Gameplay

LEGO has confirmed that LEGO Universe will be cooperatively played with others to accomplish in-game tasks rather than PvP (player versus player) gameplay. For example, as shown in a walkthrough video taken at CES 2010, there are some special “gold bricks” within LEGO Universe, which, at times, can only be obtained with the help of friends.

Quick Build

Another gameplay feature is Quick Build, which allows a user to quickly build an item. This can be used to make turrets, vehicles (only shown in early concept video, and not quite confirmed as of now), and other useful objects. In some video walkthroughs, it ca be found that destroyed Darklings can be turned into other helpful objects, such as turrets, with the use of Quick Build.

Properties

In yet another CES 2010 video, it was confirmed and shown that a player will have his/her own Property, in which they can use bricks collected from battles, shops, and other locations to build houses and other models. (All models are approved before public availability, of course.) As of the Closed Beta Phase, it is reported on some sources that a user can use up to 80,000 bricks.

Animation Capabilities

One other feature of properties (shown in the same CES 2010 video) reveals that a user will be able to animate objects and/or pets within their property, using a block-programming system similar to the one used with the Mindstorms robotic models. A user can have an animal or object do certain things upon nearing them, saying a keyword, as well as many other possibilities. The user can then adjust the numerical value of each property of the programming, to create a truly unique animation.

Cost

LEGO Universe will be available on DVD at some stores, as well as online, by download. Instead of purchasing the whole game on one set price, a user will be required to pay a certain subscription amount. As of now, no one is certain of whether it will be run on monthly costs, yearly costs, or both, but it appears as though a monthly cost will be implimented with the Live 1 release.

[-] What Testing is All About [-]

Before any gamer geeks out there start panting hard and fogging up their screens while they think (with all too much enthusiasm) on the possibility of playing a new game before many else gets to, realize that it won’t be what you’ve experienced before. I’m not making reference to the various features Global Agenda offers in contrast with other games, as I will elaborate on later while attempting to not repeat statements in my previous GA article, I’m referencing to that fact that beta testing GA is just that: beta testing.

All too often, a select few, anxious gaming enthusiasts are given the opportunity to join in beta testing of a game that has not yet been released. Nine out of ten times, this experience has nothing at all whatsoever to do with actual testing, but is, instead, all about you experiencing a polished and finished game before anyone else and then telling the rest of the world all about it.

If anyone out there actually thinks that they were making major contributions to games like Aion or will make a difference in SWTOR’s beta testing, think again. Most people who played Aion beta payed for the privilege, and BioWare stated before opening beta sign-ups (in an interview that I can’t find, now) that studios don’t learn anything new from beta testing. So, most studios don’t expect anyone invited to beta test to actually test anything at all. Hi-Rez Studios, however, thinks much differently.

They make sure to issue an email about one week before every not-on-site test, explaining what they want players to look for and be aware of. They also make sure to include a snippet to motivate beta participants to test, not just play. A real tester is going to find bugs, write them down, report them, and try to duplicate the bug until the studio fixes it.

[-] My Experiences [-]

GRAPHICS

I rank the graphics as one of the highest in quality for an MMORPG, which shows through even better when I play from my gaming rig at home. It takes a few seconds at the login screen for the graphics to really kick in, but I have absolutely no performance problems in-game. I’m not so big on the smooth lighting textures that Hi-Rez chose to use for character, items and environment, but it’s not a deal breaker, either. It kind of reminds me of Doom 3.

SOUND

The music and sound quality are great. I really am glad I invested in those 5.1 surround sound force feedback headphones because games like Global Agenda are definitely making use of it. Whenever you’re involved in PvP combat against other players, every queue an enemy can give you to let you know they’re attacking is worth watching and listening for. Precision gaming audio equipment will give you that much more of an edge, making the difference between number one and second best.

USER INTERFACE & ITEMS

As for the user interface, I have mixed feelings. I really like the helpful info stations that a player can query to find specific locations, such as the armor store, and it generates a three-dimensional path hovering above the ground for the player to follow. As for equipment and talent windows, they’re not quite there, yet.

It was very confusing for me to figure out how to have any equipment or abilities at all. Most players are used to filling up their skill trees, dragging combat ability buttons from a menu to a hot bar and then equipping weapons to a character slot from the inventory. Not in Global Agenda. Fill up the trees, select the abilities you want to use, and then select your weapon designated by how you set up your tree. In short, weapons aren’t items in an inventory that you need to buy or find, but are given to you after setting talent tree points.

Don’t worry, you can still upgrade your weapon, armor and more above another player’s through the use of special mod items. These mod items are supposed to have something to do with nanotechnology, but they’re used the same way as gems in WoW.

The controls and interface are a bit different than any MMO you’ve probably played before, it doesn’t take long to figure out. In fact, the only hindrance to playing the game most intuitively is not moving around the map, but using the hot bar to initiate attacks and special abilities as you run around in the same manner you would in an FPS (first person shooter).

GAMEPLAY

The game runs smoothly. I have no complaints, there. I have not yet been able to test the orientation portions of the game, including any missions that grant experience. I’ve only been able to test PvP, so far, and while it is definitely pretty good on the PvP side (that’s the part Hi-Rez wants to focus on), I really, really want to get in on some PvE.

The PvP has a few different maps and modes. There’s a capture-the-flag type map, with three flags to capture/defend until time runs out. There’s a sort of escort mission that doesn’t use an MVP, but instead forces one team to move an object from one side of the map to the other, while the opposing forces try to stop it’s movement. The object cannot be reset or reversed and moves sort of slow. The only other PvP map I played besides those two looked to be a different version of capture the flag, but my team was getting pwn’ed so hardcore, I can’t tell you what it’s about.

COMMUNITY

In general, I like Global Agenda’s community. The dev’s all have characters and play the game, though it’s usually for testing, and they’re all super nice and/or helpful in game … even while they’re stomping you into the ground in PvP. Though almost every last one of the players in beta testing, right now, are high schoolers, they’re not entirely unruly. My chat box is not constantly overfilled with cursing and derogatory comments, which is nice.

I asked a lot of newb questions when I logged in on the beta, and while most of the testers who could read me didn’t respond, there were a few that actually answered my questions, were super helpful, and even offered me in-game currency to buy equipment that was, at that point, purely aesthetic.

ISSUES

The only issues I experienced had to do with things on the game coding side. I couldn’t participate in the first beta because there was some sort of issue that prevented me and several other players from being able to run the program. That issue, however, was fixed before the second beta, during which I ran around trying to learn the classes and how to play them in the short amount of time I had. During the second test the only issues I had were (1) the game was unstable in windowed mode and would freeze or crash regularly, and (2) after leaving an instance based mission, the game would either crash or freeze.

The reason for the score? Any issue that keep me from and discourages me from playing the game is a big issue.

During the second test I had developer David Tyler in chat the entire time, so I was very well taken care of on the support side of things. Thanks, David!

[-] OVERALL [-]

It must be known by all that this game is still in development, and since every bug I’ve ever experienced or reporting has been fixed, I forgive them any problems I have had. All other aspects of the game, including, to a lesser extent, graphics, and to a larger extent, things like user interface and class abilities, are constantly being updated. Hi-Rez Studios is making sure they get class balancing and intuitive in-game controls as fine-tuned as possible before releasing their baby for the whole world to play. For that, I will delay most of my opinions concerning most any aspect of the game, until the game is released.

When is the launch date? No one knows, yet. How can you get into the closed beta? Create an account and request to join. Will you be playing Global Agenda when it is released? As long as I’m not bogged down with SWTOR or FFXIV (because I have extreme lust issues for anything Star Wars and/or Final Fantasy), I will most likely be playing Global Agenda.

I’ve been waiting for Aion since I first heard about it, which wasn’t so long ago. I haven’t been anticipating it’s arrival for years, like the hundreds and thousands of U.S. and European fans chatting up in forums. I’ve merely been waiting for about the last eight months. I even downloaded a Korean launcher and tried to get into the beta they were having and did the same when the beta went to China. All of the work was for naught, and I was unable to experience true gameplay, first hand. Until this past weekend.

Me so tiny. ME SO BIG.

After the 20+ hours of downloading the launcher and game files, I was finally able to log on. I was greeted with a sort of Japanese version of holy-pop-concert music that made me feel like I was about to watch a kickass anime. The login screen was pretty pimping, too, with a display of a large, white city built on a mountain side with overflowing lush greenery and smooth flowing water falls. After I was finally able to stop gauking at the login screen, I went into character customization and spent about an hour making eight different characters, one of each class and four for each faction.

The customization options for characters has more options than any other pay-to-play MMO I’ve ever seen, even more than SWG. Lip size, smile arc, tattoos, breast size, hair styles and more! I actually spent a good bit of time customizing some of my characters to look like real people I know. It turned out well. To illustrate the incredible differences in customization, I took a pic of the smallest and largest available heights.

After I got into the actual gameplay, I was beamed into a generic sort of starting area remeniscant of many Chinese made MMORPGs. For the first 10 minutes, the game felt very much like Runes of Magic, actually. Running around, picking up quests while killing level 1 mobs that are just walking around, and gathering nodes of plants nearby.

But as I ventured farther and began to accept more quests, I noticed that not all was as similar to free-to-play MMOs as I had previously conjectured. When I approached the first city or small village, I was just sort of running around turning in quests and picking up new ones, checking out what the vendors had, but then I stopped for a minute to just look around. Everything looked fantastic. From the textures on the floors and walls, to the NPCs and other characters around me. The food vendor was holding a basket of food and picking items to show off to the crowd. I decided to take a bit of a closer look at the scenery and ventured to a small stream nearby.

Catching fish in the stream. Sushi time, bitches!

The only reason I went to the stream was to check out the water effects (which were great), but then I got something extra. My character started reacting with the environment around him, started checking out the fish. He’d reach in to try to catch one, miss, try again, and catch one! It didn’t loot an item to put into my inventory or anything, it was just for show. In fact, the character even threw the fish back into the water.

Hiding from the rain.

From then on I would stop every so often to see how my character would react to new environmental conditions. The rain was great. It wouldn’t always just storm harshly or sprinkle lightly, in fact, it would alternate. Also, the rain wouldn’t start out of nowhere, the sky, environmental lighting and sound effects would clue me as to what the weather change would be. I remember seeing a flash of light and everything in the forest I was running through, all the objects, static, player and NPC, having yellow light cast on them, but not overlayed. Instead, it was faded from one side, as light hits an object in real life. Then thunder. Flash and thunder, again. Then I heard the rain falling through the trees before I finally saw it.

When it wasn’t raining, the scenery was just as beautiful. Critters were running around with the overt and passive mobs. Everything was attack-able, except for the NPC’s. Which leads me to another part of the gameplay, the quests.

A lovely day for giant-insect extermination!

I enjoyed the story-line, very much. But in the structure of the quest a feature I enjoyed the most was the ability to make choices in a particular quest line. For instance, one quest had a a smitten fisherman wanting you to give flowers to a nearby fisher-woman for him. After gathering the flowers, I opted to take the flowers for him, hoping maybe I could get some nooky or at least some sort of reward, but instead I got a disgruntled fisherwoman and a heart-broken fisherman. I wonder what would have happened if I told him to take the flowers himself?

Frank's meat pie was always the hottest dish on the plains!

Another feature of the quests that I really enjoyed were cutscenes. This little tidbits would help show you where you needed to go for what part of the quest, just in case the instructions on the quest journal weren’t clear enough (you, dumbass). The best part about the quests, however, were not how some merely tied into the local culture and people, as most quests in MMOs do, but how the main story-line unfolded to let you in on you being a part of something much bigger.

Turns out, all this fighting skill that you have is not natural; you were trained. You just don’t remember. A giant tree in a mystical forest helps you figure that out. He’s guarded by walking trees, sort of Wizard of Oz-esque, and helps you remember things long forgotten. You start to remember a war that happened a thousand years ago that tore the planet into two halves, and that you were a part of the war that rages even still. You are a great warrior, and you don’t get to just hear about and watch cut-scenes about it, you get to play as it!

You’re transported to this other realm, well, not really, you’re simply remembering it. But either, way, it’s still cool. There’s a line of soldiers there to greet you and you’re dressed all like a badass. They salute and cheer for you, proclaiming that now that you’re here, the war will soon be over! You get to fly around through the rift of space to a small chunk of land, forged around what look to be wyrm bones. You easily fend off several beastly looking mobs at a time and then a boss appears. The he/she/it thing goes down pretty easy and it looks like you’re about to win, until CUTSCENE! It knocks you back and flings you into a wall. You struggle, but end up passing out and wake up next to the crazy talking tree, again.

BAMF!

From then on out you realize there’s definitely something spectacular about you; you are some kind of chosen human-type dude with wings that can fly’n shit. So, you get some help to be transported to the friggin awesome city where all cool wing-type hero people hang out. It’s effing beautiful, btw. Once in the city, a parade of people salute your awesomeness and your return to the war effort. You are knighted as a true badass of badassed-dom.

After I was crowned King Badass of Badassadoria, I decided that the first thing I should do is run around, prancing like a sissy woman-like-man and check out what the city had to offer before I got booted off the server. I stopped at every shop I came by to check out the cool armor and weapons. The accessory shop was pretty spectacular because it offered different types of masks and sunglasses, all with different looks and all with stats (I like them not being jsut for show).

I'm sexy when I cook.

Then I spent the rest of my time checking out the crafting system. As far as I can tell, there are four professions. I only got to check out cooking and tailoring. It looks like a player could learn as many crafts as they have money for and what was pretty awesome about the crafts is that they give you quests to level. For levels 1~10, they give you all the materials you need to complete the quest and you simply repeat the quest until you hit level 10. Then a new quest becomes available for 10~20. It’s at this point that you begin to buy some of your materials yourself from a vendor that’s 3 steps away for dirt-cheap.

OH! That’s another thing. The commerce of the game. I forget the currency used, but it might as well be called “gold”, and it didn’t separate into silver and copper or whatever, it was just numbers. Like, at level 5 I had 1,300 gold and then at level 10 I had 15,000, with learning a new crafting skill costing about 6,000, I think? Also, I was clicking around on the user interface and noticed that as you gain reputation with areas, prices on things you buy decrease and you get more gold when you sell stuff in that area. Then I saw something else about taxes and there was a percentage next to it. Maybe that’s how much you would pay for a house or something? I didn’t see anything about lodging, hotels, or user decorated rooms.

I assume that if the game has any sort of personal lodging, it will be very similar to mog houses of FFXI or maybe even neighborhood-thingies, like in LotRO. The world didn’t look anywhere near expansive enough to build player cities, like in SWG. But that’s fine because I’ll trade player cities for streamlined gameplay and environment, any day.

All in all, I’d say from my experience so far, I rate this game an 8/10. It’s not perfect (which would be a 7), but I can already tell that it’s going to hook me in for a long run (going to be a 9 in later levels), but I have yet to play the perfect game (which would be a 10). I think I might have actually fell in love with this game because of the music and scenery coupled with crafting (I love crafting) and story-line.

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For more information on all of Aion’s features visit AionOnline.com. For information concerning discussion of classes and game play and much more, visit AionSource.com. If you’re a part of the closed beta, find out updated information at the Aion Beta Forums. If you want to get in on the closed beta, I suggest either pre-ordering the game or following the Aion members on Twitter: @Aion_Ayase @Aion_Liv @Aion_Xaen