An Honest Love Letter to Dune

So I want to take a minute to just step back and collect my thoughts on this game. Please know up front if you are looking for someone to trash the game over the things I don't like, that's not me. I will share what I don't care for, but I do not believe that trashing a game I love playing does any good. So I will be honest, and my take is not the same as someone who loves PVP so I'll start out here with a bit about who and what I am as a player in this game!

I am a scout and gatherer for my guild. My focus in this kind of survival game is not the combat, I am not the best at combat, in time I will get better as I learn the skills I have at my disposal and work out my own playstyle for things, but to me that is always secondary in this kind of game. I'm the one gathering the supplies, crafting gear, building my base, and even dropping off power in generators to ensure everyone's bases stay powered and shielded. Logistics and support roles, which I suppose tracks with the fact that I lean into Tank roles in SWTOR more often than not.

So the first thing to talk about with Dune is the story, and this is a mixed bag for some of my friends who were long time fans of Dune seem to dislike the replace Paul and change the world aspect, I however, absolutely love the story! I enjoy the original, don't get me wrong, I've now watched the movies (both original and new, many times over, read some of the books (it's a work in progress still but I'm making progress), and done much online browsing of videos, websites, and more.

I am a sucker for worlds with deep complex lore, lovingly crafted worlds, characters, species, languages, and more. J. R. R. Tolkien had me from the word go of course, and so did George Lucas, but it seems Frank Herbert took a tiny bit longer to grow on me. We can't always fall in love with a franchise from the first word. There are some other franchises that also took a bit longer for me to warm up to as well but I digress.

The Dune Awakening story has had me eager to get more, so much so that I decided since I hadn't streamed the whole thing, I would play it through again on another server because I just hadn't had enough of it! The twists sometimes hit and sometimes miss. I saw Ari's reveal coming, but the end of what we have gotten so far, that I did not see coming in the least! The cut scenes, the lighting, the music (and other audio), and everything around the storytelling has been so lovingly crafted and beautifully polished. Thank you Funcom for this story! To the writers who crafted it, you truly did exactly what I expect the goal would be, and grabbed my attention and have me just itching for more! Seriously, kudos to the writers for that twist at the end, and when can we get the next installment? I truly do love the story!

The survival and crafting part of the gameplay, well was there any real doubt on this one. Regardless of the quirks and issues of it, my experience with Conan Exiles told me this part of the game was going to be solid. Now there have been some issues with glitches. Which frankly have caused some really irritating setbacks in this area but as I have not yet visited the Deep Desert I have not seen the big ones that I have heard about. That does not discount them, I am just not willing to totally condemn them for glitches they are actively attempting to fix. And they have actively been patching the game very regularly. I of all people know that code changes do not always go as expected. So unexpected issues can happen and as long as they are working to actively fix issues I will give them a chance to find the solutions.

The Combat however, has failed me. I admit I am far from amazing at the combat and I know part of it is me. But there should NEVER be a time when a group of NPCs can stun lock you so much that you can not do anything, not even move to attempt to extricate yourself when you are not downed. This is not a once and done issue, I have seen it many times, and as someone who prefers sniper rifles and a bit of distance rather than up close and personal I have my own style, making use of the Shigawire Claw skill from the Trooper tree and a Full suspensor belt to leap out of the way and get distance. However, the story missions have time and time again forced you into hand to hand up close combat with little around to work the way I usually do and ending in a stun locking loop that has left me with no abilities and no way to even move thus I can't pull myself up and out or even leap back out of the way because I am litterally stuck in one place waiting for my shield to fail and the NPCs to down me again and again. Yeah I hear it now "get better" and "You suck" ok yes again I know I am not the greatest at Combat, my skill level is not what I am complaining about, Get x skill or y skill is also not a valid counter here. Why? Because the game is designed with multiple skill tree choices so should not then require specific choices you may or may not have access to in order to complete the story missions.

Also in the failure in story/combat missions is the fact that they have built a game around guilding up and working together that when you do attempt to do story missions with another player you literally screw each other over or are forced into solo play anyway. Now usually I'm happy to solo play, it means I work harder but tend to also learn how to move past what hinders me. Yes it means I have to get better and I'm willing to work hard to do that. But here if you are grouped one of you can get a kill needed but then you have to wait on the others to do the same when the NPC finally respawns!

Another failing in my eyes is around the way taxes, power, and losing everything works. Many people take breaks from these kinds of games, even I have a work schedule that has periods of time that I don't have the time to log into a game gather materials, earn credits and take care of a base. Sure 21 days almost turns out to be a very long time, however, 4 times a year I am responsible for overseeing large events that need my time and focus. During these times I may not have the time or I just may not have the energy to bother. I know many people who have walked away, for breaks either because there isn't content to keep them busy or they have other priorities for a time. Unfortunately, breaks are not even always predictable, work gets busy unexpectedly, family emergencies come up, health issues happen. Having no way for someone to possibly take a break without a great deal of effort or consistently needing to babysit the game isn't a great way to get those folks to return. Losing everything you worked so hard for just because there was nothing to keep you busy or you had a family emergency is a death blow to bothering to return. Power and taxes make sense in the day to day playing but only if you have a user base who is there, solidly and has the content to keep them busy.

Lastly, let's talk about the elephant in the room, or the Deep Desert. This one may have worked if you managed a couple other things first but it's also been one of the biggest community dividers all along. No matter what side you are on PVP or No PVP this one has kicked you in the teeth over and over. Let's be realistic and blunt on this one. If you say when marketing the game pre release that PVP is not required, but then force players into PVP ship wrecks for progression missions and make the top tier materials only available in PVP you lied. Sorry Funcom you do not seem to actually understand your user bases, and I say bases, because you really are catering to multiple groups. A tough balancing act if not walked thoughtfully and carefully for sure! However, you seem to have put blinders on and chosen to walk the path of your idea without hearing and seeing the real issues. PVP players and PVE players rarely get along. SImply having server type choices for the public servers would have gone a very long way to easing a lot of that issue. Why did you not consider having PVP only, PVE only, and Mixed PVPVE worlds. I know you wanted a fight for the spice situation. In theory that's very Arrakis... in reality, it's not working now is it?

In conclusion, the sad reality is, the game is bleeding users, and I am very much an optimist, I was all in from day 1 of the large scale beta, so were my group of friends, but one by one they have walked away. So the optimist in me hopes that this can be turned around, I do love this game, don't get me wrong I will continue to play solo for a while I am sure. But if things don't turn around the realist in me knows that at some point I will run out of things to do, as an achievement hunter, that may take me a bit longer than others to do. But at some point, I will have 100% explored every area of Hagga Basin, finished all of the achievements, and will have run out of things to do that are not just getting another load of some material or restocking water and fuel. At that point I do hope by then there is some improvement and some of my friends might return. Sadly the realist in me, already sees that to be unlikely. I have gone out of my way to help save friend's bases, to do all I could to avoid them losing everything, to hopefully ease the feeling of having lost everything. But there is only so much one person can do.

I love this w0rld, I was all in on this game before it was even out, and I was so hopeful for this one. So for the beautifully built world, amazing story, and the chance to immerse myself in the world of Arrakis for hundreds of hours, and however many more it survives for, thank you to Funcom because it's been a beautiful ride!

Love,
Rox