Since it's been over a week since solitude left us once more, I think it's time I personally gave my feedback as to what I feel went right and what went wrong with solitude. If you have any feedback yourself, please post it.
So, first of all my biggest letdown was how the beta server made it feel like everywhere was going to be a large city and it's suburbs, with the desert in the distance, maybe with a couple of dirtlands dotted around (like between the shipping yard and the city). For example, here's a larger shot of the preview area (in overview)
Now lets look at the rest of the map:
Yes, there were several large areas, but each of them were very small in comparison to the 5km^2 map that was provided. Yes, there are small buildings dotted around the wasteland, but does the map look realistic? No. It's just giant buildings, no housing or anything and then just a road. Don't get me wrong though, the builders of the map (malc and his team) did a phenomenal job with the map design, it's just that it felt rather empty and overall slightly rushed. With the tutorial and the preview server, I was hoping for a land filled with buildings of all shapes and sizes, quiet suburbs, all that jazz. Although the map was still pretty, it took the name solitude too seriously. I had it at one point where I walked a good 2km and didn't see a single building. Admittedly, I must have walked past one without noticing, but it made the map feel somewhat disappointing.
On the upside, the stuff that was in the map was phenomenal, the worn away dam, the plane crash. All of the builds were of high quality and the build team did an excellent job of constructing everything that was there.
On another downside, the respawn was rather high. 1 hour deathban would have been enough, you wouldn't be able to save your base from being raided and it would still be interested in rejoining it. On full release, when I died, I decided to not bother with playing anymore, and lost interest due to 3 hours would have meant I woulda spent an eighth of my day waiting to return. A person can do a lot in 3 hours, and the stuff that can be done in that time can distract him from remembering to re-access solitude.
Another perk that I rather liked with solitude was the coordinate scrambler. I admit I got rather infuriated with it several times, and that made the server more fun. It meant that any sorta raid would have to be organized as if we were really bandits, using geographical locations to work out where we were to raid.
Overall, I feel like Solitude was a repeat of the previous solitudes: good but with a few major flaws. At least we have learned more about how to make the server successful in future iterations.
So, first of all my biggest letdown was how the beta server made it feel like everywhere was going to be a large city and it's suburbs, with the desert in the distance, maybe with a couple of dirtlands dotted around (like between the shipping yard and the city). For example, here's a larger shot of the preview area (in overview)
Now lets look at the rest of the map:
Yes, there were several large areas, but each of them were very small in comparison to the 5km^2 map that was provided. Yes, there are small buildings dotted around the wasteland, but does the map look realistic? No. It's just giant buildings, no housing or anything and then just a road. Don't get me wrong though, the builders of the map (malc and his team) did a phenomenal job with the map design, it's just that it felt rather empty and overall slightly rushed. With the tutorial and the preview server, I was hoping for a land filled with buildings of all shapes and sizes, quiet suburbs, all that jazz. Although the map was still pretty, it took the name solitude too seriously. I had it at one point where I walked a good 2km and didn't see a single building. Admittedly, I must have walked past one without noticing, but it made the map feel somewhat disappointing.
On the upside, the stuff that was in the map was phenomenal, the worn away dam, the plane crash. All of the builds were of high quality and the build team did an excellent job of constructing everything that was there.
On another downside, the respawn was rather high. 1 hour deathban would have been enough, you wouldn't be able to save your base from being raided and it would still be interested in rejoining it. On full release, when I died, I decided to not bother with playing anymore, and lost interest due to 3 hours would have meant I woulda spent an eighth of my day waiting to return. A person can do a lot in 3 hours, and the stuff that can be done in that time can distract him from remembering to re-access solitude.
Another perk that I rather liked with solitude was the coordinate scrambler. I admit I got rather infuriated with it several times, and that made the server more fun. It meant that any sorta raid would have to be organized as if we were really bandits, using geographical locations to work out where we were to raid.
Overall, I feel like Solitude was a repeat of the previous solitudes: good but with a few major flaws. At least we have learned more about how to make the server successful in future iterations.
