Beta, beta, terminally ill, second chance?

So, it's that time again... yes, I'm waiting for a DVD to burn and have nothing new to read, so I'm writing something here. I'd make a comment about how thrilled you are, but I'm almost certainly the only one who reads this. :)

Anyways, for posterity, I've managed to get into the Pirates of the Burning Sea beta (blah blah NDA blah). I'm also in the Tabula Rasa beta (blah blah Other NDA blah). Impression time.

If I hadn't ever played EVE-Online, I'd be pretty impressed with PotBS. Graphically, it's pretty sweet with everything cranked up. It also plods along at 10fps in that case, so I can't really play it that way. Oh yeah ----> aside.

My Dell half-died a couple weeks back. I was sure the power supply popped, and since it uses a custom sized, custom wired supply, I figured I'd be SOL trying to find another one. Doing a bit of browsing, I found a used one on ebay for about $70... cheaper than I'd feared. Note that it is used though. A new one costs about $300 *IF* you can get one from a warehouse... the newer Dell Dimension XPS models use different ones.

So, I whined at my friends and Steve was kind enough to give me his old machine (which he had to dig out of the closet). It's a nice machine (Athalon 2800, 1.5G, Raedeon 9800), and I figured it would serve as a temporary gaming machine for a month or two while I scrounged up enough for the new PS.

Two surprises. One, my Mom was nice enough to lend me $100. Two, it wasn't the power supply! I, of course, went to put my old Nvidia 6800 into the new machine, and couldn't get it to boot. After a couple runs through the cables, it dawned on me to try powering on the old machine (which I'd moved the 9800 into). Bing. Booted up! So, my nvidia fried itself somehow. So, now I spent the $100 + the $70 I'd been saving to get a new video card (Raedeon x1950) and am back online.

<-- aside.

Ok, so anyways, as I was saying... looks nice but needs expensive new hardware. Turned down so it gets 30-40fps, it looks ok, but bland. But who cares what it looks like, let's talk gameplay. I haven't spent much time on this game, so I don't know much about PvP or exploration yet. The starter area is a bit lackluster. The missions are all instanced, so you can spend your days never interacting with anyone else if you so choose.

Combat is fun, but tedius. That is, you have to pay attention and switch targets frequently, managing your angle to the wind to bring them into your broadside gun position. This could be quite fun in bad weather and choppy seas.... in the calm of newbie land, it's just tedius. EVE combat doesn't have the positional requirements, but you feel like you have more options because there are different kinds of weapons..... do I want to web them, nos them, shoot missiles or guns? Do I sick my drones on them, change ammo types for better damage? Do I orbit to stay out of their guns, or keep myself lined up for emergency warp out? Here... I shoot guns. I can choose solid, chain, or grape shot (they have different names, but that's what they are). That's it.

The PvP system *sounds* great... but I can't say anything about it yet.