[OT] Earthrise. Yes, I went there.

[L0KI]

I hate to be the one to do this, but I feel utterly obliged to do so.

First of all, the game is full of bugs. It's buggier than early cron right now, but if you can see past it, this really is one GEM of a game in the making. I say in the making, as it is literally a beta that claimed to be semi-ready for release. They released it half finished, which is an apparent norm in indy P2P MMO games these days.

I have fallen absolutely in love with this game, and I'm even beginning to think I have finally found my NC replacement after all these years of looking.
The faction system, the skill system, the travel system, open world PvP, (semi) full loot... it's all brilliant.

I am not the only NC player that's popped up in Earthrise, either. So far, I've talked to/noticed the following guys on global chat:

Phunqe
Praetorian
Synergy (not sure who that is, but he is joining my clan, and I'm guessing he's from Synergy XR)
Garfield (from AD - also in my clan)
Ash Lipwig

There are many more, but most of them are using different names, so I don't recognise them. Any of you guys playing it?

Praetorian and myself had an amazing PvP fight with a load of French guys the other night, and we both said how it reminded us of early NC CRP battles. If you can get through the tutorial, and get to grips with it (it's not a theme park, pick up and play MMO), then I guarantee that you will not be dissapointed.

Buggy, laggy, but utterly brilliant.
My new MMO. Sorry KK, but BP is just a little too instanced for my tastes.

[Biglines]

but it's just button bashing isn't it? no egoshooter anymore, autoaim and wow like shooting?

[L0KI]

No, it's manual aim - fpsish.

Closest aiming system to Neocron - ie... the difficulty is not getting one shot in, but keeping locked on.

Combat not quite as fast-paced as NC yet, but Praetorian will vouch for an epic battle we had, where we dropped a lot of players with skill, rather than our gear/stats.

In many ways it reminds me, and others of Neocron, only the world is a little more Anarchy-online/Mass effect looking than Neocron.

It's futuristic post-apoc, not cyberpunk.

[Faid]

Some of our clan were in the beta and absolutely hated the game, it was just in such horrible shape. Then they went and released the game without being anywhere close to finished and they want to charge you $50 for it.

This article here on mmorpg.com http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/g...pressions.html shedds some good light on the game itself, not the actual impression but the actual player comments to it at the bottom.

Personally, I'm going to wait and see what happens with it in the next few months before I invest, let things settle a bit. I wish they had a free trial but unfortunately they do not.

[Biglines]

sounds better than what I'd seen on youtube then (looked incredibly empty and non-egoshooter)

[flib]

Without a trial, I'm not touching it. I refuse to invest fifty fucking dollars on a game that I've heard is terribly buggy and questionably fun without getting a chance to determine whether I like it for myself.

[dodgefahrer]

Yeah flib same goes for me.

There wasnt even an open beta to check the game out and what ive heard so far its still terrible bugged and a lot features arent even implemented or working yet.

I wonder how they can release such a uncompleted game yet which isnt even worth to call it reached beta-status.

Maybe im gonna check it out in a year when they had a bit more time to work on it.

[Biglines]

I once had very high hopes for fallen earth. Then I played the closed beta-open beta. The game was ok, but buggy, laggy and not finished. Then they went ahead and released it, there's was a giant uproar from the beta testers that the game was not ready. Most of the beta testers never subscribed to the game. I hear it's still limping along, so releasing before it's ready seems to be able to work out.

I once had very high hopes for earthrise too, but from what I've seen and heard, it's simply not ready. Maybe in some time, but the fact they actually released it means the devs don't care that much... will prolly end up like nc, ignored by devs, just a hardcore group of addicts that will remain clinging to what it could have become.

[CMaster]

I went back to FE a while ago, during some free period (they've since given me a free licences and 14 days of game time and presumably have to any other former beta-testers). It's improved noticeably but still had problems (as well as some key design flaws) and had a community on the forums so disillusioned they make this place seem cheery. I gather that with some of the more recent changes have applied a band-aid to the design flaws (AP system, making the game a little less like a full time job) and are still trying to improve. It's very much limping though and they seem to think the path to the money they need is to squeeze existing customers harder - so it's $15/month plus an increasing amount of useful ingame items for high prices.

[L0KI]

I played Fallen Earth - it seriously lacked some features that I couldn't live without, mainly open PvP and full loot. This sort of game attracts a bit of a die hard following. Darkfall is suprisingly popular... I recently played the trial and it was very busy. Didn't like the fantasy/magical setting though.

Earthrise seems to be everything Fallen Earth wanted to be. Don't get me wrong, it's no Neocron, but it's the most fun I have had in an MMO since Neocron.

The crafting system is brilliant for those that like that sort of thing. Parts, which are dropped by mobs (several types - mechanical, organic, synthetic, etc), are recycled into components, and weapons/armour, etc are then made out of these parts. Crafting is done there and then, like Neocron, and not over several hours of AFK/Offline like in Fallen Earth.

Overall, even now, as buggy and laggy as it may be, I'm loving it. From what I can tell, all of the old Cron guys are loving it too. It's definitely too early to judge its future, but at least it hasn't made the same horrible levelling mistakes Fallen Earth made. In Earthrise, you could literally 'grind' to max tier armour and weapon in a day or 3 if you were that way inclined; then rely totally on your manual aiming skills to beat someone that's unlocked every subskill going.

[Garfield]

never thought i would say that someday but yeah ER is a great NC replacement and quite funny, hell id rather die and loose my items due bugs then because of sandwiches like in NC. well KK fix it and iam back. untill that day u will find me in earthrise.

well i had hope in BP but its just to instanced and the PvP fucked up by seeker retards.

btw NC vets united join Scoundrels! lets gank the point and click kiddies

[Prom_STar]

In certain ways earthrise looks promising, especially FPS and full loot PvP. But honestly the biggest problem for me is the actual world. Only two factions with a neutral category thrown in as well? Doesn't help they are, to the letter, the same old pro-city anti-city nonsense rehashed.

Not to mention, $50 with no free trial is just stupid.

And of course, as always, fix NC and I'm back in a heartbeat.

[L0KI]

In certain ways earthrise looks promising, especially FPS and full loot PvP. But honestly the biggest problem for me is the actual world. Only two factions with a neutral category thrown in as well? Doesn't help they are, to the letter, the same old pro-city anti-city nonsense rehashed.

This is in no way a clone of NC; factions or anything else. The way the factions work is pretty great in ER. You have a Slide bar, which shows your 'position'. If you kill Noir players, your conti sympathy goes up, and vice versa. Being -20 or +20 from bang centre makes you neutral and means you can travel anywhere.

For the record though... although there are only 2 main factions.. there are almost sub factions in the form of criminal factions for those with permanent criminal karma... There are two clans right now that are totally against everyone but other criminal clans. A lot of player interaction is required around this system though.

The world itself is stunning by the way. Unfortunately, due to shoddy coding, you need to have the game installed on an SSD and be running a very decent graphics card. Luckily, with this setup, I get over 100 FPS. Many people suffer much, much lower FPS though due to the game loading textures from the HDD instead of the GFX memory.

Not to mention, $50 with no free trial is just stupid.

Expensive? Yes. Stupid? No.

Remember, they're an independent developer, with very little money. Whilst I totally disagree with their decision to release the game with so many bugs, I understand it. Release the game, bring in 4-5000 people at $50 each, and that tiny little company all of a sudden have $250,000 to get that game improved.

As I say, I don't like the way they have done it, but it's far from stupid on their part.

And of course, as always, fix NC and I'm back in a heartbeat.

Well, yeah... there is that. That's been the case for many hundreds of people for over 3 years now though. Waiting, and waiting, and waiting on "the" patch to finally fix what they have broken. I am of course one of those hundreds of people. This game is still THE best game I have ever played.

[Biglines]

indy titles are usually not that expensive. And you say it's not stupid, but it's exactly the reason why so many mmo's have failed to even last their first year in the past few years. (hellgate:London, tabula rasa, etc.). And I'd never buy a subscription game for 50 euro if I didn't have a free trial... ESPECIALLY from an independent studio (indy means absolutely no guarantee that they'll manage to keep the game up)

[L0KI]

indy titles are usually not that expensive. And you say it's not stupid, but it's exactly the reason why so many mmo's have failed to even last their first year in the past few years. (hellgate:London, tabula rasa, etc.). And I'd never buy a subscription game for 50 euro if I didn't have a free trial... ESPECIALLY from an independent studio (indy means absolutely no guarantee that they'll manage to keep the game up)

Indy titles are usually not that expensive? Well, the servers that host it are. They have already announced that they are migrating the servers, so again, not a stupid move on their part.

The reason Hellgate: London failed, was that it was utter shit. Did you ever play it? I can't believe they released it in that state.

Tabula Rasa had huge potential, and I actually bought it.. then realised that it totally lacked any kind of PvP, and I quit, with a hell of a lot of others. Yes it was buggy on release, but that wasn't the sole reason it failed.

It's not 50 euros by the way. A lot of people are complaining about the cost, but actually bothering to shop around resulted in me getting it for £27 from D2D. Some have been even smarter, and order the boxed edition for £22.

Hardly a fortune!