tideous gameplay. strange behaviour when trading
Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2009 9:54 pm
I've played vegastrike now for two or three days. I seriously tried. read most of the manual, strived the forums, and yet I am a little disappointed about the game. BTW I'm playing the newest binary (no CVS). Until now I haven't been able to play far enough to get a new ship.
Before "bashing" it, i want to point out the things i really like about VS.
Freedom. The possibility to go anywhere, do anything. Want to get some cheap medics, while you're on a mission. No prob. You can do something reasonable at every station and planet. I played a wing commander remake based on the freespace engine, and i felt kind of locked into the mission. I couldn't go anywhere. So 2 thumbs up!
Dynamic universe/trading.
I played with the thought to make a similar "game" like VS. And I immediately got stuck at this. How can I implement dynamic economy?
Open Architecture.
Even other open source games and indie games are more "locked". In VS you can finetune the gameplay(theoretically). A pity that a lot of options and switches(even the documented in the WikiManual) don't work.
Now what bugged me:
Getting compromised.
I got compromised so often by damn pirates or whatever. I wasn't able to flee, or anything. I HAD to fight. It was mentioned already in this forum, that it is very unfair, when you defend yourself against one ship, suddenly his whole clan is after you.
One of the most frustrating, because no possibility to get away, is when you get into an aggression right in the moment you are launching. I had this at a Relay. I couldn't get away.
Freedom is relative:
Although you can theoretically go anywhere you can, you are limited by your relationships (this is okay). The frustrating experience that you get immediately into dogfights if you jump 4 or 5 systems into any direction is totally demotivating.
It is hard to get money. Trading is a difficult task. Most of the other missions are not a alternative at the beginning, you are just too weak for them. So it's hard to get any decent upgrades or ships.
While my last game I noticed something strange. I was a merchant. While I did decent cargo runs, my Money dimished. I couldn't believe it. I looked at my Savegames, and i haven't done any profit. I lost money continously.WTF?
And the last thing bugging me was TIME. I take SO long for just one single cargo run. Not to say earning enough money to buy at least a decent ship. This can be so boring. YES i use Autopilot, YES I habe jump drive.
Last but not least: Keyboard Orgy. This game has so many keys, so much functionality. This could be handled easier. A good example of what I'm imagining is Space Merchants. You can do A LOT with the mouse, and you don't have to know zillions of keys to play the game succesful. What could be done at LEAST is e.g. the right VDU, that there is a little note: Hit key xyz to switch views. Or some kind of online help (of course you can turn that off) e.g. when you have destroyed a ship, and it has left cargo, that there is somekind of note telling you that and how to get the cargo.
Before "bashing" it, i want to point out the things i really like about VS.
Freedom. The possibility to go anywhere, do anything. Want to get some cheap medics, while you're on a mission. No prob. You can do something reasonable at every station and planet. I played a wing commander remake based on the freespace engine, and i felt kind of locked into the mission. I couldn't go anywhere. So 2 thumbs up!
Dynamic universe/trading.
I played with the thought to make a similar "game" like VS. And I immediately got stuck at this. How can I implement dynamic economy?
Open Architecture.
Even other open source games and indie games are more "locked". In VS you can finetune the gameplay(theoretically). A pity that a lot of options and switches(even the documented in the WikiManual) don't work.
Now what bugged me:
Getting compromised.
I got compromised so often by damn pirates or whatever. I wasn't able to flee, or anything. I HAD to fight. It was mentioned already in this forum, that it is very unfair, when you defend yourself against one ship, suddenly his whole clan is after you.
One of the most frustrating, because no possibility to get away, is when you get into an aggression right in the moment you are launching. I had this at a Relay. I couldn't get away.
Freedom is relative:
Although you can theoretically go anywhere you can, you are limited by your relationships (this is okay). The frustrating experience that you get immediately into dogfights if you jump 4 or 5 systems into any direction is totally demotivating.
It is hard to get money. Trading is a difficult task. Most of the other missions are not a alternative at the beginning, you are just too weak for them. So it's hard to get any decent upgrades or ships.
While my last game I noticed something strange. I was a merchant. While I did decent cargo runs, my Money dimished. I couldn't believe it. I looked at my Savegames, and i haven't done any profit. I lost money continously.WTF?
And the last thing bugging me was TIME. I take SO long for just one single cargo run. Not to say earning enough money to buy at least a decent ship. This can be so boring. YES i use Autopilot, YES I habe jump drive.
Last but not least: Keyboard Orgy. This game has so many keys, so much functionality. This could be handled easier. A good example of what I'm imagining is Space Merchants. You can do A LOT with the mouse, and you don't have to know zillions of keys to play the game succesful. What could be done at LEAST is e.g. the right VDU, that there is a little note: Hit key xyz to switch views. Or some kind of online help (of course you can turn that off) e.g. when you have destroyed a ship, and it has left cargo, that there is somekind of note telling you that and how to get the cargo.