Captain's Quarters

Well I finally broke down and installed the Sisi client on my home comp... And the server was down when I finished...

Later on I did manage to get on however and check out the parts of Incarna.

Looks: 9/10

• Possibly the best looking avatars in MMOs going.
• Stations appropriate to the setting.

Interface: 2/10

• Hyper realistic avatars without a first person perspective? fail
• Constant need to lift off the mouse button to change direction? fail
• Context menus showing up when you can't click them? fail
• Inability to choose which planet you're looking at when focusing on the PI screen? fail
• I'll have to check again but I think there were some problems with looking up and down - more fail.
• Head does not follow the view screen focus? fail

Ok seriously here you need your developers to go play something like FFXI for a few weeks switching between first and 3rd person perspective to see how smooth the interface should transition, and how smooth and natural the controls should be.  Achieving less than that (which came out about the same time EVE did) is abject failure 7-8 years later.  Seriously didn't you guys play any other of the good MMOs as far as 3d movement/interface schemes go?  The interface felt like it was designed by the guy who did the original resident evil interface.  Which made that game unplayable for me.  Someone needs a clue by four upside the head.  I mean seriously, one of the major immersion inducing aspects of playing FFXI was that when you were in first person perspective the other avatar's heads would look to what ever that person's field of view was looking at so if I was talking to someone and they turned to look at something else I could see their avatar's head move (withing it's limits of movement).  It's a small thing that gives a MASSIVE feeling of immersion.  Very few other games had that level of feel.  Your graphics are advanced - your immersion sucks due to some bad decisions at the interface and control scheme level.

Functionality: 3/10

• Not much to do in the quarters - and we can no longer spin ships to distract ourselves.
• It feels like a hotel room.  Appropriate, so that is the reason the functionality score is higher.

Turrets: 7/10

• Nice upgrade looks wise (for the few times I'll be zoomed in enough to actually see the turrets)
• Some bugs on turret and effect synchronization (Unless these are fixed internally already, they'll make it onto tranquility - look forward to a bit of bitching)
• Some questionable turret placements (WTF are those turrets doing on top & bottom of the tempest!?! - expect MORE bitching)
• Not enough gun flash on artillery (Please see Youtube videos of an Iowa class battleship firing it's main guns (406mm/50's) - personal complaint)

Aurum Store: 5/10

• Works.
• Nothing special.
• Not going to have a lot of content at start, is it?

 Now I realize that this update is mostly to get the technology in place so that it can be iterated upon and improved, and multi-player interaction added (getting meeting rooms in place WILL BE WORTH IT - huff - puff).  But you really really need to get your heads out of your asses as far as the control scheme goes.  And apparently the current control scheme is an improvement over the original one - that makes me shudder.

Looks like the verdict will be "meh expansion" with potential to be realized over the next few expansions.