Multiplayer online Elite-style game?

[motorollin]

Are there missions in the multiplayer part of Freelancer? (like the quests in World of Warcraft) Is it possible to communicate freely with other players?

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moto

[pentrite]

Quite extensive list of online games in http://jogosmp.no.sapo.pt/

[Amiga1200PPC]

motorollin wrote:

 complicated. I got bored going through the tutorial and gave up. IMO this type of game should be pickup-and-play.

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moto

Now that would be boring.
I am getting interestied in this game, now.
The more complicated a game is, the longer you have motivation to play it.

[motorollin]

Wishmaster wrote:
The more complicated a game is, the longer you have motivation to play it.

Maybe, but I want a game where I can get immersed in the environent, communicating with other players, trading with them, joining up to carry out missions etc. IMO a complicated game engine are not necessary for this, and get in the way.

@Pentrite
Thanks for the links! I have just signed up for Merchant Empires and found that it is written in PHP. This has given me new-found motivation to finish my own online space trading/combat game. I just need to engage in combat to figure out how combat in a turn-based game would work.

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moto

[tomfin]

motorollin wrote:
Is there a multiplayer online Elite-style game, either for MacOS, Windows or Amiga?

Elite 4, whenever it happens?

  http://www.frontier.co.uk/games/elite4/faq.html

When asked if the game would ever be released, Braben responded "We will do Elite 4 after Outsider, so it will benefit from everything we've done in Outsider". To give an indication of timescales he estimed the release of The Outsider to be "around the end of 2008 to early 2009".

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_4

"The Oustider" is a GTA-alike upcoming game for XBox360, and was previewed recently in Edge magazine.  Elite 4 was highly visible on the FrontierDevelopments website the last time I checked, but is absent from the new Flash version of their site, save for the Elite 4 FAQ page linked above.

On PC, X: Beyond the Frontier and the X:BTF expansion pack might be just what you're after in the single-player meantime.  It's a few years old now, so looks positively yummy on modern PC graphics hardware.  Firing your rocket boosters is very cool.  I've dabbled with the now-old PC Starlancer and Freelancer games, but it's just not quite the same as I remember Frontier being in 1995

Like other Space-Combat-Trading-games and Frontier itself, there's quite a bit of a learning curve involved in getting into a new game.  Beware!

[Tjomp]

>Are there missions in the multiplayer part of Freelancer? >(like the quests in World of Warcraft) Is it possible to >communicate freely with other players?

Yes there are. The ultimate goal is to earn money. Money you would spend on upgrading ship, weapon, armor, etc. Or buying a new ship. In every spaceport you can take on missions that will give money as reward. You also need to be friendly to trade with that solar system. So it´s also necessary to do missions to alter friendly/hated relationship.
Somce races are hard to get friendly with and thats the races that sell the ships you want to buy :-)

If I remember correctly you can speak freely with ppl in your group and those that are close by your ship.

[motorollin]

Thanks for all the replies. Looks like I've got 3 options:

1. Go for Freelancer - which I have read a few bad reviews about (limited number of ships you can buy being the worst criticism)
2. Invest the time in Eve
3. Make my own :-)

Amazon are selling Freelancer for a fiver, so I think I'll give it a try.

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moto

[ZeBeeDee]

Freelancer is brill but it's even better with some of the user mods added  :-)

http://lancersreactor.com/t/download/default.asp?game=Starlancer

[Arcticblue]

Yeah the tutorial of EVE-Online can be abit much, ALOT have changed since I started up early 2004.. back then the tutorial was something like.

Fly out to a asteroid, use your basic miner try that on the asteroid.
Lock at that drone flying around you, shoot it with your basic gunner.
Warp to station, dock, sell your ore

Thank you, you now can enjoy your game  :-)

And then I undocked, shot the Police... got killed by the police, undocking with a brand new ship, get killed by the police who is now camping the station I where in, third time I get killed by the police I starts to think I might have broken my game !!!  8-)

I start a new account, played for 3 years so far.. never really regreted doing so.

But yeah I have heard the new tutorial is like several hours long !!! hehe, then again... it can be useful unless you like to learn things the hard way like I have done.

[motorollin]

I can't believe I almost gave up on Eve. I signed up for another 14 day trial yesteday, reinstalled Boot Camp on my Mac so I can run Windows, installed Eve, and forced myself to work through the tutorial. And you know what? It's really not that complicated. I love it :-)

I just wish it ran under Mac OSX, as I have had to install Windows just for this game. There is an online petition to have Eve ported to Mac OSX. Please, if you play this game and want to see it on OSX, take a few moments to sign the pettion.

Linkage has occurred

Thanks to those who encouraged me to stick with Eve - see you in space :-)

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moto