Evochron my personal review...

[CodeFreak]

Dear Community

I decided to share my views on Evechron freeform trading and combat game as everyone know..

I have played game now over 1 week and achieved good grasp of what game can offer. Have made easy money, built stations explored and traded. I will look at couple game play options and mainly discuss them from my personal view.

Combat

Combat system in Evechron is tuned, fine-tuned and tuned again I believe it is very responsive and immersive and can be overwhelming for new players but once the learning curve and mindless joystick adjustments are done it becomes a truly enjoyable experience. You can adjust shields, you can use countermeasures you can have such diversity of strategies applied in every fight that it can be memorable experience and any sci fi geeks such as me dream come true.

Missions

Missions at the start were fun but then very quickly became too repetitive. Even thought the combat actions might vary the actual missions where the same i.e either go blow up the asteroids (we love it) or clean the solar panels( seriously not fun), or do the stealth missions, delivery missions or do the patrol missions and that's about it(I might have left one or two out). It starts to feel very monotonous very quickly. I believe this has to be addressed in future expansions since it is main aspect of single player and even multiplayer. The developer should think about adding variety of missions, implementing missions that make feel player that they are actually doing them because they are fun and rewarding. Having missions vary in AI strategies would add more spice to it (for example allow Ai apply different patterns of flying such as formations.

Trading

This is where I believe Evechron has failed to achieve. The trading system in this game is very nicely put: pointless, not enjoyable and very neglected. Now why do I think so and how can I back it up? Well lets just say that there is no complexity to it, its just way too simple and linear. You go to station a you buy stuff and you sell it in station b. The prices never change (even though there is claims market fluctuates, it never does unless you building your own stations), market never adjusts to overwhelming amount of same items to be supplied i.e I can sell missile defence system thousand times and it will always sell for same price in that specific system there is no dynamic and realistic feel.

I believe the developer in this particular case Vice should actually take a look at games such as eve online and x3 where market system might not be the most perfect but they are dynamic and ever changing and keeps players interested. There is no point of creating trade routes when its always the same trade route face it we all know it.... it is pearl and unknown system.

If I be coding this game I would most likely completely change market system to be player driven with touch of Npc trading. Such market systems are fun and introduces great diversity of game play.
Because trading is not developed in this game it also affects major factors in game play. Factors such I made my first bill second day I started this game. I think there is something wrong with that. Surly it should not be that easy but it is. That kind of amount of money should be actually lot harder to achieve because harder is more fun having billions of money just takes away one part of game play no pilot any more even bother with i.e trading unless there is need to top up billions of money you already have.

Money

It is impossible to actually go broke or spend all the money. For amounts of money any player actually earns there is just no where to put it. I have now over 2 billion I have made stations bought bunch of different missiles bought 10 different hulls rented station licenses and I still don't know where to waist it all. This just comes back to trading part there is necessity for decant market and being able to buy things that would actually be one time useable (not only fuel, missiles, stealth) but having one time usable ship parts or gun parts.

Stations

Way too cheap seriously I bought one building constructor and deployable and I can basically populate whole universe with stations yes there is fee but seriously one million just to build station this should be something super expensive and not an easy thing to do.

Planets

Planets are very beautiful part of this game where you can explore, mine, trade and just being able to land would be enough or is it? There is nothing else to do on planets apart of those things mentioned above. And before anyone jumps a gun that there is patch coming with Terrain walkers, I am aware however it wont add much to game play instead there will be planets you will be able to walk on not only fly on... Oh yes you will be able to fight other people in your terrain walker, sounds great doesn't it but then there is issue there are 100s of planets and in multiplayer mode I ever seen only 14 people max on. So most of the time you end up just walking on empty planets unless there are specific combat ai missions added. I believe planets should be something people are able to fight on and build different clan cities or more. There should be some important planet aspects which could add more game play options.

In overall since I am already mumbling too long and I have thousand issues that are creeping up as I am typing but I like to say it is enjoyable game if you just enjoy flying and shooting stuff however if you after game that offers more such as trade exploration immense player experience Evochron fails to deliver. This is reflected on current multiplayer servers lot of clans have left or just lost interest in continuing journey in Evechron which has led to lack of pvp. I hope that developer will actually try to make any sense out of what I wrote and take some useful information to be digested it is great to fly but I think we all wished there just would be more things to do and mainly have fun doing same old things over and over again.

CodeFreak


[Edited on 01-17-1986 by CodeFreak]

[Edited on 01-17-1986 by CodeFreak]

[Spencer]

Welcome to the game CodeFreak! Do you play on singleplayer only? On multiplayer, contracts are a lot more fun.

[CodeFreak]

Thanks for welcome, I only play on multiplayer

[Edited on 01-17-1986 by CodeFreak]

[Busch]

Hey CodeFreak! Welcome to the game/sim and community! Vice really does try to provide a balance in the game, so that all may achieve successes. Admittedly, there are some challenging features, as well as those which may put you to sleep/are repetitious/etc. All part of the game! There's some "sand-box", and then there's the meta-game (PvP and every thing else !). In the words of P.T. Barnum, "You can't please all the people, all the time". Vice strives mightly!

[Edited on 9-6-2012 by Busch]

[Edited on 9-6-2012 by Busch]

[Marvin]

In the words of P.T. Barnum, "You can't please all the people, all the time".

This one I knew: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_ ... ery_minute

[-splosives-]

PvP is where the real fun is at in evochron.
It is also the ultimate challenge.

[CodeFreak]

PvP can be fun very true but when there is actually no one to pvp I think it becomes another issue. We have around 5 servers only out of those 5 there is only 2 English servers starport and galactica. Galactica been offline for this week which leaves only startport. During week I have only seen max 8 people online including myself. To pvp same people over and over again does not amount to great amount of fun. Like I said certain asspects of gameplay need to be revived in order to generate intrest in Evechron which would encourage more people to join in and establish new clans.

[Star King]

CodeFreak I agree with you to a point. There needs to be a better war scenario then running contracts to knock down a clans percentage. Please join us at our nightly PvP battles on Starport 6.

[Marvin]

Back in the good ol' days of the original Combat Flight Sim, flying in the Zone was great. PvP and FFA were time-killers, something to do while you waited for a few more guys to show up for some Axis-versus-Allies missions. Those missions required tactics and skill and were the reason CFS lasted so long, spawned so many mods, and resulted in two follow-on games. Missions. Only two teams. Two. Teams. Four or five on a side. Teams. (Yay!)

[Star King]

Marvin you are right on!!!!

Now your talking my language!!!!!

[DaveK]

Hi CodeFreak!

You have raised many valid points but here are a few things to consider (in no particular order)

I am charged 35 million for stations (though Sapphire is dead cheap) and 50 million for a license (in cheapy 'ole Sapphire) and closer to 100 million in high tech systems - prices (like contracts) are related to your bank balance!

There are many many (>100) uncharted systems to find - asteroid caves to explore - skills like jumping through blackholes to develop and several significant systems that are off the map that are mentioned in the Evochron history

An issue with lack of big teams is that there are players in Oz, USA, Europe, so some are coming on after breakfast just as I'm off for my bedtime shower - lots of servers is good but it does spread players more thinly.

You can develop your own trade routes in uncharted systems - just for the fun of creating something for the community

Land on Earth - major bragging rights

Land on a gas giant - pretty good bragging rights!

help newbies - before RL got in the way for the boss of the GDF, its role (a non-clan clan) was helping those in need and defending the weak - it was good fun and very satisfying if that's your thing. Individuals have taken up the role (though they had the role even when GDF was flying!)

If you want a more combat oriented experience try Arvoch Alliance

King Arthur has organised regular jousts - so there's quite a lot of pVp available, as well as many pilots willing to have a thrash if you challenge them

There are a lot of spoilers that you can ignore - the Pearl/hidden planet is the reward at the end of the IMG quest - did you really finish the quest in two days?

There is another quest available (The quest for Peace) - you can create your own quest and share it

I agree that EM is not perfect - some people lie awake at night sobbing because they can't fly capital ships - but its sandbox nature makes it very versatile and let lots of different people do their own thing but share in the community.

Vice has deliberately decided to limit the game size so that it will run on a wide variety of machines - not just the latest state of the art gaming dream machine. Have a look at the wishlist thread and then imagine the game size and requirements if they are implemented - everyone has their favourite wish list - Vice has a good track record of implementing the more popular ones

the expansion will apparently have player generated contracts, which sounds like there is scope for some imaginative challenges. Planets will rotate so there will be more work in finding things on them because their coordinates will be changing! A weapons lab sounds like it will give some of us many a happy hour creating the perfect weapon. I believe there is the option of having ship vs walker scraps if I've read things correctly!

I agree that trading is a bit "thin" but I wonder how complex it would have to be (with knock on resource requirements) to make it really interesting enough to make someone want to be just a trader. It would be great to be able to make a decent living as a trader though (though the merchants who own the stations will always make far more!) You can draw some pretty pictures using solar panel squares as pixels!

[Marvin]

An issue with lack of big teams is that there are players in Oz, USA, Europe, so some are coming on after breakfast just as I'm off for my bedtime shower - lots of servers is good but it does spread players more thinly.

Which is why each of the current crop of clans should be allied with a larger group ... where stations are built with group ID tags so that everyone in the group shares in the profit. Where the groups are big enough so that somebody from each group will more likely be on line during an attack by one of the other groups. Clans would be like states. Groups would be like countries.

Oz is a real place?

[Star King]

This is a great game and the servers that we have should be filled. Clans should be challenged everyday because this is a game and a game should not be permanent property. Change and conflict are good. Look at all the conversation this has generated.
I see how much work the current clans perform to maintain their percentage and understand why they get upset. But conflict or differenace of opinion inspires greater participation and enthusium for game play.
Creating the United Clans or United Nations limits the games growth.
This is a fantastic game with a fantastic community that is passionate.

[Edited on 12-25-2008 by Star King]

[Marvin]

Creating the United Clans or United Nations limits the games growth.

Must be a different SK who said this:

WOW! Very interesting concept!!!!! Genuis! My only thing once you go blue you stay blue! Once you go red you stay red until the war is won.

[DaveK]

Oz is a real place?

That's what the Wicked Witch of the West told me last time I chatted to her in Talison WZ

[Marvin]

WZ ... OZ ... And the "O" is the mirror image of the "W" on a QWERTY keyboard. Coincidence? I think not.