hey, leave Whistler alone. I'm the one who called into question the OP's intelligence, and though it was his spelling I actually called into question it was not the sole reason. Just the most glaring reason.

As this review is posted in this forum rather than a blog or any gaming forum, I suppose that Kevin would like (1) the devs to look at it or (2) some feedback by other players.

Feedback on grammar and spelling is just a way to avoid discussing Kevin's points. Although many of them are debattable, the main idea that they convey is absolutely true: new players quickly reach the point where they have explored the whole universe, accumulated plenty of money and have nothing to spend it on, access to most of the ships with little to no nation differenciation, and a feeling that nothing is there to be done and the game is empty.

The single fact that such an experienced player as Martin considers it takes a couple of months to appreciate the game confirms the problem. It takes about a couple of weeks for a new player to gain max useful levels through repetitive levelling processes that do not prepare him at all for combat. Chances are he loses interest and will not spend the extra time to get the most out of VO.

I've always been a strong fan of just reverting VO back to a pure FPS, like in the Alpha test stage. I mean, look how many of them stook around back when it was SpaceQuake compared as to now. Now we're lucky to retain 10% of the new players after their first month.

I think moldy forgets a couple things:

1) VO wasn't publicly-known back then, and it was free. Free for us, that is, and a nice black hole in the wallets of the devs.
2) The universe might have been smaller, and the player density might have been higher, but the amount of content was less than a tenth of what we have now. Yes, even FPS games have content.
3) A lot of players love the game as it is NOW, and such a reversion would probably kill the game completely.
4) Even if 3 wouldn't kill the game, there's absolutely no chance of it happening.
5) A lot of the alphas who "stook around" (sic) back then left after the game went retail because of a lack of time or money to play (largely the alphas who are or were entering college, or getting a full-time job), lag issues (Icarus), or just plain they didn't feel like playing anymore.

I hardly believe 10% is an accurate value, either. Let's see some data supporting that.

Hi Kevin Marsh.

First off, speaking as a professional designer with a fondness for well-written and readable text, I cannot emphasize enough the use of paragraph breaks to separate discrete thoughts in a body of copy. These breaks are used more frequently in an online medium such as messageboards since, by nature, reading a screen is harder on the eye than reading a book. I suggest using the "Return" key more frequently.

Allow me to summarize your review (as stated before a "revue" is a form of musical featuring skits, dances and songs. A "review" is, I think, what you were attempting to put forth.):
1. Ships are not different enough between factions.
2. Ships need shields.
3. The game needs bigger cargo vessels.
4. You disagree with the ship "progression" from noob ship to veteran ship.
5. You disagree with the ship specs, especially armor and shields.

I agree with #1. The ships are not different enough. However, there has been a large amount of "balancing" put into the current menagerie of ships, that balance the abilities of one ship vs. the other, so that, given two pilots of relatively equal skill, the fight will be more or less fair. So if new ships came out every 6 months or so, we'd be continually rehashing the arguments of "balance" in the game. Plus there's not enough folks at GuildSW to be building, testing, refining and finishing new ship models every 6 months.

Regarding #2, this has been raised before, specifically Itani ships are supposed to have shields. However, they've never been implemented, possibly due to other production constraints. Itani ships should have shields. Serco ships have armor. UIT ships use both, I suppose. The backstory is a great plan, but it's not implemented fully.

I agree with #3. Actually there IS a large vessel called the Constellation which is actually larger than a Capship, but it's not pilotable by players yet. But a nice mid-range ship that held 1500 cargo would be cool, if very unwieldy to pilot and impossible to dock. (You may have noticed that the Behemoth BARELY fits into the docking port.)

Regarding #4 and #5, I think that perhaps your own prejudices are coming into the fold here. I never found the ships to be hard to obtain or difficult to obtain, I found them "just right."

I give your review a C+. Would have had a B- but I took off points for spelling and grammar.

I suggest we lock this thread down.

If Kevin Marsh wanted to reply, he would have already. Plus, why would he. Y'all already ripped him a new one about his spelling and dislike of the return key.

*lock*

Please

Probably wise...

I was playing with the idea of doing a graphic of people up on a stage, dancing, dressed as a prom, a valk and a maud.

[locked]

For Whistler's revenge...