I was in a system once that had the planet really close by. I was in my mammoth and all of the sudden I started hearing atmosphere warnings I was like WTH

Amen !!!!

X3 is great but you must really want to play it and have a lot of patience and time to learn it !

That's why I advise Freelancer : Great Control, easy to learn, Huge universe (can be expanded by mods even), fun to play, interesting missions... Interesting possibilities ! I loved being a pirate and just attack the speed lanes (or I don't remember their name) and the multiplayer is really great ! Campaign was funnier than the one of X3 too. And finally I would say travelling in Freelancer is far better than in X3 since everything is smoother !

The - in Freelancer are :

-Graphics are getting old even with the mod that makes them better, X3 beats all

-No possibility to build a base, have a fleet and do stuff like in X3.

-Design of ships is not as half-way kickass as the ones in X3 !

-Planets always seems very small (you turn around them in a couple seconds) compared to the ones in X3 which are more realistic !

Why ohh why did they never make a freelancer 2 with that kind of stuff?

[e digicons]:'([/e]

what woah what

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does it require steam...

A true sandbox game would be impossible using AI.  The randomness you desire can only be accomplished in an mmo environment.  But no one has had the courage to truly give us a game like wing commander privateer or X3 in an mmo.  Such freedom would give players the ability to do anything, and skill would be based on tactics and skill on a joystick rather than skill points or levels.  Also, real consequences for actions, asset, ship, and material loss.  This kind of thing turns players off, but I would rather play this game than Eve or WoW.  

I saw the announcement. Was caught completely off guard. Looks great!

You have to have TC registered with Steam, which you can do by entering the serial number if you have the DVD version.

MMO and skill are direct opposites. Nobody is willing to make an MMO with any semblance of a game in there. I wouldn't even call most of them games. More like Virtual chat rooms or economy simulators. So yay for sandbox!  

Soo, here's the deal breaker. Does steam have to run in order to play this new game. If not, then I will purchase it, otherwise, will wait if it comes to StarDock Central or, sigh, Gamespot's Impulse....

I would suggest waiting to get into the X series until after X rebirth is released, as much of the learning curve playing X3 will be irrelevant because the series is reinventing itself in a great direction.

Albion Prelude is an add on to Terran Conflict much like Diplomacy and Entrenchment is to Vanilla Sins. They are lots of vids on the games on Youtube but remember, they have very steep learning curves......

I've been playing prelude for about two weeks. It's more or less Terran Conflict, not a lot of game changing stuff in it. There's a stocks market now, where I made a killing (1000 credits) in the 1MJ shield trade recently. I don't really see the point of it, since I can make a bucketload of money by scavenging the leftovers of the war. And there's a war, believe me there's a war. Gigantic fleets of gigantic ships swarming trough a few sectors, murdering my CPU with their missiles. The mission design for the Argon story is pretty poor, too many fetch quests so far, and the less pleasant parts of the series are starting to show their ugly side. Still, Rebirth will murder them to death, so the best thing Albion Prelude did for me was make me really want all the changes promised by Rebirth. 

Story wise, it's tied to the building of the highway thing, so far no mention of the supernova or Saya Kho blowing up that station around Earth(was that in Terran Conflict or something?). I'll start the terran campaing soon to see what's different.

In all, if you've got Terran Conflict, give this a try, it would have been better if you could import your TC saves, because riding around the universe for the sixth time to properly equip a new ship gets boring fast. And you wouldn't believe where they stashed the 1GJ shields, you literary can only get there by flying for 10 minutes, because Trans-Orbital Accelerators don't accept Jump Drives.

Yes

Yeah, as Unacomm posted, they are sectors in red in Albion which indicate fleet battles between Terran and Non-Terran forces...

This year but no actual date per se....