This post is mostly addressed to CCP, but everybody is welcome to join the conversation.

GÇ£We areGÇ¥: me and a lot of RL friends, not my corp or alliance. And leaving Dust means, we are no longer going to play it together. Last weekend (29.3-30.03) we had our latest GÇ£meet and playGÇ¥ event. Let me explain it really quick. We meet once a month somewhere in someoneGÇÖs flat and carry our PS3, monitors and equipment together order junk food and drink booze and play till we collapse and spend the night there. ThatGÇÖs it. The last time we agreed that Dust will not be launched again on our PS3s for a very, very long time.


I try to explain properly why. The following points are ordered after huge problems on top and still not good at the bottom.

Matchmaking- or the GÇ£not makingGÇ¥-system:
When we meet our goal is to have fun together. We are gamers with 20+ years gaming experience. Fun for us is to win games and to be beaten in games but still feel some king of satisfaction for example loosing, but still having a good time because of a close call or a good challenge. Fun is not being stomped or mercilessly destroyed on the field. This is frustrating above and beyond. I was taking the lead, giving commands, watch for the team to stick together, explaining tactics, dropping HAVs and evacuating our squad with the drop ship. LetGÇÖs say, I did everything I could to make a win happened. My buddies are not as active in Dust as I used to be and we meet some major problems like ISK and SP. But ISK and SP should be cool, if the system would find matches for us that are somehow equal in quality to our side. What we have found where two full corp squads against us, and absolutely no organized squad on our side. We meet the same people against us over and over again. It feels like: GÇ£och come on, not these guys again! Is someone else playing this game, or are we the only one left here?!GÇ¥

No diversity: The Game.
How about something else to do rather taking over the objectives? How about PVE? How about giving small casual groups something to do or having a small chance in this lobby shooter?

Maps.
The maps feel dull and ugly. They are missing the love of details and are somehow wrong in size and proportion. I donGÇÖt like to pull this example, but we could play BF3/4 maps over and over and over and over again without switching once. I know that the games should not be compared, but if I had the choice, I would always choose a BF map to play in Dust. Somehow the maps feels more polished, more thought through and well-designed. Maybe this is the curse of random generated maps, but this canGÇÖt be the excuse for the dullness and ugliness of the looks. The Maps donGÇÖt even makes ANY sense. IGÇÖm not expecting to see a full production line, but now one can explain to me what these random structures are. Is this thing a star gate? What is this lonely empty building/structure doing here? Pipes coming and going from nowhere in to nowhere. ItGÇÖs like a huge Lego Godzilla took a huge dumb in the middle of the dessert. Randomness without a real concept.

Graphics and Sound.
Well, this one is concerning me for a while now. Why does this game look so awful? Have you ever see other shooters on the PS3? I know itGÇÖs not a gaming PC but hell they all look a lot better.
The sound is annoying in a lot of weapons sounds like toys from the 90s and the repetitive sound glitches makes it even worse.

Cloaks.
BoyGǪ DonGÇÖt get me started on this bullshGǪ ONE proto scout taking half the squad with remote explosives, shotguns and runs away? Run games like 27/1 31/1 and so on. Brilliant idea CCP! Balance this somehow to a more enjoyable level. And yes we had scanners and midslot modules against cloak.

Marked.
Why the hell canGÇÖt we trade in Dust? And when will we be able to trade between EVE and Dust? Come on! Trade for merc to merc is essential!

No diversity: The Maps.
ItGÇÖs the same thing, over and over again. A view might say: GÇ£Well playing the same map and mod in BF4 is boring as wellGÇ¥. But itGÇÖs somehow not. Somehow every match feels different, and somehow the joy stays a lot longer. I can only explain this by the diversity of things you can do on a map. Let this wall collapse, blow up a bridge, camp this hill, and hide in this bush. Apropos bush, why is there as good as no vegetation? It could make the maps more interesting, even the desserts in BF4 are more interesting and more GÇ£livingGÇ¥ then this little grass things on the ground.


There Patch 1.8 is nothing special in our eyes, and since we are talking honest here: This should have been there, right from the start, even in the beta. Like a lot of other things. We hope that you have something extra ordinary special to present during the FanFest and the you will release it in a very short time after that.

After all this criticism let me tell you what we like about this game.

We like the persistence and the potential longevity. A lot of us are sick and tired of every year a new CoD or other FPS. We would like GÇ£to lock jaws into somethingGÇ£. We like the future setting. We like the New Eden setting (after all, half of us still plays EVE). We like the potential (if you donGÇÖt **** it up). We like the art and style.



See you not on the ground.