The servers were up last night, so I created a second character for the beta (since I realised that I had royally messed up my choices for the first one). I went through the tutorial intro again, and then the servers went down for an extended period of time. By the time they came back up, I was tired and veryvery ready for bed. I understand that they’re better during the day, when less players are on – a lot of the game bugs that I thought I was having were evidently due to massive lag and server instability, since they evidently disappear during the day. Hopefully they can get the server issues worked out prior to headstart.
The game is fun, and it will be something that I’ll enjoy – especially since pvp is supposed to be great fun. Will it be a main MMO? No, I’m pretty sure that it won’t – but it will be a nice change. In the limited time that I’ve been allowed to actually play, it hasn’t felt as much like a universe as EVE does…and that bothers me a bit. As inpenetrable as EVE can be (figuring out for yourself the right kit to train for and buy – even down to the type of ammo to use and when, it’s quite difficult to get a grasp of what choices you should be making), it still feels like a real place. As nice as the interiors and ships are in STO, at the moment it doesn’t – and that is what I play for, the total immersion in an environment.
Part of that is the multitude of loading screens. Especially when there is a lot of lag, you seem to spend a good portion of your gametime staring at loading screens. Games with high levels of instancing, that have very slow loading screens, tend to really bother me. Again, it’s an issue of immersion and feeling that you are in a real, seamless environment.
But this is very early days, and I know I haven’t been able to play much with the servers being up and down like a bride’s nightie (such lovely expressions they have here in the UK!). So I will cross my fingers and hope to be able to spend some serious time in my starship this weekend.