Review Submitted By: SubTact (aka. Connor IG)
Author Status: Player
Started on CyberSphere: About Four Years Ago
Submission Date: Aug 8, 2006
TMC Listing: CyberSphere
The following review is the opinion of the review's author [SubTact (aka. Connor IG)]
and in no way represents the opinions of this website or its staff.
I’ve been a player on CS for about 3-4 years, with large gaps of time
in between and not a lot of time to play them. But in the past 7+
months, as free time allowed, I have been playing the game quite a
bit.
In the realm of Cyberpunk/modern day M**s I really feel there is no
equal. The combat system is fairly amazing, which any hack n slash
game would be lucky to have, but CS is more than just combat. The
non-combat skill options are fairly diverse from the standard CP
classes of Ripperdocs, Deckers (the Matrix is real dope, and well
done, definitely giving a different experience from playing a
character), Thieves, to skills/classes you don’t find in many CP
games, like weapon-smiths, ammo loaders, scavengers and armor
crafters. For a good, but not totally up to date list of skills and
advantages that you’d have at the disposal in c-gen go to:
http://cs.vv.com/game/skills.html and click on the corresponding menu
links at the top to get to other information in that realm.
The coded money making systems are stand out in my mind as well. In
CP games that don’t rely on looting, and don’t have a “salary system”
of some sort, I‘ve found the basic, available to all money earning
systems tedious. No one wants their character sitting in a room
hitting “work” every 4 minutes, to get a pathetic hourly wage (though
there are employment options like this). As mentioned in the previous
review, the main source of income, are package delivery jobs that pay
fairly decent. There’s not a guaranteed amount you can earn per day,
but if you keep doing them consistently, with the bad and good days,
you’ll have a nice amount of credits/money to get your character all
the gear they need. Besides that, there are all sorts of other coded
employment/money making options that you have to find out for
yourself, and with a bit of exploring and lucky timing, you’ll
eventually find them.
One thing that heavily differentiates the game from other CP M**s, is
that in Character generation (C-gen), you are given enough points to
create a character that’s good and capable at what you’ve chosen them
to do, straight out of the gate. Then it just becomes a matter of
getting the right gear, building IC connections and such. I won’t lie,
if you create a combatant, comparatively the older combat characters
have the advantage of gear and earned skill/stat points through their
time, but really, if you just want mindless killing, it’s not the
place for you, but if you want combat that has an emphasis on style
and being a means in the course of RP, not an ends of itself, than
you’ll probably play at least one combat character if you choose to
play on CS.
The Character generation system is divided into three levels. To get
your player slot, you will need to submit a character bio, but after
that, the following C-gen paths apply:
Basic: There’s no history required, bare minimum of descriptions and
such, and you get into the game with no approval needed (not entirely
sure as I’ve never played a basic char). But the amount of given
stat/skill/advantage points is less than they are in the other two
c-gen paths.
Standard: This path requires a history/bio of your character, with
skills/advantages justified within the story, a public history (like
what’s known about you, this will appear accessible in game and added
to), and descriptions.
Advanced: Same as Standard, but you are held to a higher standard for
approval, and are required to submit an RP scenario. For your trouble
you’ll have more advantages to choose from like weekly pay checks as a
corporate employee or as a criminal, starting gear/money, and the
choice to become a mutant (that have all sorts of great/unique
abilities, of course at the disadvantage of probably being a pariah).
This structure I find, allows for the broadest appeal for all the
player types there are out there, and allows players a change of pace
(like creating a basic, to play in a much riskier style, and not worry
about the X amount of hours you spent writing bios and building your
character in c-gen).
To be truthful, newbie friendliness is not quite there yet, but I
will say that most players, if you ask them OOCly (OOC = Out Of
Character) they will help you out, and you’ll find it’s only their
character that’s the prick, by design. GMs and other Admin members are
usually very helpful as well. How to make CS more newbie friendly is a
topic that has recently been discussed and we all want to try to make
things easier for new players.
There is definitely a learning curve attached to many different
things in game, but if you put in the time to learn and play, no doubt
it’ll be a rewarding experience. Right now, in the summer, the
traditional slow time for the game, you’ll find around 10 players on
most of the time, with 20-25 during peak times. We definitely have a
decent base number of active players during these slow months, but the
more the active player base grows, the more interesting and inclusive
plots can be run, not to mention fresh perspectives and styles are
always good for a RP driven game like this.
I definitely recommend giving the game a shot, if pure Cyberpunk
(i.e. none of that Shadowrun elf, dwarf and magic stuff)/sci-fi themes
are your thing or maybe you’re looking for a more “modern” setting.
To check out recent and past logs hit up the unofficial forums many
players post on: http://thekab.com/cs/index.php
