The Dune: Awakening group is torn proper now. Within the Deep Desert, roaming hordes of orniphopters (the Dune equivilent of a aircraft or helicopter) are dominating the top sport and making an already harmful space much more perilous. The factor is, I do not suppose it is a dangerous factor. The truth is, I feel it is good for the sport in the long term.
For individuals who aren’t acquainted, the Deep Desert is a no-holds-barred open world PvP space that makes up the vast majority of Dune: Awakening’s finish sport. It is a huge, largely barren, panorama the place the perfect supplies could be discovered. It is also a spot the place any participant can kill you and snatch any cash or supplies you may have on you.
So the stakes are excessive. For the time being, the Deep Desert is being patrolled by Assault Orniphopters. They could not be capable of crush you to dying anymore, however they’re nonetheless armed with missiles, permitting pilots to shoot down different orniphopters with relative ease. One could be evaded simply sufficient, however when eight of them fly in direction of you, you are completed for.
As you may think about, there are quite a few complaints about these flocks of orniphopters dotted round social media and Dune: Awakening group hubs. Take this Reddit submit conveying the disappointment tied to the Deep Desert in comparison with Hagga Basin. Or this one, by which person nowheels64 makes a plea for the lock-on missile launchers that seem within the latest Dune films. The frustration is actual. It is palpable.
These aggravated by the Deep Desert all have legitimate opinions. It’s undoubtedly irritating while you’re by yourself, mining supplies, and get blown to items from some unseen risk on excessive. Dropping all of your issues is a bummer, there is not any two methods about it.
However I’ll make an argument that the scurge of orniphopters is not inherently a nasty factor for the Dune: Awakening finish sport. The Deep Desert, the Landsraad – it is all about collaboration along with your fellows inside the faction you may have chosen. Participant guilds are hooked up by the hip to the Landsraad, and targets assigned every week are so lofty as to virtually require group effort. May one particular person theoretically farm up 1,000 Adept swords and hand them in on their very own? Positive. Is that the intention? Clearly not.
So the place does this depart the participant, recent from Hagga Basin? Effectively, they’re outnumbered and unable to make an actual dent within the Landsraad. The one possibility is to affix a guild, to dive headfirst into the social pool of a really community-focused finish sport.
Dune: Awakening does not pressure you to do that, to be a social animal, but it surely’s so clearly the purpose that the one different factor Funcom may do to stress it additional is to construct an enormous neon signal that claims “be a part of a guild” within the small PvE slice of the Deep Desert.
I admire that this is not everybody’s bag. The truth is, historical past has taught us it is not the vast majority of folks’s most popular option to play. Throne and Liberty misplaced loads of gamers who did not need to contact the guild zone management mechanics, irrespective of how cool sieges appeared. Darkish Fall On-line was extremely PvP targeted, and extremely area of interest consequently. In World of Warcraft, should you do a Battle Mode world quest and see one other participant PvP tagged, loads of people will simply /wave and go on with their enterprise.
However with a sport like Dune: Awakening, the battle between the factions is so integral to the mechanics, and even the narrative. You are on Arrakis through the struggle of assassins, Landsraad bonuses are faction-wide. It is Atreides vs Harkonnen child, all the way in which down into the mud. To shrink back from that may be to separate from the supply materials in a manner I am not satisfied Funcom desires to do.
I am not going to take a seat right here and inform folks they’re enjoying the sport fallacious: you play the sport you pay for nonetheless you need. There’s nothing fallacious with popping again to Dune: Awakening when a brand new faction or main story replace occurs. However when it comes to the Deep Desert, I hope this spirit of hazard stays. It may be aggravating, but it is also a needed pressure to push gamers into the broader faction battle. And is not that what Dune is absolutely all about?
