The Repopulation is currently on sale (until September 4) and you may be wondering whether it’s worth those 14.99 € (or whatever it is for you).
I bought Early Access back in February and I really wish I could tell you all about my impressions now and whether I like the game or not. But that is part of the issue I have with the game: I have not been able to write about my opinion, because I don’t know whether I like it… or not…
My issue with The Repopulation is not that it’s a bad game per se (I felt that was necessary to stress this!). My issue is that I have a hard time “getting” into the game. After having had access for months now and playing around here and there, I still don’t feel “at home” and I still feel that I am missing a lot and I am still confused a lot.
It is not as intuitive as, for example, Project Gorgon. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It just means that it requires effort that I usually can’t invest in the evening, because my day job requires me to read, think, write and read more. Once I’m done with work, I prefer having a game that does not require me to read long text and think even more. ;) Don’t get me wrong, I like complex games. If that wasn’t the case, I would just go and play some Facebook games…
So let me just state a few very basic first impressions. This is by far not a complete list!
The combat is the worst culprit for me. I just never know which weapon goes with which skills and what I need to use in order to fight in the way I would like to fight. Yes, I’m also very newbish when it comes to guns and all that stuff. Having never played any “shooter” games, I really have no idea about those kinds of weapons.
However – and that’s what I like about the game – there seems to be plenty of stuff to do without combat. The crafting is another thing I haven’t gotten into yet, but I worked my way through the tutorial and it seemed pretty elaborate and I can definitely imagine spending my time crafting in The Repopulation. One really nice feature are “Generated Missions“. NPCs send you mails with little jobs for you to do. I spent quite a lot of my play time with my first character in Freedomtown (the starter area for one of the two factions in the game) without fighting anything, basically just running back and forth between NPCs handling their requests. It was nice, as I got to know the world a bit better and it did give me some kind of immersion in the world.
The tutorial was recently changed. You now start in a completely different location and with different quests. I think it works much better. Or maybe that is because it’s in the “open world” and I really love the scenery! Still, there was one quest that wasn’t well done at all: The quest told me to go “up on the hill to the North” quest. I went north and the game told me I should not leave the tutorial area without completing training first. And here I thought this quest was part of the tutorial and thus, was part of my training! So, I went back, walked around in circles, tried to find “the hill to the North”, but all I could find was the path out of the tutorial area. Eventually, I had enough and just went north. Again, the message on the screen told me not to leave the area, but I ignored it that time – and sure enough, I arrived where the quest had wanted me to go. Yes, I know this is just a minor complaint, but when this happens within the first minute of somebody playing the game, this is frustrating.
NPCs have a life! You may want to hand in a quest but the NPC you’re looking for just isn’t there. That may be because it is evening and he’s in the nearby pub. Or it’s during the night and the NPC is at home asleep. I was also told that NPCs remember my actions and may react to me differently in the future based on that. Now this is something that I really like and would love to explore more!
The old tutorial zone, back in February 2015
Near Freedomtown. The city you ended up in after the first tutorial zone.
Freedomtown. The city you ended up in after the first tutorial zone.
A pub in Freedomtown. And dinner, apparently…
The game has an item database. Very useful!
Crafting. Easy, isn’t it?
The scenery of the new tutorial
Me trying out combat – after setting up this majorly ugly UI. :p
I asked her where the NPC I needed for my quest was. Off duty, of course. Doh! :p
As you can see, I have gathered a few impressions, but it’s by far not enough to judge the game. I have also not tried to read up on the game’s functions and features too much. Don’t quote me on that, but at the moment, I would say that if you’re interested in a sandbox MMO set in a science fiction universe with lots of relatively complex features (not to be confused with “complicated”) and freedom when it comes to choosing skills for your character (no set classes, this game is skill-based!) and open world PvP in some zones and if on top of all of that, you also don’t mind reading a lot, then I would say those 14.99 € are a good deal to jump into the game right now. Or, in other words, even though I still haven’t figured out the game, I do not regret having spent money on it at all.
I also found an article that seems quite useful: “The Repopulation for Noobs“- sounds exactly like something I should read. ;)
This post is part of Blaugust 2015.
The Repopulation - Quick first impression (#Blaugust Day 24) The Repopulation is currently on sale (until September 4) and you may be wondering whether it's worth those 14.99 € (or whatever it is for you).
