Discovered a new game this weekend: Earth & Beyond. It was actually one that Jason (that'd be the Boyfriend) picked as an alternative to Everquest (which he doesn't play anymore).

It's an interesting little game, an online RPG galaxy in which your character belongs to one of six professions and flies around the galaxy doing whatever your job is. I chose play a Tradesman, so I get to fly trade missions and make things. I've already made a nice little sum of money (I think it's nice, judging by what I've seen some items auctioned for. I'm not completely certain about how developed the economy is on my chosen server though). Mostly, I just like flying the little ship around.

Speaking of, you get to "customize" your ship, though most of the customization is in choosing the colors of different parts of your ship. The choices for the actual form of your ship are limited (three sections of ship with three choices each for the Tradesman). The same applies to customizing your character, though there are more parts to customize on your character and more options for each part.

I like that I have options for how my character and ship look, but the customization is completely cosmetic. My ship's stats start out exactly the same as every other Tradesman's, though I am able to improve different components of my ship through gameplay. Overall, I thought the character creation was a little tedious, devoting way too much time to something that doesn't affect gameplay at all. I could have just hit the Random button and let the computer take care of all that, but this was my avatar! I couldn't allow my representative to be thrown together all willy nilly.

The user interface isn't complex, which is nice. I'm not sure if I found it so easy to use because of my experience with online RPG interfaces, or if the UI is intuitive. It's mouse-based, though you can set up the keyboard to take care of most actions. There is a tutorial available with each new character that will take you through the basics, and the first time you do something or are in a situation not covered in the tutorial (like targeting another player or docking in a spacestation), you get text and sound to teach you.

Combat at low levels gets repetitive. 1) Target MOB 2) Push the "Fire" button. 3) Repeat step 2 until MOB is destroyed. If it's that simple, I'd prefer to be able to automate the firing to free me up for to prepare and use one of the special abilities of my ship. Simple combat bores me. I'm hoping that it's a bit more complex at higher levels, requiring a little strategy.

All in all, it seems to be a good game. I played up to level 13 in a few hours, completely explored four sectors, made lots of money, and got my butt kicked a couple of times by some hostile space creatures. It no replacement for Everquest (who could give up a lizardman who animates the dead and siphons the life from others?), but it should be a nice alternative when I feel like a change of setting.