hacking's Control Chip Programming skill to process the Vehicle Control Development Kit Software, Linked Circuit Board, some Gold Microwires and some Bonding Agent into a Vehicle Control Chip.
Use Vehicle Engineering's Vehicle Chassis skill to process 3 Refined Calibrite Bars, the Vehicle Control Chip, Cycle Chassis Mold, a Gold Microwire and Bonding Agents into a Cycle Chassis.
Use Vehicle Engineering's Engineer Vehicle skill to process the Standard Power Core, Cycle Chassis, a Gold Microwire, and some Bonding Agent into a Cycle.
And then you have the worst crafted mount in the game, nothing to it!
Or you could spend the same amount of credits to buy the best crafted mount in the game off the auction house, because the economy's broken!
Originally posted by mgilbrtsn Better to title your thread. 'What the game still needs to do....' or some such. Since it isn't released, it's kinda unfair to condemn the game at this early state IMO.
I agree, the most glaring error is the title of the thread. Even with the worst things listed in the OP it doesn't condemn the thing to "bad game" status in my book.
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
for all the people hating on his post because its alpha...
When exactly is someone supposed to give feedback to game systems that are in development? After they finished them and its released? How many of you have ever worked in a programming cycle before? Programmers would light you on fire if you brought them 100 different bugs and feature requests during final checks before going gold.
He posted this at the EXACT right time. He posted it during the time when all of these systems can be changed before a larger audience has seen the game because Alpha is when the base design for sub systems and functions of the client / server relationship are going to be most looked at. Alpha for all intent and purposes is the time when things on paper get put into code to see how they actually work together.
The people that are trying to make the world worse never take a day off , why should I. Light up the darkness Bob Marley
I think the game has some potential after a lot more development. I will say if you are someone that enjoys PvE and PvE loot the game is one of the worst out there. I know they want to force everyone to craft but throw the PvEr's a small bone at least.
Originally posted by Mardukk I think the game has some potential after a lot more development. I will say if you are someone that enjoys PvE and PvE loot the game is one of the worst out there. I know they want to force everyone to craft but throw the PvEr's a small bone at least.
The way SWG did it was the right way a game like this should be done: put important high-level crafting mats on PVE large-group content. This way, "raids" and whatnot are necessary, but the player economy still rules all.
Here are some other problem with PVE content, in no particular order:
Many of the robotics (as opposed to survival) PVE components are craftable.
They're also unrated- I'm unclear about whether this makes them better or worse, but the gear from low-level mobs are definitely identical to the gear from high-level mobs.
Aside from the rating, specifically, of the survival components, specifically, there's no real difference between an incredible and terrible mob in terms of the components they give. Harder or group mobs don't give different drops, or even certain drops more often, they just give higher ratings for certain mobs.
Of course, there's a point where even that stops mattering and there's no reason to fight anything harder.
The problem isn't that mobs don't drop fittings, the problem is that the mobs don't drop a goddamn thing.
Itemization is typically one of the last things that happens before a game launches. Drops will be an ongoing process until that point. Mobs do drop fittings, and they do drop items. There just aren't a ton of them in the loot tables yet. Humanoids have quite a bit, animals don't yet.
With regards to crafting though. Repop is a complex game. It's a game that is designed for crafting to not all be done by a single person. When you try to do it all on your own you are fighting an uphill battle. It's certainly doable but that's not how its intended to be done. Perhaps its not the game for you.
While the guys who are making Repop are great at gauging player feedback, I think that making one of these games must be like driving a giant underpowered boat. When the icebergs come it's more about how strong your bow is versus how much maneuvering you can do. If the iceberg is big enough the boat just sinks.
Going to the official forums and broadcasting, "Moar SWG!" will have no effect. So it's just about whether OP should be able to express his opinion. People can fire back of course, but to me just expressing your experience isn't evil.
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
With regards to crafting though. Repop is a complex game. It's a game that is designed for crafting to not all be done by a single person. When you try to do it all on your own you are fighting an uphill battle. It's certainly doable but that's not how its intended to be done. Perhaps its not the game for you.
That's a good point- it's definitely very cheap to buy a cycle chassis off the auction house. It's actually less than the vendor cost of producing one, like most crafting inputs, because the handful of players producing crafting outputs make everything from scratch, so there is no niche in the economy to produce inputs, which seems to be your intention. Additionally, the one player making cycles from scratch produces high-quality cycles, so even if he wanted to buy from other players, he won't buy from you until you are yourself producing A-quality materials.
The biggest problem is that there's little to no difference between the crafting difficulty of a barely-better-than-tutorial crap and best-thing-in-the-game awesome. The only difference is the players who are allowed to be involved. The result is that that you don't have any visible effect on the game economy until you're producing A-quality stuff consistently and you're not making any actual money off crafting until you're the guy producing outputs.
The truth is you're right, it's not any fun to make everything yourself, it is more fun to be part of a specialization economy. The problem is that MMO players drastically value independence, so if you allow players to specialize in everything, there will be a few players that do so and hedge everyone else out of the economy, forcing everyone to specialize in everything because interconnectedness just died.
I think the answer is to force the issue of specialization, like SWG did, but another issue is to drastically increase player thirst for fittings and make mounts obsolesce so a handful of wackos can't meet the needs of the entire economy and players who aren't willing to do all that will step up. The problem is that when crafting is your entire game-
And it is. Your entire. Game.
- I think you're going to have an unlimited supply of aspergers sufferers to meet the demand of ruining your economy.
I think you should respect that when players have a shibboleth (in this case, independence in a game that's about codependence) you have to design around it, not just make it painful to worship and hope that takes care of it.
I mean you understand that right now, there is no high-quality wood glue even on the auction house? It's used in everything, it must be coming from somewhere, but it's not on the auction house. If I'm a high-level crafter and I want to make ANYTHING, I'm making my own wood glue. But not before grinding up the ability to make high-quality wood glue.
For me this game will forever be the one that ruined my belief in the MMORPG sandbox. I watched the development on this game for a while, grabbed the EA package on Steam, and was so horribly disappointed. It wasn't the bugs, or the unfinished state, or any of the typical "it's alpha," nonsense - the game just does not have fun systems. The ideas and concepts are fantastic, but the execution is incredibly lazy. The animations are graphics are atrocious, which normally wouldn't be a deal breaker for me but for some reason in Repop it is particularly bad. And then the combat...
I get combat isn't the point of the game, in fact far from it, but jesus is it bad. It's so bad that it literally takes AWAY from the things that are good about the game. The latency (at least when I played) was also so incredibly bad that it made the already bad combat even worse.
I really hope for the devs and remaining fans that they can pick the pieces up on this one, but frankly EA was a mistake for this game, and a 2015 launch is an even bigger mistake. I bought EA so when it officially launches I will of course return and see where they are, but my expectations are extremely low sadly.
I've pretty much decided that, for me anyway, EVE Online will remain the only good sandbox experience, and that game was ruined for me by the community and the devs lack of caring for anyone outside of the most hardcore players. I'll just keep riding the survival sim craze for my sandbox fix.
Please visit my youtube channel for some H1Z1/DayZ casual roleplay videos!
After reading your giant wall of text I no longer have much interest in this game. The town system and pvp are horrid and this game won't go anywhere without changing them.
I completely agree with the well written OP. It is as if The Repopulation has great features on paper, but executed as if not thought through very well.
Very well written post and i agree with you OP. If a game doesn't pull you by 10 hours then it wont ever. People who are attacking you are typical fans who post similar arguments on board of every MMO when criticised. They would always tell you how you need to play x number of hours or days before the 'fun' starts and it is a silly argument. A MMO should pull you in from start not some imaginary point down the line. Oh and ''its alpha..its beta...it just released,, give it more time''..arguments, make me chuckle.
I played it more than you by the way. 40 hours and i arrived to similar conclusion. The reason i managed to play it for more hours was simply because i am stubborn and missed SWG a lot and wanted to have that feeling again. But i wont be playing it again, maybe i return in other 2 or 3 years if it still alive that is.
Only two hours in so far. So basically I've done nearly nothing.
On paper I love what is being attempted. But in practice so far not lovin it. I will be giving it further playtime and tries to see if it gets to where it is greatness. For now though it just feels fairly meh.
Originally posted by sdbaynham Also, I don't understand the dig at my PC given that I didn't mention The Repopulation's (terrible) optimization.
This statement right here perfectly illuminates your ignorance. The game is in Alpha, a fact they do not try to hid, it say's it on the log in screen: This game is a work in progress.
Pretty much all of your points on based on opinion, therefor like a poster before me I won't go through and debase your entire original post, but I will say I completely disagree with just about everything you say.
Armor can be mixed and matched and it can be just as effective as stacking one armor type. As far as grinding, if you expect something for nothing, MMO's in general may not be for you. Not much more to say there.
As far as being a 'Spiritual Successor" to SWG, this game comes closer to about anything else out right now so I say let them have that title, but again, opinions may vary there.
If you think 10 hours in a game this complex makes your opinion valid, well then good for you, I personally think 10 hours is just about enough time to complete the tutorial, and begin to learn the game.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
For those that might not understand. This game is in ALPHA.
That means not everything is implemented yet. The core mechanics are being fleshed out. Once the game hits BETA they will start building on the core mechanics.
Entertainers are getting there revamp. The last patch was the first phase of the Entertainer revamp with more to follow in the coming patch next week.
There is a ton of information on what they have planed on the main forums of the Repopulation website. Most of these concerns are addressed there as on there 'To-Do' list. A little searching goes a long way before saying a game is crap even before its out of ALPHA.
I love The Repopulation - its a great game. Its NOT SWG, it just takes ideas from it and is become its own game. If I wanted to play SWG I could just join the EMU.
But they decided to put this product on public display so it is fair game for any and all criticism.
I played about 100 hours, does that make my opinion valid ? (lol, that's a rhetorical question for any idiots out there)
First, it is an ambitious idea but the idea is being implemented poorly and far more of their EA funding should have been spent on hiring professionals that could make their vision a reality.
What it is right now:
start up tutorials are very, very bad and do not always work properly leaving the new player in a state of confusion
atrocious graphically, game world is dull and very generic, lots of brown, grey, green, all in dull unattractive shades, the buildings are very reminiscent of the buildings in Project Entropia circa 2006 and have interior lighting issues
character animations are really amateur, they need serious professional help in this department
optimization is non existent (stuttering 2 FPS zone crossings)
UI is horrible (lol, the windows are not even locked to screen edges)
Maps are terrible, and the on screen radar has tons of pop up arrows to things you do not want which obscure any mission waypoint you are trying to find (waypoint system for missions does not work consistently, waypoint pathing is often broken)
combat is very weak especially melee
All skills are time/use based so, like EVE, new players will never be able to catch up after the first month, and it is going to be macro heaven (it was hilarious several dummy's macros broke and spammed chat just in the 100 hours I played, imagine what it will be like at release)
crafting system is so convoluted it is not fun, in-game data base is vague and difficult to use (even the developer says he has to use an external website for crafting reference)
only 1/3rd of the world map is available to PVE only players
They should have waited until they had a product that was presentable, as it sits it is an unfun amateurish mess.
Itemization is typically one of the last things that happens before a game launches. Drops will be an ongoing process until that point. Mobs do drop fittings, and they do drop items. There just aren't a ton of them in the loot tables yet. Humanoids have quite a bit, animals don't yet.
With regards to crafting though. Repop is a complex game. It's a game that is designed for crafting to not all be done by a single person. When you try to do it all on your own you are fighting an uphill battle. It's certainly doable but that's not how its intended to be done. Perhaps its not the game for you.
Thanks JC. While I agree with you and while I still have a lot of faith in the game and its developers, the OP had a very well thought-out and written post. I wish you, Josh or Ozu could take a moment to come here and reply to it piece by piece?
@HolyAvenger: We rarely monitor these forums. Not really our place to talk about player opinions, especially when considering the circumstances. You do realize that he has 13 posts and all are in this thread? He's invested into this thread and responding only keeps him going. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions of the game. It won't be for everyone. By this point there is plenty of information out there which doesn't have to come directly from the developers. There's over 650 reviews on Steam currently, hundreds of threads, etc. The time for us to defend the games features is probably over. We'll answer questions and such, but we aren't going to get into a discussion with a player over the merits of the game. Some will love it, some will hate it. That is for players to discuss.
Comments
Very well said about the crafting. Repop's crafting system is over complex in all the wrong ways IMO. It's stupid that I need 20 different sub components from a few different people to craft essential items, but what's the point when I can click like 3 times and just buy them without any human contact/traveling... it's just an over complicated time sink. And the worst part is is that they probably wont change it much before launch not only because people apparently love the current system and support it, but because it's so complex the system would likely need an entire rehaul to change it in any major way.
If I wanted to make something in SWG, it was fairly easy. However, to make something that was good or the best took a lot of time and dedication, all of which was pretty fun
OP started at 6, then 10hrs gametime. I really stopped reading his post after '6 hrs in'.
I don't know why i am here tbh.
I played the game for 10 hours. A thing happened after I had played for 6.
The crafting system isn't that bad! For instance, there's a quest to get an early mount near the end of the tutorial area, but the mount they give you is kind of slow, so let's say that you need to upgrade to a slightly better cycle, here's how you'd make the next tier up from the quest one- this is the cheapest/easiest crafted mount in the game:
First, you need 1810 credits. Buy the following from the crafting supply vendor:
Basic Metalworking
Cycle Chassis Mold
Engineering Vehicles
Foraging for Survival
Hacker's Reference Manual
Mining: Tricks of the Trade
Modern Robotics
Vehicle Control Development Kit Software
22 Bonding Agents
3 Parting Agents
Double click all the skill books to learn them. You should have a high enough robotics skill from doing the tutorial that you can train the salvage parts ability- it lets you loot technical parts from humans and robots. Grind bandits in the tutorial area and use that ability to loot their bodies until you get a Standard Power Distributor. Copper wiring will come in handy if you get it, but you don't necessarily need it.
Also collect the following before leaving the tutorial area:
8 Calibrite Ore
26 Pyrite Cluster
18 Contaminated Water
18 Hudson Fir
You should also hit T- right now, the battery cell crafting situation is a little messed up- it's fixed next patch, but in the meantime there's a GM auction to purchase Lithium-Cadmium Battery Cells for cheap, so pick one up from the auction house. Actually, they come in batches of a hundred for 1200 credits, so get another 1200 credits and pick a hundred up.
Go to the crafting station and
I agree, the most glaring error is the title of the thread. Even with the worst things listed in the OP it doesn't condemn the thing to "bad game" status in my book.
I agree with the op.
for repopulation, the sum of its parts doesnt synergized into an overall good game.
it seems like they have one person in charge of loots, another- crafting, another- pvp, etc... but they don't talk to each other.
for all the people hating on his post because its alpha...
When exactly is someone supposed to give feedback to game systems that are in development? After they finished them and its released? How many of you have ever worked in a programming cycle before? Programmers would light you on fire if you brought them 100 different bugs and feature requests during final checks before going gold.
He posted this at the EXACT right time. He posted it during the time when all of these systems can be changed before a larger audience has seen the game because Alpha is when the base design for sub systems and functions of the client / server relationship are going to be most looked at. Alpha for all intent and purposes is the time when things on paper get put into code to see how they actually work together.
The people that are trying to make the world worse never take a day off , why should I. Light up the darkness Bob Marley
The way SWG did it was the right way a game like this should be done: put important high-level crafting mats on PVE large-group content. This way, "raids" and whatnot are necessary, but the player economy still rules all.
Here are some other problem with PVE content, in no particular order:
Itemization is typically one of the last things that happens before a game launches. Drops will be an ongoing process until that point. Mobs do drop fittings, and they do drop items. There just aren't a ton of them in the loot tables yet. Humanoids have quite a bit, animals don't yet.
With regards to crafting though. Repop is a complex game. It's a game that is designed for crafting to not all be done by a single person. When you try to do it all on your own you are fighting an uphill battle. It's certainly doable but that's not how its intended to be done. Perhaps its not the game for you.
https://www.therepopulation.com - Sci Fi Sandbox.
While the guys who are making Repop are great at gauging player feedback, I think that making one of these games must be like driving a giant underpowered boat. When the icebergs come it's more about how strong your bow is versus how much maneuvering you can do. If the iceberg is big enough the boat just sinks.
Going to the official forums and broadcasting, "Moar SWG!" will have no effect. So it's just about whether OP should be able to express his opinion. People can fire back of course, but to me just expressing your experience isn't evil.
That's a good point- it's definitely very cheap to buy a cycle chassis off the auction house. It's actually less than the vendor cost of producing one, like most crafting inputs, because the handful of players producing crafting outputs make everything from scratch, so there is no niche in the economy to produce inputs, which seems to be your intention. Additionally, the one player making cycles from scratch produces high-quality cycles, so even if he wanted to buy from other players, he won't buy from you until you are yourself producing A-quality materials.
The biggest problem is that there's little to no difference between the crafting difficulty of a barely-better-than-tutorial crap and best-thing-in-the-game awesome. The only difference is the players who are allowed to be involved. The result is that that you don't have any visible effect on the game economy until you're producing A-quality stuff consistently and you're not making any actual money off crafting until you're the guy producing outputs.
The truth is you're right, it's not any fun to make everything yourself, it is more fun to be part of a specialization economy. The problem is that MMO players drastically value independence, so if you allow players to specialize in everything, there will be a few players that do so and hedge everyone else out of the economy, forcing everyone to specialize in everything because interconnectedness just died.
I think the answer is to force the issue of specialization, like SWG did, but another issue is to drastically increase player thirst for fittings and make mounts obsolesce so a handful of wackos can't meet the needs of the entire economy and players who aren't willing to do all that will step up. The problem is that when crafting is your entire game-
And it is. Your entire. Game.
- I think you're going to have an unlimited supply of aspergers sufferers to meet the demand of ruining your economy.
I think you should respect that when players have a shibboleth (in this case, independence in a game that's about codependence) you have to design around it, not just make it painful to worship and hope that takes care of it.
For me this game will forever be the one that ruined my belief in the MMORPG sandbox. I watched the development on this game for a while, grabbed the EA package on Steam, and was so horribly disappointed. It wasn't the bugs, or the unfinished state, or any of the typical "it's alpha," nonsense - the game just does not have fun systems. The ideas and concepts are fantastic, but the execution is incredibly lazy. The animations are graphics are atrocious, which normally wouldn't be a deal breaker for me but for some reason in Repop it is particularly bad. And then the combat...
I get combat isn't the point of the game, in fact far from it, but jesus is it bad. It's so bad that it literally takes AWAY from the things that are good about the game. The latency (at least when I played) was also so incredibly bad that it made the already bad combat even worse.
I really hope for the devs and remaining fans that they can pick the pieces up on this one, but frankly EA was a mistake for this game, and a 2015 launch is an even bigger mistake. I bought EA so when it officially launches I will of course return and see where they are, but my expectations are extremely low sadly.
I've pretty much decided that, for me anyway, EVE Online will remain the only good sandbox experience, and that game was ruined for me by the community and the devs lack of caring for anyone outside of the most hardcore players. I'll just keep riding the survival sim craze for my sandbox fix.
Please visit my youtube channel for some H1Z1/DayZ casual roleplay videos!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrQoK5VZlwBBzpsksmXtjMQ
Played-Everything
Playing-LoL
Very well written post and i agree with you OP. If a game doesn't pull you by 10 hours then it wont ever. People who are attacking you are typical fans who post similar arguments on board of every MMO when criticised. They would always tell you how you need to play x number of hours or days before the 'fun' starts and it is a silly argument. A MMO should pull you in from start not some imaginary point down the line. Oh and ''its alpha..its beta...it just released,, give it more time''..arguments, make me chuckle.
I played it more than you by the way. 40 hours and i arrived to similar conclusion. The reason i managed to play it for more hours was simply because i am stubborn and missed SWG a lot and wanted to have that feeling again. But i wont be playing it again, maybe i return in other 2 or 3 years if it still alive that is.
Only two hours in so far. So basically I've done nearly nothing.
On paper I love what is being attempted. But in practice so far not lovin it. I will be giving it further playtime and tries to see if it gets to where it is greatness. For now though it just feels fairly meh.
the next shadowbane?
edit: to be clear i meant a game that has great idea but bad implementation.
This statement right here perfectly illuminates your ignorance. The game is in Alpha, a fact they do not try to hid, it say's it on the log in screen: This game is a work in progress.
Pretty much all of your points on based on opinion, therefor like a poster before me I won't go through and debase your entire original post, but I will say I completely disagree with just about everything you say.
Armor can be mixed and matched and it can be just as effective as stacking one armor type. As far as grinding, if you expect something for nothing, MMO's in general may not be for you. Not much more to say there.
As far as being a 'Spiritual Successor" to SWG, this game comes closer to about anything else out right now so I say let them have that title, but again, opinions may vary there.
If you think 10 hours in a game this complex makes your opinion valid, well then good for you, I personally think 10 hours is just about enough time to complete the tutorial, and begin to learn the game.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
For those that might not understand. This game is in ALPHA.
That means not everything is implemented yet. The core mechanics are being fleshed out. Once the game hits BETA they will start building on the core mechanics.
Entertainers are getting there revamp. The last patch was the first phase of the Entertainer revamp with more to follow in the coming patch next week.
There is a ton of information on what they have planed on the main forums of the Repopulation website. Most of these concerns are addressed there as on there 'To-Do' list. A little searching goes a long way before saying a game is crap even before its out of ALPHA.
I love The Repopulation - its a great game. Its NOT SWG, it just takes ideas from it and is become its own game. If I wanted to play SWG I could just join the EMU.
It's ALPHA, it's ALPHA.
But they decided to put this product on public display so it is fair game for any and all criticism.
I played about 100 hours, does that make my opinion valid ? (lol, that's a rhetorical question for any idiots out there)
First, it is an ambitious idea but the idea is being implemented poorly and far more of their EA funding should have been spent on hiring professionals that could make their vision a reality.
What it is right now:
start up tutorials are very, very bad and do not always work properly leaving the new player in a state of confusion
atrocious graphically, game world is dull and very generic, lots of brown, grey, green, all in dull unattractive shades, the buildings are very reminiscent of the buildings in Project Entropia circa 2006 and have interior lighting issues
character animations are really amateur, they need serious professional help in this department
optimization is non existent (stuttering 2 FPS zone crossings)
UI is horrible (lol, the windows are not even locked to screen edges)
Maps are terrible, and the on screen radar has tons of pop up arrows to things you do not want which obscure any mission waypoint you are trying to find (waypoint system for missions does not work consistently, waypoint pathing is often broken)
combat is very weak especially melee
All skills are time/use based so, like EVE, new players will never be able to catch up after the first month, and it is going to be macro heaven (it was hilarious several dummy's macros broke and spammed chat just in the 100 hours I played, imagine what it will be like at release)
crafting system is so convoluted it is not fun, in-game data base is vague and difficult to use (even the developer says he has to use an external website for crafting reference)
only 1/3rd of the world map is available to PVE only players
They should have waited until they had a product that was presentable, as it sits it is an unfun amateurish mess.
https://www.therepopulation.com - Sci Fi Sandbox.