Eve Online – Flight Simulator on steroids

I just downloaded Eve Online and signed up for their 14 day free trial. I felt i need to drop a few lines about that game.

Eve online is a mmorpg (massively multi player online role playing game) that takes place in deep space. Kinda like descent freepace, or any other 3rd person space strategy game. You learn how to explore, mine, fight and so forth. The client is free to download, about 600 megs, but you need an account to be able to play the game. (I can see this might be a favourable solution for game houses to still make money in the new and upcoming filesharing world that they so fear, but so far the gaming industry is far from bankrupt with huge revenues each year.)
Eve online is not a new game, it’s from 2003, but it really looks beautiful, and has won several awards 2003-2005 for its graphics and playability. The light bleed effect around stars and how these illuminate your ship when you are partly covering the lightsource is spectacular. (Microsoft could learn a thing or two here about lighting…) I’ve always wanted to check this game out since it came out 2003 and now i got a chance to sign up for the 14 day trial. I got my link from Gamershell.com, so try to go here if you are interested in signing up for the trial.

To start off with the game features a really long tutorial session, but due to the complexity of this game I really suggest strongly that you follow the tutorial, and try to remember what you are being taught. The game universe is VAST, and the complexity of the game interface and gameplay is rather mindboggling at first, and it does have a steep learning curve but after a few hours things start to fall into place.

The best thing about Eve Online is the community. You have the chance to talk to other players and let them help you in Your carreer. Most people are really helpful. I talked to a guy who had been playing the game as a miner for three years, and now owned a big mining corporation in the game. He was really helpful and ended up giving me some startup money for a new spaceship. The key here, as usual, is to be polite and use your manners. Or You will literally be shot down. If not by other players, you’ll be shot down by the Concorde. Eve-Online’s ever-watchful police squad. Stay in line and you will have no problems.

One way to make money and a carreer in the game is to mine minerals off asteroids. These are then converted to minerals in spaceports that you dock to. And the minerals are sold on the market. Spaceports allow you to do other things, like upgrade or repair your ship, research skills, buy stock, you name it basically. You can join factions that master different parts of the universe. And speaking of parts of the universe, how do you get around this vast space? Well in good ol’ sci-fi fashion style; By teleporting and warping between spaceports in different solar systems. You will soon be soaring through lightyears like they were nothing more than fractions of a second. Sort of like Microsoft Flight Simulator on steroids.

You can also make money from hunting down wanted spaceships with a bounty on their heads. To do this you need to beef your ship up a bit. Your civilian gattling cannon isn’t going to do much damage to a hardened pirateship with cannons the size of the lastspaceport you visited… Poof, and You’re dead. Now when this happens, luckily you are not blown into space, but rather you get a chance to quickly warp away in your lifesaving pod, to the nearest spaceport, where you’ll get a new ship. You’ll loose anything in your cargo hold though, so if you had been mining all day, all your prescious ore is ejected in a cargo container that the pirate probably lootered. You can always go back and check and see if it’s there. If you find your way back that is. You can bookmark any location in space, so that would be a good choice when dying. Be careful not to linger too long though or you can be podkilled, that is someone blows your pod, and consequently your body to smitherines.

That is what I have learned so far, after playing the Trial for one day. I think the Eve marketing guys are really smart. After two weeks of free trial gaming, you will probably have established a social network in the game, perhaps just managed to get those skills needed for a bigger and better ship, upgraded your pulse laser and cargo hold, or otherwise stepped up your carreer ladder. You will be pretty hard pressed not to give up all that, and just might sign up for a 30 day account, or more. Perhaps you will end up like my mining friend, sucking minerals out of asteroids for three years

For more screenshots and information about the game go here

Not everyone on Eve-Online is a jolly good fellow, there has recently happened some rather interesting scams in the Eve-Online universe. Check here

Here’s a book on online worlds that has received pretty good ratings afaik.

Has Microsoft been Sleeping?

 

Actually, at first I was really Impressed with the new Microsoft Flight Simulator X demo, that surfaced a few days ago. Considering it’s almost at beta code it looked a lot better than the old Flight Siumulator 2004. For comparison screenshots look at the Microsoft Site.

Then I decided to try the “Lock on Modern Combat”-demo from 2003. I was astonished!

Lock on is 3 years older and looks just as good on high settings. It has self shadowing, heat blur effects, great water, great physics, great textures… If You haven’t tried that demo, try it! Just as some sort of reference. In my opinion MSFSX is about 3 years after the “Lock on” graphics engine… and You know what? That 3 year old engine runs like clockwork on my old machine. The same can not be said about FSX.

What on earth have Microsoft been doing the last 3 years? Sleeping? Don’t get me wrong, I think MSFSX looks great, but the fact that a 3 year older product can hold it’s own against the brand new Microsoft engine is astounding to say the least. I wish I had tried “Lock on” 3 years ago… I would have soiled my pants…

That’s my opinion after trying 2 demos. One brand new and one from 2003 Check out the Lock On Screenies

FSX Demo – Holy Crap! (Microsoft Flight Simulator X)

Phew!Reality check, (Pinching my arm…)

Check out those waves! I just came back to reality from trying Microsofts Flight Simulator X demo.To start off with; I’ve been into Flight Simulation for years, and I’m currently in the progress of building my own cockpit for FS2004. That means i have been tweaking FS2004 to my heart’s content the last 2 years. I feel I know everything there is to know about addons and how to get the most of that installment. I had seen some demo footage of FSX before but I didn’t believe that the change to FSX from FS2004 would be so dramatic.

The computer I tested the demo on is old. By that I mean it’s a 1.3gig AMD Thunderbird, 348MB ram, with a Radeon 9550 Graphics card. I didn’t even think it would run the demo, but it did! Framerates were at times completely satisfactory for some non-precision flying. One thing that might have saved the game was the fact that the video card has 256MB onboard memory.

(Edit: I later tried on a faster machine, Athlon XP 3000+ , 1Gig ram, Radeon 9800 128MB card, and the framerate was almost worse. So graphics card memory seems crucial for this game!)

I started up with the introductory flight, and the default display settings were at some kind of medium settings. The scenery looked nice, perhaps a bit better than FS2004, but it also ran slightly slower on this machine than I’d say it runs if I turn up the settings in FS2004.I took a few turns in the DeHavilland amphibian plane, and then decided to go and up the display settings.

First thing I tried was the aircraft self shadowing. Low and behold, it worked on my Radeon 9550 Card! It truly brings life to the aircraft, I remember turning off the taxiway after a landing, and I had shadows move over the virtual cockpit, litting it with the reddish setting sun. Holy Crap! Even the knobs in the cockpit and the gauges left trailing shadows on the instrument panel. From the outside the effects were just as good!

The second thing I tried was the Water. I turned it up to 2.X High settings, and took off. Remember the old FS2004 water addons that really spiced the water up? Remember though that it had problems with tiling, and repetitive motion? Well forget about that. And the framerate? Longer loading times but Hardly any less fps. A pretty steady 19fps! The water was smooth, and had little creases in it just like in real life. The wave action was terriffic, and when I landed, the Plane reflected itself in the water in an amazing way. Check this out:

Click on the picture to get a larger view.

That’s all for now folks, with graphics like that I’m gonna practice some water landings. Stay tunded for more info!

( Download fsx demo here )