Stars Reach: Third Test, Best Test

Right after I finished tea yesterday, I logged in for my third session in the Stars Reach pre-alpha. I was looking forward to it after the first two, not least because I was starting to feel as though I'd learned enough about how to do things. I felt it was about time I got down to using some of what I'd learned.

The first test was mostly about figuring out the controls and getting acclimatized to the environment. The second was all bugs and crashes. I was hoping for the third to be more of a regular play session. And guess what? It was!

I spent ninety minutes mostly running around, gathering mats, getting xp and crafting stuff to use, just like in any new game. It would have been the full two hours only Beryl the dog came crashing into the room at half past seven to tell me it was absolutely playtime and since I'd somehow managed to get myself lost inside a gigantic cave system and couldn't find my way out, I didn't try to argue with her.

I'm going to say a couple of things about Stars Reach up front. Okay, three paragraphs in, but close enough. 

Were these trophies always here? First time I spotted them.

Firstly, even in pre-alpha it already feels like a game. This was the thing I found the most unconvincing about the whole thing in all the PR and publicity I'd seen, before I was able to get into the testing program and try it for myself. 

It seemed that Stars Reach was being marketed as a game, when what it looked like was a utility.  I understood how the project was intending to simulate an environment but that made it sound more like Second Life In Space than an MMORPG. Not that there's anything wrong with making Second Life In Space. It's just not what I'd define as a game.

That, though, is a problem I have with sandboxes in general. I think of therm as spaces where gaming can happen, not as games in themselves. And I do think that's where Stars Reach may be headed, but right now, because there are only a relatively small number of things to do and those things are quite clearly signposted, it does feel like playing a more traditional, more linear video game. 

And that suits me very well. Surprisingly, to me at least, it even feels like a game I would like play. It's fun, something I wasn't necessarily expecting at this extremely early stage.

I do love me some lens flare!

The second thing I wanted to emphasize is just how good-looking Stars Reach already is. I mentioned in yesterday's post that I hadn't bothered to take any screenshots in the first zone of the new EverQuest II expansion, which said something about how unattractive the scenery had to be, given I take screenshots by the thousand in most games.

By contrast, in ninety minutes yesterday I took nearly thirty screenshots of Stars Reach, which works out at one every three minutes for the entire time I was there. I probably didn't need to do the math for anyone there, did I?  It would have been double that, too, if I hadn't made myself stop taking snaps so I could get on with what I was supposed to be doing.

These things always depend on a personal sense of aesthetics, so I imagine plenty of people will find the look of the thing not to their taste. I love it, though. It's bright, vibrant, warm and oddly kind of... snuggly. I didn't think Stars Reach was being marketed as a "cosy" game but it certainly has the look and feel of one.

So, it plays well and it looks good. What else is there to say about it? Plenty!

Here I am and it's night because of course it is. Although, since the day/night cycle seems to last around ten minutes, it's no biggie.

Yesterday's test felt much more stable than the previous one although, as it says in those legal warnings, your experience may vary. I think it very much depends on luck right now. Last time, I ran into a bunch of crashes and bugs. This time I crashed just once in an hour and a half and was able to log straight back in with no problems, meaning I came away with the impression things had gotten much better.

While I was having a fine old time though, I could hear people talking on Discord all through the test about how they were crashing or getting stuck, to the point where at least one person, sounding quite fed up, announced they were quitting the test early because they couldn't get anything done. 

There was also much discussion of the bug that saw Wilhelm turn into a pillar. It's still going on and it's frequent enough to have been given a name. It's now known as the 0,0 bug because it happens when the game spawns you at that location. So far, exactly why it's happening or how to make it stop are works in progress.

None of which is surprising. It is a pre-alpha. No-one expects it to run smoothly. It feels great when it does, though!

I think we should call it the Orchard Planet.

Wilhelm was talking about the different biomes now available in the current multi-planet test. I was very keen to see some of those but I logged in to the same, familiar temperate world I'd been on in the first two tests. I think there's some way to swap worlds but I didn't know how to do it so I just got on with things where I arrived.

Since that happened to be right next to the portal, I went straight to space to carry on gathering mats for crafting. I was pleased to find we still had our characters from last time and even more pleased to see all the mats I had then were still in my bags. 

I spent a while in space, hoovering up manganese and iron and other presumably useful materials until I made the mistake of going inside an asteroid that was already occupied by some sort of aggressive space beast. I did briefly try to blast it with my electric arc gun but I couldn't get a clear shot so I jetted off into space instead, heading for the portal and escape  to planetary safety.

If you can call it safety, that is. Which in my opinion you really can't. 

I didn't take any pictures of dangerous wildlife this time so here's one of a lake of lava instead. That'll kill you even faster.

In the current test build I would say there are far too many aggressive mobs. They're everywhere, in space and planetside. I got attacked by Ballhogs (?) and Owldeer and Panthers and Skysharks and a whole load of creatures I never got the names of. I killed a few, when they were reckless enough to come at me alone, but mostly I ran away because the percentages just aren't there when a pack of panthers comes pounding towards you.

When I spoke about the cosy feeling this game is sending out, I have to say the sheer quantity of aggressive wildlife is really harshing that vibe, man! Even if gear upgrades later make killing the critters trivial, getting constantly interrupted by something trying to gnaw on your leg while you're busy doing important stuff is always going to be annoying.

Speaking of doing important stuff, as usual I couldn't really make up my mind what that was going to be. I wanted to craft something, although I didn't have any clear idea what, so I thought maybe I'd just pile up the mats and see what they made. 

That turned out to be a pretty sound plan because the first of the recipes I bought that I was able to turn into something tangible, the Grav Mesh, was something of a game-changer. It's a device that lets you fly and flying always makes games better. 

Yes it does. Stop arguing!

We were promised jetpacks. And we got them!

In this case, it mostly lets you fly like one of those too-heavy birds that can just about clear a hedge before crashing back to earth. The Grav Mesh relies on your stamina, which depletes rapidly - far too rapidly for steady flight. Instead, the commonly accepted method is to keep flicking it on and off so you lurch about like a drunken butterfly. It's a compromise familiar from countless previous games I've played so it took no getting used to at all.

I did have a little more trouble working out how to use the Mesh in the first place. I assumed it would be a device that went on the toolbelt but in fact it's some kind of undershirt you wear, The game has three clothing tabs, which I had imagined were going to be mostly for cosmetic purposes but it seems they're much more practical.

Once I'd made the jet pack (Because that's what it is, really. You can see the exhaust fumes streaming out behind you when you fly...) my focus changed from gathering mats to exploring. 

As well as mining ore, I had also been using the Harvester quite extensively, pointing it at anything and everything to see what happened. It happily strips bananas off banana tress, which seem to be weirdly common on other planets, but it does nothing for the fruit that look like apples or oranges. Some flowers get sucked into the Harvester's maw but not many. 

Space bananas. I'm sure there's some logical explanation...

Fungi, however, give up all sorts of goodies, including ammonia and salt. Don't ask me. I just take the stuff, I don't write up papers on it. Nor can I tell you why salt crystals are accepted in recipes that ask for "gems". I'm just happy they are because otherwise I couldn't have made that Grav Mesh.

I was pleased by how much xp I was getting just by doing random stuff. I had to use the Help function to look up how to see my xp (Press "K".) but when I did I was surprised to find I had enough in several disciplines to buy skills or recipes. 

Since I was planing to do some more surveying, I spent 400 points on the mapping function that's supposed to let you see where the locations you haven't yet found are. Somehow. I'd tell you more about how it works but having bought it, I couldn't figure out how to use it. Or even where to find it.

As it happened, I didn't need a map anyway. When I came back from that one crash I mentioned earlier I found myself on a different planet, the desert biome, which meant starting a new survey from scratch. There were pink globes and pyramids everywhere. No map required.

Valley of the Pink Globules.

The desert planet was very pretty. I took a lot of pictures. I was making very good progress with the survey, too. It seemed easier to see long distances, probably because of the lack of trees, and the Grav Mesh made getting to the awkward spots much easier. 

With half an hour to go, I'd collected over forty of the sixty-four required survey points. I was feeling fairly confident about getting the lot before the test ended, until I made the mistake of going into what looked like a short tunnel through some rock.

I'd been through a couple such tunnels already so I didn't expect anything different this time but it turned out this one was the entrance to a vast, underground maze of caverns. At first I thought it was something players had made but as it went on and on I became more and more convinced it had to be natural. 

Had Beryl not put a stop to my spelunking, I believe I would, eventually, have found my way back to the surface but I was thoroughly disoriented and totally lost, so I doubt it would have been in time to complete the survey. In any case, I'd already heard on Discord that a wipe was planned for the next test, which is supposed to be at the start of December, so any extra xp I might have made wasn't going to be of any practical use.

That's lucky. A short-cut! (Ironic foreshadowing...)

The forthcoming test is scheduled to use a new build, one that includes the first draft of a proper housing system. At the moment you can make crude structures using the tailings from mining and some people have been having fun with that. I saw a long bridge over a valley that apparently needed no form of support and someone had made a tiny, cubic hut just about big enough to stand in, although I couldn't see a door. Maybe they were still inside.

Actual housing with craftable and possibly snappable parts will open things up creatively and also risk the kind of trailer-park sprawl Wilhelm always likes to bring up whenever anyone says how great Star Wars Galaxies' housing was. As I've mentioned, SWG is a clear and ever-present touchstone for no small number of testers, hardly surprising considering the provenance of the game but in some ways the other regular comparison I hear, Landmark, might be more apposite.

I'm not sure if Raph was in chat last night but Dave Georgeson was and there were several references to the supposedly much-missed Landmark. Having played Landmark, on and off, right up until the servers closed down, I'd have to say that a lot of people may genuinely miss that game but almost none of them were playing it for a very long time before it closed down. The servers were virtually empty long before the plugs got pulled.

I loved building my houses in Landmark but it was incredibly time-consuming and what I made still looked like a child had modeled it in plasticine. There were some absolutely incredible works of art constructed in that game but I'm pretty sure all of them were built by people who were either professional designers or major hobbyists. The tools just weren't accessible enough even for keen amateurs.

Is there a recipe for sunscreen?

Stars Reach does frequently give me Landmark flashbacks. The character designs are really similar and so are the landscapes. Some of the movements and animations feel reminiscent. 

Even in pre-alpha, though, the game feels far more solid and playable than Landmark ever did. I fully expect whatever housing system we get to be orders of magnitude more user-friendly and I very much look forward to trying it out next time.

I just hope the new build brings some longer play-sessions and a bit more persistence, too. Building houses takes time, yo!