I just hit level 50, and wanted to summarize my thoughts on journey.
TL;DR
It has been fun, but the fact that my character will never, ever improve after 50 makes me really unlikely to continue beyond the occasional drop in to fuel a beacon so my home doesn’t regen. I have zero interest in leveling alts. I feel like I’ve already got my $250 worth (Pioneer), and am happy to have supported continuing dev.
Background
Professional computer security nerd, former game designer from old-school pen and paper RPGs, over a decade in the same raiding guild starting in EQ 1 and transitioning to WoW (we called it quits at Panderia). I’m pretty much over MMOs unless it’s something that I can enjoy mostly solo. I’ve used Minecraft as mindless stress release since it first released. Huge fan of Impressions’ city builders, Dwarf Fortress, Rimworld and the like.
The Journey
It has taken me roughly 10 weeks and 150 hours to hit 50. Fifteen hours/week in an MMO puts me squarely in the serious casual band IMO (Everquest 1 and WoW at soooo much more time from my life).
At no point did I feel like it was a grind. The big caveat behind that is that I like mining and building. A huge percentage of my xp came from unlocking achievements. At the time I hit 50, I have the #19 build on Solum, done completely solo, accepting no outside gifts of tools or materials. If you aren’t into that, then yes, I can see the game will be grindy as hell.
Things I Liked
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The graphics are gorgeous.
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I like the player community. I only went on hunts because gem mining is broken, but I had a good time on them nonetheless. Moebius was incredibly friendly and helpful early on (scaring the hell out of me when he tracked me down in a cave on day 4 or 5 as well), and his marketplace is where I made mid-six figures in sales, without which I would have had a harder time surviving hunts until I’d done a few and could stop buying tools from Eld’s shop.
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I love exploring the cave systems on different worlds. Adding monster spawns down there was, IMO, a great idea.
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I think the crafting system is well designed overall.
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I love the fact that storage shows what’s being stored without having to open something up.
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Devs, you are awesome, accessible and responsive. I really feel like I’ve helped the process, even if only a little. If everyone running early access games was this good, they’d have a much better reputation.
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Grapples are fun.
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Chiseling is awesome – I should do it more considering the number of points I’ve dumped into it.
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The fact that you’re going to support private servers. Depending on how much control I have over the server, maybe that will solve some of the following problems.
Things I Disliked
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I’ve already mentioned the #1 at top – I’m staring at sooooo many skills that I still want, but are so crazy expensive that it’s ridiculous (warp distance increase, shout, many others). If I could continue to slowly earn skill points, it would be one thing. But just learning to use chisels properly and craft all the recipes ate a ridiculously huge % of my available points, for instance. If you’re looking for pain points that cause people to quit games, lack of character progression is a big one. The number of new plots you earn right now, relative to building sizes, isn’t much of an incentive.
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The fact that you can’t keep your settlement from being absorbed against your will is the #2 complaint. This is a griefer’s dream setup – the fact that most of the EA players are cool and avoid this means nothing. If the game mechanics allow it, some jerks will make it their sole mission in game to absorb unwilling victims.
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Having to spend plots on floating bits of foilage is also a pain. A good 5% of my plots are there solely to deal with floating foilage after I’ve destroyed the actual tree trunk. IMO, trees in reserved wild plots should not regen once the base is destroyed and plotted.
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Once there are more planets, I think there needs to be a way to use your plot count multiple times. Maybe every 10-20 relevels after 50 unlocks an additional planet slot where you can use your entire plot count again.
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There’s too much lava both above and underground. Not every outer world needs to be crisscrossed with lava lakes.
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There’s no way to rotate a block easily. Getting patterns to line up how I want required contortions, temporary walls, and other nonsense that should be doable with a mouse wheel – particularly since you charge points for block rotation abilities.
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Too much verticality in the worlds. Running around for hunts is pretty much nothing but scaling cliffs, then immediately climbing/falling/jumping down, interspersed with having to jump over or bridge over lava.
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I miss meteors on starting worlds. There was a huge feeling of accomplishment the first time I soloed a meteor on Solum, it’s sad that people won’t get that. I do, however, feel that there needs to be some sort of mob leashing (or just don’t spawn Cuttletrunks) on the starter worlds. A flying mob chasing a low-level player across the whole planet is a bit unfair IMO.
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I don’t like the fact that water isn’t transparent across the surface layer.
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I think coal plays too much of a part in everything (as one player put it, “Coal is life”). Spark costs are too high for decorative rock, for instance.
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It would be nice if there were more interesting things to discover while caving – abandoned temples like on Munteen surface, for instance.
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I know lack of mined gems right now is a bug, but it’s an annoying one.
Going Forward
As I mentioned, I’m not horribly interested in continuing to play. Every time I re-level and get nothing but new plots, it will depress me – especially since I know there will be a world wipe.
and you welcome to join