Juju

Update: Welp I got a cheap-o geforce4 for like 45 bucks... the game is 100% smoother. Plus I figured out how to remap the controls, it even has an option to remap things in "EQ Style". So it's now pretty smooth, and I can move around. I made a scout/marksman/artisan and I had a LOT of fun tonight. I think I was just having a bad day last night. Either that or the patch today fixed a lot of things.

It is still way too dark at night, but I suspect it's probably like EQ where that can be improved with some goggles or something. I take back 90% of what I said below. The game is FUN. So far I'll give it 4 out of 5 stars. ;)

So last night I played for about 4 hours, made a Wookie Artisan (crafter). Here's how it went: first 2 hours screwing with settings because the performance on my 1.1ghz, 512ram, geforce3 was nearly unplayable. Finally was able to move around with better then 5 fps. Spent the next 1.5 hours trying to figure out a better way to move around. The default mouse-look movement system SUCKS and I still can't get the camera to follow me when using the keyboard so that when I try to turn left the camera is locked and my character just turns and I can't see where I'm going. The game is WAY too dark, adjust gamma and it's a little better but menus are now too bright. Maybe it's just the planet I chose to start on. No one can understand me because I'm a wookie and we can't speak english and no one has learned wookie yet. The /find waypoint system that shows a line to the thing you're looking for fails half the time and dead ends in the side of a wall. But I figured out how to survey for resources, got enough skill to advance only to find that I need lots of credits. So I try the mission terminals (brings back bad memories of Anarchy Online). Closest delivery mission I could find is probably an hours walk away. Figure I'll survey for resources along the way. But for some reason the glowy waypoint marker thingy when serveying stops working, I get annoyed having to run in circles to avoid monsters, and I logout and decide to make a Human Scout tomorrow and do Artisan secondary.

When I saw there was a crafting CLASS I thought cool so you can advance without having to fight - not true. I can run around and gather resources and craft, gaining crafting experience, but to advance a skill level you need credits. So you can sell your wares to other players? Nope, at least not in the begining since no one wants your junk. So you can either pick up a gun and go fight or do lame ass "delivery" missions and run around for a few hours running in circles trying to avoid monsters that want to eat you since you can't defend yourself. Or you can play a wussy dancer and dance half naked and beg for tips.

So anyway, the first night sucked, but hopefully tomorrow will be better. Overall the game feels like EQ and AO got together and had a bastard child.