My Thoughts on OrbusVR After 24 Hours
Greetings!
Whether you're a potential player on the fence of purchasing, veteran player, or working staff creating the game, I'm sure you're interested in people's opinion of the game.Below you'll find:
1.) A quick summary of my gaming experience and trends. (Setup my gaming credentials)
2.) What I thought of the game long before I started playing. (Scrolling past it on the steam store)
3.) My impression after the first 2 hours.
4.) My current thoughts. Now that I'm 24 hours into the game.
I promise I will try my best to keep this quick. Bear with me. You should probably just skip to 3 and 4.
RAPID FIRE HERE WE GO
1.) What kind of gamer am I?
24 years old. Male.
Nintendo 64. Mario 64. Wave racers.
PC gaming. Built my own. Battlefield 2. Battlefront 2. World of Warcraft (3 years).
Staying up until 4am grinding dungeons. Several games with ~1000 hours (rocket league, fallout 3, all souls-borne games).
Purchased an HTC Vive on June 20th (~20 days ago). Super Hot VR is absolutely fun.
that should give you a taste of my gaming career
2.) What Was OrbusVR to me Before I Got Invovled? might be harsh but needs to be said
Do not own a VR Headset yet. Simply glanced at it on Steam:
"A team is attempting to make a VR MMORPG... that's going to be rough."
"It looks so bare-bones. The combat does not look advanced. Does not seem to take advantage of VR."
"Cool idea. I'll find another VR MMORG much further in the future when technologies are advanced."
Now I own a VR Headset. Looking for games on Steam:
"I want games that will get me 15+ hours of gametime. Not VR experience demos that last for 1.5 hours."
"A game that I can sink my teeth into every day after work."
Fallout 4 VR only game that scratches that itch so far.
Other excellent games: SuperhotVR, PavlovVR, Climbey.
"I have now purchased 7-8 VR titles. I will not purchase OrbusVR, even though it's on sale. It just doesn't look that great."
"10 man raid announced... It's on sale... potion crafting looks interesting... fishing too?"
3.) OrbusVR Purchased: Played for 2 Hours.
Welcome to the meat. Probably what you're looking for.
After seeing a couple interesting gameplay videos I take the dive and purchase the game.
Tutorial-Starting City
Walking down the stairs and seeing the first starting city was a very cool experience.
It was during peak hours and I was incredibly impressed to hear conversations, trade deals, dungeon plans, happening in real-time all around me.
The huge difference between this and WoW is that people are using body language! What a trip!
People in the hub acknowledge I'm there. They call me by name. Say hello. It's social. It's cool. Fun.
I'm already convinced that this encounter of an MMORPG hub is a unique VR experience. Still not convinced of anything else really.
Combat-Fishing Quest
I begin fighting the Red Tails just outside the starting city as a muskateer.
I have fun dumping orbs into my gun and firing point blank into the red tail.
Not incredibly impressed. I try kiting using the teleport mechanics and frost shot. Notice there's room for skill.
The much more interesting aspect is that someone comes to my aid when I aggro more than 1 enemy. They wave after the kill, make a quick comment and move on.
Fishing quest aquired after moving down the stairs to the open plains. Fishing is relaxing, fun, intuitive. I love it
As I fish, I'm joined by others. We discuss game mechanics, fishing mechanics, OrbusVR, tips, tricks. All while fishing.
What I'm getting at: The social VR aspects are impressing me and pairing really well with basic MMORPG actions in a way I haven't experienced before.
Maybe combat was a 6/10 for me at the time, but the social aspect made it 8/10.
Everyone is very nice, helpful, and engaging. My theory is that being an anonymous @#%!#^ is much harder to do when you have body language and voice comms.
2 Hour Thoughts
Combat 6/10
Social 8/10
Fishing 7/10
OrbusVR 7/10
4.) 24 Hours Later...
It happened
After turning in a quest and beginning the journey to Guild City I had the moment.
The moment where the music is just right. The scenery is impressive and full of life. The technology is new and exciting. There is loads of undiscovered magics and techniques. Critters and beasts of decent variety are roaming. The loot and materials I gather feel like they have permanance and meaning. It felt like there is so much to this world that is left to unveil.
That moment of immersion in a world full of seemingly infinite discovery.
I'm now a level 11 warrior with a hearty home base full of crafted potions, dungeon loot, prized fish, and a dragon pet.
Thoughts. Both Good and Bad
A.) There are NO spoilers online! Whether that's because of a small playerbase or a hidden code amongst players...
I approached the game as a filthy tryhard. Wanting to research what items to keep, what to sell, where to find them, how to farm them etc.
As I read the responses online, all of which saying:
"Experiment. Find it out yourself. There are hints and guides everywhere. If you must... ask around at the hub."
I realized that this is exactly how the game was meant to be played.
The sense of discovery and accomplishment from figuring out a tough potion recipe or attracting the right fish is bounds and leaps better than reading a forum post.OrbusVR community: please preserve this amazing spoiler-free attitude for as long as humanly possible.
B.) Professions and Gathering Activities Feel Worth It
Professions and gathering supplies feel exciting because you are building up your wealth in a realtively new genre of a massive multiplayer experience.
C.) Combat is pretty good
Initially started as musket. Moved to warrior.
Is it fun to swing sword in the various combos?
Yeah? Kinda? Yes. More yes than no. There is a lot to be desired. I would love to see one of my strikes break the gaurd of an enemy. I would like to see my hits have an impact on the enemy's stance. Make my hits feel more powerful.
Is it tiring? No not really. I think "storing" a combo by holding sword 90 degrees was a smart move.
Would like my warrior's horn to do more than just taunt. I have no reason to use it as solo. Maybe increase armor rating by X? Move speed?
Musket combat was pretty fun. Outheal everything by shooting three healing orbs into your feet. Use your one damage orb on cooldown to burst down enemy. Hm. More to be desired here too.
D.) Dungeons and Groups
Holy hell this is cool. Questing as a pair or a group is incredibly fun because the class skills compliment each other. The social aspect is great. No troubles. It's amazing. Well done.
But the dungeon. I only did one, the level 8 dungeon (won't disclose location). So fun!
After running 10,000+ dungeons in WoW I can say that dungeons in VR are so exciting and fun
Tanking aggro makes sense (provoke combo, horn, blocking), healing is a little challenging because you need line of sight of your target which is great. Makes positioning of all parties important.
E.) Travel
Still not entirely sure how I feel about this. Before discovering teleporting using runemage, I either ran or used airship. There's a lot of running from place to place. I think I'm okay with travel time, but what annoys me is how many quests will send you back and forth between two locations.
Several times, I thought to myself "Ah darn, I was JUST there and now my home teleport device is on cooldown."
F.) Story
In my eyes the story is pretty good! Two sides of balance. Good and evil. Two realms fighting for control. The developments and twists that occur are fine.
The "cutscenes" of a single image scaling and panning make my eyes gloss over but what's being told story-wise is fine and actually engaging.
G.) This is a Pre-Release Version of the Game
I'll end this by saying that I'm aware that this game is a pre-release version of the game and you should be aware too. I hope for more music (LOVE the couple songs that are in), more grass and flower diversity (terrain), more compelling cutscenes, better voice acting, for the full release but I'm still very happy with what we have now.
Conclusion
I'll go ahead and end this awfully long review there.
I've learned to like the combat (not love)because the rest of the game surrounding it is truly unique and fun to explore.
I have not dabbled in: Artificing, PvP, Raids, Factions, Runemage, Ranger, second half of the main story quest, but like I said: 24 hour game-time review which is great! It means I still have so many more hours to dump into this game! I can update this review at other meaningful play-time milestones.
I really like this game so far. It has absolutely taken my "go-to" game for when I have some downtime.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading.
Cheers
-Rakthar
