So much potential gone to waste.

I played for a few months towards the end of Beta, and the first month of P2P and I too agree that it had a mass of potential, but was wasted. I remember when Ace Stars of Eurocore used to run around hacking and own our entire squad, I remember giving meds to the highest rank BoS when we raided Pegasi 51. I remember calling the GoM 'tree huggers' and mas producing meds and ammo to hand out before raids. I remember the last day of free play when i got given 2 million from a GM in game when i asked sarcastically for some spare change, and when i told some others about it and they tried to get some too, the GM spawned monsters and killed everyone. Got some nice pics of some of the colony dancing in a friend's penthouse that day....good times.

Anyhoo, I think the idea of centralising colony actions, wars etc on the higher rank players was good, especially as it was something I hadnt seen, although naturally there were a couple of downsides, such as limited money appointed to them to be offered for missions, and ultimately they never gave out very big rewards to conserve it, and the missions tended to be rather empty patrol missions. Naturally, this would be the case because if you died you lost everything aside from up to the 3 guns you had equipped and your physical money. The more real you make things, the more risky it becomes, as the surrealism is something that some people desire, and the more 'real' the cost of death is, the more scared people become. Still, at least you had the ability to kill people of any rank as soon as you start. No exp limits for anything.....at all. The game went P2P with no use of exp. the only use would be incorporated by players, and its past use for the BoS being the first 2 ranks was scrapped almost as soon as i achieved the exp

But money was a problem for multiple reasons. Some people learned to hack regarding money, so could make a shedload of items and sell them extremely cheap. Not too cheap, or itd be notiecd naturally. Second, the production system originally could be left alone whilst you run around, so tons of people were producing many at a time, and the gradual decrease in cost meant that much money was saved. The system then changed near the end of beta, and the cost figures were bizarre. i had spent a while writing down costs and testing but i couldnt figure it out.

But anyhoo....i didnt play for too long, but it was relatively fun. got to know a lot of people, still keep in touch with a couple of them, since some games in different ventrilo channels i now play, but ill never forget it. Its one of the games that you dont forget since its so player orientated and you have to involve yourself. Hope the fixed it all up for the sake of the players. ill hold onto my pics and 100mb trailer to remind me of the past, and hope its problems are all better now