There is a new Sci-fi MMO out called Perpetuum. This game comes to us from Avatar Creations Inc. out of Budapest, Hungary. The basic premise is that you work for a corporation controlling a robot/Mech that is on another planet. The need is to control the planet and it’s energy resources because we here on good ol’ planet earth have run out. Hmm. Shades of the future?
I think that is what I find most intriguing about the game. The back story has just enough shades of how things are today to make the world you join more viable. A quick bit of the story background. Basically, the governments of the planet were doing a really bad job and were overridden by the corporations. The major corporations for the 3 main factions formed a syndicate to control the new planet and take over it’s resources for our energy needs. There’s one hitch. The planet is inhabited by a robot race.
The game includes questing in the form of assignments. There is mining and crafting as well as the usual military style play and of course the currier quests. The market is player driven much like Eve and Planet Calypso(Entropia). Leveling is a bit different. You don’t buy skill books or pay a trainer to learn new skills. You are given so many extension points per account per minute for the time the account is active. You can spend those along with some cash to either learn a new program(extension) or upgrade one you already have. This is a sandbox style game with pvp.
The controls are a little different. I am accustom to playing most games in angel view with the ability to zoom in to first person and you are looking the direction you are traveling in. The robots don’t handle quite the same, or if they do I didn’t find the setting. You may not be looking the direction you are traveling and that can be a challenge to overcome if you play other MMO’s. It will take some time to re-program your brain. You can control that by changing your view as you go.
The mechanics of fighting are also a little different. Like in Eve it takes time to acquire your target and then you have to set it to active before you can start shooting at it. The mining mechanics are even more different. You have to do a large area scan and then a small area scan and you have to have charges for doing the scans for a particular type of resource. Then you have to target the area you want to mine and have mining charges for that particular resource. It’s a bit more involved than say World of Warcraft, Everquest II, or even Eve, though that one can get more complex.
When you loot the robots that you fight you sometimes get these shard type things that you research. When you do this it will give you a percentage of the knowledge for creating an item. It will not always give you the same item. One may give you 7% of the knowledge to create a particular kind of bullet and the next my give you 20% knowledge on how to create a miner. The crafting/manufacturing processes on the surface seems a bit complex and expensive. However, I must confess, I have not played it long enough to really get involved in that part. I did play long enough to want to purchase stuff from the market. However, at just a few days into public launch, the market, being player driven, was not very developed in the area I was.
The social aspect of it felt a little isolated to me. You start off in an NPC corporation, one of the major ones in the syndicate. There are player created corporations as well, like guilds, societies, or corporations in other games. I have not gotten involved in these. There is the corporation chat channel and probably a more global chat. It’s very easy to turn these off and so I didn’t pay attention. It is also easy to filter the other players out of your HUD list so you only see your targets. This too has it’s dangers. Because of that ease of filtering you can find yourself very isolated in the game.
The game is prices comparable to other MMO’s at $10 to $15 (USD) per month for play. I think that’s reasonable. When I paid they were running a special at $10 for a month though the normal is $15.
So overall, I like the game. I like the sci-fi concept and it being planet side instead of in space. Space based games are sometimes very dark visually and there are days that that really doesn’t appeal to me. Not to say that Perpetuum is all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a little dark visually as well with some variations. While I will probably spend more time playing it, and paying for it, it isn’t likely to be my main go to game when I want to play. I didn’t find it engaging enough that I was compelled to go back to it right away after I had been out of town for a couple of days. I think I loaded it once or twice after that. Some of that is the isolation and some of it has to do with my preferences. I really have to be in the mood to play a sci-fi MMO. I think it is something about the genre. They tend to be more involved, require more commitment to really advance to anything other than a grunt warrior. Not that I think that’s bad. When I’m really in a thinking mood where I need or want something really complicated and involved, I want a sci-fi MMO to play. And Perpetuum is likely to be my next go to game for that.
Just a note: I’ve included the link to the website at the top so you can get all the information on game play and story line yourself. It is quite developed and there is no way, especially with the little time I have spent in the game, that I can come close to filling in all the details of information that you may want or need for getting involved in Perpetuum. Therefore, I encourage you to visit the website at: www.perpetuum-online.com
Cheers and see you in the machine.
Originally published at: suguayproductions.com/joomla which has been discontinued.
