So, I’ve decided to create an alt and run through the new player experience. I like to do it from time to time, because it constantly changes and gets improved. However, this time it was different - with a lot of problems. I’m playing the game on my main since 2007., so I know that the problems which I’ve encountered do not reflect the state of the game.
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Intro video is so choppy it’s unwatchable. It’s not about my machine - it’s the same fully downloaded client as on my main and it’s running 144 FPS flat (v-synced for my monitor). Something is either being loaded in the background (I’m guessing the new instanced tutorial environment), or the video itself is bad.
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Elements of the UI are getting stuck on the monitor.
- +10 in the lower left corner is a leftover from the AIR Career program. This persists even after logging out (see the next screenshot)… only closing the game and restarting it from the launcher will remove it.
- the transparent box is a leftover from a conversation with AURA regarding NES store and PLEX. It disappeared after logging off;
- notification on the top right is activated when you take the career mission which asks you to produce a civilian shuttle. Manufacturing takes about 3-4 minutes and the notification is constantly there - unless you open the industry window and watch that exact job. Even when starting another mission from another career agent does not close it.
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Warp audio being stuck in a loop even when you are docked is still here. That is the only real bug which I’ve seen on my main… for the last… well several months if not years. Logging off resets it.
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There is a career mission where the agent provides you a gun to fit and go destroy some rats. If you already have a ship with a gun fitted, the tracking window shows “You must fit a gun” and will not show “warp to location” button, until you follow AURA’s instructions and re-fit a gun. You can manually warp to the mission location and ignore the tracker’s message, but I don’t know how intuitive that is to a new player.
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This one is not a bug, but it’s still a bad experience. By default, when you start a new account and undock, if you click on anything on the Overview window, or click on anything in space, the camera will rotate to center on that item. That’s really disorienting. The worst thing is - there is no option in any of the menus to disable it (or I couldn’t find it). Only web search showed that I can disable it with “Shift+c”.
This first impression is really bad. It shows that UI is a mess (it’s really not in the normal gameplay), audio is broken, intro video does not work,… overall a really confusing and bad experience. But, apart from the warp sound loop, the whole game is, in fact, one of the most ironed out games on the market and the example of how an online game should be built and maintained.
So, please,… pretty please,… with a cherry on top… invest some time in debugging the new player experience and Career agents to reflect the real, healthy state of the game. 