Perpetuum - Online

Kokeshi

what is perpetuum,

http://www.perpetuum-online.com/

perpetuum is a mech based mmorpg, with a very similar UI to that of eve-online, with a similar skill system , as in that you save up EP (rather than sp) over time and spend it once accumulated (meaning you don’t have to set alarm clock skill changes) other similarities to eve is the open world environment and the singular persistent server/universe.

its still in its infant stages (currently the server is down pending release tomorrow)with a very small self start-up developer team of less than 10 people.
I personally have been playing for a year now closed beta and open beta, and I’m amazed it has come so far since then, for release I have become a GM (that is why I created a new boards account to keep my GM status clean), and have noticed a certain lack of Irish presence with in the game as both a gm and a very involved community figure.

after playing eve for 6 years and getting fed up with it, and looking for something similar enough to enjoy the same way, but different enough not to p*** me off this was a comfortable home.

There is allot of eve zealots out there who almost get angry when you compare a game to eve, but it’s like reinventing the wheel, when a circle is the obvious best way to go. But the similarities end very quickly.

With a 2-d plane there is a lot more room for real serious strategy blocking larger mechs from certain bottle necks to weed out the weak tacklers and what not, or forcing some aggressors to follow you into some npc's to engage you, there is a lot more room for conventional tactics.
And it’s the perfect game for people who want to get in on the ground floor of something, as it isn’t even fully released yet and it also maintains what we all like from sandbox mmorpgs, DRAMA .
from spying and espionage to corp theft and wars one of the games main features terraforming has been held back until they can figure out how to prevent people turning the maps into giant penis, the largest corp in the game (roughly 50% of active player base), had an internal dispute resulting In members joining, forming and reinforcing many other corps and causing large scale political disputes and a persistent ongoing war which has consumed the game
if you guys have any questions I’d be glad to answer and help out.
here are some videos to wet your beak.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27WA0phc6RE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYhw0VxQuMg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB_xJ-LRGcQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E2u062Zxzk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCXEKspMzUQ

Kokeshi

PS:the avatar creation screen is awful, dont let it turn your intrest, the developers are well awear, but being a small team working out of thier own pocket, its on the long finger.

humanji

That looks pretty cool. Might have to give it a shot at some stage.

Nody

Few things I've learned from the page for those interested and as noted it is really a Eve light clone in many ways.

• Pre go live starts tonight at 18:00 CET and it is 1 week to "actual" go live
• You earn "training points" like in Eve on or offline; no way to speed it up through missions etc.
• Light mech, light assault mech, medium mech, medium assault mech (called heavy mech)
• 4 weapon systems (short/medium/long/missile) that all require ammo and generate little/medium/high heat (which is the limit for using), missiles appearantly are special in that you need to hit combo/multiple to do any real damage
• Game is free, monthly subscription required at 8.95 EUR a month/9.95 USD (yea, USD is cheaper but not sure if it is an option)
• Game is downloaded directly to your PC using the installer and is 300ish MB
• Open world PvP
• Three main areas to focus on (Fighting/manufacturing/harvesting)
• Up to 3 clones, all your training points you earn over time are on ACCOUNT basis so you can put 100p in char 1, 500 in char 2 and 400 in char 3 after a week for example
• No limits in what you can learn based on your starting race/school selection; some fluff missions will be different between them
• Smaller mechs are faster but can take less damage and deal out less damage (fairly standard)
• Four damage types, all weapons deal two or more damage types and all mechs for all races have resists vs all but at various degrees
• All weapons require ammo so no drones / T1 lasers or similar like in Eve (for those of us cheap gits who wanted to save money on ammo early on)

So yea, I'm going to give it a whirl tonight; for 9 EUR (at worst) a month it is cheaper them most MMOs and honestly it is mech based, how can you go wrong with that?! Who does not want to walk around in big robots with cannons shooting at things?

Nody

Oh and some questions to OP since I'd like to give it a whirl tonight.

• How balanced are weapon systems? I was thinking going Gauss route as that gives me medium short/long range option but is this viable or is it better to focus long/short range or missiles (where do they fit in?)?
• Mechs; how expense/difficult are they to maintain/keep up/buy? As in should I run like a small child the moment I smell I'm outgunned or is it a case of running through them like butter with out really bother because you always have replacements lined up?
• Any newbie advices?
• How open is the open PvP? Are we talking every single area or high level areas or?
• Missions, are they routing you always to PvP or are they PvE? Are they open or instanced? Can they be killstealed on the boss kill or similar?
• Is there any newbie corp ala Eve University for people to learn the basics (I saw that there should be a tutorial but still...)?

Kokeshi

the weapons are varily balanced with out being bland and unintresting,

its very paper rock sicissors atm,

blue(nimqual/ICS) use EM, EM does primarly kenetic damage, the green race is weak to kenetic,
green (pelistial/truehold-markson) use missiles, missiles do siesmic damage primarialy , the yellow race is weak to this
yellow (theolidica/asintech) use lasers these do primarly thermal damage, which the blue race is weak to

missiles do the weakiest damage over all, but require no line of sight
lasers do the most range
and EM do the most damage

they arent too expencive , heavy mechs can be, pvp is like eve, if you can imagine 3 hi-sec systems and 3 lo-sec systems, thats the size of the game atm, theres 1,000 people paying, with 600 people logged on , no server lag which for the size of the game is impressive,

noobie advice,everything has a use, like eve specilise, if you cant recycle or refine, maybe someone else can, the advanced missions are accepted in the lo-sec areas

e-corp, n-a , and battle axe are all very helpful corps, e-corp has a broad history, being the corp i said about in my original post, it has connections to every corp in game in some way or another

Gneez

From those video's it looks pretty goofy tbh, the animations are poor and it looks like all the fights are open terrain and both sides just run at each other spraying laser beams everywhere. I can't see myself paying a subscription for that.

Kokeshi

gneez, i would say i can see where you could get that opinion, and its not for everyone,

but if anyone played eve from beta they will remember it wasnt spectactular ider, as i said the dev team is less then 10 people, working out of thier own pocket, also those videos are mostly from deep in closed beta about 6 months ago, but I will agree not much graphic wise has changed since then.

but considering its 1 server 1 instance and unlike eve, it has to render a full open terrain enviroment im very happy with it.

i'd love to hear what nody has experianced so far

the game got a bit overwhelmed and the starting spawns weren't sufficiant for the player base, but devs steped in to fix that,its all part of the learning curve for them too

Nody

Kokeshi wrote: »

i'd love to hear what nody has experianced so far

I misread the 1 week advance thing so when I bought it (18:27 CET) I did not get the 1 week pre play

Oh well, I got 1 month paid for when the game goes live any way (sadly I can only play on the day I'm travelling for a interview so no playing until Monday 29th >< ).

Kokeshi

that sucks, well hit me up when you get in and say howdy.
im running on 23hrs logged in out of 24 since the server went up,

Static M.e.

God, I love Mechs.

What I didnt see is how you control your current Mech. Is it like Mechcommander with point and click or more like Mechwarrior with you in the console and Joystick?

Do you think it would be playable on a Laptop with wireless?

Kokeshi

movement is wasd, but you lock targets and fire weapons much like eve (sadly its not twitch based)

i play on a laptop wireless
dell m1730 and my internet is down so im using my neighbours wi-fi currently so its very very easy to play connection wise

Static M.e.

Signed up for a month. Any tips?

Can you take drops off enemies you kill?

Is it a free for all, where I can just join missions and shot randomers?

Static M.e.

Somehow I too missed the game doesn't go live till the 25th of November...

.. see you then

Kokeshi

npc loot is administered to the first person to shoot it
player loot is free for all, ider if they die to npc's or other players

line of sight is in the game, but not for missiles, so missiles are once again easy mode

again, its like if in eve if you had played it/
the game has 3 hi-sec systems and 3 lo-sec systems

Kokeshi

nody i think is going live that day too, maybe you and he should get togeather, i will most likely be in game, pm' me if ya need help

Nody

Kokeshi wrote: »

nody i think is going live that day too, maybe you and he should get togeather, i will most likely be in game, pm' me if ya need help

Business dinner tonight with Deloitte; finishing my bags for an interview in a different country tomorrow evening (but might be able to sneak on depending on how things go with packaging etc.) and then gone the whole weekend until Monday for the interview. Hence sorry to say unlikely to be online until Monday (only 'cause I missed the cursed deadline by 27 min!!!).

Static M.e.

Business dinner tonight with Deloitte

- Top 50 companies?

I like your dedication to get a game going!

Best of luck with your interview

Nody

Static M.e. wrote: »

- Top 50 companies?

Yup, and I'm representing our company for this one so any chance of an early exist is gone...

Best of luck with your interview

It's an odd one I'll tell ya, on paper it should be a dream job but I also have a major project in the pipeline for roll out next year where I am with huge visibility in the company so I don't know if I want to succeed at the interview or not!

Static M.e.

Nody wrote: »

It's an odd one I'll tell ya, on paper it should be a dream job but I also have a major project in the pipeline for roll out next year where I am with huge visibility in the company so I don't know if I want to succeed at the interview or not!

Funny, I had the same situation here only a month ago. We have four projects all feeding up into a major theme. I decided to stay with the role and see it through but after a year I'm gone..

All you can do is see how the interview goes and worry about it when/if you get the Job. If there is someone who can take over the project then I wouldn't worry too much about it. For me, it would depend on if I could see myself advancing in the company. If you want to leave anyway AND you get a good job offer... then jump ship

Kokeshi

just over 30mins until the server goes up for open release,the server is up already and us gm/devs are just doing some basic checks to make sure the patch went ok, and it looks good. so it should be perfect when you guys get in.

good luck,and have fun.
the people who bought a pre-release have a bit of extra EP(the time based skill accumlator) as a bonus, but also the market is already running so you wont have to grind like they did to get what you want

there is a few specilisations if you want to specilise

producer( for mass producing items and what not)

reasearcher-prototyper( like producer, but prototypes are made in batches of 1, and require 10X the materials, its for inventing things you cant aquire else where,for people and corps at the cutting edge, a good and advanced reseacher is at heart of a strong corp, as they have to trust him to provide him with the corps supply of kernels , a resource farmed from NPC's that provides data to protype new tech)

pve-(player Vs. entity, cant get more basic than this, you fig guns or what ever and shoot npcs and farm thier fruits)

pvp - (player Vs. player, there is currently 5 major corps in the game, 2 of which have conquered 1 each of the 9 conquerable outposts {3 for each pvp island} as such the major corps are recruiting pvpers, or start your own, as the major corps are 40-100 people big, there is alot of room for compatition)

miner-harvester -( mining and harvesting are as similar as missiles and guns, the same basic support skills, but the main skills differ, and there is seperate robots too (which require the same support skills to use) they are both valued and appriciated, and needed by any producer/prototyper and on a large scail corp.)

leadership (leadership isnt just about running corp and social politics, but there is gang modules that give bonuses to mining /harvesting /speed and other things that give benifits to gangs of people all at the same time)

market pvp (the market is developing greatly and few people actually take advantage of it, you dont need any skills, but there are skills in place to cut costs, its nearly 100% player driven, and the npc orders will be removed when the community grows, not only can you do the tradational buy lo/sell high, but if your a producer you can make a quick turn around into exponential profit, even the easyiest thing to make ammo, can be producer for a very nice proift, tho with production too, skills dictate your profit margins....)

spying/being a dick:-P (the biggiest corp in the game has i think been robbed like 6 times if not more, thru rage quitters and actual planning and work, the results were the same what ever the intent, like eve scams and lies have only the cost of trust and respect, if you dont care about that person then you have nothing to lose , note fame and infammy are attached to your char name, as like eve only those with offencive names get renamed.

Pirate like pvp, but with less organised, it isnt really devloped yet, but player loot drops are for anyone to grab so you might not nessarly have to do the dirty work to get the rewards,Unlike eve, there is no warp, so thier is no warp disruptors, as such in all pvp speed is life, all mods have a weight, and that weight affects you speed, there is other ways to affect your speed, bbut as long as you are faster then he is, they can't escape

Funky

This looks really awesome. I'll probably get in-game at some stage today.

Static M.e.

Found a weird bug, my account says expired but I only purchased a day ago...Sent an email off to support so hopefully see something soon

Wow, great response time

It appears to me that you didn't redeem your code you have received in email for your purchase -

I missed that bit -- opps

Kokeshi

static , sent me a pm when you get into game
im having a small amount of client side d/c issues, but im around

Static M.e.

Just got this now. Im running off a laptop so its not the best but manageable.

Whats the deal with Sensors and Targeting Robots?

Just started so (basically dont know anything) but when I find the little Red +s and attack them it takes ages for me to get a lock on the robot. Then once I do get a lock it takes another age before I can get another one again.. yet the guy beside me seems to be taking on 1 after another constantly. He also has four guns!

I found the market and tried to buy another bot/upgrades but was priced out of it.

Also is the best way to play to do the Missions from the main base, one after another?

The game is very beta'ish but I like it, its fun

Kokeshi

you might be getting sensor supressed, a e-war attack increases your lock time and decreases your lock range, if the NPC is targeting you, it might only have 1 mod, and not able to target another,

do the tot missions , a 10mission series, will provide you with standard tech (a step up from the syn-tec crap) and a tier 2 noob bot and your first proper light bot too

you will get a sensor amp too, which helps you lock faster

Kokeshi

everything was working fine for pre-release, like 20mins after the server went fully live, for god knows why, the **** hit the fan, everyones EP(time accumilated skill points) went all over the place, one guy had -31K and another +40k , 1440 being a days total, it was ****ed as you can imagine, dev team were doing individual fixs till it was understood it was a total game breaker, server came down, people will get 2 days playtime as a refund

Funky

Wasn't online for long before the servers came down but I realised when reading up on stuff during the downtime that I picked the wrong attributes for the type of build I wanna do. Dya know is there any sort of penalty for deleting a character?

Kokeshi

there is, but the roll back might delete your char which will be a plus i guess
you really want to heavly stack your attributes

Funky

Yea I was thinking/hoping my character would get deleted. Either way I'm gonna reroll though. I wanna play an e-war robo and chose high mechatronics/politics rather than mech/R&D, got confused with the NEXUS category stuff. I thought it was strange that politics was good for e-war... :P

Kokeshi

you can have 3 chars per account, you dont lose anything for making an alt, but you do for deleting them 2880 EP (2 days of skil points) to stop people farmint the tot missions that give you a fair reward for little work