It's a bitter sweet experience for me. When the 2142 1.5 beta came out I waited 2 days to download it. Then after seeing online servers for 2142 drop from 400+ to 6 I thought I might want to download it. Thinking that was the cause for the lack of servers. It didn't help, now I see 8 bf2142 servers online at any given time and now with FS I see none which I can connect to because none are running the beta patch. Makes me wish there were bots (again).
Pros:
1) The model work is fabulous!!! The players, vehicles and weapons are 1st rate.
2) The space maps are so well done and remind me of the fun years of X-wing, Tie Fighter, X versus TIE and X-wing alliance.
3) I love that the rebels have tactical variants of their uniforms.
4) Sound work is great.
Areas where to improve:
1) Many of the structures could use some better texture work (The large Imp facility on Rhen Varr is very plain and lacking depth). The other Rhen Varr map could snow on the containers, ledges and surfaces of the temple. I mean here it's an ice planet, snow is falling yet there's no snow on most surfaces?
2) Battle of Yavin CTD
3) Better terrain texturing on Ryloth. Grey roads on a red planet? They're loosely painted in and don't conform well to where the actual paths are. I know you need a difference so players know where to go and especially to show up on the mini-map but they seem very rushed. Thank hamsters Star Wars has hover vehicles because they can't make roads for crap.
4) smaller or more transparent icons for control points.
5) exiting vehicles is hazardous. Just in testing I died so many times exiting vehicles. Either they plowed me over, pinned me to a hill and so on. Granted that happens in all Battlefield games but for the most part they exit you on the same sides again and again.
6) Rebel hover tank's weapons are very limited in elevation and depression. The rockets don't depress low enough for really close targets while the laser turret doesn't elevate or depress well. If targets are too high you're screwed, if infantry is in close to the vehicle you're screwed.
7) Several maps have sparse amounts of static objects. The Tatooine maps are great and don't suffer from this but many of the others appear very plain. Each control point on a map could tell a story of why it's there, has it been fought over before and who has occupied it. In many cases it's very "cookie cutter".
Those are my current impressions. Most of which appear to be on the mapper's end or texture artist and not the coders or models.
It's still remarkable nonetheless.
Closed Alpha Test & Deth..
The CP layout seems to be good and balanced.
