The Trip to Vegas

Out of bad novel

It was the air.

My first taste of Las Vegas air told me everything, like every breath afterwards confirmed it. All those years of wondering why Las Vegas was in the desert went away with that first surge of dry, hot, Vegas’ finest. No, that’s wrong. It was when I exhaled that I was completely sure. I was dying. There could be no better climate for the City of Sin.

Every breath you take is one step closer to death. Doesn’t matter if you’re in the Arctic or the French Riviera, Death counts the time to your harvest the way a gambling junkie keeps counting his chips. In the riviera you’re too comfortable to think of it, why ruin the mood. In the Arctic you’re too busy trying to survive. Vegas thrusts the truth at you, flaunts it like the working girl on the street corner, and laughs at the inevitable. The city is a doctor’s room; it’s performing a Kevorkian on your soul.

As your life continues to ebb and the moisture is stolen from your body, you smile. It’s warm, cozy, friendly. Your money is going – don’t worry, there’s a shiny sign here, a strip club there. You’re always just falling asleep, cozy in bed with a black widow in your room. Sooner or later it’ll crawl its way over and your time will be up. Don’t get up and worry though, it’s too comfortable in bed. This is Las Vegas, baby.

Maybe it wasn’t QUITE like that…

We don’t normally start a review with experiences about what the end of the game is like, but of course there are always exceptions. It’s not often that someone gets to experience life at the end of a MMORPG before anyone else has been halfway there, but thanks to Westwood, I did just that. Along with other select press and fansite writers, we were presented with a Galactic Rally using level 140 characters. Four teams with six members (one for each class of ship) competed to race across the virtual galaxy, using the different class abilities to defeat obstacles and challenges placed in their way. Naturally, the two teams featuring FiringSquad members tied for first place.

My boyz!

Landing my Sentinel

In all seriousness, the live event showcased in a short time just exactly what high level characters were capable of. We realize that few gamers will be given the opportunity to play in live GM events such as this. Keeping in mind that this would hardly be representative of actual gameplay but rather a way to play around with high-level characters, I am still very impressed. With only six kinds of ship, class distinctions are very clear and there is no doubt as to any single ship’s role. Everyone had a use, and teams could simply have not progressed as efficiently if at all without properly utilizing every team member. The higher the level characters in the game are, the more pronounced the differences. As the differences get bigger, so do the strengths and weaknesses of every ship, and the need to fill them. Don’t take that to mean that characters will become useless without a group. Rather, a better way of putting it is that they become more useful and fun when grouping. Soloing is viable, though as in any other MMORPG, it is difficult, risky and rather lonely.

The classes themselves

There are six playable ships from three races in Earth and Beyond, which effectively serve as classes. Three are pure classes and three hybrids. Each race has a specialty, like Exploring for Jenquai, Trade for Terrans and Combat for Progen. So if you want a specialist Trader, you pick a Terran Trader; specialized Warriors are Progen Warriors and specialized Explorers are Jenquai Explorers. The hybrid in every race also has their focused skill. Thus, the Jenquai Defender is a combination Explorer/Warrior, the Terran Enforcer is a Trader/Warrior and Progen Sentinel is a Warrior/Sentinel. Note how the focus of the race always becomes the primary part of the class. So even though both the Sentinel and Defender have Warrior and Explorer in them, their roles are still very different. The Sentinel is stronger at combat while the Defender has better exploration skills.

Chitchat

Abilities and skills

That's my baby

There is an advantage to playing each race. Terran ships have speed and a fair amount of cargo space, Progen ships are heavily armed and armored and Jenquai ships have excellent scanning and stealth. Classes have unique advantages as well. Abilities like Prospect, which allows players to mine for minerals (the most basic items in the trade system), JumpStart which acts as a sort of Raise Dead and Recharge Shields which is essentially a heal spell. Some of these are shared among a couple of ships others are unique to a single class.