[This game] is currently in beta.

DWM March 2002: Jim and I were recently accepted in the beta for this game, as part of a large batch of stress testers. It's being developed by [Westwood Studios] under Electronic Arts. I've logged in and gone through the scant tutorial, but since then I've been plagued by connectivity problems. I was just in the game again for a few minutes, but the server was so horrendously bogged down that ship movement was nonsensical, and incoming chat messages irrelevant because they were delayed by many minutes.

The game is definitely an RPG, and not an attempt to be a realistic flight sim in any form. No joystick required or supported -- it's all point and click. At the start, you choose a faction (Progen aka Martian, Jenquai aka denizen of Jupiter's satellites, or Terran --- hmm, three factions again), a profession (warrior or trader/explorer), spend a lot of time playing dress-up dolly with your 'avatar' (which is admittedly somewhat amusing) to customize your character's appearance, and then do the same for your ship. After that you're supposed to run around and take missions, I guess -- but I haven't got very far with that!

Flight is highly simplified, with essentially 2D motion. (Star Trek combat tactics, I guess.) There are the three familiar modes of travel: slow real space (calling it Newtonian would be inaccurate), "warp" for in-system distances, and jumping via gates to get to other star systems.

The lag problems with the stress test are unbelievable. Their secure beta bulletin board (apparently a custom job built on Oracle) apparently also had a meltdown when all us newbs showed up, and it hasn't been running since I first logged on three days ago. (Which is making me feel very isolated with my connection problems, although I eventually found a not-quite-moribund fan site.)

There are lots of lessons here on how not to build a game and run a beta. Some things that seem pretty obvious to me:

• They should have added people gradually rather than all at once, in order to ferret out load problems.
• They should have used an off-the-shelf bulletin board system. Why spend effort building and (especially!) debugging your own?
• The patch process should be more flexible. Although I received the software on CD, it still ended up auto-downloading a patch that took almost ten hours on my modem! The first attempt failed halfway through (my connection probably dropped), and the second attempt did not pick up where the first left off!
• They announced a publishing target of Winter 2001-2002. Which they obviously missed by a margin that, just as obviously, is going to get much, much wider. (Aside from the obvious load-handling problems, there are a lot of unfinished features.)
• They have bizarre server hours. The servers are only up from 11am to 11pm PST, or something like that, Tuesday through Saturday. They're talking about extending them, but there is no mention of round-the-clock operation. I'm stunned at this -- how can you have a stress test without evaluating the software's ability to run continuously for long periods of time? I predict that after they shake out the basic load-handling problems, they'll struggle with small resource leaks and other plagues common to full-time service programs for a long time, further delaying their release.

Having said all that, the game does look intriguing, and has some very nice graphics. I've never played EQ or any of that ilk, but I suspect that this is an attempt to do something very similar in a space milieu.

Istvan Wow. Thanks for the "lessons learned" briefing. I find what you have said about E&B pretty damning, actually.

(7/1/02) - Belated advisory - server hours are now 11 AM - 11 PM Pacific time, every day.

(7/1/02) - E&B is very much a role-playing game like EQ set in space. "Like EQ" is an apt comparison, because it lacks some of the later-generation evolution of the genre as seen in DAoC - such as creation of a point for the levelling treadmill. I have yet to see any point to E&B. Or any means for a player, or the collective actions of all players, to impact the environment even in small ways. The "static quest" situation I have complained about elsewhere is present, but at least there is also a new (semirandom) jobs engine (see entry below in "Ambivalent Comments").

(7/1/02) - I am very much coming to the conclusion that the "ideal game" I want to help design will include key elements done right in E&B, but also certain key elements that were done right in Jumpgate, integrated with an inherently dynamic environment that allows players to have influence.

(7/10/02) - I've seen what I think is enough, and am abandoning the account I was loaned back to its source, mostly due to time constraints.

(5/14/02) Now that I've got a stress test account (online name: "Istvan"), I'm also forming some specific opinions:

Stuff Done Right

• Avatar, ship customization: Players desperately want customization and uniqueness. E&B avatars and ship coloration does that very well. We absolutely need at least this level of customization. I was pleasantly surprised when I could actually choose a couple of different-looking hull configurations within my character class (each character class uses a uniform basic hull - you can tell from the ship what kind of character) - I feared that each class had one and only one ship model. Better than that. Also, they have "insignia" decals you can add to your ship - limited set. This is a good start, but Westwood is hemming and hawing about guild decals. Dark Age of Camelot has a good guild symbol system - there's kind of a toolkit embedded in the game for choosing or building your guild symbol out of acceptable pieces and colors. That works. You can also name your ship. Good, except I don't know how they are going to deal with duplication. Taking a page from my Free Trader days, I've snagged Beowulf - shocked no one beat me to it.
  
  

• Station Walkabout: This is good. I remember people asking for this on the JG boards. I doubted then, but this works. It's limited enough that the development is not insurmountable - in fact, since the "world" for the walkabout avatars is limited to building interiors (stations), I imagine these can be built easily with off-the-shelf level-editor utils that are quite common now. There's also a lot of uniformity in layout. I don't see that as a problem yet, because that makes it harder to get lost inside a station.

• Iconic interface: Most actions done in flight are done by clicking some sort of option button related to the target. Example, when you have a stargate selected, once you are within appropriate range, a little "gate" button with a standard symbol slides into existence above the holo of the targetted object. Perfect. I think an interface with standard, simple iconic symbols is highly superior design, because it eases use of the game for speakers of other languages, ideal for a game intended to be widely marketed. Unfortunately, the comms and sales interfaces still use a lot of text.
  
  

• What to do when you "die": I actually love this - fits closely with what I wanted to do in Ecliptic. When your ship is "incapacitated", you have three options: (1) Just wait for someone to help. Your comms still work, and some players have means to repair your ship and get you going again. (2) Turn on a "beacon". Not sure what this does, since if it sends automatic messages (which I was doing manually using option #1) or made me show up on scanners as "in distress", I couldn't see it. This should be a "better" variant on option #1, however. (3) Call your last station for a bailout. Now, I dislike the way this is implemented because no matter how far away you are, you just teleport to the last station where you "registered". I'd absolutely choose a different metaphor and method of presentation, but otherwise, the basic concept works. In the stress test, there's no losses and no fee. I'd do that differently, too. But the option is necessary.

• Guild system: (7/10/02) - No direct experience, but I've read a detailed review of the guild system being placed in E&B, and the designers at least talk the talk. They recognize that interplayer interaction is key to the success of an MMORPG, and appear to have set up their guild mechanics to foster grouping activities. Also relevant, they have designed "perks" for guilds that are acquired by player activity - kind of like "levels" and "special abilities" for guilds. This is not necessarily the way I would have done this sort of thing, but it does create "special things" in the environment to which the player organizations are entitled, which is itself quite important to simply foster healthy and active player Orgs. I still see no real way for the guilds (like the players) to "get involved" in the environment and the story, nor any real purpose to the prevalent focus on "advancement", which are probably my principal gripes about this game's design.

Stuff Done Wrong

• 2D space: OK, it's simpler - to paraphrase Spock in ST2:Wrath of Khan - all humans really show signs of two-dimensional thinking. It's what we're used to. But geez, Westwood's graphics clearly show they've played Homeworld, they should have taken a page from Homeworld's masterful use of 3D. Besides, I think 3D is one of the great glories of spaceflight. It should be used.
  
  

• Flight interface: This is so far not logic, but emotional opinion: I hate it deeply. I feel like it's more interactive movie, than actually controlling my ship. The camera behavior really gets to me, and I really have no feel for scale, ranges, or what's around me. Maybe that will come in time. It does NOT feel like spaceflight to me, though. Possibly it's the "over shoulder" view of the ship. 5/17/02 - switched to "1st person" view last night. Still hate it.

• Economy: no hard data yet, but I am in fear that this is jacked up. 5/17/02 - looks static so far. I'm suspicious that the only price "changes" occur when your Negotiate skill forces vendors to give better prices. Ugly, gross, bad mechanic, with weak runaway effect (the better you get, the more money you make).
  
  

• Dancing avatars: There's a gritty, Matrix-esque look and feel to the avatars. No problem. However, I'm revealing my age and prejudices when I say that their "interesting behaviors" when idle largely bug me. I never played much Black & White, but I had this urge to slap the hell out of Megan (your tutor/guide) when I wasn't doing anything for a moment and she started to act like she was listening to rap on her Walkman.... Partially, it's because their body language seems to tell me the NPCs are mostly bored, inattentive children who lose interest in you when you take a minute to think. Maybe the teens love it. (Hi, my name is Steve, and I'm over thirty. group hug)

• Character Classes: Looks like you literally don't have access to many skills based on your starting career choice. Problem for me at once: I wanted to be a scavenger-type. To me, that means explore and salvage both. But in E&B Traders salvage, Explorers prospect. I picked Trader, and although I can certainly gain "exploration experience" I don't believe I can ever have access to the Prospecting skill. I wouldn't mind sucking at mining, if I could just do it. JumpGate totally has it over E&B in this arena. I would MUCH prefer a skill system where anyone can DO anything, but the cost or difficulty, may vary with your base career choice. Character classes are a dead 70's RPG concept. I think limiting what a player can potentially ever do is the kiss of death - everything should at least be possible, even if many things are hard or very hard.
  
  

• Exploration: still forming an opinion, but when you can get "exploration experience" from flying to other stations in low earth orbit, I'm a tad concerned. I do see what they're trying to do, but I am in fear of static-universe syndrome like I see in Dark Age of Camelot: everyone sees everything as if they are in a single-player game. Fer instance, in DAoC, I can be on a quest, where I have to go kill monster X and talk to person Y. I find monster X, but player J is fighting it when I arrive. I watch as it dies and player J runs off. I wander around a minute, and monster X reappears. I fight it and kill it, then run off. I reach person Y, and player J is standing there talking to him.... You get the idea. Totally ruins the immersive feel, and proves that your acts in the game are meaningless and have no effect on the environment. How can you realistically be credited with "exploring" when you visit a heavily-trafficked station in close proximity to your starting location? 5/17/02 - Been to several more remote locations, and it seems that I'm not getting any more "exploration experience". I've correlated the "exploration experience" effect with objects on scanner that appear as question marks until visited. Haven't seen any such as I travel. What's up with this? You get said experience in your starting sector and not off in Tau Ceti or Sirius? Scorn! Also, I'm wondering how to reach anything resembling "unexplored space" without the gates....

• Looks like a lot of the "hostiles" in the game are "space monsters". I'm not too thrilled with this. I definitely see a "EverQuest in space" thing going here, in which there is a clear "kill the monsters for XP and treasure" mentality. That mentality is common in all computer "RPGs", but I'd prefer to find alternatives to it as the main focus of a game. Random thingies, like NPC pirate encounters, where the player is pretty much expected to shoot or run, are fine, but I really don't think "mobs" that players can "camp" for advancement points belong in a space game. 5/17/02 - so far, I have seen many, many more "pirates" and "smugglers" that are valid combat targets. One thing that I bumped into (and which killed my newbie butt in one shot) might have been critter or interesting alien ship. It was called an "Oni", which is Japanese for demon, and I ran into it in space explored by the Jenquai, who are Asiatic. Hopefully the "space critters" are less common than I feared. 6/24/02 - found lots of "scuttle larvae" and similar space monsters. Annoying. Not powerful enough to kill any yet, but may have to try in order to see if I can get "treasure" for doing so. Need to plumb the depths of disappointment.

Ambivalent Comments

• Scale: I think Westwood has succeeded in making space feel both big and mostly empty. Westwood claims they adjusted distances from realistic to keep travel times reasonable, an area which has been of great concern to me in thinking about Ecliptic and SDx. I do sense that the game area is fairly vast, however, and that is a good thing. I will point out here that I have found my way to Tau Ceti easily from low Earth Orbit but have not yet found my way to Earth's Moon.
  
  

• Nice graphics, and I really ain't seen much yet. I flew past an asteroid moon of an inhabited planet of Tau Ceti on the way to dock with the local station, and I was happy. 5/17/02 - I still think the game is pretty, and I've seen a lot more. Planets and moons look good. Debris here and there, very nice. However, I prioritize gameplay over graphics, which is why this is in "Ambivalent" rather than in "Stuff Done Right".

• Events? While I was flying around in near-Earth space learning where stuff was, and trading a little, I saw a big battle between NPC pirate ships and NPC navy ships. This is good. Setting aside the fact that the darn navy really ought to keep bloody pirates further away from the central inhabited planet than that... But I'm still waiting to see if that "event" is some kind of permanent fixture. If not, excellent. If so, lame. 6/24/02 - AFAICT this "event" is ever-present. Lame. For crying out loud, it could at least come and go at different times of the day.
  
  

• Multiple travel modes: We went here ourselves in SDx design discussion. I'm not totally pleased with the scaling of the modes, because you can bloody use "warp" to go three kilometers. There are actual gates between "near Earth" and "high earth" "sectors", which seems to me the epitome of lameness - gate travel is pretty cheap if we are using stargates to jump from low orbit to geosync. In my opinion that's what "warp" should be for. Westwood clearly opted to try to eliminate travel time boredom. However, I firmly believe that in a space game, it's the travel time boredom that will give players (some) time and inclination to talk to each other over the comms system. This does not exist - yesterday I saw someone in a station trying to talk to other players - and the few players who responded literally said, "too busy to talk, l8r" and kept running back to the docking bay or bazaar. Bad, bad, bad. Human interaction is the strength of MMOGs! (and the weakness ;-) )

• Chat/comms system: a tad quirky, not quite the cinch to use that I'd prefer. I'm hesitant over many of the functions, because I'm afraid they'll inadvertently make an erroneous all-band broadcast when I try to use them. This interface should have been designed better.
  
  

• Avatar in comms window: A failing in JG, especially for the role-players, is that you never can see whom you are talking to. In E&B, when you target a player ship, you get a little window with a view of the pilot as if from a camera on their control console. Nice touch, important for look and feel. 5/17/02 - I was too optimistic. I spent real time last night actually talking to some other players. The avatar does not appear when you are talking to another pilot. It's just there when you target the other ship. Pointless fluff, should have been linked to real function.

• Jobs board: 7/1/02 - Many, but not all, stations have a "jobs kiosk" (newly added in recent patch), at which a player can locate tasks/missions to perform for reward. Jobs come in each of the three categories: Combat, Trade, and Exploration, and are apparently ranked by difficulty with a "recommended level" tag. The individual tasks can be interesting and fairly innovative (at least, compared to JumpGate's missions). Since we're in beta, the rewards appear to be a pittance, almost not worth the bother - equal or less than the typical profit for transporting a single commodity unit (I can run 20 units at a time in my ship). Unlike in JumpGate, a player can take multiple missions at a time. There may be a time limit/constraint on each job. There does not appear to be any means for players to post jobs themselves. However, every job has a listed "Sponsor", which strikes me as precisely the kind of sociopolitical linkage I want to build into a mission engine - it is doubtful the linkage really exists in E&B, however, because I see no evidence of any sociopolitical engine at all, beyond static storyline material that would fit any single-player game.

DWM Thoroughly agree with all comments! You obviously got further into E&B than I did, though. I had problems with connectivity and server overloading. Tried to get on again recently, but got disconnected within minutes for no apparent reason. Will try again, but the limited server hours make it a little bit tough (though they're better now than they were before). If you're on, look for "TheMiller".

Experience System

6/28/02 - Since we've kicked around a couple variants on advancement in the main discussion pages, I want to add a description of the system used in Earth & Beyond for comparison. As skills systems go, this one looks fairly good, except for the character class aspects.

• all characters gain experience points in three areas: Combat, Exploration, and Trade (C/E/T)
  • Trade experience is gained directly from profits
  • Exploration awards are granted for approaching to within the vicinity of a previously-unknown object
  • Combat experience is gained by blowing up hostiles
• character level is the sum of levels in each of the three areas
  • a level 5 character might have Combat: 0, Exploration: 3, and Trade: 2
• every level gained in any area grants one skill point
• skill points may be spent on "open" skills
• some skills are opened (available) at start, or are opened by interaction with an NPC (initial training)
  • A Terran Tradesman gets Negotiation opened by talking to Eddie Duchampe in the starter area
  • Build Devices is obtained by talking to the stationmaster at Inverness Down and accepting a mission
• the available skill list is limited by character class, and each class has skills to which only its members are privy
• many skills require a certain rank in one of the three areas (C/E/T) in order to cross an advancement threshold
  • Negotiate level 3 requires Trade level 5, Negotiate level 4 requires Trade level 15
• some skills require a certain character level in order to cross an advancement threshold
• some skills require completion of a specific "quest" or mission in order to cross an advancement threshold
• cost of skills in skill points increases with each level
  • Moving from Negotiate:1 to Negotiate:2 will cost two skill points.
• in addition to granting skill points, character level advancement results in granting of "hull evolutions", which are equivalent to getting a new, larger ship with more capacity. There is no choice in this matter, and the ship only gets "bigger/better" - no ship option balancing for PvP at all.

The majority of skills grant access to equipment. For example, you cannot place a "rank II" reactor into your ship unless you have "Reactors Skill" at level 2. Other skills represent special abilities, such as Prospecting, Recharge Shields, or Negotiate.