So for those of us who were long gone and have at last returned, how has vendetta evolved while we were away? Last I was around, player generated content was just starting to get rolling. Two new models had been introduced, the frigate model and the fighter mode, and I believe a large transport was in there as well. Before that only one cap ship existed, with still little to no possibility of player caps.

Have all the ship models now been replaced?

Are player owned capships now a possibility?

Are player owned stations and player controlled sectors implimented?

Are their more formal guilds now, instead of just tags and such?

Are ships more specialized, how is the grind?

Are there more enemy AI or is it still mainly PVP with sector defence AI's for each side and the bots in the neutral sectors. I forget what we call these AI things that basically infest every Sci Fi game as the neutral enemy everyone gets to stomp. We call them Xenon or AGI in X3 Terran Conflict, where I've kept my time for the past couple years or so. I remember the combat in here being heaps and heaps of fun, and pretty hardcore skill based.

Is there more support for mouse style play now? Before your mouse movements were tied directly to the ships movement without any kind of cursor or mouse follow interface. I find that I prefer that when playing a Sci Fi game, even if the aiming isn't tied to the cursor. It just makes things far more gradual and predictable, otherwise you have to memorize how fast to move your mouse and how much juke you can do without throwing your ship into a spin.

Or something else useless and irritating.

Are any of the old 'Greats" still around? Cunjo became amazing for a while, and then there was Shape and a few others poking around that were excellent. I have no idea who's at the top of the duel ladder at the moment. I should check that out.

How has duelling progressed? Any improvements on weapons, ship matches, anything have a concrete edge over the other or is it all weight and what ships you're in at the time and player skill? No real advantage to piloting any ship in particular?

Is there a good 3rd person mode implimented with targeting? Was that there before? I can't even remember, I seem to remember all first person play at the moment. Are there cockpits now? How are the convoy systems running?

Talk to me people, I used to love this game, but it evolved to slowly and got to stale for me, so I chose to take a long break. I came back a few times, but still it continued to evolve only very slowly. I've taken a long break from it, waiting for Sci Fi to bounce back, got other hobbies and done other things. I'm looking forward to a whole new set of games.

Star Conflict, X Rebirth, even Evochron Mercenary and X3 Reunion, X3 Terran Conflict and more. Star Citizen and Elite: Dangerous. I've been in and out of all kinds of things. I love them all, it'd be great to see one of my old greats surprise me with a whole bunch of new and amazing things.

Hit me boys! You still out there Shape? Marcus? LeberMac?

Yes, you can own a Trident Type M, which takes a metric shit tonne of work to make

No player controlled stations or sectors. Only a few conquerable stations, which play a big role in trident making. These are conquered by guilds, like TGFT or BR1...

Yeah, there are formal guilds. The biggest and most active is TGFT guild (The Guild Of Free Traders)... There was FAMY guild around (Family Galactic Travel), which consisted mostly of pirates. The FAMY slowly dissapeared from the scene though.

Well, ships are kinda specialised. You use ragnaroks to bomb someone's ass, trident for example. The lads who fight speed around with valkyries and vultures... Some are skilled enough to use a heavy prometheus in fighting (more ports and armor in exchange to mass). And the peaceful fellas (like me) use behemoths (or piñatas in pirate language) to transport stuff around.

I can't answer more, just got back from a kayak trip, so I'll leave the other questions to the older and more skillful lads.

lol?

Happy blogging!

Welcome back, LordofBlades. A lot has changed. I'm not going to respond to each of your questions in-line as I think that may rob you of some of the joy of logging in and discovering what's new and different.

This New Player Guide I wrote last November may help you get acclimatized somewhat. Also be sure to check out the VO Wiki. Many of the things you ask about have been addressed by the devs since your last matriculation, I think.

I recommend starting a new character to get the full experience. A lot of work has been done in this area and it will put some of the other changes in perspective, possibly making you more effective.

Cunjo became amazing for a while,

Obvious troll is obvious.

Other than that, welcome back. IMO, VO remains too slowly evolving and not really in any of the directions in which I'd like to see it go. For the first time since 2005, I'm unsubbed and have no plans to buy another 2 years any time soon. I'm keeping an eye on it, though.

Cunjo became amazing for a while

Lol dude are you Cunjo?

I'd agree with Shape being one of the 'greats' though. We have some new 'greats' now, come meet them :)

Nope, wasn't cunjo. But i trained with him and martin. Those guys were nuts. Check the duel records if you disbelieve me.

Some of us were here before Cunjo even started, and are more aware of just how that later version of [SCAR] gamed the shit out of duel stats than you seem to be.

Martin was pretty good, but sweet jebus did his Aussie lag make him a PITA.

Welcome back :). In the short-term we're doing a bunch of mobile-platform stuff that, ironically, Lecter has been requesting for some years.

Beyond the next month and a half, there's a lot going on that has been discussed in our newsletter.

Don't conflate my poking fun at the relatively limited capabilities of your first-choice mobile platform with a request for VO on iPhone (or any other mobile device)...I've never thought VO was remotely playable on mobile, even on the iPad when I tried it once.

Heh, well, you have made quite a few comments in the past where you advocate for better iOS and iPhone support. Perhaps all in some kind of jest; but the number of them made me think otherwise.

Anyway, the touch flight experience is definitely a limitation, but bluetooth gamepads are possible to use on iPhone as well now. It's not perfect, but it works pretty well for a mobile gaming platform.

Lecter and Incarnate, you guys should both trying playing on mobile with the DroidButtons plugin. Sure, it doesn't necessarily bring it up to the level of PC, but it does make the playing experience better. Complete freedom to design your touch controls, plus creating buttons for other important commands goes a long way to making the game better. While the current DroidButtons GUI has some issues, I am getting close to finishing a complete rewrite that should make it easier to use on devices with a high resolution.

I totally believe it, and I do want to integrate some kind of droidbutton-esque functionality into the basic game client (I have from the beginning, I've just been priortizing "defaults" and other issues). Email us when you finish your re-write, we'd like to check it out.

and are more aware of just how that later version of [SCAR] gamed the shit out of duel stats

I remember. I could never beat Martin or Shape, but cunjo and I exchanged a lot of PKs. And I don't consider myself that good.

Although we can thank him for the ten-second delay on the /explode command

dis thread almost made me shed a tear.

wait, In fact i've just spilled me Deneb rum.

we can thank him for the ten-second delay on the /explode command

That is indeed cunjo's greatest legacy.

Idk why more people aren't playing this. Besides full PC spaced games, I have not seen any comparable free world, open spaced, live, mmorpg games that r able to be played on mobile devices like this. There was one called Traveller AR that had great potential, but the authors went belly up-sadly. This game has much potential-if only, it had a larger player base. I've been playing "The Infinite Black" for quite a while. It is very good, but it's quite a different type of game. What makes it good is the large player base, guilds [or] Alliances/Corporations that fight against eachother. I'd like to see the authors here advertise and build up they're player base.

The devs are trying polish the game and finish some new features before they advertise it. I'm pretty sure valve approved them for steam though.