Top 3 MMORPG games that deals in space

Blenjar · April 2006

I plan to purchase a MMORPG that does stuff in space, which of them all can top the top 3?

Thanks in advance.

ps: sorry if someone already made a topic similar to this.

-- Blen

Sadohore · April 2006

Eve online is by many looked upon as the ultimate space mmo. I didnt like it that much, though, kinda too slowpaced for me, and most of the game were spent in autopilot.. But try it, you might like it (a lot of people do), you can get a trial account on their website.

InspGadgt · April 2006

I played EVE for a bit...it really is a great game but I just couldn't get into the ships...I think if they added a race with better looking ships I could really get into that game.

voodookhan · April 2006

Before SOE screwed the pooch by implementing the NGE I had a lot of fun playing Star Wars Galaxies (with the Jump to Light Speed expansion). I'd mess around killing stuff on planet, then get in my ship and kill space pirates, imperials, rebels (I was neutral in space), everything. Then I'd go back on planet, upgrade my ships components and sell components that I earned off of my kills. It was incredibly fun, and I really miss it. So much so that I have crazy thoughts of renewing my SWG sub

I tried EVE Online, and I can see why people like it, but it wasn't for me. I just couldn't get into it. It had good graphics, good player economy, and decent combat...but not the more "twitchy" combat I enjoyed in SWG and you are in your ship or docked, no going on planet to do stuff.

MagicStar · April 2006

There is also Jumpgate. Which has been there for like over 3 years.

p.s. The chances of seeing a space-themed privateer/elite style MMOs where you are either a pilot os a captain flying one ship at a time is very rare.

Blenjar · April 2006

Oh yea, Eve online..does it have any monthly fee?

voodookhan · April 2006

Originally posted by Blenjar
Oh yea, Eve online..does it have any monthly fee?

Yes, I forget how much it is tho. They also have a free trial.

http://www.eve-online.com/

MadAce · April 2006

EVE
15.95 a month

SGE
free

Unknown · April 2006

You forget Vendetta. $9.95 monthly fee.

http://www.vendetta-online.com/

Grizbold

Aseenus · April 2006

EvE= Good Graphics / crappy game play

look into other space games

Blenjar · April 2006

Originally posted by Aseenus

EvE= Good Graphics / crappy game play

look into other space games

what game do you suggest then?

Even if the game doesn't have that good graphics now but has a bright future for improvement, which will it be?
Easy gameplay also.

-- Blen

Ztrike78 · April 2006

My first MMO which was also in space was "Earth & Beyond". I loved it soo much, but after only 2 years it was cancelled.

Anyone know why?

- Ztrike

MagicStar · April 2006

Needless to say, most space themed mmos arn't really for any serious gamers but for the fans of it... and mostly for only the game itself.

Therumancer · April 2006

Generally speaking there aren't any good science fiction/space themed MMOs out there. This is because most of those that have programmed them have by and large not wanted to put the time/money into doing them RIGHT due to the investment it would take (to have both space and ground elements is the same as programming 2 games). I've commented on it before. Those games that have taken the time to try and do them right have decided to get TOO Creative and have ultimatly created obtuse messes that in the end failed to achieve any lasting appeal.

1.

Right now the best Science Fiction MMO out there is probably Star Wars Galaxies. This is made by SoE and they actually put the time into this game to try and make it work. The problem was they got lazy and instead of trying to actually make the Star Wars world with loot drops and such they created what basically amounted to a few empty planets with generic quest vendors and made the game totally player driven. In SWG basically players mine resources and craft items, and then sell them to other players. Pretty much every thing in the game is player created. Almost all the cities (except for a few) are collections of houses built by players.

Basically what you do in SWG is go to a mission terminal, spawn a mission, follow a waypoint to a handfull of monsters and this graphical lump that is their base/hive/whatever and blow it to pieces. You get paid and then go do it again. Occasionally you might take time off from this to go mine or craft and try and sell your stuff to other players (or to use your money to buy things from other players). It can be fun for a while but since there are so few quests eventually you wind up with the best armor, a huge house, super-customized weapons, and nothing to do besides shoot the same stuff again for no purpose since your bank account is inflated to the point of critical mass.

The Space Flight dynamic of SWG involves basically playing X-wing Vs. Tie Fighter. It's all arcade style and the exps you obtain go towards simply being able to fly new ships and mount more powerful guns and such. The missions are very linear and "cap" you at how much exps you can earn, forcing you to fly missions to improve your ship. For the most part though you go fly out to a favorite location and kill computer controlled enemies until your hold is full of loot which you then sell to an NPC vendor for credits that you use to try and buy better guns/armor/whatever from NPC merchants.

The most annoying aspect of SWG is perhaps the battle fatigue system. Basically as you fight you gain mental fatigue which lowers your abillity to fight. The only way to heal this is to go into a cantina and watch another player dance or play music for you. There are people who do this in cantina full time and leave their characters on dancing as 'bots' or whatever to help people recover, but it's still very, very annoying to have to go get your battle fatigue 'healed' and then go sit in a hospital on top of that and hope a player medic comes by to heal you (you heal very slowly in hospitals, but it can take hours, basically everything in SWG is player controlled).

Basically I played SWG, maxxed it out and got bored, got a craving for it again, and came back and maxxed it again with another character. Each time it took me a couple of months. SoE does release expansions (and apparently they redid the whole engine after I left the second time) but to be honest it usually amounts to more of the same.

With the Droid design, creature taming, and other aspects (basically how you do 'pets') the game had a lot of potential, but it was wasted. If they had designed it more along the lines of "Knights Of The Old Republic" as opposed to a totally empty player driven "max your gear" type game I think it would have been a lot better. The handfull of quests in Jabba's palace, Imperial Retreat, etc... just don't cut it for objectives, and you'll notice that as you travel the world you see tons of abandoned houses and such from players that left the game with huge bank accounts that auto-pay maitnence. The second time I played I felt like I was in a ghost town driving through most areas... there were other players but not as many as there were abandoned, empty, decaying houses.

Despite the negativity it's the best thing out there. As I said I've played it TWICE so understand it's not all bad, it's just something that comes and goes quickly, and leads to fast burn out for most people.

2. Your only other real option for "space travel" is EVE. EVE is one of those games you either love or loathe. I tend to fall into the latter crowd. EVE is basically a giant scam. When you begin the game it seems like there is a lot to do, but there really isn't. To disguise this fact you are introduced to a skill system where it takes REAL TIME to raise your skills. What you do in the game does not effect your character at all. If you mine a thousand astroids your mining skill will never go up, rather you train 1 skill at a time (for your whole account) and it can take as much as 30 days (that's right a month) of real time to advance. It's sort of like a SIM of an MMO.

So basically you either fly to astroid belts and watch your mining laster go 'whizz, whizz, whizz' to extract ore while you save up money to maybe buy ships or gear you can use in weeks to months of real time, or you can fly around and blow up generic space pirates and loot the canisters they drop and sell the junk for more money. Other than watching your bank account slowly grow you really do nothing.

The reward of spending say a year in EVE and paying $15.95 a month for example is that you will gain the sklls to use bigger ships which in turn allow you to mine and destroy generic space pirates with even more efficiency, which in turn allows your bank account to grow bigger.

All told if your willing to forego the pleasures of mining and killing space pirates and still spend a lot of time paying for this game, there are other options like "Space Archaology" and such which sound neat providing your willing to pay money and wait months to try them. All told though it seems like a variation on mining.

Don't get me wrong, I played "Trade Wars" on BBSes for a while. I kind of like the idea of a ship-based game, but this game is like the Defunct Earth and Beyond for people with no brains. The game moves slow, it's "Real time" but by and large you move via menus and such so it's kind of "turn based" and things develop so slowly that there seems to be no point. I mean if I put weeks into a game I expect something cool and signifigant, I mean in a fantasy game my Newbie has killed a few Orc Chiefs and gotten some loot at least by then, in EVE I just mine more rocks and any improvements I've undergone seem rather trivial.

People talk about all the depth in EVE, but I really don't see any.

Oh yes, and also EVE is something of a Griefers Dream. See with all of this real time you put into the game combined with the dullness of mining and hunting the same pirates again and again, there is this concept of sector security levels. Beyond a certain level of security people can gank you at will, and since the game is totally based on seniority, it means anyone who has played longer than you is by definition more powerful. Skill is not a factor really since the game moves so slow, and your not making many desicians just waiting for real time goes by to raise your skills. This means that if you want to move to more valuable ore deposits (or just see more scenery) it can take hours (literally) to skirt all the low security sectors on your way (if it's even possible, the best ore is always in gank sectors by design). In all likelyhood if you stray from secure space some goober will fly up and gank you for fun, which costs you everything on your ship (boom!) and has a chance of costing you some of your skills that you spent all this time building up. You can buy insurance and clones to help deal with this, but ultimatly no method is fool proof, and unless you plan to spend your time cowering in the newbie zones it's pretty much a guarantee some guy is going to stuff a torpedo up the tailpipe of your "low level" ship just for yucks.

Basically my suggestion is to hope someone makes a good space game, (AO isn't really space, it's more cyberpunk/post apocolyptic when you get down to it. All the space stuff is backround) if you must play one now go SWG. Avoid EVE... there are far more fun things to do, like contracting HIV watching it slowly develop into AIDS, and dying.....

>>>----Therumancer--->

WarlockViper · April 2006

I think that the previous comments on EVE are a little unfair. I myself have played both Galaxies and EVE. Both are different styles of games. I am one of the few people that liked the NGE in Galaxies simply because I had played the game to death and it was nice to have a change. EVE on the other hand is a strange one, you get more out of it the more you put in. It is true that all your time can be spent mining and npc hunting but that is if that is all you wish to do. I have played the game since launch and so have a vast amount of skills but they are spread over all areas. To get as good as me at say combat a new player needs only to specialise in that area for about 2 months and they would be on a par with my three year old character. The thing with EVE is that it is possible to get stuck in or play more casually without the worry that all your mates are leveling up whilst you are not playing, it doesnt require constant hands on. I am not on some kind of crusade to promote EVE over all others I just find that other MMORPGs come and go but its always EVE that I go back to. Try the trial, make some friends and give me a shout if need be, players working together is what makes it work, anyone who has only ever tried solo play havent even touched on its potential. I have played for 3 years in May and still havnt done any PVP which is what a lot of people claim EVE is good for, nice to know after 3 years that I have a lot to look forward to in this game, not many people can say that about other games.

Nu11u5 · April 2006

Originally posted by MadAce
EVE 15.95 a month

EVE is $14.95 per month when bought in 1 month blocks, and gets cheaper when bought in larger blocks of time.

Billing Scheme FAQ Page

As an additional thought, EVE's expansions are free, and a required part of the game when they are released. Expansions have been produced on average of every six months since the games start in 2003.

Expansion Features Page

Blenjar · April 2006

I downloaded this game called EVE..took about 2 housr to download it.

I played the game but I have to agree like first few post and the recent long one ontop.

1) Looks great and so but not my thing.

2) Seems to take a lot of time (real time) to upgrade your skills which seems like tey really want you to stay online.

3) I'm sticking with World Of Warcraft.

The game feels like a strategy game in a 3rd person shooter view to me.

Thank you all but I'll again stick with what I'm best at "WoW"

-- Blen

GlacianNex · April 2006

Lol, you dont have to be online for your skills to trian up. Your skills timer goes on if you are on/off line.

Mcgreag · April 2006

Originally posted by Blenjar

2) Seems to take a lot of time (real time) to upgrade your skills which seems like tey really want you to stay online.

Skill training continue when you are offline (even if you cancel your account it will continue training until the current skill level is complete).

GlacianNex · April 2006

Originally posted by Therumancer

Generally speaking there aren't any good science fiction/space themed MMOs out there. This is because most of those that have programmed them have by and large not wanted to put the time/money into doing them RIGHT due to the investment it would take (to have both space and ground elements is the same as programming 2 games). I've commented on it before. Those games that have taken the time to try and do them right have decided to get TOO Creative and have ultimatly created obtuse messes that in the end failed to achieve any lasting appeal.
1.
Right now the best Science Fiction MMO out there is probably Star Wars Galaxies. This is made by SoE and they actually put the time into this game to try and make it work. The problem was they got lazy and instead of trying to actually make the Star Wars world with loot drops and such they created what basically amounted to a few empty planets with generic quest vendors and made the game totally player driven. In SWG basically players mine resources and craft items, and then sell them to other players. Pretty much every thing in the game is player created. Almost all the cities (except for a few) are collections of houses built by players.
Basically what you do in SWG is go to a mission terminal, spawn a mission, follow a waypoint to a handfull of monsters and this graphical lump that is their base/hive/whatever and blow it to pieces. You get paid and then go do it again. Occasionally you might take time off from this to go mine or craft and try and sell your stuff to other players (or to use your money to buy things from other players). It can be fun for a while but since there are so few quests eventually you wind up with the best armor, a huge house, super-customized weapons, and nothing to do besides shoot the same stuff again for no purpose since your bank account is inflated to the point of critical mass.
The Space Flight dynamic of SWG involves basically playing X-wing Vs. Tie Fighter. It's all arcade style and the exps you obtain go towards simply being able to fly new ships and mount more powerful guns and such. The missions are very linear and "cap" you at how much exps you can earn, forcing you to fly missions to improve your ship. For the most part though you go fly out to a favorite location and kill computer controlled enemies until your hold is full of loot which you then sell to an NPC vendor for credits that you use to try and buy better guns/armor/whatever from NPC merchants.
The most annoying aspect of SWG is perhaps the battle fatigue system. Basically as you fight you gain mental fatigue which lowers your abillity to fight. The only way to heal this is to go into a cantina and watch another player dance or play music for you. There are people who do this in cantina full time and leave their characters on dancing as 'bots' or whatever to help people recover, but it's still very, very annoying to have to go get your battle fatigue 'healed' and then go sit in a hospital on top of that and hope a player medic comes by to heal you (you heal very slowly in hospitals, but it can take hours, basically everything in SWG is player controlled).
Basically I played SWG, maxxed it out and got bored, got a craving for it again, and came back and maxxed it again with another character. Each time it took me a couple of months. SoE does release expansions (and apparently they redid the whole engine after I left the second time) but to be honest it usually amounts to more of the same.
With the Droid design, creature taming, and other aspects (basically how you do 'pets') the game had a lot of potential, but it was wasted. If they had designed it more along the lines of "Knights Of The Old Republic" as opposed to a totally empty player driven "max your gear" type game I think it would have been a lot better. The handfull of quests in Jabba's palace, Imperial Retreat, etc... just don't cut it for objectives, and you'll notice that as you travel the world you see tons of abandoned houses and such from players that left the game with huge bank accounts that auto-pay maitnence. The second time I played I felt like I was in a ghost town driving through most areas... there were other players but not as many as there were abandoned, empty, decaying houses.
Despite the negativity it's the best thing out there. As I said I've played it TWICE so understand it's not all bad, it's just something that comes and goes quickly, and leads to fast burn out for most people.
2. Your only other real option for "space travel" is EVE. EVE is one of those games you either love or loathe. I tend to fall into the latter crowd. EVE is basically a giant scam. When you begin the game it seems like there is a lot to do, but there really isn't. To disguise this fact you are introduced to a skill system where it takes REAL TIME to raise your skills. What you do in the game does not effect your character at all. If you mine a thousand astroids your mining skill will never go up, rather you train 1 skill at a time (for your whole account) and it can take as much as 30 days (that's right a month) of real time to advance. It's sort of like a SIM of an MMO.
So basically you either fly to astroid belts and watch your mining laster go 'whizz, whizz, whizz' to extract ore while you save up money to maybe buy ships or gear you can use in weeks to months of real time, or you can fly around and blow up generic space pirates and loot the canisters they drop and sell the junk for more money. Other than watching your bank account slowly grow you really do nothing.
The reward of spending say a year in EVE and paying $15.95 a month for example is that you will gain the sklls to use bigger ships which in turn allow you to mine and destroy generic space pirates with even more efficiency, which in turn allows your bank account to grow bigger.
All told if your willing to forego the pleasures of mining and killing space pirates and still spend a lot of time paying for this game, there are other options like "Space Archaology" and such which sound neat providing your willing to pay money and wait months to try them. All told though it seems like a variation on mining.
Don't get me wrong, I played "Trade Wars" on BBSes for a while. I kind of like the idea of a ship-based game, but this game is like the Defunct Earth and Beyond for people with no brains. The game moves slow, it's "Real time" but by and large you move via menus and such so it's kind of "turn based" and things develop so slowly that there seems to be no point. I mean if I put weeks into a game I expect something cool and signifigant, I mean in a fantasy game my Newbie has killed a few Orc Chiefs and gotten some loot at least by then, in EVE I just mine more rocks and any improvements I've undergone seem rather trivial.
People talk about all the depth in EVE, but I really don't see any.
Oh yes, and also EVE is something of a Griefers Dream. See with all of this real time you put into the game combined with the dullness of mining and hunting the same pirates again and again, there is this concept of sector security levels. Beyond a certain level of security people can gank you at will, and since the game is totally based on seniority, it means anyone who has played longer than you is by definition more powerful. Skill is not a factor really since the game moves so slow, and your not making many desicians just waiting for real time goes by to raise your skills. This means that if you want to move to more valuable ore deposits (or just see more scenery) it can take hours (literally) to skirt all the low security sectors on your way (if it's even possible, the best ore is always in gank sectors by design). In all likelyhood if you stray from secure space some goober will fly up and gank you for fun, which costs you everything on your ship (boom!) and has a chance of costing you some of your skills that you spent all this time building up. You can buy insurance and clones to help deal with this, but ultimatly no method is fool proof, and unless you plan to spend your time cowering in the newbie zones it's pretty much a guarantee some guy is going to stuff a torpedo up the tailpipe of your "low level" ship just for yucks.
Basically my suggestion is to hope someone makes a good space game, (AO isn't really space, it's more cyberpunk/post apocolyptic when you get down to it. All the space stuff is backround) if you must play one now go SWG. Avoid EVE... there are far more fun things to do, like contracting HIV watching it slowly develop into AIDS, and dying.....
>>>----Therumancer--->

LOL this is probably the most bias EVE post I have ever seen. You started true by saying that people either like or hate it. After that you just went on with your own argueable delusions. I am not going to go in depths where and why you are wrong because this is not a prorper forum for this. I will say this, EVE is designed for a thoughful team player who is willing to work as a part of a whole to atchive something for the whole. There is very little emphasis on personal your personal atchivements, it is what you atchive with your guild that game emphasizes on.

eagleranger · April 2006

there is another one darkspace www.darkspace.net good graphics ship to ship combat planet building mining,,,,,,,,, ect

Blenjar · April 2006

Originally posted by Therumancer

All told if your willing to forego the pleasures of mining and killing space pirates and still spend a lot of time paying for this game, there are other options like "Space Archaology" and such which sound neat providing your willing to pay money and wait months to try them. All told though it seems like a variation on mining.
>>>----Therumancer--->

Pay-to-wait sort of scam.

Whoa, didn't look it like that. Any EVE player actually know about this?

And how do you feel about it?

Does it bother you?

My reviews about this game:

Everything looks pretty cool about this game but.

Faster game, quick paste.

More feeling of the spaceship, more controls.

Elnator · April 2006

The best *current* space themed MMORPG's on the market:

#1: EVE
#2: Darkspace
#3: JumpGate
#4: Star Wars: NGE

Dunno of any others worth even thinking about.

Note: This is not to say that EVE is an awesome game. It's a decent game that appeals to some and doesn't appeal to others. Darkspace is a game very similar to EVE though smaller scale (and cheaper, I forget their actual billing prices). Both of these games feature TACTICAL spaceflight rather than simulator (IE: Point & Click rather than 'joystick')

Jumpgate is a Elite/Frontier in space clone type game which is done pretty well and is pretty fun. It's only $9.95 a month as well so may give you more bang for your buck than EVE but personally I can't stand the extremely outdated graphics. This is a 'simulator' style spaceflight.

Lastly there's SW: NGE (Formerly SWG) which, pre NGE, I would have ranked at #1 but when SOE released the NGE they ruined the core of the game. Now it's a shell of it's former self. Though the space combat is still very good. As others have said the space side of SW:NGE is more 'X-Wing / Tie-Fighter' style "simulator" combat rather than tactical. (Note: Jumpgate is as well). Personally I enjoy that type of space combat.

IMNSHO I do not feel any of the above titles are worth my money and am watching the game Infinity (which is still in early development) http://www.fl-tw.com/Infinity/

Hope this helps.

Blenjar · April 2006

Originally posted by Elnator
The best *current* space themed MMORPG's on the market:

#1: EVE
#2: Darkspace
#3: JumpGate
#4: Star Wars: NGE

Dunno of any others worth even thinking about.

Note: This is not to say that EVE is an awesome game. It's a decent game that appeals to some and doesn't appeal to others. Darkspace is a game very similar to EVE though smaller scale (and cheaper, I forget their actual billing prices). Both of these games feature TACTICAL spaceflight rather than simulator (IE: Point & Click rather than 'joystick')

Jumpgate is a Elite/Frontier in space clone type game which is done pretty well and is pretty fun. It's only $9.95 a month as well so may give you more bang for your buck than EVE but personally I can't stand the extremely outdated graphics. This is a 'simulator' style spaceflight.

Lastly there's SW: NGE (Formerly SWG) which, pre NGE, I would have ranked at #1 but when SOE released the NGE they ruined the core of the game. Now it's a shell of it's former self. Though the space combat is still very good. As others have said the space side of SW:NGE is more 'X-Wing / Tie-Fighter' style "simulator" combat rather than tactical. (Note: Jumpgate is as well). Personally I enjoy that type of space combat.

IMNSHO I do not feel any of the above titles are worth my money and am watching the game Infinity (which is still in early development) http://www.fl-tw.com/Infinity/

Hope this helps.

That infinity game looks pretty good. I like the idea about

"Real-time fighting: most MMORPGs today use a turn-based approach to combat. In Infinity, you are directly controling your spaceship movements and lasers. Your own skills and dexterity will make the difference, not a bunch of stats on your character!"

Elnator · April 2006

Originally posted by Blenjar
That infinity game looks pretty good. I like the idea about:

"Real-time fighting: most MMORPGs today use a turn-based approach to combat. In Infinity, you are directly controling your spaceship movements and lasers. Your own skills and dexterity will make the difference, not a bunch of stats on your character!"

JFYI: That is the form of combat in both JumpGate and SW: NGE. They're both joystick driven combat rather than stat driven. IMHO if you're looking for something to tide you over JumpGate will probably suit you well and for the price it's worth a try

MagicStar · April 2006

If anyone is an artist and willing to contribute to Infinity(as a hobby and not getting paid), then knock your self out.

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