Gameplay

Feels familiar

Earth and Beyond might be set in space, in the future and have all sorts of new features but at its core it is still recognizably a MMORPG. Players group and gather themselves, they search for monsters to hunt and then slay them. While there are no ‘campsites’ as in the loathed EverQuest fashion, there are areas, which attract players of certain levels, styles and classes. There have been times when I have had people go as far as kill-stealing. In fact, while we couldn’t call it rampant, we would say that killstealing is disproportionately high in E&B. Manners and culture haven’t had a chance to penetrate the fabric of this society yet.


Unlike EverQuest or even Dark Age of Camelot, the trade system is far from rudimentary or average. Players not only hunt to gain items, which they can trade or create with, they actively go to harvest resources. This is a profitable activity in experience and monetary terms. Players will gain exploration experience for Prospecting, and Trade experience for refining and selling items. Profits are to be made off both raw and refined materials. However, oddly enough considering the time-consuming nature of refining, it tends to be less profitable than selling directly.

Boom!

Doh, got swarmed

That's quite the debt

If profit is what you wish, trade routes may be for you. All one needs to do is find a trade merchant, see what his goods are and ask him what systems pay a premium for those goods. This often involves a little bit of exploration as well, and profits are handsome though the process is somewhat time-consuming.

The fastest way to advance is still combat. Pick the right creature to hunt and you will not only gain a lot of experience, but money as well. Quests aside, combat is the only way to improve one’s Combat Level.

Levels

Characters can reach level 150 in the game, three times as much as in basic EQ or Dark Age. The levels come much, much faster than in those other titles. Even level 150 is reached sooner than level 50 would be elsewhere. Part of it is the design of the game – making it friendly to mainstream players who don’t have 6 hours of time per day. Death penalties are also very low. No one loses experience, they simply accrue an experience debt. While a player has experience debt, he or she pays part of their earned experience towards that debt, and the rest is applied normally. This is still an effective deterrent to dying often. Should the debt simply be too unmanageable to handle, it will go away at the rate of 20% per hour that the player is logged off. A healthy five-hour break means that even the most intimidating debt is wiped clean.

Grouping for the end of the beta event

Mass patrol

So purrty

Characters earn levels in Combat, Exploration and Trade. Each of these goes up to level 50, unlocking certain abilities and permitting the use of higher skill levels in those abilities along the way. Many of these require elaborate and interesting quests to unlock, a welcome diversion from the daily grind. Every twenty levels, a character goes on a quest to upgrade his ship. Upgrades give more hull strength, cargo space and perhaps weapon and device slots as well.

A character’s level determines the kind of items he may use. Level III engines are available only to character level 30 Sentinels, and Level III projectile weapons require at least combat level 12. Note the distinction. A player might be level 90 between Trade and Exploration, but still use the most basic weapons if his Combat is not up to speed. Fortunately, he will gain combat experience at the same rate if he was Combat level 5 no matter what his other levels are.

This flexibility and ease will win over many players tired of difficult and punishing MMORPGs. True, some of the hardcore will wonder where the challenge is and they do seem to have a point. We found E&B challenging without being grossly unfair, and that opinion comes after endless days of hard play.