It's been a few weeks, and I've been playing a lot (for me at least) of Dune Awakening. The dynamic duo of TreeTrunks McSkinny and Skip Legday just completed the Fourth Trial and have been busy building our skills, filling out our bases, completing contracts (quests), and making new stuff to drive around the desert in.
We've landed on a combat style that includes me running up and going ham on enemies getting agro while Mr. Legday snipes them all from a distance. That means I've augmented my Mentat abilities with a little swordsman to boot. It's not a bad combo so far.
I like to think of us as the bad boys of the private server with our despicable Harkonnen ways. I believe everyone else chose to go with House Arrakis. NOT US! TreeTrunks and Skip always do things the hard way, which probably means we'll miss out on some server-wide bonuses at some point. Meh.
In this survival game, however, the one thing you can be sure of is death -- it's always around the next corner. Whether it's being swallowed by a sand worm, killed by a mob of slavers, or just drying up in the sun -- death is ever present. Luckily, you have the power of respawn! In a lot of ways, Dune Awakening is much like ye' olde EverQuest in that if you die somewhere, you have to go back to the spot and collect your items you lost. It's not quite as punishing, though, because at least you don't have to run back naked and afraid. You at least keep your equipped gear on.
What I think I enjoy most about this game are the small details. Occasionally, large zone-wide sandstorms will kick up and damage anyone who isn't sheltered. The other day I was hiding in a little nook of a stone wall to shelter from a storm and turned the camera to look behind me. You could see sand particles sweeping across the rock plateau. What a cool touch! Little, beautiful touches like this are everywhere.
The combat is surprisingly fun when you have a mix of gunplay and melee. Trying to make a slow dagger strike through armor is so satisfying. In addition, it all just makes sense within the context of the movies (I'd say books, but I haven't read them).
Overall, I've just really enjoyed my experience in Dune Awakening so far. Up next for me is probably relocating my base closer to a station and pressing on into the fifth spice dream vision.
Happy Dueling!
