Greetings,

This game has awesome potential. I love the feeling of being out in deep space exploring. Flying through the asteroids is so cool. I love mining.

But I found the game to have a very high learning curve. It took me three trial periods to earn a license. It was very frustrating. I would have quit after the first trial but I realized the game was new and wanted to see if thiings got easier and to give feedback.

The interface is too DOS like and uniintuitive. I struggled a few hours trying to scan asteroids, then someone told me to hit the "b" key. I ket getting killed over and over again in in storms while tying to run cargo missions and losing everything.

During my 24 hours of play reading the chats I saw many other new players express the same sentiments. The veteran players disagree. Thats because they have played so long and learned the interface as it was developed.

I think the xp required for the first licenses should be half of what they are to help compensate for the high learning curve so new players will be sure to accomplish something.

I think there should be a survey on the website for new players to take after the trial. I don't think it is realized how difficult the game is too learn.

Thanks

Thanks for your comments. Those were well thought out.

What would help is two things:

Less arrogance on the part of vets, who think just because combat/trade is easy for them that everyone should not have trouble; and more tutorial missions that cover intermediate and advanced combat, trading, mining, etc.

the interface pretty much has to be keyboard driven because most players use the mouse for flight. Personally, i prefer it over something like eve becuase once you're used to it, its a lot faster.

The learning curve is very high between collectors and assaults/guardians...but there will always be a point where you need to learn more tactics (unless you are me, in which case you somehow made it to chaos swarms and still only dodge left/right).

To be honest, the best advice for new players is to join a guild, they tend to be eager to help new players learn the game.

I agree myko, joining a guild early on helps immensely. I can recommend the Elite guild for this - it has seen many players 'graduate' in the last few days, leaving to join other guilds as their profiency has increased.

I've only been here since the 12th November, so I still consider myself a newbie, and therefore able to give a newbie perspective.

I too struggled to progress to level 1 and beyond, until someone offered to mentor me - all they had to do was give me some good advice, which saw me attain the low levels quickly (concentrate on the basic combat mission until it's no longer available - I was trying the advanced one too soon).

There is a steep learning curve, however it is mitigated by reading the manual, reading the FAQ, and reading some of the threads on the message boards (especially the one about binds!). The more you spend on preparation, the more you will get out of the game.

I'm no uber pilot, but after 4 1/2 days game time I have managed to attain 8/10/9/7/0 levels, and I'm now starting to enjoy the PvP aspect of the game. Joining a purpose oriented guild also enhances the RPG element of the game.

Overall I'm pleased with the game, and my decision to subscribe (currently on a month by month basis). I'm especially impressed by the devs commitment to new features, rebalancing, and bug fixing. They appear to have attained an awesome reputation during the alpha/beta stages. I only hope that they can retain that in the face of a downpour of suggestions from players old and new - they can't implement everyone's suggestions straight away, and some of them have been amazing ideas.

I'll have to agree with you on the keyboard thing. Vendetta *badly* needs better documentation...