Last friday Lum had a great post looking at why Galactica Online would never work. Psychochild then turned around and scraped out the insides of my brain by talking a little bit about the Cowboy Bebop MMOG I’ve wanted desperately for the last two or three years. These two discussions are wonderful to see; I haven’t said much this month but I’ve definitely done a lot of thinking.

Playing Eve has been fun, but only because I’ve come to realize that it’s purely a novelty element. I’m enjoying spending time with a RL friend of mine, bothering Darniaq, and blowing up pirates, but the actual play I’m experiencing so far has been (to borrow Lum’s term) somewhat Excel-esque. Apparently there’s this thing called ‘0.0′ space, and I’m training up to fly Cruisers so I can see what that’s like.

Eve aside, I want a space MMOG that does more than just let me tool around. Eve’s based entirely in the black, and as awe-inspiring as their space stations are you can’t get out and look around. The less said about Galaxies on this site, the better. The Star Trek and StarGate games sound interesting, but in the end they’re going to be limited by the realizites of modern massive games; a persistent reality means no exploration, little discovery, and no real ‘heroes’.

Mass Effect, really, is the closest thing I think I’m going to get to the game I want any time soon. Even then, I’m put off by Tycho’s words on the combat experience. NASA’s underfunded, no one cares about the Moon, and I’ll never get to fight off Reavers from the comfort of my office. It’s a sad time to be a sci-fi fan.

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