Seeing Solisium - One DC At A Time

I've been playing Throne and Liberty more than I expected and less than I'd like. 

After Helpie went home (That's them departing in a burst of light up above.) I gave up on following the quests and started racing around the map in wolf form, trying to open all the waypoints. It turned out to be much more fun than questing. Unfortunately, the whole thing is horribly unstable still in spite of all the patches and hot fixes so I keep getting disconnected and dumped to desktop. I won't really know how much fun the game can be until that stops.

Another annoying factor are the barriers. I've run into several. They show up as shimmering walls of force that block the way. 

I'm not sure whether they mark areas that aren't in the game yet or whether you have to be a certain level or have reached a specific stage in the storyline. There's no useful information in game to tell you, although when I arrived at the bridge in the screenshot above, I overheard a conversation between a guard and a merchant trying to cross that suggested political unrest or possibly military action had led to the gates being closed.

Travel in general is pleasing. There's no stamina or other drain to stop you running at wolf speed all the time. Better yet, as an otter you can swim forever, a very welcome change from all those games where you run out of breath and start to drown before you've swum the length of a kiddie's paddling pool.

Flying is the exception. It takes stamina to rise, making flight mostly a long, downhill glide. At least you don't fall out of the air when you run out of puff. I've seen worse.

Once you get away from the places you're supposed to be, where everything's happening and everyone is milling about getting under each others' feet, the world feels surprisingly empty. Not empty of interest - there's a lot to see just about everwhere- just empty of life.

I spent maybe an hour between disconnects, exploring the extensive shoreline and the deep ravines and river valleys. I saw shipwrecks and towers along the sand, platforms and rope bridges between the high rock stacks. I saw doors in the cliffs and statues among the scrub. What I didn't see were animals or monsters or people.

And then suddeny I didn't see anything at all because the fog rolled in. I vaguely knew there were weather effects in the game - winds that could blow you off your feet - but I'd heard nothing about the thick fog that makes it all but impossible to see where you're going.

I remain to be convinced of the gameplay value of weather effects that impede vision or movement. Leaving aside the obvious inconvenience to the player, it seems unlikely a culture whose least members are able to change shape at will would put up with not being able to see clearly in fog or darkness. Maybe there's a bat-form waiting to be discovered.

There's no sign of it in the wilds but in the more populated regions, Solisium has a serious litter problem. Everywhere you go there are pieces of paper lying about. I've played plenty of games that use this kind of incidental, incremental storytelling but I struggle to think of one with the sheer number of collectable texts Throne and Liberty employs.

I've been trying to read them all but the quality is variable. Some are quite interesting. Some are clearly designed only to be stored, not studied. Whenever I come across systems like this in a game I find myself wondering about the designer or developer who had to sit in an office coming up with all this stuff. Sometimes you can feel the glee as the unknown writer relishes the chance to let their imagination rip; sometimes you feel the dead weight of another endless afternoon spent on a thankless, meaningless chore.

My current plan consists of trying pick up as many pieces of paper as possible while unlocking every waypoint in all the areas I can reach. It's something I often used to do in games just for the fun of it. It's been too long since I ignored the demands of nagging NPCs in favor of just getting out there and seeing the world.

For that alone, Throne and Liberty has been worth it so far. If Amazon or NCSoft or whoever's responsible can fix the damn servers so I can stay online for more than half an hour at a time, I'll be happy to play a little longer. I still don't think it's going to be a lot longer but who knows? 

I guess we'll just have to wait and see. 

I seem to be saying that a lot these days.