Drive, She Said

This morning, what I thought I was going to be posting about were my first impressions of an in-development MMORPG, currently in a testing phase for which access keys were being handed out like candy a short while ago. I figured with it being so very nearly an open test there'd be no problem writing about it but there I was wrong. 

Very wrong. It has one of the strictest, most comprehensive NDAs I've seen. It even forbids "intentionally implying" anything about the experience, which makes me think they must have read my posts on the first New World alpha...

Since I clearly can't say anything about my time with the game so far, not even how long I've spent playing it, since that would come with inevitable implications about my level of involvement and interest, I thought I'd post some pictures of my new ride in Once Human instead.

Once Human entered the penultimate phase of its first Season today, bringing in a whole new set of Seasonal goals and a refresh of the Commission board. I had a look through the goals, many of which are suitably late-game and out of my reach but one of which immediately struck me as being eminently achievable and also quite likely to be fun: Drive 30000 meters in a four-wheeled vehicle.

I didn't have a four-wheeled vehicle, having until now been more than satisfied to tool around on my "Street Motorcycle" but I had already investigated the possibilities of upgrading to a more comfortable means of transport, so I knew I had the option to build two four-wheelers: an off-road 4x4 and a retro coupe.

Obviously, the sensible choice would be the all-terrain vehicle. It's basically a Jeep and would be ideal for all those dirt tracks criss-crossing the map. So naturally I made the coupe because of all the Starsky and Hutch vibes coming off it in waves.

I could have made this car weeks ago or at least started working towards it but one of the nice things about going at your own pace and only doing stuff when you feel ready is that half the time, when you get around to it, you find you've already done most of the busy-work. 

To make the car, I first had to make several parts, as is the way of things in the game. Each part uses quite a few mats but I already had more than enough of all of them. In fact, all vehicles come in four quality grades, each using higher-level mats and I already had everything I needed to make the third tier so I could have jumped straight there.

I need those mats for other things, though, so it seemed like a bit of a waste, when I was sure the Tier II model would be more than good enough for what I planned to use it for, which was mainly cruise along the deserted and relatively well-preserved desert highways until I clocked up the requisite thirty kilometers on the odometer.

It took maybe ten seconds to complete the four combines and another second or two to fit them all together. Crafting in Once Human is quick. It's gathering the materials that takes the time. There were several more options to add things like fenders, something I definitely would like to do eventually, but once again I didn't want to commit the extra materials just yet so I put the hot-rodding on hold and stuck with the basic model.

Boy, does it look beat-up. The thing is basically a rust-bucket. In fact, it's probably only the rust that's holding it together. It also uses a whole heck of a lot of fuel compared to the motor-bike, which I am only now coming to realise is highly economical to drive. 

It goes, though! The bike will only break 90kph going downhill but the coupe purrs along at over a ton on the flat. It's reasonably easy to steer, albeit with a lot of drift going around corners at that speed but the best part is the way the smallest ramp sends it flying into the air, all four wheels off the ground, to land with a very satisfying thump and judder, eighties' action-movie style.

In a way, Once Human is the open-world driving title I was loking for when I bought The Crew. One where you just jump in drive and don't have to pass a fricken' driving test first. There are no controls other than steering and the brake, which I only discovered last week is the Space Bar. Before that I just hammered the "S" key and jumped off, letting the bike tip over and scree along the roadway on its side until friction brought it to a halt. 

I've never been the least interested in pretending to use the controls of an imaginary vehicle. All I want is the sensation of travelling in (Or on.) one at high speed without the real-life anxiety of impending injury or death. Plus something scenic to look at while I'm driving, of course. 

Once Human provides all of that more than adequately, especially since it has a choice of in-game radio stations to make the whole thing feel even more cinematic. The tunes are good, too, although each station only has a couple that go round and round. I just wish you could import tracks  from your own music library to play on the in-car stereo.

I drive in third-person view, which makes me feel like I'm in a movie. There is an option to go into first person, annoyingly tied to the Caps Lock key, meaning every time I use it I end up shouting next time I say anything. First person perspective is, as usual, more immersive but also brings on motion sickness very quickly so I've only dabbled.

I did discover, while using the in-game camera to take a screenshot from inside the vehicle, that in first-person the game only renders your arms. That was freaky. You can get some very nice shots from inside the car looking out but I don't recommend swinging the camera around to see nothing but a pair of disembodied hands clinging to the steering wheel...

It's as well that I really enjoy just crusing the highways in Once Human because thirty thousand meters, or thirty kilometers, turns out to be a lot further than I imagined. I used up most of a tank of fuel and about fifteen or twenty minutes just getting to 10km. Luckily the roadside is peppered with abandoned cars, many of which have spare fuel stashed in the trunk so I can largely replace what I'm using as I travel.

It should have occured to me somehow but never did that if the derelict vehicles have storage space in their trunks, so would my car, when I made it - and it has. In Once Human, your car is also a mobile storage unit, one of more than a few things in the game that reminds me of  Fallen Earth - all those nodding donkeys, wind turbines and red sand...

Before I made my car, I popped over to Greywater and loaded upon all the Commissions I could get, namely five of them. They were very slightly more demanding than in earlier phases but only very slightly. It took me maybe ten minutes to finish all five, which jumped me from Level 39 to Level 43. 

I 've been able to make the highest grade of armor and weapons, Tier V, for a while but now I'm over 40 I can finally equip them, too. Whether I can be bothered, with only a couple of weeks left in the Season, is another matter. It hardly seems worth the effort since I'll lose them all when it ends.

Phase Four brought yet another Survey, at least the third since launch, focusing this time on the general topic of Seasons. I completed it with interest and enthusiasm. It was clear from the choice of questions the developers were trying not just to guage sentiment for the Season mechanic but also to test how well-understood it was and how much of the information they've been releasing about how it all works has sunk in.

Sadly, there was no grade at the end, so I don't know how well I did, but at times it definitely felt more like a test than a survey. I was fairly sure of most of my answers but I did find myself wondering just what materials and items can be carried over. I think almost none but now I'm not so sure of that as I was. 

Curiously, there was a question about what other "Seasonal Games" I'd played, which was multiple choice from a list that included familiar names like Destiny 2, Ark, Final Fantasy XIV and WoW, the latter two being the only titles mentioned that I had any personal experience with. I was unaware that either of those had any mechanic that could be compared, even passingly, with Once Human's slash-and-burn approach so now I'm even more confused about what Starry think they're doing with Seasons than I was before. I'm wondering now if they've confused limited-time, special rules servers like WoW's Season of Discovery with what they're planning. They seem like completely different concepts to me.

There was at least a write-in section where you could give your views on the whole thing so I expressed my incomprehension there. It's not that I think Seasons are a bad idea per se, it's more that I have yet to understand either exactly what they are or why Starry think we need them.

No matter, We'll all find out how it works, for real, soon enough. This phase lasts nine days and then there's just one more, which I expect will be shorter, most likely five days to round out six weeks exactly. By then I hope to be fifty and done with everything I wanted to do.

Whether I'll want to start over and do it again remains to be seen.