so i used to play eve, but got fed up with the way the game seemed so disconnected from the universe it's actually set in and disconnected from the planets/faction involved. and it's barely ever more to look at than just a ship in a sky box. jumpgate: evolution looks interesting but has been curiously silent for a while. freelancer was good back in the day, but no one's even talking about doing anything single player anymore. i was hoping the old republic might have something but they unfortunately went down the rail shooter route.
beyond that though, there seems to be barely anything around anymore. why has this happened? do kids not dream about the death star trench run anymore? is it considered a niche genre, and if so why?
Tarr Chronicles and Dark Horizon are the closest thing to the old arcade-style Space-Sims I have found that is reasonably recent, 2007 and 2008 respectively.
That's not an answer to your question though, since it seems you actually wanted to discuss why the genre is dead, rather than fishing for recommendations.
And I don't really know. I wish I did. None of my friends play Space-Sims, but all of them are were console gamers back in the the days those were popular. Not that it's any excuse! I have the awesome Colony Wars trilogy on PSX and none of my friends had even heard of it.
I've tried to introduce the genre to a couple of them, but none have the patience for it, even my friend who does otherwise have the patience for 4X games.
The lack of a quality Joystick as standard PC gaming equipment isn't helping anything, but that's a symptom of the problem, not the cause.
Nobody here mentions FreeSpace 2 and its awesome FreeSpace Source Code Project? If I had the ability to punch people through TCP/IP, all of you would have broken jaws right now. No, WCSaga does not count since they split from trunk and are now writing their own code (best of luck to them, by the way).
Yeah, i mentioned it in my first post
the problem is its a very rare day indeed when a bunch of fans make a game of equal quality to professional outfit. and the freespace engine is more than 10 years old now i want something new and shiny.
New and shiny?
http://www.moddb.com/mods/wings-of-dawn
If Wings of Dawn isn't shiny enough for you, I don't know what will be.
http://www.moddb.com/mods/blue-planet-war-in-heaven
Blue Planet is extremely new, and not at all like FreeSpace 2. It has character development! Joking aside, Blue Planet parts one and two are extremely character-driven and very focused on the main characters of the stories, almost like the Wing Commander games. Again, not at all like base FreeSpace2, especially BP2 when you get to fly the Kentauroi interceptor. I've never had as much fun playing FS2 as flying a Kentauroi in the BP2 mission Aristeia.
At least try Blue Planet parts one and two and Wings of Dawn and then you can tell me nothing new and awesome can come from the FS2_Open engine.
I'm not interested in Mods, and neither of those look new and shiny enough for me. Certainly not when compared to say, black prophecy.
This statement causes me confusion, as mods are what take good games, and make them great. FreeSpace 2 is in the top five list of space combat games, no question. A wonderful mod like Blue Planet or Wings of Dawn takes that existing greatness, and elevates it to sheer divinity. Really, if you're going to dismiss FS2 because all of the new content for it is purely fan-made, go ahead, and ignore one of the few bright spots for space combat games.
Yeah, i know i sound like a heretic or something, but im one of the few PC gamers that doesn't have a lot of respect for mods. while their quality varies, it tends to vary from bad, to really really bad, with a few exceptions here and there.
im not interested in playing some decades-old game that somebody has re-done. i want something new, developed by a professional gaming team which doesn't look virtually identical to whatever it was i played 10 years ago. ive downloaded a bunch of FS2 mods previously and they didn't cut the mustard. same goes for remakes of wing commander or elite.
i want a big-budget, epic AAA title developed with a reasonably new engine in 2010+, just like FS2 was in 1999 or tie fighter was in 1994.
Alas, space sims are a dying (dead?) genre, and it's a big shame. The Freespace games have been fantastic, and the ending of Freespace 2 was not only hugely epic, but left a lot of potential for a third entry into the series, that sadly never came and likely never will. Freespace 3 is my #1 wishlist game.
Jumpgate: Evolution and Black Prophecy are both going to try and re-create the manual piloting feel of space sims. EVE is a fantastic and deep MMO (and can be free once you're able to earn enough ingame money to buy game time with, 100% legit), but it's not a combat sim as such. You tell your ship to shoot, and it shoots. Black Prophecy looks pretty decent, and is supposed to be a free-to-play MMO though as is always the case with those, there will have to be micro-transactions to support the model. Jumpgate has been fairly quiet for a while, I think they showed something off at E3 but I haven't seen anything since.
X3: Terran Conflict is a fine game, and a lot of the UI got needed overhaul from X3: Reunion. Eventually, though, I found myself wishing that the races were controlled by AI becase as it is, it's a dead universe - they have no goals, and they don't *do* anything. They're just there, governed by scripted automation, and nothing really happens without you.
I'm a heavy EVE player, myself, but keeping an eye out for Black Prophecy and Jumpgate.
I actually think the space sim market might be poised for a comeback. I think EvE gets a lot of credit for this - in a market where many a MMO fails, CCP has succeeded wildly with a hardcore space sim. I think this fact has opened a lot of eyes. Hence, Black Prophecy. It's too early to tell if it will succeed or flop, but its existence is encouraging on its own. Then there is Jumpgate Evolution - while it has dropped into a black hole for the moment, it still in in production. Also, there is Star Trek Online, which got off to a bad start, but I am starting to hear positive things. Even Atari has recently gotten in on the act with its announced reboot of the classic Star Raiders franchise. Then you can add in a lot of indie work - Egosofts new space sim, Naumachia, Infinity, Evochron Mercenary - and things don't look quite that bleak anymore. As soon as someone announces a first person bridge sim along the lines of Silent Hunter, I'll really be happy!
Hold on, the drought might be coming to an end.
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