Usually I enjoy this column.

 What comes up sour with this is that MMORPG.com seem to be bound by contract to mention at least once in any article a game I don't play, not want to play and really really annoys the sh*t our of me beause of its ubiquity.

And I don't mean WoW.

Great Trailer. My Game really is back.

"True Blood" disagrees with you, Mr. Coyote.  On the gaming front I put all my hope in "World of Darkness".

 That said, I really, really, REALLY hate Twilight for what it's done to my favourite villains.

Again, a very good read and it seems you finally "got" EVE ;)

 It is always refreshing to see things through the eyes of a newbie again. One can get a bit jaded over time, especiqally in EVE.

I like your Style.

Xsyon is an amazing game.

 Why?

 - It is a true 3D sandbox game (with avatars)

 - it focuses (to a fault maybe) on players, not bots

 - The devs are listening to the community and don't give us crap

 - as a player, you have a real impact and I mean you can leave a lasting impression in the game world

 - I would rather compare it to Minecraft (with better graphics and a social aspect) than to, say, Fallen Earth (with worse graphics and without bazillions of quests)

There are issues, no sugarcoating to that.  The make or break of this game, as I see it, is the community. Xsyon is player-centered to a fault. It needs players to create content like early days EVE Online. And it needs players for revenue.

So, basically, if Xsyon is either to soar or fail depends totally on us, the players. Even more so than other, big studio, games.

I chose Malkavian as my favourite PnP char is a Malk child vampire on a rampage.

 But reading this thread, I fear there might be too many people running around acting crazy and being silly.

 If you read their homepage with a modicum of reading comprehension, you'll norice that they are anouncing a game that will have this or that feature when it's released (bolded the important part). I don't see anything unethical. But then I tend to read thoroughly what I am buying before I part from my money.

 As I said, I find it is marketed confusingly, which can lead to misunderstandings and they should make clearer what state the game is in. Giving out release dates didn't help. 

 And I am aware I am just a customr and not a stakeholder. I tried to make my reason for sticking with testing clearer.

I'm not that happy with the 'pre-Order' thing.  I think this label is giving people the impression they are ordering a finished game. They are not. They are buying themselves the opportunity to partake in the development of the game within the 'prelude' phase. Which is a beta test. They are buying themselves two months of game time once the product is finished. Plus perks.

 In my opinion this misunderstanding should be adressed more clearly by NG. But what do I know?

 I knew what I get by reading forums and was not disappointed. In fact, I am rather pleased with Xsyons progress in the last two weeks. And with the dev communication. I was in a lot of betas, closed and open, and didn't experience this kind of comitment (often). The number of features in game now is  ...  exiguous. But you can see where this is leading and if you play around with Xsyon, you can discover things not even anounced.

 Xsyon is not a game atm, but a project. I paid money to join it, true. Now I am trying to protect my investment by testing stuff and giving feedback to the devs.

tl;dr: pre-order is bad wording,Xsyon not ready as a game, it has lots of potential. Help development or don't. 

I can only reply for me.

 I  read about it here and was immediatly intrigued. But as a long time MMO player I was also thinking: "Scam á la Dark&Light or vapour ware" Features sounded too good to be true. It had everything I could WISH for (pun intended) in a game. But I kept an eye on it. Release on August, 15 I never believed a second.

 Then I read some forum posts of people in game, which were all very sobering. At least for people expecting a finished game. Then I found some money in my wallet, some time to spend and went "What the hell. At least give them a chance." See my above post.

I don't want to soud like an uncritical fanboy. But ...

 I pre-ordered it and expected a trainwreck, writing off my 40 bucks as a donation to "general independent developers". I was wrong. Xsyon is far from finished. Really far. But you can see the shape of the game it has the potential to be. And that's an old-school sandbox with many interesting and new features. If they can pull through.

 I logged in for six days now (can't call it playing, rather than testing out features) and in these six days it went from kicking me out every 10 minutes to running stable with some database errors now and then. I had a very good contact to a dev. I can see, they are actively doing something.

 So. I think I can confirm, Xsyon is not a scam. It is not a finished game, but a work in progress. You can log in, do some things. Many of the announced features are in the game now, many are not.  This game for all purposes appeals to the Ultima Online/Wish/pre-NGU SWO crew.

 Don't compare it to the GW2 or other "AAA" titles with big money behind them.

 tl;dr: If you like old-school games and bemoan the passing of UO-like concepts in favor of soulless "yet another WoW-clone" games, you should look into Xsyon. Don't expect a finished game, though. Or a pretty one.

Ryzom - Atys is a lavish and above all LIVING world.

Phew, this is gonna be hard.

First: EVE is unlike most of the games out there. It is more of a simulated universe than a theme park. The term is 'sandbox'. You got a lot of toys to play with but no one tells you how to play with them. And it's a dog eat dog universe. Even in secure space you can be killed. If they don't shoot you you, they try to scam you, steal your stuff, mine your asteroids or ruin you in the market game. Apart from 80% of the players, EVE is probably the best MMO that is ;)

 Your questions:

 1. Merchant/trader is a career path in EVE and, if done right, maybe the most rewarding ISK (currency in EVE) wise. But EVEs economy is very complex. If you want to be a trader, you will look at spreadsheets more often than out of you cockpit. Also, without proper money to do some up front investments you wont get very far. Your "Wheat from Lave to Leesti" routine doesnt work in EVE. You can make lots of ISK, when finding the right routes and goods, but mostly from High Sec to 0.0 (or No Sec) and for this you have to fly the right ship, e.g. a blockade runner, which in turn requires some skill to fly.

 tl;dr: You can do it. It is rewarding. Don't expect to do it right from start.

 2. No Joystick in EVE. No twitch combat. Still player skill is mportant. And crucial in PvP.

3. That's hard. CCP created a lot of new player stuff in the last years. Still, there is so much to learn in EVE that it seems to take forever to get a grasp on that game. I played it for more than four years and still discover some things I didn't know.

 My best advice is: Join a player corp. EVE is meant to be played with other people. You can do it alone, but you will miss most things, that make the game great. Also, a newbie friendly corp has tons of advice and help for new players. 

 There is a series of articles here on mmorpg.com, EVE survivor, a pretty goodreflection of the newbie experience.

 If you don't let EVE frighten you, if you ride the tiger, you are in for an experience.

To me it was a mixed read. Admittedly, I am a 'vet' and the view upon EVE by a new player is somewhat strange. If you learned it, it always seems so easy afterwards.

 But at times I wanted to just excaim "No no NOOO! This is wrong."

There are many good advices here in this thread already. I don't know if the author actually reads it or wants to remain 'unspoilt'. But if he is following his course of action as laid out in this week's entry, I predict another person bored to death by EVE. Maybe one should never forget, we talk about a Massively MULTPLAYER Game.

Until something proves otherwise, I see this crash and burn. Because the developers try to do too many things and fail to accomplish anything. Just like any newly released game since LOTRO.

 Prove me wrong, I beg you.

Tbh, this seems too good to be true. Call me a bitter MMO vet, but I have seen this before (Dark&Light anyone?) and indeed this "Prelude" (aka paid beta) reminds me of the infamous "Settlers of Ganareth" scheme.

 I'd very much hope, this game flies and with even 60% of the promised features I would very probably play it.

But this industry made me doubting thomas.

Is that a trick question?

Gongrats to my favourite game for 4 years and running.

 GG EVE Online

Boring trailer and game graphics look like WoW in space.

Oh my

 A well-done EVE movie/series would be awesome! So amazing stories could be told of New Eden. *dreams*

 It's  a problem with billing apparently. Pre-orderers gain access tomorrow. And, trust me, there couldn't be two games more different than FE and Aion  

 (WoW and EVE come to mind, but hyperbole makes things look clearer)