More views (Score 2, Interesting)

I've been beta testing for about a month now, and I just wanted to add my two cents. When I first started, I had the same reaction as many of the others: "What the heck do I do now?". They teach you extremelly basic mining, refining, and combat, and that's it. At that point you are expected to figure out how everything works and what the next step is. That said, once my head stopped spinning I actually just decided to dive into mining and started to piece things together from there. Once you learn a few systems, the rest work in a similar fashion, so it's just a matter of experimenting and building on past experience. I will also say that I am a member of a corporation, which helps tremendously. If one person experiments with something, they can share their knowledge with the rest of the group (our beta testers forum is quite large, containing many hints and tips on what to do and not to do). You will probably read in many places that this game is a mining sim. I would have to agree to some extent. You will spend much of your time mining, but if you join a corporation you can specialize. I actual am playing the role of a scientist, so I will mine for much of the time, but there was also a period of about 2 days where I didn't leave the station I was in, I just kept changing what I was researching. As far as the buggy patching system, yes I too have had that problem several times in the past. All you have to do is keep your installation software handy, and if that happens start over from scratch. Your characters are all kept on the server, so you won't have to spend much time backtracking. I do agree that the problem shouldn't even exist, but I haven't had that problem for several weeks now, so I'm satisfied. All in all, I would say I am tremendously pleased with their progress. I have my copy pre-ordered. I do think they should delay for a couple of weeks, but they seem to be able to do some great things in a short amount of time, so they may get the game set to go in that time.