something better than eve. I would like to have a ship that i can fly around space, gain levels, customize the ship, see the interior and exterior. I want my ship customizations to be seen by myself and other players. I don't want it to be star trek, or any other television shows. I want to fly around the galaxy, meet new races and then kill them for their natural resources.  I want my ship to be able to land on a planet, hire marines to seize that planet and enslave the race, or, liberate said planet with my own army of marines. I want to hire people to work on my ship, crew members who have bonuses to ship speed, shield strength.

No point and shoot, I want strategy, I want, I want research (crafting) to be key to equipment and not loot. even though reverse engineering alien technology would be cool. My spaceship will not be a single seater, it will have a brige and living quarters, dining area and private areas. My ship should also be accesable to to other players.

I'm tired of elves, no freaking elves or orcs or goblins, or cow people. Humans and aliens, no alien elves either.

there, I have vented enough.

Ohhhhhh!!! I also want a launch bay so i can leave my ship in a fighter to take out other fighters.

You pretty much described the Jump to Lightspeed part of Star Wars Galaxies :)  You can get a trial at www.tryswg.com

Eve npc AI is terrible, the combat is zzzzzzzzzzzz - yes what you say is correct.

It doesnt need to be uber twitch play , just something less boring then the icon wars eve offers.  Eve is a pvp game with boring NPC content added on.  I dont agree with the ship crew thing though. I want the ships to be piloted by one person, i have an impossible time iwth the whole idea that i have some invisible crew in my ship - no one would follow me into space.

Eve misses the mark on many levels because its not meant to appeal to people who want a space mmo, its mean to appeal people who want a space pvp game.

I want a space mmo too.

yeah, at the moment, swg jump to lightspeed (the ground game pretty much blows but space isnt bad)

if not swg, wait till jumpgate evolution...im currently playing JTL until jumpgate evo comes out

Isn't Tabula Rasa space'ish? Heh  Idk if it has space customization so yeah...  But yeah, you're best bet for a space MMORPG is Eve.

Check out www.spacetimestudios.com

They are working on a new space mmo Blackstar. NCSoft was supposed to publish it, but after their Tabula Rasa disaster, they didn't want to spend more money and canceled the contract.

Spacetime Studios however is continuing development and ATM is looking for a new publisher.

There's a short YouTube video on their website from a demo at GDC. Looks nice. Even has ground based play too where you leave your ship and do missions/exploring on planet surface. You are also supposed to be able to board enemy ships and capture them fighting the crew.

I'm also bored playing EVE. My first MMO was Earth & Beyond. I still miss it. One of the ships in the Blackstar video looks like an Earth & Beyond ship and game play also looks a lot closer to Earth & Beyond then EVE.

The game you are looking for is called StarQuest Online. It doesn't have all those features you mentioned, however it has 90% of them. There is a free trial as well; it is a very small community based game and is easy to get into.

http://www.castlethornsoftware.com/new_sq.html