Thoughts on Huxley Beta

[grumbyuk]

Hi again!
This is going to be a long post just giving my thoughts on Huxley as it stands (02-August) and explaining why I won't be playing it any more during beta, and don't plan on giving it a look after release.

First, let me just say that I loved Planetside. It was the most fun online game I've played, and I've played a good few dozen of them at least. It was a true 'MMOFPS', in that it allowed a large number of players (hundreds at a time, at least) to engage in a first-person-shooter style battle at the same time. Huxley is not, in my opinion, a 'MMOFPS'. I'll explain why a bit later on. I realise that Huxley is not, and is not meant to be, Planetside (see Grind's signature). Comparisons are inevitable given the hype and advertising for Huxley, however.

Second, I'll mention that I realise Huxley is still in beta. I've been involved in a handful of 'MMOG' betas, and I understand what this means, generally speaking (although different companies view the term 'beta' in different ways). To me, and to many games companies, 'beta' means a product is 'feature complete'. For a 'MMOG', this really means that the beta is focused on three things: stability, balance and stress/load testing. These three things are expected to be dubious during a beta, but testers/players generally should not expect any major design rework or massive changes to the game concepts; beta is pre-release, but the major game design should be essentially 'finished' and implemented by the time it reaches beta.

Third, these comments are my own, and based on my understanding of the game and how it works. I don't speak Korean, but most of the game isn't hard to understand. That said, beklite has been a great help for all of us in working out those bits that aren't obvious. Thanks again beklite!

So, with those three things out of the way, let's first look at Huxley's good points, as I see them:

G1. It's not a World of Warcraft clone! It's trying to do its own thing, which is commendable in the games market these days. Let's face it; World of Warcraft wasn't exactly original itself!

G2. The graphics are very good. I mean, thousands upon thousands of 'man-hours' must have been spent on them. The atmosphere is good, with dystopian visions mixed with images of a new beginning in construction. I'm impressed. (Although see the bad points for a couple of issues.) Webzen have some good artists; terrain and static modellers, especially.

G3. The instance levels are pretty darn well designed. I think Webzen have got some good level designers, too.

G4. For a beta, I thought stability was good. I had a few bugs, even one that made me quit to the main menu and re-login to the server a few times after getting stuck, but overall, it was very good. Far better than most betas I've been in, and it didn't crash once on my aging PC (with a 7600GT).


Unfortunately, from my point of view, these things are outweighed by what I see as the bad points:

B1. It's not quite completely not a World of Warcraft clone! The PVE aspects of the game seem to me to be a cross between Hellgate London and World of Warcraft. The grind is unbearable as a solo player. Playing as part of a squad, the PVE aspects get a little better, and it's more fun for a while, but by level 12-14, it's really wearing thin. Farming monsters for items and quests is just so much like WoW that it causes flashbacks in my brain. There are two things better about the PVE in Huxley than WoW, however: there's some skill involved (it's not just clicking a skill button; you actually have to be good at FPS twitch gameplay), and the graphics are much better than WoW. The grind is one of my two major gripes.

B2. There's no variation in characters. A human male is roughly the same as a human female, and they're both roughly the same as the alternates. To make it even worse, at low to medium levels at least, everyone of a certain class gets enough skill points to buy all of the skills available at a given level, and there are really only five of those levels (1, 11, 21, 31 and 41). The difference between a level 11 character and a level 15 character, for example, is fairly minimal -- they both have the same abilities, the level 15 character is generally just tougher, with better items, shields, etc. Even with limited skill points, there are only some few skills for each class that are worth getting, so everyone ends up the same within the class anyway!

B3. Character creation is minimal. Four body shapes (two human, two alternate), with only ways to change hairstyles (only a few per model), hair colour, and face shape. The facial changes are extensive, but ... the models still look the same. This leads to the two big cities (human and alternate) looking like they're full of clones, which detracts from the graphical impressiveness significantly. There's also nothing you can change about your character at creation, or through the game (see B2, above), so the clone armies don't get any better as the characters progress. My level 16 Phantom is the same as the next level 16 Phantom. Just pick whichever character model looks the best, really; there are only very minor differences (beklite explains in one of his posts just what those differences are, and which character is best for each class).

B4. Monster variation is minimal. I've only seen a few different monster types in over a week of playing! There are the weird reptile-like things, the HLOs, the blobby explosive things, the big guys with guns or rockets, and the humanoid guy with cool hair and two pistols. Oh, and the humans and alternates. That's it! Half a dozen different monster models, with a few different textures each. That's pretty disappointing, although I am hoping that the full release will have a few more monster types at least!

B5. (And here we get to my other major gripe.) The game is not a 'MMOFPS' game, regardless of the hype. The PVE sections are instanced. You can go into them individually, or as a squad, but they're certainly not what anyone would call 'massively multiplayer'. There is no non-instanced, persistent PVE section to the game (and I don't see this changing after beta, as this is a major design decision). Okay, so PVE is not 'MMO', what about the PVP? Nope. There are two types of PVP: deathmatch ('virtual battles') and battlegrounds (available through a metro station in each city). Deathmatch is currently only for up to 8v8 battles, although I'm sure Webzen could increase this to 16v16 or 32v32 without too much trouble (I mean, look at Quake Wars, Unreal Tournament, Team Fortress 2, etc.); even then, though, it's by no means 'massively multiplayer'. So that just leaves the battleground battles, which we were told in various interviews would be up to 100v100 players -- still not as big as Planetside, but at least getting there. Unfortunately, though, in beta these are limited to 24v24! Not massive at all! So I'm hoping these battleground battles will at least get pumped up to 100v100 before release, assuming Webzen fix the lag issues (which I think they will), but I still wouldn't call 200 players 'massively multiplayer'.

B6. Persistence. The PVE sections are not persistent. If I go in and do quest 'x' that lets me fix a teleporter, that should fix the teleporter for everyone. But because the PVE sections are instanced, they're always set to the same initial state for everyone, and that state changes based on whether you're doing a set quest in the instance, or just randomly farming monsters. This made me very sad. If I'm going to be grinding for hours, I at least want my actions to have some effect on the game world. But, no. If I go into the sewer and there's a crate with a monster in it, and the monster bursts out and attacks me. Next time I go in the sewer, the crate is magically resealed, and the monster bursts out again.

B7. The cities are almost empty of NPCs. There are a few dozen hanging around dancing, talking, loitering, etc, but the cities are big! Where are all of the thousands of people going about their business? They feel very empty, even for a new society in a dystopian world.

B8. Even though the graphics are impressive, I kept finding invisible walls, which really helped to destroy the great atmosphere. Two examples: 1. In an instance area on a broken highway, which looked very cool, there was a section of broken road heading up at a shallow angle. I wanted to see what the view was like from the top of it, so I ran over to it and tried to run up it. I got about two steps up and hit an invisible wall -- I just couldn't go any further. Why not? The designers should really have put a visible barrier if they didn't want people going through that way.

B9. I can't comment on the stress/load testing in the city areas as I don't know how many people were logged in. I didn't have any issues there, but for the small number of players in the battlefields, lag was very bad. Certainly no Planetside or Team Fortress 2. I would expect this to be fixed before release, though, so this is only a minor issue for me -- that's what a beta's for!

B10. Balance is, as beklite and others have mentioned, terrible! Again, though, this doesn't matter to me; I would expect Webzen to address these issues before release -- this is also what a beta is for!

B11. The battlefield battles are broken, in that respawn camping is rife. The battles I played in, people would continually camp on the two or three different respawn points, so a lot of the time, characters are killed, respawn, and are killed again instantly. I think they will address this in beta, so it should not be a long term issue. If not, it really spoils the battles.

B12. Monsters respawn in PVE instances, even when there's no logical reason. This really detracts from the atmosphere, and ruins the sense of 'immersion' in the game. If I've cleared a section of a building, and I'm walking along through it, having a monster suddenly appear out of thin air right in front of me is not good for the atmosphere of the game. This could usually be addressed with some creative level design (so I'm surprised it hasn't been!), having an area that logically makes sense for monsters to spawn from. It's only a minor issue, but it does detract from the experience a lot.

B13. The game rewards grinders. Planetside was great in that a new player could take on any other player. Sure, they wouldn't have all of the certifications of an experienced player, but even a reserve (free player) could jump in a tank and cause mass havoc on the battlefield, or cloak and hack a base. Huxley is not like that, though. If you're class D (< level 21) in a battle, you will lose to a class C or B character. There's no way around that in Huxley, except by grinding until you reach that level, too, which is disappointing. Any supposed 'MMO' game needs to reward players who spend many hours every day, as these players are the long-running player base. However, the game also needs to ensure that new players, and those who can't play for hours each day, can enjoy the multiplayer aspects of the game. Huxley doesn't attempt to do that, which is a shame.

So, what is Huxley, then? Well, it's not a 'MMOFPS', I'm sure.

The cities are like big 'lobby' areas. You can chat, buy and sell items, and spend skill points. And walk around looking at the pretty graphics (and sometimes not being able to walk through completely open bits because of invisible walls). The cities could conceivably support hundreds or thousands of players so I'm happy to concede that the cities are 'massively multiplayer' ... but they're not a game! They're just lobby areas -- like graphical chat and character management areas. Huxley is only really a 'MMOG' in the same way that Guildwars is, and I don't consider that to be really a MMOG at all!

The instances are well designed (apart from a few minor issues), and are definitely FPS game areas, but they're not massively multiplayer.

Finally, the battlefields and virtual battles are the focus of the multiplayer aspect of the game. The deathmatch areas (virtual battles) are pretty good, but again, not massively multiplayer, so they're comparable to any other deathmatch game. In my opinion, though, Huxley's virtual battles aren't as fun as say, Team Fortress 2, or even Gunz sometimes! So what about the battlefields? Well, at the moment they're not massively multiplayer either, and even if they get to the reported 100v100 battles, they're still not as massive as Planetside.

So where's the 'MMOFPS' bit, then?

Given that it's not a 'MMOFPS', what is it? Well, it seems to me it's a bit like this:

It's a 'massively multiplayer' virtual world lobby, but that's not very entertaining; it doesn't have tons of emotes, it doesn't have subgames, or user-created items, or anything else like Second Life. So the 'MMO' cities in Huxley are really just there as a pretty way to get character and inventory management done, and to link together the other bits -- not really a focus of the game.

It's a deathmatch FPS, with some nice levels and limited numbers of characters playing at once, so it's not quite as good at this as die-hard deathmatch games, like Quake, Unreal or Team Fortress types of games, not to mention many, many others.

It's a PVE FPS with some roleplaying elements, but this is instanced, and non-persistent, and only a small number of players (a squad) can do this together. It's pretty good at this, sort of like Hellgate London, but better.
And finally, it's a battlefield type FPS, with currently very limited numbers of players, but this will apparently get bigger after beta. In this aspect, it's like Planetside, but nowhere near as good.

So overall, it seems to me that Huxley could be very good, but I don't think it will be, and it's not because of minor issues that should be fixed after/during beta, like lag, balance issues, or whatever. Unfortunately, it's because of major design decisions that have been made to make it the four things just mentioned: a virtual world (not as good as Second Life), a deathmatch FPS (not as good as many others), a PVE FPS (and a good one!) and a battlefield FPS (not as good as Planetside).

I think it's a great vision of the designers to try to tie all of these things together, but for me, it's not what I want. So, even though it's in beta, and things will get better, Webzen is not going to change the major design of the game.

If I wanted to 'play' a massively multiplayer virtual world, I'd go to Second Life.

If I wanted to play a deathmatch game, I'd go to any of a number of other games out there that do it better.

If I wanted to play a PVE grind FPS, I would play Huxley. But I don't want to play that game, and if I did, I already own Hellgate London, which does it almost as well as Huxley does, so I still wouldn't pay to play Huxley (although I might play it for free if I wanted an individual or squad-level PVE grind FPS).

But, most disappointing for me, at least, is this: I want to play a large-scale (massively multiplayer) battlefield FPS. Planetside did this well, but is, in all honesty, on its last legs. I had hoped Huxley would do this at least as well (or better!) than Planetside, but it just isn't going to do so. The sheer number of players, choice of vehicles and weapons, and 'openness' for new and old players alike in Planetside just is not designed into Huxley, and this design will not change before release -- it's the core that makes Huxley what it is. So, if I want to play a 'MMO' battlefield game (and I do), Planetside is still a much better choice than Huxley, even though Sony is happy to let Planetside slide into oblivion as I type.

I still hold out some hope for Sony's The Agency, but it looks like it's going to be small-scale deathmatch rather than large-scale battles. I wonder if there will ever be something to pick up Planetside's rusty crown and run with it...?

And thanks again to this community! I've only been here for a week -- long enough to see that Huxley isn't for me -- but you've all been very helpful. Beklite, especially -- you have been a Huxley help god these past few days!

[beklite]

It is unexpectable you are not a Korean

How about visiting my country?

[Grind]

It seems like you're really tied up in the fact that you aren't experiencing the game with tons of people.

You mention there not being a lot of NPCs in the city but I'd think they would add more upon release.

Also you mention that the deathmatch games don't have a lot of people in them but that it will probably get expanded for release. However it seems like this still affects your decision negatively about the game.

Same with the territorial battles. You mention they aren't 100 vs 100 right now but probably will be at release. Yet it still seems like you're thinking negatively about the final outcome of the game because they don't have enough people fighting in the battle during beta.

Now don't get me wrong, Planetside was an awesome game with epic battles. And I know they had up to 300 players in their battles. But did you ever see, literally 300 players all in the same little area that you were in?

For all I know, you could have. Or you could just make up a story and say you could have. Or you might have been in a really epic battle that seemed like all 300 people were in the same place.

Either way. Huxley's gameplay seems a lot more hectic than that of Planetside. There's a lot more grenade and rocket spam and spraying of bullets all over the place. Now you can't really expect much from beta PvP.

For one thing, it's not going to be organized. Those epic PvP battles you had in Planetside were probabaly organized. A bunch of people dropping into a base while a seperate force attacks from land takes some organization and probably some clan work.

Huxley's beta probably doesn't have any organization (correct me if I'm wrong) and if it has clans in place, they probably don't do anything.

Therefore you can't really expect huge base seiges with 100 people rushing in at once. However, once the game has been released and clans form up, that kind of thing will happen.

Can you imagine what 200 people fighting at the same time in a game like Huxley would be like? Probably pretty intense. Though I'm not sure if the territory PvP has things like big bases that you need to attack and stuff like that.

And about the customization of characters. I too was very dissapointed when I started hearing things about the lack of difference between characters (IE they all have the same abilities, guns and armor). This all seems very strange to me because Huxley was always advertising that they would have something like 100 different abilities (that lead to a bunch of different combinations since you can hold up to 5 in battle) with tons of different guns that could be upgraded with things like poison rockets.

All I can think about that, is that they don't have all the content in the game for beta. I assume they'll add more types of armor and guns, as well as abilities, before the game gets launched. But that's only if they stay true to their word.

Again, it seems like you're held up on things that can be fixed. If you don't like the gameplay (UT/Quake style) then I completely understand. But it seems like you don't mind fast pace FPS games. Most of your complaints can be fixed before release and don't seem like reasons to put off the entire game forever.

Hopefully webzen gets a lot of feedback from the beta testers. And hopefully once the English beta rolls around we'll give them a lot of feedback too. AAAAAND hopefully they'll listen, and fix the game

[RGPJ23]

Originally Posted by Grind

It seems like you're really tied up in the fact that you aren't experiencing the game with tons of people.

You mention there not being a lot of NPCs in the city but I'd think they would add more upon release.

Also you mention that the deathmatch games don't have a lot of people in them but that it will probably get expanded for release. However it seems like this still affects your decision negatively about the game.

Same with the territorial battles. You mention they aren't 100 vs 100 right now but probably will be at release. Yet it still seems like you're thinking negatively about the final outcome of the game because they don't have enough people fighting in the battle during beta.

Now don't get me wrong, Planetside was an awesome game with epic battles. And I know they had up to 300 players in their battles. But did you ever see, literally 300 players all in the same little area that you were in?

For all I know, you could have. Or you could just make up a story and say you could have. Or you might have been in a really epic battle that seemed like all 300 people were in the same place.

Either way. Huxley's gameplay seems a lot more hectic than that of Planetside. There's a lot more grenade and rocket spam and spraying of bullets all over the place. Now you can't really expect much from beta PvP.

For one thing, it's not going to be organized. Those epic PvP battles you had in Planetside were probabaly organized. A bunch of people dropping into a base while a seperate force attacks from land takes some organization and probably some clan work.

Huxley's beta probably doesn't have any organization (correct me if I'm wrong) and if it has clans in place, they probably don't do anything.

Therefore you can't really expect huge base seiges with 100 people rushing in at once. However, once the game has been released and clans form up, that kind of thing will happen.

Can you imagine what 200 people fighting at the same time in a game like Huxley would be like? Probably pretty intense. Though I'm not sure if the territory PvP has things like big bases that you need to attack and stuff like that.

And about the customization of characters. I too was very dissapointed when I started hearing things about the lack of difference between characters (IE they all have the same abilities, guns and armor). This all seems very strange to me because Huxley was always advertising that they would have something like 100 different abilities (that lead to a bunch of different combinations since you can hold up to 5 in battle) with tons of different guns that could be upgraded with things like poison rockets.

All I can think about that, is that they don't have all the content in the game for beta. I assume they'll add more types of armor and guns, as well as abilities, before the game gets launched. But that's only if they stay true to their word.

Again, it seems like you're held up on things that can be fixed. If you don't like the gameplay (UT/Quake style) then I completely understand. But it seems like you don't mind fast pace FPS games. Most of your complaints can be fixed before release and don't seem like reasons to put off the entire game forever.

Hopefully webzen gets a lot of feedback from the beta testers. And hopefully once the English beta rolls around we'll give them a lot of feedback too. AAAAAND hopefully they'll listen, and fix the game

Amen Grind, some people sould not try a beta and think like they were playing a demo. a battlefield with more then 100 vs 100 is too much lol.

[Grind]

Originally Posted by RGPJ23

Amen Grind, some people sould not try a beta and think like they were playing a demo. a battlefield with more then 100 vs 100 is too much lol.

Well I mean, a map can always be made bigger to fit more players. With streaming technology and all that crazy stuff I don't understand. I'm sure they could have insanely huge battles. Some MMORPGs boast way over hundreds of people fighting at once.

But I guess it's just the developers choice in how the want the game to play out. I probably couldn't tell the difference between 200 and 300 players. Some people probably can. I'm really excited for Huxley to be really hectic all the time. Some people want a slower game.

But you're right, you definitely can't look at a beta as a demo (not that grumbyuk did), but I have definitely seen a couple reviews by people who didn't really have anything good to say at all and it was pretty clear they were expecting a finished copy of Planetside 2 but were very disappointed when they found a completely different and unfinished game.

I guess we'll all just have to keep waiting for that realistic MMOFPS of our dreams. In the meantime I'm excited to see what Huxley has to offer.

[HaSh]

Its kind of like alot of MMOs in BETA, even if the stuff they promised isnt out at release, there is always updates, take WoW for example, look how much its changed since release, even release of BC.

[Grind]

Originally Posted by HaSh

Its kind of like alot of MMOs in BETA, even if the stuff they promised isnt out at release, there is always updates, take WoW for example, look how much its changed since release, even release of BC.

Very true. WoW planned to have Hero classes in the game on release. When the game did release, there were no hero classes. Now, 3 or 4 years later, on their second expansion they're finally adding ONE class, the death knight. They've added tons of PvP content, and a ridiculous amount of PvE content.

But to be honest, I don't want to wait 3 years for Huxley to give me all that it's promised. So hopefully they'll do a good job and fix the beta problems.

[Goldenrice]

IMO grumb is right, you guys all expect big changes from KR beta to EU/NA beta to live version, but its WEBZEN, known for failing to advertise their games, and have constant updates/pactches for them

personally i think this game is a joke, other than the nice graphics, the RPG factor is way out of date,the AI is like playing halo on easy..... the FPS factor is mediocre, and the MMO factor reminds me of guild wars

not to mention ijji is developing/publishing the EU/NA versions of the game....IJJI.........why in the fuck would they let ijji fuck over a half assed game?????

[FuLLBLeeD]

Originally Posted by Goldenrice

IMO grumb is right, you guys all expect big changes from KR beta to EU/NA beta to live version, but its WEBZEN, known for failing to advertise their games, and have constant updates/pactches for them

personally i think this game is a joke, other than the nice graphics, the RPG factor is way out of date,the AI is like playing halo on easy..... the FPS factor is mediocre, and the MMO factor reminds me of guild wars

not to mention ijji is developing/publishing the EU/NA versions of the game....IJJI.........why in the fuck would they let ijji fuck over a half assed game?????

Kids got a point...

[Grind]

Originally Posted by FuLLBLeeD

Kids got a point...

Definitely. I don't know much about IJJI, but so far all I've heard is bad things, so I'm not too happy about that.

To be honest, the main reason I'm trying to throw in Huxley's side of the story is because I still have some blind faith that it just might be a good game lol.


But still, the changes aren't that big.

Balancing? Every game goes through that.

Adding more content? (armor/weapons etc.) every RPG type game goes through that.

Having a beta that doesn't include all of the content the full released game will? I just figure they'll add it in before it gets released.


Yes the game isn't as MMO as we wanted it to be. But honestly, fighting in 200 player battles is enough for me. And if I jump into some train to head off to a battle, when really that train ride just subs for loading times into an instance, well that's enough for me to RP riding a train into battle lol.

[Goldenrice]

Originally Posted by Grind

Definitely. I don't know much about IJJI, but so far all I've heard is bad things, so I'm not too happy about that.

To be honest, the main reason I'm trying to throw in Huxley's side of the story is because I still have some blind faith that it just might be a good game lol.


But still, the changes aren't that big.

Balancing? Every game goes through that.

Adding more content? (armor/weapons etc.) every RPG type game goes through that.

Having a beta that doesn't include all of the content the full released game will? I just figure they'll add it in before it gets released.


Yes the game isn't as MMO as we wanted it to be. But honestly, fighting in 200 player battles is enough for me. And if I jump into some train to head off to a battle, when really that train ride just subs for loading times into an instance, well that's enough for me to RP riding a train into battle lol.

(this is just my speculation, i haven't tried KR beta PvP yet so don't know all the modes of it)
200v200 DM seems stupid, first to 2000 kills wins? 10 kills each weee.....
there should be base defense concept (protect your *king*, kill the other teams *king*), CTF, mass PvPvE where you fight not only other race but PvE mobs as well, i could and im sure a lot of people could go on for days, the developers missed out on an amazing oppurtunity to make this game good


you guys want this game to get good, spam spam spam the *official forums* of huxley whenever that is released after/before beta of every little problem and hope the devs listen


some games you guys ought to be excited about are some of NCSoft's recently announced MMOG's "Blade & Soul" and "Metal Black"

[Grind]

Originally Posted by Goldenrice

(this is just my speculation, i haven't tried KR beta PvP yet so don't know all the modes of it)
200v200 DM seems stupid, first to 2000 kills wins? 10 kills each weee.....
there should be base defense concept (protect your *king*, kill the other teams *king*), CTF, mass PvPvE where you fight not only other race but PvE mobs as well, i could and im sure a lot of people could go on for days, the developers missed out on an amazing oppurtunity to make this game good


you guys want this game to get good, spam spam spam the *official forums* of huxley whenever that is released after/before beta of every little problem and hope the devs listen


some games you guys ought to be excited about are some of NCSoft's recently announced MMOG's "Blade & Soul" and "Metal Black"

That battles are actually 100vs100 not 200vs 200. It's not only deathmatch games, they have capture the flag (parts pick up), territory control (like BF2), as well as areas that are PvPvE.

Still, the game does need work.

[grumbyuk]

Originally Posted by beklite

It is unexpectable you are not a Korean

How about visiting my country?

Heh. I'd love to visit Korea, beklite, but that's just not possible at the moment, unfortunately. I'm continually amazed at how many Korean online games are produced, though!

Goldenrice, thanks for the tip; I'll have a look at the two games you mentioned.

I'm glad I've provoked a bit of discussion among the group, and I hope Huxley gives you all many hours of fun. As beklite says, good hunting!

[beklite]

If I played Planetside without ping and language problem,

I shouldn't play Huxley

Only one advantage of Huxley is graphic

Sad situation