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Two really cool Space MMO's to try...
Elnator
Member Posts: 6,077
Hey gang,
I'm a former E&B'er myself. Some of you probably read my various posts on the EVE forums as well so I'll keep this one brief:
Two games to try out if you're looking for a new spaceship away from home to live on:
EVE - as has been mentioned, awesome, very similar to E&B, better graphics, better crafting system, better just about everything. Combat Tactics are a huge deciding factor.
Jumpgate - Nice graphics but a bit outdated. Fantastic trade system (on par with both games), wide variety of ships (both games offer more ships than Earth & Beyond). First Person Flight Simulator style Combat. Dogfighting skills are a huge factor rather as well as personal knowledge of combat tactics and team tactics in larger fights.
Jumpgate: More First Person
EVE: Better Graphics/Sound
Otherwise the games are very similar. Jumpgate has a smaller, closely knit and friendly community. EVE has a much larger population and the community is pretty nice as well. Jumpgate appears, at first blush anyway, to have more roleplaying going on and the Devs seem to interact with the players a tad more.
Both games are very good. Give em both a try. Both are offering free trials as well. Jumpgate offers a 20 day extension (30 day free trial) if you send them your coasters from E&B.
Personally I'm re-trying both (played both briefly at one point or another) since they're both giving me a free trial 
and will pick one once my free play expires on them. Hell I may play both they're both awesome games with enough differences to keep it from feeling silly to play both.
Costs: About the same. EVE costs $19.95 and then 12.95/month. Jumpgate is Free and 9.95/month.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
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Still in: A couple Betas
Comments
I've been playing eve, and I guess this might just be a personal opinion, but I don't think EvE is very similar to EnB. About the only thing similar that I can find is that both are in space, and you do most things in your ship.
After that, it's quite different. Not bad, but different. I'm trying it out again for a month (was in beta) and found that it has been refined quite a bit from beta.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
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Still in: A couple Betas
Darkspace isn't a spaceflight game. It's tactical. Completely different type of game than E&B, EVE and Jumpgate.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
Um...
AO is a "Space MMO" so is Star Wars Galaxies
But neither of them is anything like Earth & Beyond.
Nor is Darkspace. Not to talk bad about it but we were recommending games that were a similar genre to E&B because if they suffered that long through E&B and still wanted to play it obviously they like that type of game.
Not saying Darkspace isn't fun
I wouldn't know, I've never played it. But you said we were 'forgetting' it. We weren't. We just didn't put it into our lists because it's about as much like Earth & Beyond as Homeworld is like X-Wing Alliance.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
Well... I don't think there is any game on the market that resembles the beauty of Earth & Beyond. I have to admit that I wasn't very positive about this game from time to time. Especially when it came to the levelling treadmill.
But I was wrong. I was focussing on the wrong point of the game. As soon as you were high(er) level with reasonable equipment, you could participate in events, raids and epics. Finding out about these things after a patch was a real guild thing, combining forces to get a solution to the problem given to you by the developers.
The biggest problem imho was the marketing of this game. Most people in Europe never even heard of the game. Even the promotion in the US wasn't any good. This lead to a good thing however; the playerbase consisted of mostly fans of the genre and thus were one of the best playerbases ever.
The terrible marketing obviously resulted in disappointing sales and subscribtions. The many bugs at live and continuesly delaying bugfixes and promised add-on's resulted in a disgrunted playerbase. After a year or so, most players were satisfied and were again devoted to the game. But it was too late. Electronic Arts already decided that the game was coming to an end. And here we are.
This was the first MMORPG for me. The first game I played online and I've enjoyed every minute of talking to my friends dometic and overseas.
EVE: Online is a totally different game. Yes, the interface/graphics look better (Linux look & feel) and a lot of options are in the game that should've been in E&B. But the playstyle is completely different. It's not as accessible as E&B. You have to create your own raids and epics. And in my opinion a mining operation is as much fun as listening to politicians the day after election day. I beta-tested EVE and tried it again recently, not my kind of game.
Jumpgate. Let's all be honest, the graphics suck. The look & feel is completely different than E&B and it's missing the raids and epics. Again, the accessibility of this game cannot match E&B's. Not by a long shot.
I dislike the fact that E&B won't be around anymore, but let's be honest; that's life. Electronic Arts made a huge mistake imho, but it wasn't the closing of this game, it was made long before that.
Well said, Ranja! I couldn't have put it any better. It was the community that kept me in the game, I loved it, and even got to meet some at a player event in Indianapolis (I still have and love the shirt I got from it). Most of my guildies are going to City of Heroes, and I'm playing Eve, trying to see what is good about it (I do want to like the game, I think I may be coming around).
At least one good thing my come of this, I will probably dump SWG!