Welp, at least they didn't break anything that mattered this time. Actually, they did break a lot of things in addition to the fail extra content. Sigh. :(

I knew that they could make a relatively pretty walking-in-stations game, but I was holding out to see if they actually had some applications for it. As in, something that's as fun or more fun as a biped than as a pod.

I rolled a new pilot to see if Incarna made the New Player Experience more tolerable. The New Player Experience asked me to open the agent window. There weren't any obvious clues about where to find that window. I figured after a few minutes that it probably wanted me to open my agents tab in People and Places. It didn't. I eventually found the window it wanted me to open. It told me to get into a conversation with an agent before I could continue. The problem was that the only agent in station was a storyline agent, and he didn't want to talk to me.

Keep in mind that this was in a Pator Tech School station, where one would expect to find what one needs to get started on the tutorials. The tutorial didn't tell me that I needed to change stations, much less tell me how to do that. Since I, the newbie, was on foot instead of in a ship, I didn't know that I could very easily and quickly fly to another station and continue the tutorial. Instead of making the tutorial easier to swallow for players by taking them out of the spaceship, CCP made it HARDER by making them feel trapped and looking for the next step in the FAMC (Forever Alone Minmatar Closet).

I mean, if Incarna 1.0 is a tech demo for some killer new gameplay paradigm you've got waiting for finishing touches, then wouldn't it make sense to tell us what it is? Because I'm not sure how we're supposed to be impressed with this.

I'm not mad at you, CCP. I'm not quitting. I'm just sad. I hope that I'm wrong about where this is headed, which is to yet another major feature (more major than any other expansion in CCP history) that is hailed as the next big thing, but eventually sits unused by players while major problems that cause grief for all subscribers go unfixed. Please prove me wrong.

Where's Paul?

Some of you have it figured out, but I'll let the rest in on a little secret. When I first started this blog, I was a church office manager. Then I was a city cop for a couple of years. Now I've hung up my badge (but not my gun! So don't try to find me.) and purchased a used video/board game store. Until that business stabilizes, I will continue to be scarce.