Review: False start and new hope for 'Earthrise'

Mihail Rangelov

Two weeks have passed since the launch of the Bulgarian-based online game Earthrise. For those unfamiliar with it, I will explain that this is a MMORPG, developed by Masthead studios. After almost 6 years spent on the game's development, the company announced that it will officially launch on February 4 and took the risk to release it without prior sufficient testing. Unfortunately, exactly that their hasty decision played a bad joke on them. The first few days were a complete nightmare for the team since the insufficiently tested servers started to fail at any less serious loading. An additional bad joke was played on them by the accounts registration system, thanks to which many users could not sign up on the first day. Fortunately, at the cost of a few sleepless nights spent by the team, the situation has become relatively normal with stable servers, while currently the major problem seems to be the occurring lag at certain locations, which largely frustrates the users.

I will skip the description of the main attributes of the game as they are sufficiently well covered by several reviews, mostly from people who played for several hours and afterwards pouring forth a bunches of descriptions, without being familiar with it in detail. My review is based on the experience of one of the first beta testers and a player with over 100,000 BP, being a crafter Level T4.

Start game
After I tested in a way the beta version, I decided the development of my character to be in two branches involving precision riffle for remote shooting and Flamethrower for close fight. This is somewhat PvE-oriented option, although the better use of skills puts an end to the PvP for a pretty short time.

My first task was to grant myself enough points to be able to wear armor and weapons at T2 level (T0 refers to the starting armor and T2 to the maximum items that can be picked on by the NPCs (non-player characters) free of charge). For this purpose, I started to farm Safe Bots. Unfortunately, due to problems with my account registration I was a bit late with my rapid development plan and the spot was already occupied by Nemajneb Yesac and Windows 95, with which I formed my first PvP in the game.
Unfortunately, regardless of the attempts made by a gamer, BR-10 (Battle rating number) fighting against two BR-20 characters is an unequal battle. Although I managed to kill Casey (Yesac in reverse order) and to collect from him quite a substantial loot items, eventually I was forced to withdraw from the spot. I preferred to explore for a while and find the teleport network. When in several hours I returned to the spot, there was only one person who was familiar to me from the beta testing. We raised the necessary battle points jointly with him, while guarding our backs and destroying several intruders trying to steal our bots.

When a gamer reaches BR20 (or BR13 which is equivalent to a special MSH armor being received by a player who has ordered the game directly from the website), then he realizes that this is exactly point when the game starts. Dear readers, if you read any review of ER, make sure that it was posted by a gamer who had reached at least up to that level. This is the moment when you understand that so far you have gone round as a cannon fodder, but in fact you are already in a position to dictate the game's rules. From this point, BPs are scored much easier and the deaths themselves happen much rarely.

PvE (Player vs. Enviroment) and PvP (Player vs.Player)

Surprisingly, the PvE of the game is quite enjoyable. It will especially appeal to lovers of classic AoE grind. There is gathering of a flock of persecutors, followed by their extermination via mass skills. However, unlike the other games, the deaths are quite frequent and in the very dying, the gamer's possessions are poured down (the only items that remain are the Quest ones, including weapons and armor). After the "resurrection" at the nearest point, you have 10 minutes to run to the place which has proved lethal for you so as to collect your belongings. Of course, if you were killed by another player or someone has accidentally passed there, he/she will become the proud owner of your previous valuables. Namely this "full loot" system makes the game so tense. It is because a second of inattention on your side can lead to serious material losses. For you as a character on the other side of the law, it is worth to try it. Even if you do not like it, it is tempting without exerting too much efforts to defraud in this way from some farmer all being earned by the sweat of their brows.

The PvP itself is very good, while the player is able to switch quickly between various types of weapons. If there is no lag, the battles are very interesting requiring a great deal of craftsmanship and the use of environment objects and tactics.
Unfortunately, there is still misuse of the unstuck command in the game.
Generally being created as developer function, it serves to move the character to the closest point of resurrection. Unfortunately, the vast majority of gamers use it as a quick escape from the battle. Of course, MHS developers have already announced that this exploit could not be used soon.

Economics

One of the things that at first sight remains unnoticed in the game is the hyperdeflation. From the NPC opponents, the player receives a quite substantial and well-balanced loot. Unfortunately, the purchase prices at the store are tragic and actually for the moment the only way to make money (needed for the development of crafting and for insurance of the objects) is to implement repeatable quests, which is annoying enough in a game where the player is expected to do whatever he/she wants. The good news is that after several conversations with the MHS Head, Atanas Atanasov (Ostiak), I managed to convince him in the existence of the abovementioned hyperdeflation (in fact, it was not hard because he also holds a degree in economics) and from the next patch the flow of credits (virtual money in the game) to the economy will be significantly increased.

Crafting

If for a beginner player the most incredible thing is the beautiful environment (and it is really such), then for the advanced gamer, this is the crafting. If anyone is keen on forging and handcrafting of items in online games, then this is his/her game. Of course, some remarks could be mainly delivered for the lack of progression in crafting points depending on the level of complexity of the object (it was promised to be fixed in the next patch). Yet, crafting wins my maximum rating. In fact, it is based on a simple principle – the opponents (animals, robots, humanoids), and often other players when dying drop both entire items and parts. These parts are recycled to basic materials. These basic materials are assembled piece by piece into weapons, equipment, armors, helmets. In contrast to the other MMO titles, the weapons and armor wear out rather quickly, thus not leaving the crafters without work. The mere production of a particular object is inexpensive, but there is high one-time cost for learning the recipe. This is also a big plus for the game since the loss of an important object could be easily compensated.

Game problems

There are still several serious problems which spoil the pleasure from the game. First, as I mentioned this is the lag in certain zones where a large number of players are clustering. Second, there are still optimization problems. Some of the gamers with powerful computers complain about low FPS (frames per second) rate. Another annoying drawback (which I understand is very difficult to be fixed) is the so-called rubberbanding referring to the unsmooth movement of the other characters. It is caused by the lack of optimization of the server-client relationship. There is still a problem of the desynhronization as well as of the so-called DMZ bug, where the player cannot go into combat situation since under the game rules he is found in the demilitarized zone. According to MHS, however, the latter problem will be resolved with the development of the new game patch.

As for the communications, one of the largest advantages of the game is the communication of the team's representatives and personally of its CEO with the users —both through the Forum and via IRC. Obviously the hardships of life have taught them a lot because the company hired by MHS PR is not working at a loss only for two cents. There have been no promotional campaigns for the game, no presence in the communication channels (e.g. IRC). Only for now, there is Community manager (CM), called Kuliani, but if you ask the gamers whether they know his name, maybe merely 15% of them will know. During the last beta version, I did an experiment. I as the most advanced character organized a quiz with prizes in which one of the questions was about the name of the game's CM. Barely three people managed to answer it and they needed a lot of time to guess his exact name. One of the MHS' errors, perhaps, is that for CM, it had to appoint an employee from its headquarter office, but not to rely on the PR Agency's official at the other world's end (apart from the control, the lack of information also makes a similar post meaningless). Fortunately, the company has a versatile talent as its Executive Director, Ostiak, who besides being part-time CM is holding more than one appointments.

Usually at the end of the review, the authors give recommendation to the readers. I will allow myself to deliver mine as well.
If you want to try something different, for which, however, you must be patient, this game is for you. However, you need to bear in mind that there are things that could make you give up only after one-hour game. You'd better wait for a month, to see the real result of the MHS work on the stabilization of the servers. Don't mislead yourself, however, on the other players' words, especially if they belong to those who opted out after one-hour game. Earthrise and the team behind it, deserve to be given a chance.

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