So,

Put a quick poll up on this one because I am curious.

Game is Vendetta Online and I hadn't heard of it until a post on Penny Arcade giving away some month-long passes.

Apparently it has been around for 10 years.

It is a space sim, with realistic physics and actual combat, trading, pirating, mining. The graphics are adequate, nothing special, but it seems like the gameplay is quite well fleshed out and balanced. Three 'nations' in game you can play (two of them at war with each other, and one neutral nation). PvP is encouraged and the game is setup so player death isn't too big of a deal (you lose your ship and cargo). I have about 10 hours in and actually quite like it. So far have mostly been doing trading and mining, with some bot (AI) destroying.

Anyway, it seems like their problem is low user subscription, as they are currently only able to fund a small dev team (4 people I think).

I just wanted to put up this poll because I was honestly surprised that I haven't even heard of the game before, and also, doing a search here, there aren't any threads on it. I am wondering if they do some work to spread the word a bit more that it might help grow some interest. I know it is competing with the monster that is EVE (which I haven't played), but it seems to be different enough to be worth a look.

Thoughts?

Cheers.

unfortunately, i have no idea about it.

As for a competitor with eve, well eve has the best market/industry/finance/commerce system i have ever seen in a game. its pratically a commerce simulator with space graphics. however eve is still point and click with absolutely no relkevance with space physics at all. so if vendetta has newtonian physics, in a mmo, then it has a niche all of its own

I have not heard of it before. I just tried to sign up but no email link sent.

Never heard of it but downloading the client now. Hope it's not point and click combat like EVE though.

Seems like actual combat using Newtonian physics. I picked the top faction out in the fringe.

From what I can tell though even the largest ship is just a glorified fighter. There are some capital ships but they seem to be AI controlled.

Sorry for the delay.

Yes, the commerce system seems a bit simplified, but seems to do the job.

Combat is definitely not point and click. Do a quick YouTube search and see.

For those that are trying it out, let me know your thoughts once you have some time in.

Would increasing there subscriber numbers just be a matter of raising awareness of the game?

Curious for everyone's thoughts/ideas

Cheers!

Edit:: I think there are capital ships but you have to manufacture them or something. I think there are only like four in existance??

I played the tutorial and am now at a capitol system. Graphics aren't great but the do the job and certainly aren't horrible. Great that you can dock yourself. Combat was good although the target lead icon jerked around and was off-putting, liked the Newtonian physics though and the feeling of being in a clunky starter ship was nice with the humming engines.

Are you involved in the development MojoFlow? Or just a player that wants to expand the player base?

Like I mentioned, hadn't heard of it until a week ago. I understand why you are asking though. Basically, it made me really curious as to why I had never heard of this game before. It seems to me that a game that depends solely on subscriptions would make more of an effort to make themselves at least known about by players that would be interested. Looking at the current poll results shows this has not been done.

I think I might have heard about it before, but I'm not sure. In any case, if I heard about it, the reason why I skipped it then and will still skip it now is the subscription. Subscriptions always seem to ruin the gameplay, transforming everything into a grind and turning games into advanced pokie machines... Not for me, I prefer to be able to enjoy a game at the pace I want, paying for the content once and then being free to enjoy it when I want.

Yea, it is set up as a very subscription mindset. You have skill rankings which restrict what equipment and ships you can use. So there is no way to use the good stuff until you level up your guy for a month or two and since it is a PVP friendly game you are going to get raped hard until you can level up.

It definitely has some progression built in. I am not sure how bad you will get smoked at the start, depends on how you play maybe. First time i really got some time in, I was mining and trading and only got killed once.

The other night though, I got killed right outside a base, and could see the guy was sitting outside it camping for me. I actually called for assistance (there is an anti-pirate guild called the vipers that assist traders), and a guy showed up in about 5 minutes and killed my stalker so I could safely sneak away. It was actually kind of cool.

Anyway, I won't be playing again till laer this week, I am away on a conference until thursday, so I will write up some more impressions then.


Cheers!

Hey,

As a long time player I just wanted to mention that your skill level or number of "experience points" accrued is much less important in this game than in your traditional MMO. The great thing about it is that it all really boils down to you, the player. A player with a lot of natural talent or who is simply skilled can easily defeat an opponent who is using superior equipment. Vendetta Online has got to be one of the best gaming experiences ever. I guess the fact that I've been playing for coming up on 9 years is telling of my viewpoint. It is relatively un-marketed, so definitely spread the word if you enjoy the free trial and end up subscribing. I upgraded to an Xperia Play smartphone just so I could take this game with me on the go. I will log in from time to time when I am in a waiting room or have a while to kill and want to do a few trading runs; it helps to keep those credits in the bank for when I get home to my laptop / gamepad for some serious PvP.

You can also design missions and contribute to the game's evolving storyline if you join the Player Contribution Corps. So far, I've submitted over 70 missions that have made it into production, and am currently working on my largest mission design project ever. Trust me, you will not want to miss this game. It was on the drawing board before the term 'MMORPG' even came into use, and I get the feeling it will be around for a long time after the term goes out of style. The 8 hour trial is free, no cc required, and you can spread your trial hours across as many sessions and as much time as you wish. If you give it a try, I think you will end up subscribing, but that's just me.

Actually, cool timing on an experienced player popping in for some comments.

I was wanting a general consensus in the poll before then and we got that.

Interesting to me that so few people have heard of it. I will post details of the poll over at the Vendetta forums.

One thing I can say, I am not feeling like I need to 'grind' at all in order to enjoy the game. Agreed, I can't access all the weaponry, but I am finding that I don't need to right now. Just having fun running some of the missions and learning combat.

Cheers!

mojoflow.

Cheers mojoflow,

Glad to see you active on the Vendetta boards as well.

For the more visually-oriented people, here's a vid I put together of an event that was held in honor of VO's 10th anniversary:



A Trident-class capital ship was on a humanitarian mission to the planet Ka-Tek, when after some engine trouble it was beset with pirates who managed to disable the ship's motor drives. As many refugees as possible were offloaded the Trident before it exploded, either to be rescued or taken hostage.

For those interested in trying it out, and want some help to get going, this is a really good series of 'tutorial' videos that have good pointers as well as some good missions to take for some quick xp.



Cheers!