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.

Motorcycles And Mounts In Noah's Heart

Like my bike? I got it tonight. It didn't cost me anything but time. 

Thirty days, it was. Thirty days, logging in. Just that.

Noah's Heart launched on July 28. I logged in for the first time on July 29. Thirty days ago, exactly. I haven't missed a day.

The thing is, I haven't been logging in just to get the bike. I wanted the bike, yes, but I was logging in because I wanted to play the game. The bike was just a nice bonus for something I was doing anyway.

I do like a motorcycle in an mmorpg. I think this is my third. I had one in City of Steam and another in The Secret World. Or Secret World Legends. Either or both. 

I'm not much of a biker in real life. I've been on a motorcycle just  a handful of times, riding pillion back when I was in my teens. I was a bad passenger. I leant the wrong way. 

I never even thought about getting a motorbike of my own but if there's the chance to own one in a game I'm always interested. When it rains in games I don't get wet and if I fall off I don't go to hospital. Or the morgue.

My bike in Noah's Heart has a name. That's a first, I think. It's called Sky Devourer, which kind of suggests maybe it can fly. I hope it can fly. A flying bike would be all kinds of cool.

There's a page of stats for my bike. There's even a diagram. 

I understand the stats. I don't understand the diagram.

I don't need to understand any of it to ride the thing, fortunately. As soon as I got it I took it for a spin.

It handles nicely enough. Mounts in Noah's Heart have some inertia but not, thank god, anything like in Guild Wars 2. Just enough to feel it, not enough to make you throw up.

The Sky Devourer makes a somewhat throaty noise setting off but sounds more like a lawnmower when it gets going. Or a wasp trapped in a Coke can. It's okay. I've heard worse.

I thought I'd see them everywhere now the thirty days are up but so far I've only seen one other. Then again, I've only been on for a few minutes, just long enough to take the shots to write the post.

I'd like to write something in a little more detail about mounts generally in the game. There are four types: horses, mounts, vehicles and ships. 

Horses come in many kinds. They roam around in the wild. You need a lasso to catch them, then you have to play a mini-game to tame them. It's not hard. 

You can feed them and level them up and there's a whole breeding deal involving bloodlines and who knows what-all. I haven't gotten into it yet. I probably won't. Animal husbandry's not really my thing.

Mounts are any riding animal not a horse. There are three I know of and two of those are just different colors of Llama. The other's a wolf. 

The llamas can be bought in stores. One's a store I don't even know how to see, the other's in a store that uses a currency I don't know how to get. And it's not listed there anyway. I've seen people riding them, though, so someone's worked out how to get them.

The llamas make some really annoying noises. I can hear them if they're nearby when I'm crafting in town. I wouldn't want one even if I knew how to get one. 

Actually, I do know how to get one. Or rather, I do now. After I wrote that I didn't I went back into the game and clicked on the icon that says Treasure Record, under "Obtain by purchasing in Adventure Store" and it took me to the shop.

It isn't in the Adventure Store at all. There is no Adventure Store except when the translation says there is. There is a "Treasure Record", though. It's a sub-department of Trading Port. 

The llama costs 20,000 Illusion Crystals. They look like pink stars. You get them from "Open World Adventure Mode" or by completing "Area Missions". I must have done that because I have 3001 of them. Maybe one day I'll have enough to buy a llama.

I don't want to buy a llama, though. I would like the wolf. The wolf is called Forest Wolf and it you get it from an event. It doesn't say which event, even if you click on the icon that says "Event". 

If you click on the icon that says "Rare Boutique", though, the other way you can get the wolf, it takes you to a sub-department of Treasure Store called Trendy House. There's no wolf there.

This is why I am not writing any guides to Noah's Heart. It's probably why no-one is. I imagine most people find it frustrating, infuriating even. To me it's one of the reasons I'm so wrapped up in the game. It's more like being in a foreign country than most mmorpgs and I enjoy it.

I would like to figure out where to get the wolf some day, all the same. Also, I'd really like to get the Flashing Sword, which is a car that looks something like a cross between a Bugatti and a tiger shark. 

The Flashing Sword is one of the Vehicles. The other two are the bike I'm riding and another bike, called The Terminator. There are no helpful icons to tell you how to get any or them. Maybe they'll also be login rewards one day.

The final category is Ships and there are just two of those right now. One is Explorer, "an ordinary, wooden sailboat" although it looks far from ordinary. It's "capable of handling long-distance voyages".

If I log in every day for the next nine days I'll have Explorer. It takes fourteen logins and I've done five already. I want it more than I wanted Sky Devourer so I will get it. There is no doubt.

I would love to get the other ship, too. It's called Heart of Ocean, it's "the flagship vessel of the Gulf Stream Royal Guard" and although it's much slower than explorer its a lot bigger and tougher. I don't know how dangerous sailing the seas is going to be but I don't imagine ships would  need hit points if there was nothing to worry about.

This has all run on rather longer than I expected. I was only going to post a few pictures of my bike. I didn't even do that. Let's have one now.

 Never mind. I learned a lot.

What? You thought I knew this stuff already? Nope. Most of what I know about Noah's Heart I find out as I write these posts.

If I didn't have a blog I probably wouldn't know anything at all.

Have Jetpack, Will Travel: Firefall

Last night I went exploring in New Eden. Okay, that's confusing already. Why did Red5 choose the same name for the setting of Firefall that CCP have been using for the EVE universe for the last decade and more? Beats me. Anyway, it was Firefall I was playing. Internet spaceships don't really do it for me.

TWOC that sucker to death

Internet jet-packs, however, have been one of my favorite things since I first crash-landed on a treetop in Endless Ages back at the start of the twenty-first century. Internet motorbikes aren't too shabby either. Firefall has both.

It also has what must be one of the longest day/night cycles I've ever seen in an MMO and nighttime gets really dark. Pitch, if you happen to be in jungle, of which there is plenty. There's also a severe shortage of roads, and my bike is a loaner, which makes hopping across the landscape like a broken-winged sparrow in a hurricane my preferred method of transport for now.

It gets darker.

Firefall exemplifies much of what's needed to satisfy the explorer archetype. The world is extensive, geographically complex, rich and detailed in both sight and sound and sufficiently intriguing to invite and reward investigation for it's own sake.

I was thinking more along the lines of a
custom paint job.

The controls for movement are fluid and intuitive, very easy to learn while requiring a satisfying degree of attention to use effectively.If you can see something you can get to it. There are few if any invisible walls or barriers.

Things don't constantly try to kill you as you explore but there are dangerous areas and hazards to surprise you and keep you alert.

It's the little things...

There's just about enough information in the rather good tutorial to prevent frustration but after that it's mostly down to you. Progress by experimentation, trial and error or blind luck as you prefer.

For a couple of hours I jetpacked around with no better plan than to open up the map. Firefall has a very slick map interface and it uses that system that I love in MMOs, where you have a large, blacked-out map that fills in only as you travel. You also get an NPC partner who makes brief suggestions in delightfully accented tones across a crackly coms-link, something I found remarkably involving. At her mild urging I made it a priority to sync with each SIN uplink tower as it came in range.

Why? Not quite sure. I think it's the equivalent of biding to an Aetheryte in FFXIV, maybe.

Comes with a prize!

Anyway, I'm sure there's some good reason for it. Not knowing what that reason is, well, that's kind of the point. Right now it's more about pure research than practical application and in these early stages of exploration there's just so much to discover.

Some highlights from last night's session:

• A brief glimpse of a Melding Tornado. Arrived right at the end, just in time to loose off a few shots for whatever good that might do - bullets into a whirlwind.

• Found and explored Sunken Harbor, a larger and more impressive settlement than Copacabana. Took many screenshots.

Armorments. That's a word now?



• Got challenged to a race by some wannabe Mexican wrestler by the name of El Terremoto, who lent me an LGV that took me about twenty minutes to figure out how to use. Once I worked it out I ignored his challenge and went exploring at high speed until it he lost patience and exploded the bike underneath me. Fun times!

He's all talk. I think...

• Fell down a hole and landed behind a waterfall. Spent a while trying to jetpack out but didn't have enough ooomph. Was wondering whether going through the waterfall would kill me (deep water is instant death in a Battleframe, which makes sense) when I spotted an odd, square panel jutting out of the water. Landing on it boosted me high into the air and, after a couple of wild, flailing, failed attempts, onto a rock high enough to jetpack out.

OK, this time...

• Picked up something off the ground that turned out to be an audio log. Simple idea, very atmospheric. First indication that Firefall has a collect mechanic for Lore similar to The Secret World.

• Found and explored Shanty Town. Creepy. Very creepy. Especially in the dark, seen by the light of the flashlight that I somehow turned on without ever finding out how I'd done it.

Nooo! Don't go in the cellar!

This can't go on forever. The more I explore, the more I'll find, the more I find, the more I'll know, the more I know, the more I'll understand. Eventually balance will tip from discovery to use, from how to do things to how to do things better. At that point it may begin to become clear whether Firefall is fun because it's fun or just fun because it's fresh. I note it has all the usual MMO baggage in place and waiting. I found the Achievement panel last night. And the Dailies.

But for now, it is fresh, none of the problematic stuff is foregrounded and it feels like a world worth exploring. So that's what I'm going to do. That and take a ridiculous amount of screenshots, because, hey, I've been there!