Pocket Apocalypse

Yesterday was a big day for Once Human: the long-promised launch of the mobile client. The highly-anticipated event came with a lot of freebies. I got an email telling me they were giving away more than a thousand cosmetics and there were Twitch drops and multiple in-game giveaways on top of that.

Obviously, I logged in to grab what I could. I thought I hadn't been gone that long and in fact it was only a couple of weeks but that was still long enough for me to get yet more freebies as a returnee. I won't say is possible to have too much free stuff but when it takes the best part of a session just to claim it all and sort through your haul to see what's worth having, things might be getting just a little out of hand.

So, what did I get? Honestly, I wish I could tell you. By the time I'd finished grabbing stuff and going through my inventory to see what was there, I wasn't a hundred per cent sure which pieces were new and which I'd had for a while but hadn't noticed or didn't remember getting.

The "1016 Free Cosmetics" headline offer is a tad misleading in that you don't get them all at once. Probably just as well, although the way storage works in Once Human they wouldn't all go into inventory. Most would appear as options on menus instead.

I'm by no means certain about any of this because there's a ferocious amount of information available in-game, so much that it becomes confusing to try and assimilate it all in one go, but I think the full range of giveaways is spread across a Log-In event that goes on for several months. I'm pretty sure I saw a time-line that had August on it at one point.

Even if that's right, you do get a big drop the first time you log in. It's my impression than most of those are specials or giveaways from previous events or cash-shop promotions, so dedicated players may be disappointed to find they already have a lot of them. I didn't, so I was very happy.

Among other things, I got a full set, all pieces, of an outfit called Black Rhinoceros. It's impressive although it's not really the sort of thing I'd wear. Still, nice to have the option. 

More interesting to me were the separates, including several T-shirts, jackets and pants that my character definitely will wear. Shoes, gloves and masks rarely seem to make that much difference to a look, mostly  because they're too small to be seen clearly much of the time, so I wasn't so excited by the new options there. Even so, you can ruin a look with the wrong shoes so more variety is always welcome.

Hats and eyewear, on the other hand, absolutely make a look. I want as many of both as I can get and there were two or three good ones. When I was done claiming and I'd had a chance to go through everything, I was pretty pleased with what I'd got.

I was disappointed not to be able to find the bag charm I thought I'd been given anywhere in my bags or on the appearance tabs. I was sure I'd seen one when I was claiming. I particularly noticed it because don't have a bag charm in Once Human and I would very much like one. Fortunately, one showed up this morning, while I was logged in to take some screenshots. It just popped up in the mail, another pre-registration freebie. What the delay was I have no idea but better late...

Last but most definitely not least, I got a dog. Well, a box of dogs, to be precise. A choice of three - Labrador, Doberman or Blackback. I'm pretty good on dog breeds as a rule but Blackback was a new one on me. The illustration made it look like a German Shepherd, which would have been my preference if true, so I took a risk and picked it.

It is a German Shepherd or as near as makes no difference. It's also a Deviation so I had to make a storage unit for it, then a blue light to hang over the case because that's what the dog likes. Very quickly he was ready and out he popped. He (Or she. Didn't check.) is playful and loyal, as in he follows me everywhere, very closely, which might get annoying. 

He also barks. A lot. Which definitely will. Still, a dog is a dog. 

All in all, I was very satisfied with my haul and there's more to come if I've interpreted the instructions  correctly. My favorite MMORPG for playing dress-up by a wide, wide margin is The Secret World. Or Secret World Legends, I guess, since the revamp didn't change anything about the way appearance works in the game, as far as I can recall but Once Human is first runner-up. Fantasy and Sci-Fi is all very well for story and setting but for playing Barbies, give me something roughly contemporary, every time.

The recent change to the game that made many, probably most, things account rather than character based meant I didn't have to work out who should claim anything. I just grabbed the lot on my new character, in the safe knowledge that any other character I ever play will be able to wear it all too. 

Thanks to that very welcome mechanic, my new character was already kitted out in gear I thought looked spiffy, even though she's only Level 8, but although I was perfectly happy with that look, I couldn't resist giving her a new one. There were several pieces, all predominately pink, that just begged to be put together, so that's what I did. 

Then I spent fifteen minutes posing and taking selfies. It is why we play these games, after all. May as well admit it.

After that, I did a little bit of actual gameplay. Not a lot. First I had some reconstruction to do.

Because I'd not logged in for a while, my house had been packed up and put away but I was still standing on the spot where it had been and despite a whole cluster of messages from other players pointing out what a great spot that was, no-one had built on it, so I put my house back where it had been. It's a flawless, one-click process. Can't fault it.

Then I ran around for a while, shooting and skinning deer, mining copper, chopping down trees and reporting back on various missions I'd finished to Mary and Claire and that suave guy in the suit, the one who likes to sit at wooden tables in the pouring rain as if he's on the terrace of a high-class brasserie. All my old pals, anyway.

I can always tell when an MMORPG has bedded itself down in my umwelt. Going back starts to feel much like when you return to somewhere you used to live or where you studied or had a great holiday. It feels familiar and comfortable and somehow just right.

That doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to play Once Human a lot again. It just means I know I could, if I wanted to. I'm at home there. I might make a list of MMORPGs that fall into that category someday. I bet there are a couple of dozen, at least. 

What I don't imagine I'll be doing much of, though, is playing Once Human on mobile. Still, having taken the freebies, I thought it would be rude not to at least take a look. Plus I was curious to see if it would run on my Samsung Galaxy A16, by no means a gaming phone.

And it does. Quite smoothly, in fact. I received a warning that my device was not supported but I'm pretty sure that if my phone couldn't run the game at all, Google Play would have blocked me from downloading it. I didn't try to do anything taxing - no combat, for example - but moving around and interacting with the world seemed fine and my phone didn't catch fire so I think we're good.

Getting the game installed was very straightforward as was linking it with my Steam account. There's a FAQ on the website about cross-platform play and like most official information about the game, it's more confusing than it should be. Starry really are not good at explaining things in simple terms. They make everything far more complicated than necessary.

The gist is that if you were playing before the Mobile launch, you can link whatever platform you were using to the mobile client and it will work. The game was available on PC via Steam, Epic and Starry's own Loading Bay launcher. If you only began playing with the arrival of the game on Mobile, however, you are obligated to use Loading Bay, whatever device you play on, if you want cross-platform access. Well, I think that's how it works, anyway. Read it for yourself and see what you think.

I got my Steam account linked with no problems. There was a substantial download, well over a gigabyte, which seems a lot for a mobile game, and the usual wait for shaders to compile but then I was able to log my new character in and take her for a stroll down the road. Oddly, she was wearing a different jacket and no pants. 

I took a few screenshots to note the fact but before I logged out she'd magically acquired her full, pink look so I assume there was just some lead-time required to get everything synced. When I checked just now, those screenshots aren't in the Album on PC, either. I think you might need to use the Cloud option for that.

The mobile controls on a phone seem crazy small to me but so does everything on a phone. I could see some advantages to the mobile UI - I'd certainly prefer to have similar on-screen icons to click for dodge and crouch on PC, for example - but in general I'm sure I'd find the whole thing just too fiddly to be enjoyable, especially in any kind of combat situation.

I wouldn't rule out logging in on the phone to do some non-critical housekeeping tasks, though. And it might be interesting to see how the building works. That's the sort of thing that might be fun to do in bed some night, when there's nothing on the streams I feel like watching .

Mostly, though, I' think I'll be sticking to PC for my Once Human fix, assuming I'm playing at all. Which I will be, although I can't say how often. 

It occurs to me, though, that the game I really ought to be playing on Mobile is Wuthering Waves, which will run on my phone. Given most of the gameplay revolves around watching cut-scenes, it ought to be ideal.