first of all, Im new. I haven't paid a dime yet, and won't. So if all you people with a chip on your shoulder want to complain about what I write or throw it to the curb, thats your right. I don't care. I like what I like and arguing against me on merits of logic or otherwise is a non-starter. Its preference against preference, and if the devs want to have a successful game with lots and lots of money flowing in, they may want to listen to the people who choose not to pay and why... that would be me.

The obligatory pat on the back: not a bad start, not a bad concept. I love the travel system, and enjoy the flight controls. The story seems good but a little dry and as yet not engaging, I would continue playing if not for the other problems.

First. Its way too dang easy to make money in this game. I can already afford some of the better equipement without even finishing my trial. It makes it feel cheap. I don't feel like I earned it... and that makes the whole effort worthless. This right here breaks the game. But it gets worse....

Second. My ship should be my ship... customization is the essence of MMORPG gaming. Who wants to look just like the next guy. I want my ship to be so ultimately customizable that the possibilities are endless or nearly so. Not just some rinky dink color changer... I want to be able to make ships and ship designs no one has ever seen before (Think Galactic Civilizations times ten), and sell them to other players for credit. An artist if you will, with patents on the best ship design that you have to pay credits to apply for the patents... stuff like this is completely unheard of in games, and would make the culture and the fun of playing all that much more sweet.

Third. I fricken threw city of heroes and villains out the door, same with WOW, after grinding through the levels fighting the same stupid shit over and over and over and over and over over and over. Just look at my standing... when I last glanced at it, I had killed a couple hundred of those stupid collectors. How fricken pathetic is that... all so I could get some of there stupid processors that don't show up only one out of ten. Talk about contrived gameplay!!!!! Gimme something new and interesting to do, and I might think about paying you some money. Not until then.

Fourth. No more contrived rules. The only rules that matter are what a man can do, and what a man can't do. That means don't put some arbitrary code in the gameplay that limits my choices for the sake of limiting my choices. That means if I choose to shoot at the damn space station, it doesn't give some stupid message on the HUD, Instead lets have a voice comes across the comm and tells me to cease and desist or be destroyed. AND I GET DESTROYED if I continue... The space station oughta be kicking my butt with some heavy firepower if I shoot it. But lets say I have a heavy cruiser and a bunch of friends. We oughta be able to take over the space station or utterly destroy it if we choose. Making a new one with our own guild or base or whatever. This concept also means that I get to choose when I shoot at someone else. IF they don't like it, they can shoot me back. If Im paying my money, and they're paying theirs, we are equal in the eyes of the devs, therefore let us duke it out. QUITE holding our fricken hands!!! If I wanna be a pirate, there should be avenues that I can pursue to be a pirate when and where I choose. If I screw up, too bad, its on my head. It seems like the fricken welfare state in this game. Who ever heard of government issued ships... who are they taxing to pay for it???? If the other guy can't handle getting shot at, he can fly away like a pansy if he can outrun me, or he gets to die. Too bad. So sad. He'll get pissed and respawn somewhere with hatred in his mind and come hunt me down. Consequences. Whoa! what a novel concept. Choices and actions have their due consequence. I want an Open Game world for once, and if the devs had the balls they would too. There might actually be a market for people like me who are sick of all the PC bullshit disease invading everywhere including our games. Give it to me straight and real or I don't wanna play. I don't want to play a game that doesn't have consequences... how empty and pathetic can people be to enjoy arbitrary contrived gameplay.

That about sums it up. Fix these things, and you'll have a new player. The pansies that disagree are just the ones that aren't needed anyway. Go play WOW or some kiddy game. They are the scaredy cats that can't handle the real world anyway, and choose to play games without consequences to cope. Life isn't sugar coated, games shouldn't be either. Why do you think games suck in todays world depsite more powerful hardware and superb graphics. Because in the end, if there are no consequences to the actions we choose, nobody really gives a freak. Games are literally of no consequence already, on top of that making the game world have no consequences by taking away all the real choices compounds the problem times ten.

Indefiance

I'm not quite convinced you've experienced the entire VO universe quite yet... feel free to purchase a month and see what you're missing. I guarantee you'll have more fun than going to the movies twice, or whatever else 10 bucks can buy. It's also a lot more fun if you can get some buddies to help you. I can think of a dozen ways to get past that grind your speaking of within an hour, if you know what you're doing.

First, let me thank you for doing this in a much more logical way than most people who post "I hate this game" threads. You didn't act like your opinion was the most important, and that's a nice change. Now let's address your points...

1) That is one of the problems with this game, and I think the new economy is number 1 or 2 on the priority list. Along with fixing this inflation, station inventories will be more dynamic, so player actions such as blockades can actually make a difference.

2) This sounds a lot like crafting, which is a ways away. Personally I would prefer some more game play oriented updates than just giving us cooler looking ships, but I totally understand your feeling. However, I think of this kind of like Halo 3, where we now get customizable armors. I spent about thirty seconds making myself look cooler when I first got the game, and have maybe spent a minute total since then working on my appearance, but otherwise I just play the game. The concept of selling your custom designs adds a bit more gameplay to the "I want to look cool" idea, but I still think the devs' time is better spent elsewhere.

3) Killing bots is fairly annoying, but I promise you that it is much better in this game than other MMOs. While in most, the main game is grinding to higher and higher levels, once you get to licenses around 5 you can get very nice combat ships, and at I think 9 you can get every ship and weapon in the game. In your 8 hour trial I can understand not reaching these levels, but it only takes a week or two of botting to get up there, and then you're done forever (at least until there are new ships and weapons that need higher levels). If you do come back at some point, but still find the thought of botting unbearable, there are many other ways to gain levels (Border Patrol, Hive Skirmish, etc) that you can do with other players, which definitely makes it more fun.

4) If you're shooting destroy-able things at a station (other players, for instance) the station will launch security guards to shoot you back, and if you kill someone the station likes, they won't like you any more. Outside of stations and in unmonitored sectors (it'll say on your HUD if its unmonitored) you can shoot anyone without penalty. As for taking out a stations' defenses, that is coming with the new economy. Actually taking over a station is slightly further away, but still on the horizon. The rest of your point here makes me think you haven't done too much Player v Player, because this is pretty much how it is. Shoot someone in an unmonitored sector (which is by FAR the majority of sectors), and you get a kill, with the only penalty being that player will like you less. This is one of my favorite things about VO. It's almost all player driven. I choose my friends and foes. There is no wussy "consensual" player v. player combat like in most MMOs. You always have to be ready to attack and be ready to be attacked.

The most important thing to remember is that it's just four people making this game. If that brings new content at a pace too slow for you, that's totally fine. You shouldn't have to pay something you don't want 100%. However I would urge you to come back in a month or two, just check VO regularly, because there always will be updates, and in the near future many of your issues will be (or in the case of 4, already are) resolved.

Well-spoken, smittens.

I lol'd.

First he says he's disappointed that he doesn't have to grind for money, and then he says he's mad that there's too much grinding in the game.

Newsflash: as you start actually PLAYING the game (that doesn't mean flying around playing tag with collectors), the money to keep you at it will be much harder to come by.

Your puny plasma cannons cannot damage the station. They're not worried about you scorching the paint. Try shooting something you can actually damage, such as a player or station guard (not your own nation - you can't hurt them, because then you'd cry about getting your ass handed to you and not being able to earn their trust back)

Go back to WoW and don't let the door hit you on your way out.

personally, i could play this game the rest of my life with no updates ever again. I think of it as a multiplayer game, with a bunch of extra stuff added on to go with it. dont expect the typical mmo experience with this game its very different from something like wow. the reputation of the individual make people stand out more than any ship customization could, and adding stuff to your ship would just make it easier to hit anyways so only noobs and dumbasses would really use what your thinking about. The pvp in this game is better than anything else in my opinion, you will never get bored once you get good at it, just like some people never get bored of halo or starcraft multiplayer. but on the other hand, once you get all the stuff in a game like oblivion or bioshock you will start to lose interest and have less fun than when you initially played them (i dont care how much people may love these games but you cant deny that you will eventually lose interest doing the same things over and over again once you get all the stuff). as for your complaint about not being able to do things and not being able to kill eachother. there are not invisible walls in this game stopping you from doing anything, you can do whatever you want and an experienced player could pull it off if he didnt care about standing. you can pirate other people in vo. you can kill other people at any time even if the police are trying to stop you. and why are you complaining about not being able to do anything you want, then complaining about there not being consequences (which there are).
lastly, I really would prefer you didnt start playing anyways because you give the impression of being an impatient, demanding, whiney, 13 year old kid who made up his mind about this game after experiencing maybe 5% of it.

Cunjo: Newsflash:
actually, the money to keep you in SCP's or X-1s is much easier to come by. Just do a couple of convoy escort missions per day. 15mins work, $1M - $2M cash. That should keep any competent PvPer in SCPs or X-1s for a long time.

Competent players don't fly SCPs. I fly heavies out of grey, and after equipment costs they're exceedingly expensive.

The convoy mission is an exploit. Just because it hasn't been fixed yet doesn't mean it won't be, and it certainly doesn't make it a prime example of how much money you can make in the game.

I like the part where he rants about shooting at the space station.

Interesting read, but you spend a little too much time building up credentials for your own viewpoint as opposed to making a logical argument. There are many people who don't pay for this game.

The ones that do are more or less dedicated to making the game better, through hosting events, roleplaying, or designing missions.

Yaaaawn. I've been reading good arguments all night and morning; this guy sucks.

He'll never read this again anyways, there was no need to reply. Ah damn, I just wasted 45 seconds of my life as well....