Reviewing Star Stable Online
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This review has been promising for a long time. When I first saw Star Stable online, I took a very critical approach and expressed my annoyance at many of its likes in my first review.
Thanks to the SSO team for giving me generous access to the game's paid features, the help of various members of the TMQ community, and the numerous updates that have been made to the game since I first wrote about it. I was very excited to give her one more. hour. I spent a lot more time with games during this time, and even invested a few Star Coins here or there. Let's dive into new insights, remaining grips, small details, and major flaws.
Star Stable Online - Much Variety, Little Depth
Star Stable Online is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, or MMORPG, focused on horses. This is arguably the biggest and most successful game in the horse game genre right now, if not. This article is not a final review of the entire game, as it is a summary of my first impressions after hours of play.
Sterstable Game Meanwhile, In Jorvik
Star Stable Online publishes an update every week and has been doing so since the game launched in 2011. The contents of these updates range from new horse and coat colors available for purchase to new temporary quests and special events in the race unlock, season and game world. Update
In my first post about the game, I criticized some aspects of the horse and the art style of the environment. Although the stupid startup horses have already been switched to look pretty good for the recently updated Jorvik Warmbblood, the last few months of my writing have brought significant changes to the look of the play environment..
Although there are apparently some fans who like the look of the "classic" horse breed, it has become quite clear to me personally that most of what once seemed ugly about SSO is gone and in the process of being updated. .
On multiple occasions, I found myself going through an environment that I found really beautiful in its new colorful glory.
Since I took a lot of time to play, I participated in one or the other seasonal event and special event: the Galloper Thompson Memory Race is one I can't describe more accurately than Crazy Bad.
Probably the most important change was not in the game but in my approach: this time, I visited Jorvik as the owner of the Star Stable product, a premium Star Rider with a generous allocation of Star Coins in my wallet, and was paid for free. By TMQ Interview Partner Nika Bender.
It’s a dream come true” — Nika Bender talks about her work on Star Stable Online
Star Stable Online is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game or MMORPG that has been available for almost 8 years. Despite the often underestimated target audience of teenage female PC gamers, the game is a huge success and it continues to grow and improve.
Nika Bender, owner of The Mining Quest SSO product, talks about what she and her team do behind the scenes in perhaps the most successful horse race of all time.
Ten Thousand Stories
Star Stable offers thousands of searches to play online. As can be expected with such an opportunity, these searches vary greatly in their quality in terms of both word and presentation.
Some find the search epic, urgent, and important, while others focus too much on the daily life of the horse-crazy Zorvik. Unfortunately, many quest mechanics eliminates the standard "go there" and "pick five of them" errors, except for the ever-present "go through these checkpoints". There are rare cases where the mechanic deviates from these rules: the game offers a handful of stealth missions, for example. As a result, the gameplay often feels extra clunky, as if the designers of Quest have tried their best to bring some variety, but are very limited in adding something to their toolset that looks really good.
It’s always easy to abstract any gameplay mechanics in a place that seems boring, but what many find frustrating is the lack of presentation and polish.
When you get custom shortcuts and animations from time to time, there's a progress bar at the bottom of many trivial search screens that tells you what your character is doing instead of showing a specific animation. The game only distinguishes between "main quest" and less important side quests, which means that for many parts of my game, I had no way of knowing what I was bringing, let alone creating an idea of what he was doing. Characters are often associated with more interesting search lines. It's at least happy to see the address.
The quality of writing in these searches is difficult for the most part. While many searches are relatively compelling, some are silly and some are really interesting. Conversations are always useful, often entertaining, and sometimes easy.
From the user experience perspective (more on that below), the quest to follow any quest in the game is broken by the structure of the quest: since there is virtually no dialogue outside the Receive Quest / Complete Quest frame, the game often insists you "keep talking to the letter X." You can accept questions with reasons like this. This type of search gives you 5 experience points and the dialogue needs to continue. It completely disrupts the normal flow of conversation and makes interactions seem incredibly awkward.
The limited structure of words, deeds and catsin can lead to such strange situations: a search mechanic involves you listening to two NPCs. Once a dialogue reveals that you have been caught and chased, you must
- Return to the search provider to finish searching for the hijacker, which ends with a dialog tag along the line, "We should get out of here, they've identified us."
- Click on the search provider again for a new search where it says "We must run".
- Click 'Yes' to get an "escape" intent search
- Click the "OK" button to start the race type search
- Wait for the race countdown to begin
- Finally, start your escape with some checkpoints.
Needless to say, this setup ruins any sense of urgency that the dialogue and cutscenes try to build up. And this is one of the more polished quest lines, with dedicated animations and camera angles.
Inadequacy Of Inputs
One of the main complaints in my initial review was the player character and poor horse management. I am now significantly less annoyed by this problem, which is due to several reasons: on the one hand, since no matter how I feel about it, I forced myself to play again, I'm just used to it. At the same time, my horse flattened out and his stats improved, including not only how fast he runs, but also how quickly he responds to my inputs.
Another reason that confuses me is that my starter horse was in a bad mood from the start. For a horse to be in a good mood, you need to log in every day for a week to do horse care work or spend Star Coins for ongoing stable care or veterinary treatment. When I finally started buying a new horse in a very good mood, I didn't understand why my initial horse didn't start with at least "OK".
Improvements are expected as a result of this leveling up and regular care, but the result of this setting is that the first moments of your driving, where the game will make a good impression on you, will be the worst experience in the game.
I don't know if any of these look good on my SSO riding skills but believe me there is a big difference between horse level horse riding on the left and Level 14 horse on the right.
I can imagine a relatively simple way to improve this: as part of the first few explorations, a player may be allowed to ride an NPC horse on the race track. The character can tell the player clearly that their own horse can become fast and responsive through adequate training.
I missed an explanation with those lines in the first few bits of the dialogue. The loading screen has prompts to let the player know that training and better equipment will improve their horse handling. And yet, I'm not sure I would have the patience to go through the lower level if a friend wouldn't let me try his horse and high-level character for some quick information.
The actual process of leveling my horse has become quite fun for me, with different daily races in different positions. While it's not hard to finish a race, improving your best time can be a bit of a challenge which involves trying risky shortcuts to earn a second here or there. Variable races, such as jumping at Silverglade Arena, or curved poles from the peacock, work much like ordinary cross-country races, but you need a little more precision to control the speed of your horse at critical angles. Trying to improve my score in this race was generally satisfactory, despite minor complaints when I was told that I would like to see my old score when I hit a new best time.
It remains to be seen if I will finally make a second horse after I decide to buy one. I suspect that I will only go online to get Horse XP, once I have reached the end of the currently available search.
World and progress
The world of Jorvik is huge. Players generally gain access to more areas by completing quests, though again, it's often unclear which quest line will lead to unlocking which area. More quests are required to unlock the fast travel trailers, again with no indicator of how far you are from that goal.
A series of missions dragged on for a while to repair the Great Bridge of Jarlaheim, but the amount of work he did on it was also extremely satisfying. When you enter new territory, the game takes on an interesting exploratory aspect, although the feeling is still relatively strange.
Considering that I still have several areas locked down, I can safely assume that I still have a ton of content left to discover in the game. A look at Jorvikipedia tells me that the horses have reached a maximum of level 15 - my main mount has hit only level 14. Players, on the other hand, do not have a clear level cap, they finish the searches available once viewed, everything is game content at the moment, usually around level 20. At the time of writing, my character is level 14.
Looking at the discussions taking place in Dedicated Fan Quest groups, it seems that many players who have removed existing quest lines are waiting for an update that brings "new ones" instead of "just" new horses. Considering the science of Star Stable goes deeper than what is seen in today's game (there have been books and single player games in the past), I would definitely consider adding new fields or stories in the future.
User Experience
One of the main problems with the game is not surprising, considering that the game was first released almost a decade ago and has grown over time without being designed for its current state: Star Stable's online interface and user experience is a complete disaster.
On a larger resolution screen, I play at 1440p, most UIs are too small, too much interaction depends on mouse clicks and there are no keyboard shortcuts. Interface windows like Character Overview, Inventory, and Shop can be dragged in for easy navigation and interaction between them, but will return to their original format the next time you open them.
Using the Quest item to open your inventory, click on a small item icon and drag it to a large bright spot in front of you and it will look like old fashioned and shrimp and an access item for a fancy inventory management system like Fast Game, such as Minecraft, Terraria or Stardew Valley.
Interface elements such as central yellow overlay text, scrolling text at the bottom of the screen, and character-based text boxes are used inconsistently in various searches: sometimes player character dialogs are only through NPC responses, sometimes you can choose dialog options, sometimes Your character gets a textbox at the bottom left, and sometimes your character's reactions or thoughts are presented in a central yellow overlay that is sometimes used for guidance. None of these inconsistencies are game-breaking, but they do show a lack of integrated approach to the user experience.
My location marker looks like it's just in the Quest marker, but the Quest provider is actually out of town and further down.
My location marker looks like it's just in the Quest marker, but the Quest provider is actually out of town and further down.
A similar list of minor frustrations about maps and navigation can be created: queries are shown on the map, but to find out what they search for, you need to open a separate search log and remember where they are assigned. Quick travel points are shown but not labeled on the map, and when you
It actually selects them from a non-visual list, which means they can remember exactly where the key is and which fast travel point is closest to it. The map itself cannot be zoomed in, which means finding a specific search provider or target can be a hassle, especially in cities and towns where you can't see very far.
I wouldn't be surprised to learn that these issues are known and ready to be resolved in Star Stable offices - it is clear to me that the game requires a basic UI / UX overhaul. Another question is whether long-term players who have become accustomed to the current situation will favor such a thing. But if the functionality remains the same, I see an optional "legacy UI" setting as a good way to make the transition easier.
The Montage Too
While playing the free version of the game in 2018, I felt incredibly limited in almost every way, not just all other horses, but exclusive to most search and paying users.
Now that I'm back as Star Rider, I wonder if I was wrong to see SSO as something like a free game. In fact, Star Stable is a complete title that includes a free demo with constant updates and additional in-app purchases.
Lifetime purchases include a weekly premium currency continuity allowance that I don't think I've seen in any other game and deserves some praise in my opinion. Its existence is also something that makes buying a temporary Star Rider pass pretty pointless, considering a lifetime pass would always be the most efficient investment.
The SSO team releases new horses that I can't blame for something that can be bought relatively regularly compared to SC, or I don't share the opinion of the community that it somehow indicates the downfall of the game when a new model is not as exciting and extended as others. Dear.
Whether or not it makes moral sense for a game to initially target kids so reliably on premium currency is another matter. For parents, I would especially recommend getting only a lifetime option and make it clear that if kids want to buy extra things, they need to save a weekly allowance.
The Best Horse Game - For Now
Okay, I'm going to say this: even for a single player like me, Star Stable Online is the best horse game I've ever seen and tried.
It features hours and hours of content with entertaining writing, visual quality and an increasingly decent level of polish and a development team that takes its horse-loving and aspiring audience seriously, which is sadly rare in this genre. .
With a focus on girls and magical adventures, Star Stable Online will never be able to satisfy all the aspirations of adult and/or male equestrian gamers, or even those looking for a more realistic and realistic experience. This is a game that many people like, but we should not settle for what we get.
My outlook on the future of SSO is promising: the game has already improved a lot and I'm looking forward to what's next, though I doubt I'll be able to hold my horse(s) every day, happy for weeks and months at a time. . In a way, with the rate of updates, I think half of the complaints in this review could be out of date in a few weeks.
Whether key issues like monotonous quest mechanics can be ironed out remains to be seen, and I don't blame anyone for not keeping the user experience and early game controls as they are.
One of my main takeaways from this game is the huge potential to convince game publishers that we can be an effective target audience: Star Stable's continued existence and success online, despite its supposedly special audience, and its many issues should prove that for equestrian gamers appropriate, and a look at the average game quality of this genre shows that there is plenty of room for competition.
Until the industry realizes this and works on this possibility, I will probably continue dating Zorvi to pass the time.
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