Basically the game is great compared to wow but lacks low lvl dungeon experience and the need to get keyed and find the obscure quests causes people to lvl right past dungeons and finding a group is like impossible. It seems like the dungeons were meant to be run after the quests in the area and that makes little sense. It would be more fun if you were guided to the dungeons earlier so you can quest while you find a group low enough to run it. or just run it instead of quests which is what I would like to do over and over but you can not  because xp falls off too quick in dungeons as you lvl and there is nothing to run for xp at certain lvl's.
 
There needs to be a dungeon for every lvl to get good xp in imo for the most fun.

The game is really unbalanced in how lvl's scale so drastically in power and the people that can afford great crystals can wipe the floor with new players in 1 or 2 hits. That is not what creates enjoyable pvp or a good healer experience.

I left the game more than a couple months ago because of the rune setup and how you need to find the time to grind for cash to get good ones to be able to do good healing or get good heals , quest and basically everything. The game was not fun for me after like lvl 27 or so; which is a shame because aside from the cash shop rune system and dungeon xp and imbalance in pvp the game is really quite good.

And there needs to be an xp bonus for grouping because it is hard to find a group cause the xp is less. Makes little sense to have that in an mmo.

Finally a decent sc-fi game that has raiding and that ME ,SWTOR rpg feel but lets you play with other people. Been a long time waiting for this.

I don't know why most sci-fi mmo's neglect pve and don't use tried and proven raiding systems instead of leaving that space empty or using some other crapy pve mechanic that is not fun or does not work too well. If your going to shun the great pve systems that have aready worked then at least come up with something that tops all the others instead of having boring pve just to be different or whatever.

Also everyone runs into times when they have to solo pve or pvp even when your in a guild/corp/tribe, whether you just need cash for pvp or you have no friends online, so you must not neglect that aspect either. SWTOR does great in this area.

That is why I give SWTOR mmo 9/10. Would be 10/10 if there was a mechanic like Eve's new captureable customs office Planetary Interaction fuction or player owned outposts and moon mining in open world travel style. Then it would be the perfect pvp/pve mmo. There is no point in holding out till we see the perfect pvp/pve game so you might as well give SWTOR a try imo. Beats playing 1 of the thousands of boring fantasy mmo's.

Heads up on new tech soon to be avaible to developers: I-Nvoae Engine

The guy that started Infinity Quest For Earth project is the creator, so I believe it will be suitable for space shooter mmo's.

It is good news indeed!

The Infinity Quest For Earth project has basically everything I would want and need in a space shooter mmo.

Originally posted by Sagasaint

there a pretty decent sort of space-shooter MMO out there, Air Rivals

sadly, F2P

even more sadly, a korean grinder

EVEN more sadly, quite pay-to-win

 

still it was LOTS of fun

video

 

wish some western company took this one, improved it a lot then released it as P2P

OMG!

I was wondering how long it was going to take for someone to post about Air Rivals aka Ace Online aka whatever else they call it next.

I don't know why I have to explain why those games are terrible. But I will :) By the way I ask anyone else that supports these failure flight games to please not muddy up this thread with discustions about these or any other games like these. It is a discrace to call this a space-shooter mmo. I do not aim to offend; if you find that type of expirience fun then I am glad. Well, I'm not glad per say but whatever floats your boat :)

There is no attempt to offer any depth and you can understand that just from flying in the game. The fight mechanics are not even close to good, though only slightly better than Eve's. I would rather play WoT for depth. And there is little attention to econ elements and no immersion in a open world design. Very limited fun in space flight exploration and game mechanics.

It's not a serious mmo game.

WHY would you pick the Ace Online clones over say BP or WoT? If you can run BP on your computer then you have no excuse for playing Ace Online.

And I don't want to think about games like Ace Online any more. It angers me to see games made with out regard for a quality expirience. :( I would rather play DarkOrbit than an Ace Online clone.

I'm no t asying BP is a good space-shooter mmo but at least the flight engine is close to good.

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Originally posted by VirusDancer

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Originally posted by Robokapp

you need to put eve online down and pick up "asteroids". it's fluid and dynamic and all you do is shoot. its amazing.
 
Let eve for those who want a metagame.

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Oddly enough, this pretty much came to mind.  Perhaps it is just my overall disdain with folks needing everything to be a "MMO" of some kind.  Asteroids the MMO...well, it does sound like what some folks want, eh?  Just a MMOFPS in spaceships.
Maybe somebody could make an Asteroids MMOFPS or MMOAG - perhaps a MOBA, eh?
As to the original post, I can get how somebody that is looking for an arcade game would have had issues with EVE.  It used to come up from time to time as people would complain in game that they could not just fly their ship like a space shooter.  EVE never claimed to be a space shooter.  With all the videos out there, I just cannot fathom how anybody could get into a game without a clue as to how the game...is.  EVE is a game of big ships - you're not flying drones - you're flying the ships that launch the drones.  Frigates, Destroyers, Cruisers, Battlecruisers, Battleships, and larger... no, you're not going to fly that like a lil' fighter - much like naval ships do not pilot like a jet ski.
So yeah, I could see where somebody might have no interest in a Space MMORPG when they're just looking for a Space MMOFPS.  So then we get into the meat and potatoes of it... it has been mentioned in this thread how few non-fantasy MMOs there are.  How few MMOFPS games are there out there?  So break it down even further... yep, a Space MMOFPS is unlikely unless it ends up being a F2P web based Space MMOFPS/MMOAG/MOBA...

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First of all the term "arcade game" does not bring to mind a persistent universe with an economy. So no, I was not looking for an "arcade game" when I picked up Eve for 5 bucks. I was looking for an online experience in space. But not with combat that makes you fall asleep. :(

The second thing I want to share is that I bought Eve before You Tube and no research was done as it was an impulse buy for $5 and smartphones with internet access did not exist. So ya I was new to mmorpg's or rather I had not played any to my recollection. I was into online experiences and wanted to be in space. So the description on the cover was all I needed to free me of my $5.

I was unpleasantly surprised when I actually tried the game weeks after. I did not know a combat system like Eve's existed. I simply did not expect it because it is such a boring frustrating experience that I would not expect that a game developer would actually create a game using those combat mechanics. I still can't believe it but now I know that exists and someone did do it and I am more cautious.

As much as I hate the combat engine and mechanics I do see that Eve was going for a large number of users on 1 server; and the combat engine does accommodate that but at the cost that I'm not ready to pay. I need to have a sense of control and Eve's combat/flight engine is more frustrating then exciting or immersing. I don't find comfort in being a part of a large group online because I don't like flying and fighting in my spaceship in Eve. That type of piloting experience does not interest me. You can have your huge fleet battles and whatever else you like in Eve but without fun combat mechanics for flying your ship I really don't have much fun so don't expect me to join you.

I 2 excuses I'll call them repeatedly from supporters of Eve Online:

1) You can't get huge battles with meta gaming like you can in Eve.

2) Ships in Eve are Huge, so there is no other way to fly and fight in ships of that size.

My first response is, I DON'T CARE! Eve does not have to be a space-shooter mmo to give us a better way to fly and fight.

My second reaction is, why does that make it okay for the flight/combat engine to suck so hard.

I really do see why some people get into Eve with all the politics and planning and econ and fleet coordination but none of that makes up for the crap experience of flying my ship in Eve; and I am not alone in that opinion.

I would rather have small ships in smaller battles if that is what it takes to feel like I'm having some fun. But I would like to point out that some ships in Eve move plenty fast for piloting them directly and even piloting options for direct control would work for capital size ships.

I don't think you need to leave out big ships. There are other options for flight; I would even settle for a flight deck view that lets me experience something other than looking at little dots mashed up in a blob.

Seriously, if WoW can give you direct control then a space mmo can do it too.

Even making a space mmo designed around point and click targeting and tracking, but with direct control would be acceptable over Eve's take on ship flight/combat. Actually steering your ship with a flight stick or mouse & keyboard is far more acceptable than pointing and clicking; and it's closer to real life; and it's more FUN. You have to steer naval ships also; the captains are not just pointing and clicking in the air!

And why in the hell do I need a target to warp to? It's not like you know better if some space junk is going to be in your way when coming out of warp if you have a target to warp to. If I want to jump to light speed and fly into a star it's my choice not the game engines; or at least it should be.

Look Eve is fun some people for very good reasons. But those reasons don't justify bad flight engine and combat mechanics that break the experience for the rest of us and basically stomp all over our need for a fun experience flying a space ship in space. We need more and Jumpgate was and is so close that it begs the question- Why do we still have no good space-shooter mmo's?

I think it is only a matter of time before we see more acceptable space-mmo's that appeal to more than just the DarkOrbit and Eve crowds. After all dev's are always trying to make mmo's that are not just the same old thing rehashed. And their options are running thin I think.

Infinity has an investor now so we will get what we need eventually :)

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Originally posted by Scorchien
Could Try Black Prophecy                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-3lJ8jy_Pk
 
 
       http://en.start.gamigo.com/blackprophecy/004/?pl=af&affiliateID=486

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I have no other choice, BP is the only updated space-shooter mmo. And well, it is lacking imo. It is no Jumpgate unfortunately and a big draw on the fun of this game is the lack of design direction for game play.

It also has warp which is totally not favorable for chases that are exciting and breaks the pvp experience to an unrecoverable degree imo. Even Egosoft is leaving the warp feature in their up coming game X Rebirth because warp takes a needed lvl of strategy away even in pve I think.

And no connected sector navigation like we had in Jumpgate. Which is basically non negotiable feature in a space-shooter mmo. Warping to each sector from a list kills the immersion factor and also kills strategy. X Rebirth uses a highway system to allow a big universe to exist and be accessibly explorable while still leaving strategy and immersion intact; while still having Jumpgates or Warpgates connecting sectors together. With connected sectors each sector instance is rarely viewed as an instance because you perceive it as a real construct and except the illusion that the Jumpate merely helps you travel past space that actually exists when it just throws you into another instance. And that space that you assume you just jumped through does not exist. Sorry to break that to you if you thought the space was truely there some how. Yeah we all know it does not exist but it effectively feels like you are in a huge universe. Eve players are notorious for insisting that there are no instances in Eve. But effectively Eve is just made up of hundreds of instances that you can freely roam; just like in Jumpgate.

I honestly think they chose to go with the flashy high spec graphics design hopping it would draw people but the lack of design direction is hampering the player population growth and people just don't stick around because the design imo is fundamentally flawed in at least 2 areas. Plus they drastically over hauled the power per lvl increase amount. They made it more gradual which is fine; it's better for pvp. I prefer a gear progression more like Jumpgate had; but it is not horrible in BP; however combined with drastically different weapon types that have steep learning curves it would be nice to get access to all weapon types without needing to put points in a weapon type to be able to use it. Or at least give players a VR room to try all weapons out in, so you can tell if you like the weapon type before you invest non refundable points in a weapon type to get it to high lvls.

BP has upgradable player stations but I don't see any real end game function for them that seems fun and interesting. You can upgrade better but only so you can fight over sectors that have resources allowing u to upgrade even better I guess, not really sure. Your supposed to be able to fight other clans but not sure if that is just clans on your faction or what; and if so then are you at war with your faction as well as the opposing faction? The end game seems to not be there yet. Though combat is mechanically good for dog fights that go nowhere.

Weapon grouping and binding misses the mark imo. You need to be able to bind buttons to fire weapon groups. Their current system is clumsy because you need to select a weapon group and then push the fire button. X3 did button function binding better years ago.

And what happened to a "trying to be cap stable" gear design. It's in all the cool space shooters from Jumpgate to SWG-JTL! There isn't even a energy limit to meet lol. Where's the min/max tinkering man! This is like holy grail mmo game design, even Eve has it lol. WoW uses a similar system with skills. For the love of mmo's I don;t care if you replace it with something but you wound be hard pressed to find something better. But there is nothing there. Okay it's fine Reakktor at least you made a space-shooter mmo just try harder next will you. At least explain why your ships seem to have a magical unending supply of fuel and energy. BLOODY HELL! So frustrating being a space nerd :( Okay so ther is min maxing for mass and your manuverability but it's not as fun and does not keep you interested by itself. Basically a drasticly lighter ship would just be gimped in fire power and not useful in this game design as far as I can tell; they should have also made ship classes like light fighter to bomber/gunboat to like cap ship even, and allow for you to gain xp in the ship class you are flying; and if you want to fly another class you just start flying that class to have access to high lvl hulls of both classes. You just have to design the game for it from the start so it fits in an interesting way.

Jumpgate was my all time favorite mmo game to mess with gear in because not only did mass matter in a huge and cool way because of the near newtonian fight engine, But weapons and engines dreww from the same capacitor and the recharge rate of cap and shields was decided by the size of your reactor. If you were drawing power from your cap too much and it fell to a certain lvl the shields recharged slower too or something like that. I remeber at full throttle my shields did not recharge as fast anyway. It created an interesting gear evironment system to play with interactivly that no other game recreated thus far.

The last minor fail I will mention is the modular ship design. Yes the ships are modular yet not in the Chome Hound awesome way where you can try to create a monstrosity that allows you to get that extra gun on under the mass/energy limit and gives your ship a unique look. No you simply have effectively no way to change your ship so it looks significantly different and your parts look is tied to it's stats so... what was the point of this modular design? I can't ever change my ship to look the way I want even in the limited modular design with out possibly sacrificing stats. Even if by some fluke I get the look I want from the parts with the stats I want, when I upgrade the look changes so...., lol makes me wonder what Reakktor Devs are smoking. They should have just made static ship models that you put parts into, that way at least I can pick from ship hulls I like and still have the stats I need on parts, with a lower graphic resource requirement; plus I would not look funny and lopsided like a WoW character that looks like a clown-hooker or a hobo-ninja high-bred or a trashcan-tank high-bred :) If your not going the Chrome Hounds way don't go there. Or at least give us the equivalent of a wardrobe mechanic; it exists for a reason. It's a small thing but the fail is everywhere in this game.

BP is a swing and a miss. BP needs a total redevelopment just like Egosoft is doing with X Rebirth. To be fair it is Reakktor's first space game to my knowledge so maybe their next one will be better.

Originally posted by free2play

He said stuff about The religion of EVE. It must be bad, sick him.

Now that I have that out of my system, yea Freelancer Online would be fun and I'd play. The idea that Space MMOs is a niche doesn't wash with me. Considering how saturated the fantasy market is with clones, your market share isn't really more than a niche anyway.

So true!

Originally posted by outfctrl

It's funny no one mentioned "Earth and Beyond".  This game was the closest to WoW then any other space mmorpg.  THis game was a true mmorpg.  No PvP, except in an arena.

You actually got out of your ship and met your mates at a space station.  There was crafting, questing, groups, classes, ship enhancements, weapon enhancements and much more.  They were always adding content too.  Even during the holidays, they would throw stuff in like, search for santa claus.

I made it all the way to 135, I think out of 150.

Then EA pulled the plug.  There is an emulator now and I have been playing it.  They are doing a great job, but rely on donations.

If EA would sell the game and let someone develope it to todays standards, it would be amazing!  I would play in a heartbeat.

Look at this map.  Game was very challenging.  Granted, the ship was mouse control, but you actually steered your ship.

I have heard of this game more times than I can remeber but never tried it. Sounds interesting and might be a good game to redevelope.

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Originally posted by Yalexy
 

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Originally posted by freejackmack

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Originally posted by Yalexy
Again. EvE combat is fun for alot of people, just as a RTS is fun to play for lots of people. The fun comes from the strategical and tactical gameplay, and lot's of people actually do like this. Positioning your fleet, calling the right targets, having the right setups etc...
Oh, and ofc, if you've ever flown a logistics cruiser, then you have plenty of action actually, and there's more ships that require fast actions aswell.
But... As we tried to make you realize a couple of times allready: You can't have battles with hundreds or thousands of ships involved with a shooter, especially when there's friendly fire enabled and a gazillion of drones swarming around in addition.
The big battles of EvE have 3k players on the grid plus an additional 3k drones zipping around... good look keeping the overview over this mess in Freelancer-style combat.
FPS or shooter-controls in general are decent for multiplayer-games, with limited numbers of players, but not for MMOs where there's no instanced battlefields to begin with.
So again, you need to choose between instanced and limited shooter-combat and massive fleet-fights. You can't have both at the same time. And I choose EvE for massive fleet-fights and a game like Freelancer for action-combat... and here's hoping for a new space-combat simulator ala Freelancer to come out soon(tm).
 

Yeah... okay I'm gald for the 150,000 + players that enjoy Eve and I have no problem admitting that a space-shooter mmo server and battle size would be smaller, that simply is NOT the issue.
The issue is, what about the rest of us?
And I hope there is no overview like Eve has that would simply not work in a space-shooter mmo and it barely works good enough in Eve imo. But I do not like Eve combat so I am probably not the best judge.
But... As we tried to make you realize a couple of times allready: You can't have battles with hundreds or thousands of ships involved with a shooter, especially when there's friendly fire enabled and a gazillion of drones swarming around in addition.

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I don't know why you think you need 1000 +/- players to make a battle fun. You simply do not. So why would it matter? It doesn't. A space-shooter mmo can have logistics and other things too on a smaller scale. It will be fun even on a smaller scale and especially in a space-shooter mmo where combat is more awesome. But I hope drones would not be AI controlled; again drones are a game breaker in Eve for reasons already stated so I would hope they would be minimized; however you do not need drones to have a fun battle either so who cares? You are stuck in the Eve box of perception (I don't know what else to call it) and need to realize that other game styles and/or scales do exist and are at-least as equally as fun.
Smaller scale? Yes, but the same if not more fun with much of the same features; except Eve combat would be replaced with twitch combat for the most part.
Jumpgate Evolution devs claimed to have 600+ players and AI ships on top of that in 1 sector. That would be plenty good enough.
Space-shooter mmo's will not be Eve clones (I think X Rebirth's Highway System illustrates this point nicely) but a decent space-shooter mmo will imo be more fun for me and others like me. Me and other space-shooter mmo pilots are largely over looked and there really is no reason that holds any water why. Except that there is largely no one to copy and so the task may be less quantifiable for investors and devs. But once they get a handle on it and build a decent space-shooter mmo, like an updated Jumpgate, then we will come, and you will come also once you see that it is a more attractive mmo experience like combat in Jumpgate was. There is no reason why it should not be made. It is an untapped market that can be monopolized on.
So what is the hold up? Lets get to it!

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The question in the OP is: "Why do we still have no good space-shooter mmo's?" It's not a question about personal preference, and actually I do like space-shooters aswell and I'd be glad to see something new like Freelancer again, as it's simply fun to play with a joystick, flying around, doing barrel-rolls etc, but...
I'm not against shooters at all here, but shooters are better suited for multiplayer-games like BF3 or whaterver and not a MMORPG. Shooters in general simply don't match up with the term MMORPG, as shooters can't be massive due to the technical restrictions I've tried to explain to you.

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Okay, first, Eve is the only mmo that effectively supports 150,000+ players on 1 server. I think you are trying to shoehorn the term mmorpg into favoring Eve's characteristics. Fact #2: The term mmorpg does not come with a hard # of what is massive enough to make it fun. It's a relative thing and so YES, it is about preference and there have been a growing # of twitched based mmorpg's appearing lately and so I don't understand why there are not more space shooter mmo's like Jumpgate in the mix like we have so many fantasy mmo's.

I think there is plenty demand for it just because of the fact that people want to try something different, alone.

Shooters come with a need for a high level of performance and low level of lag. So what?

Space-shooter mmo's can be plenty massive enough for it to be considered fun as an mmorpg. Fps combat is simply destined to be put in a lot of mmo's because it is more fun then point and click combat. So Fps combat is more suited for mmo's that have combat because, that then makes that mmo more fun. It's not about the tech limitations and demands because you work around it. It has been done plenty of times. Hence the games like Jumpgate or even Dark Orbit. I do see what your point is but it just is not relevant; and is getting less and less relevant day by day.

The technical restrictions have changed quite a bit in the last 6-8 years just so you know. It has been more than possible for quite some time to make another space-shooter mmo that is plenty decent. The tech excuse simply won't fly anymore and has not been valid for years.

If you make a space-shooter mmo decent enough you will find that the added fun of the twitch combat will draw good sized crowds. But to make a decent space-shooter mmo you need to understand that if you leave 1 critical detail out, that we space-shooter mmo pilots expect, then you just wasted your time trying.

It seems what we get most of the time is game dev teams that don't understand what you need because most people are more familiar with fantasy and magic themed mmo's. I think we need more dev teams that are put together with the goal of collecting dev team members that really do understand what you need in a space-shooter mmo.

There is plenty of money to be made off the whole where a decent space-shooter mmo should be. First dev team to pull off a decent space-shooter mmo wins! It's a space race.

All good points in this thread.

But free trial for the win!

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Originally posted by Yalexy
Again. EvE combat is fun for alot of people, just as a RTS is fun to play for lots of people. The fun comes from the strategical and tactical gameplay, and lot's of people actually do like this. Positioning your fleet, calling the right targets, having the right setups etc...
Oh, and ofc, if you've ever flown a logistics cruiser, then you have plenty of action actually, and there's more ships that require fast actions aswell.
But... As we tried to make you realize a couple of times allready: You can't have battles with hundreds or thousands of ships involved with a shooter, especially when there's friendly fire enabled and a gazillion of drones swarming around in addition.
The big battles of EvE have 3k players on the grid plus an additional 3k drones zipping around... good look keeping the overview over this mess in Freelancer-style combat.
FPS or shooter-controls in general are decent for multiplayer-games, with limited numbers of players, but not for MMOs where there's no instanced battlefields to begin with.
So again, you need to choose between instanced and limited shooter-combat and massive fleet-fights. You can't have both at the same time. And I choose EvE for massive fleet-fights and a game like Freelancer for action-combat... and here's hoping for a new space-combat simulator ala Freelancer to come out soon(tm).

---

Yeah... okay I'm gald for the 150,000 + players that enjoy Eve and I have no problem admitting that a space-shooter mmo server and battle size would be smaller, that simply is NOT the issue.

The issue is, what about the rest of us?

And I hope there is no overview like Eve has that would simply not work in a space-shooter mmo and it barely works good enough in Eve imo. But I do not like Eve combat so I am probably not the best judge.

---

But... As we tried to make you realize a couple of times allready: You can't have battles with hundreds or thousands of ships involved with a shooter, especially when there's friendly fire enabled and a gazillion of drones swarming around in addition.

---

I don't know why you think you need 1000 +/- players to make a battle fun. You simply do not. So why would it matter? It doesn't. A space-shooter mmo can have logistics and other things too on a smaller scale. It will be fun even on a smaller scale and especially in a space-shooter mmo where combat is more awesome. But I hope drones would not be AI controlled; again drones are a game breaker in Eve for reasons already stated so I would hope they would be minimized; however you do not need drones to have a fun battle either so who cares? You are stuck in the Eve box of perception (I don't know what else to call it) and need to realize that other game styles and/or scales do exist and are at-least as equally as fun.

Smaller scale? Yes, but the same if not more fun with much of the same features; except Eve combat would be replaced with twitch combat for the most part.

Jumpgate Evolution devs claimed to have 600+ players and AI ships on top of that in 1 sector. That would be plenty good enough.

Space-shooter mmo's will not be Eve clones (I think X Rebirth's Highway System illustrates this point nicely) but a decent space-shooter mmo will imo be more fun for me and others like me. Me and other space-shooter mmo pilots are largely over looked and there really is no reason that holds any water why. Except that there is largely no one to copy and so the task may be less quantifiable for investors and devs. But once they get a handle on it and build a decent space-shooter mmo, like an updated Jumpgate, then we will come, and you will come also once you see that it is a more attractive mmo experience like combat in Jumpgate was. There is no reason why it should not be made. It is an untapped market that can be monopolized on.

So what is the hold up? Lets get to it!

What u need to do is have a completely separate fun factor rating because if you hate the game and it completely lets you down, the way the rating system works it kinda hides that fact if the other components of the game are all top notch. It does not accurately represent the fun of the game.

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Originally posted by bunnyhopper

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Originally posted by freejackmack

 

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Originally posted by bunnyhopper

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Originally posted by freejackmack

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Originally posted by sagil

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No, I am not missing the point! You are missing the point! Eve combat is more boring than WoW combat(which says a lot because WoW combat is boring too) imo, I don't like it and I'm not alone. It pretty much is the worst combat system in mmo's.
I think it is great that you and 150,000 others find it good enough but I'm unable to derive any kind of entertainment from it and there are more like me. Eve players are not the only people that game. And twitch combat was what originally drew players to pong and for that mater skeet shooting and duck hunt are things people enjoy too. But it would be nice if there was a nice econ to go with the twitch combat.
Why are there so many Eve players that can not see beyond the New Eden horizon?
WHAT is fair about Eve combat? Getting hot-dropped buy a mother ship is not fun because you have no recourse except to run. It's stupid and people log out all the time just to avoid destruction because there is just no point even trying in a non twitch environment when out gunned. In a twitch environment it is actually fun to try to win when your out gunned.
You talk about drones like they are a good thing when they are basically a game breaker because they can attack small ships effectively and are usually controlled by larger ships.
It's not that fun to fly in a ship the size of a city unless your in a turret in a twitch environment imo.
"Action space sims are great" and yeah they do have limits but so does Eve combat. It is hard to make Eve point and click combat fun. I would be happier with a lower player count battle in a space-shooter mmo; simply because twitch combat is more fun to me and others like me. Who says you need giant corps to fight in battles and for that matter why would smaller battles not be fun in either environment. All the biggest battles in Eve turn into slide shows and locked out sectors anyway.
Different is good, it's a fact! Variety is the spice of life. So why is Eve like game-play the only way to make a space game? The answer is, it is not the only way.
Anyway glad you are playing a Sci-Fi game rather than one of those silly WoW clones. :)

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Comparing WoW to EVE in terms of combat mechanics it completely and utterly ridiculous, as is going on about some notion of "fairness" when that is not part of the debate.
 
The simple fact that action/twitch based space combat places a far greater limitation on the possibilites one can have in a space based mmo for obvious reasons. Which in turn means that the draw for such a game is also limited.
 
Now you are implying that having a reduction on possibilities is fine, let's have everyone flying around in similar sized ships, engaging in smaller scale battles and with no drones. That's great and I am all for that, but then it becomes abundantly clear as to "why there are no good space-shooter mmos" doesn't it? Twitch combat driven mmos are a rare beast as it is, a twitch combat space mmo is going to be even more niche.
 
Don't get me wrong, aside from my EVE/UO days I am a twitch combat game player primarily, always have been always will. At no point do I think EVE is the only way to do space, nor would I be against (at all) seeing an action space mmo. I can just see WHY there hasn't been a good one within the genre of mmorpgs. Action combat seems far more suited to games in which the player is confined to relatively similar sized/speed avatars/vehicles, or to the domain of non mmorpg singleplayer/co-op/small team based games.
 
 
 
 
 

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I am not trying to compare Eve to WoW per say, it is just an example to illustrate how lame Eve combat is, which is so clear to me that I have trouble understanding why people even need an explanation on why it is terrible if they have already played it.

Eve combat is simply not fun.

The fact that you would need smaller battles than 1000 in a space-shooter mmo does not matter because it's just more fun to fly in a twitch environment. Jumpgate Evolution reported over 500 in the same sector dukeing it out and it worked fine so the difference is negligible at best anyway.

The myth that you need similar size ships in a space-shooter mmo has little merit. You simply need a good engine to run multi player ships or make the tweaks needed to auto-turrets so that shots can be dodged effectively with small fast ships. It's how it would be in RL and it makes sense.

I don't subscribe to the idea that there are less possibilities for a space-shooter mmo; I do however like the different possibilities it opens up and the possibility to have fun flying in a spaceship would for me be the most alluring possibility of all with a decent space-shooter mmo.

Size of battles does not make a game and yes you can have drones and all kinds of crap as long as the drones and other things are controlled by the players like in X Rebirth. Or at least do not break the game play of the space-shooter mmo. BP has support drones in fact though BP is not a great example.

I don't know how you think there is less possible things you can have in a space-shooter mmo. Another real advantage over Eve that a space shooter mmo has is that a player skill based twitch environment makes it easier to balance Mother Ships with the rest of the ships. Being able to fly in and take out turrets has been in every space shooter I think, and it gives you that star wars luke skywalker movie experience. You just don't get that in Eve combat and it makes me said that people have no decent space-shooter mmo to go to and get that experience.

I don't think the draw for a space-shooter mmo is limited. I think the demand for such a game has not been properly exposed because of the lack of decent space-shooter mmo. Truly the X Rebirth will bring that reality closer. But the assumption that there is not a demand left unmet for a space-shooter mmo is very in accurate. The lack of the ideas for a good space-shooter mmo is some what disappointing when it comes to game developers and we really need a community driven company to take the lead. Egosoft is the first to come to mind as a good candidate.

Here is so footage of X Rebith and at the end you can see what appears to be a VR drone examining some ones space station or mining/factory instillation. : X Rebirth

I, for the record did not start the argument that Eve has fair combat and wow does not that was some else but Hot dropping with a mother ship is totally not fair imo especially if you you don't have a mother ship lol. But I think Mother Ships should be implemented with care in both types of games even in WoW if WoW had Mother Ships lol. Yes I just put WoW and Mother ship in the same sentence and now I feel a bit silly. :)

Originally posted by Aethaeryn

If the free beta is available in 2011 doesn't that mean you have about 1.5 months until beta.  You might have wanted to ask what is critical in the game earlier than now :)

political / economical MMO sounds great though. . throw out a link.

Yep lol.

I'm not into politics but econ is cool.

I hope it is a Sci-Fi game other wise thumbs down for me :)

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Originally posted by bunnyhopper

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Originally posted by freejackmack

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Originally posted by sagil

Go and make a petition to make programmers work on an open source @ sourceforge. :P Since no one sees money in it currently if they are not convinced about it.

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I don't understand why some would think there is no money in a space-shooter mmo, because most of the Eve players that I knew played shooters while they did the insainely boring pve in 0.0 or bot mined. So why would those same players not enjoy a space-shooter mmo with all the other cool econ and social features in Eve?
Seriously! I never wanted to play a game like Eve I just picked it up for $5 at a dollar store thinking it was an online game like freelancer. Hell it took years before I even took a second look at it and even longer before I could stand to play for more than a month. The combat in Eve is bloody terrible compared to even wow combat, imo. And yet still people play it.
So don't you think that a better combat system in an Eve type game would do awesome? It might even pull in close to WoW numbers because I met lots of players in WoW that are still waiting for a space-shooter mmo worth something.
Jumpgate Evolution forums were pretty active with Eve players fighting for total loss at death. And beyond that people do play more than 1 mmo from time to time so I am sure that bot miners from Eve would be showing up to play a decent space-shooter mmo while they bot mine. There just has not been a decent one that matched the features of modern mmo's imo.

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You seem to be missing the point of the combat in EVE in fairness. It is not meant to be anyhting like the combat in WoW so such a comparison is pretty poor.
 
Out of interest how exactly do you manage thousand plus scale battles whilst everyone is zipping about in Douglas Bader mode? How exactly would you balance action combat in a game with tiny drones moving faster than you can ever aim, or ships the size of cities which totally negate the need to aim or move in the first place?
 
Action space sims are great, but they have limits if you want that action flight to be effective and fun.

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No, I am not missing the point! You are missing the point! Eve combat is more boring than WoW combat(which says a lot because WoW combat is boring too) imo, I don't like it and I'm not alone. It pretty much is the worst combat system in mmo's.

I think it is great that you and 150,000 others find it good enough but I'm unable to derive any kind of entertainment from it and there are more like me. Eve players are not the only people that game. And twitch combat was what originally drew players to pong and for that mater skeet shooting and duck hunt are things people enjoy too. But it would be nice if there was a nice econ to go with the twitch combat.

Why are there so many Eve players that can not see beyond the New Eden horizon?

WHAT is fair about Eve combat? Getting hot-dropped buy a mother ship is not fun because you have no recourse except to run. It's stupid and people log out all the time just to avoid destruction because there is just no point even trying in a non twitch environment when out gunned. In a twitch environment it is actually fun to try to win when your out gunned.

You talk about drones like they are a good thing when they are basically a game breaker because they can attack small ships effectively and are usually controlled by larger ships.

It's not that fun to fly in a ship the size of a city unless your in a turret in a twitch environment imo.

"Action space sims are great" and yeah they do have limits but so does Eve combat. It is hard to make Eve point and click combat fun. I would be happier with a lower player count battle in a space-shooter mmo; simply because twitch combat is more fun to me and others like me. Who says you need giant corps to fight in battles and for that matter why would smaller battles not be fun in either environment. All the biggest battles in Eve turn into slide shows and locked out sectors anyway.

Different is good, it's a fact! Variety is the spice of life. So why is Eve like game-play the only way to make a space game? The answer is, it is not the only way.

Anyway glad you are playing a Sci-Fi game rather than one of those silly WoW clones. :)

Originally posted by sagil

Go and make a petition to make programmers work on an open source @ sourceforge. :P Since no one sees money in it currently if they are not convinced about it.

I don't understand why some would think there is no money in a space-shooter mmo, because most of the Eve players that I knew played shooters while they did the insainely boring pve in 0.0 or bot mined. So why would those same players not enjoy a space-shooter mmo with all the other cool econ and social features in Eve?

Seriously! I never wanted to play a game like Eve I just picked it up for $5 at a dollar store thinking it was an online game like freelancer. Hell it took years before I even took a second look at it and even longer before I could stand to play for more than a month. The combat in Eve is bloody terrible compared to even wow combat, imo. And yet still people play it.

So don't you think that a better combat system in an Eve type game would do awesome? It might even pull in close to WoW numbers because I met lots of players in WoW that are still waiting for a space-shooter mmo worth something.

Jumpgate Evolution forums were pretty active with Eve players fighting for total loss at death. And beyond that people do play more than 1 mmo from time to time so I am sure that bot miners from Eve would be showing up to play a decent space-shooter mmo while they bot mine. There just has not been a decent one that matched the features of modern mmo's imo.

Originally posted by Dvalon

Jumpgate is far to old and has not aged well at all, I also do not agree that the flight mechanics were as good as your rose tinted glasses think.

It's far to simulator for this generation, what we need is something in between JG and Freelancer, where you have the controls and flight dynamics of freelancer but also factor in ship cargo mass so that they effect handling dynamically, Freelancer had this based on ship, but a fully loaded hauler felt the same as an empty one, while Jumpgate took mass to the extream.

 

So Soemthing with the arcade feel of freelancer while still factoring in some extra physics, and were onto a winner.

I loved the small drag put in the flightengine and think it did the job of making you feel like you were in space but if some need a easier flightsystem then why not add a inertial braking feature as a brake system. Jumpgate Evolution was said to have this type of feature just without the different mass effects of cargo, which is acceptable in a pvp combat type game. Mass was determined by the ship and parts.

However the gear/engergy system was interesting, where the cap was used for engines and guns. although maybe not the best system it alowed you to mess with equiping over powered guns that used lots of energy and beafy engines and try to keep the 2 from being used at the same time using your flight skills. Was more organic than just telling me that "You can not equip that because your reactor is not strong enough" kind of thing; and the engine thottling came into play so it was just really interesting to play with different gear loadouts.

If companions can tank or even heal it might make finding groups easier. No heals fine get your heal companion; same for tank. Or if you are a healer then you can get a tank companion and possibly fill both rolls yourself!

If you are a tank you can get a dps companion to help speed up your lvling or just get a heal companion... and well you get the picture by now.

I say could be nice.

Originally posted by Caila

Thr origional Jumpgate is still around.

Under Jumpgate TRI.

 

Jumpgate still has the best gear/energy system and by far the best flight engine because of how it makes you feel to fly in it; even though there is no lateral thrust. I say everyone should play it at least once or till you understand why it is the best in those 2 areas.

 Does it play on windows7 ? I don't use xp anymore.

Originally posted by Dvalon

Originally posted by Icewhite

Think I'd rather see fleet command over a first person viewpoint.  Strategic thinking, rather than tactical thinking.

Wonder if Homeworld (RTS, not FPS) would make a decent MMO IP.

Thats the mistake, thinking that it has to be either or, and not both combined, look at the number of FPS/RTS games that are out already, I recall playing one where as a Bug Commander you ply rts mode, and as a human you play FPS mode so it's cleary been done.

 

Being a Huge fan of home world , Imagine home world as a twitch combat game, where any pilot can hop into a fighter or gunship and take the controls , orders appearing on their map and HUD as another player who is commanding the fleet issues RTS style commands.

Both playstyles, single game, this is actually exactly what I suggested to the Netdevil team while Jumpgate Evo was still in development, so it's a concept iv thought about a lot.

and one I think needs more attention.

X Rebirth with it's interesting drone system could along with many other features in X Rebirth fill the needs of the type of mmo you describe. Check it out. : http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=306576