Earth & Beyond is a Sci-Fi MMORPG created by Westwood Studios in the early 2000s. It was one of the last games created by Westwood (creators of Command & Conquer, NOX, Red Alert) with the game in development when Westwood was acquired by Electronic Arts. The game was shut down in 2003 but a loyal fanbase remained and through hard work an emulator was created. That emulator is available at www.Net-7.org. Since the emulator got off the ground the devs have added 3 new classes to the game and even new missions, items, and sectors of space to explore.
Everything is free and runs on donations from the community. It's a small community but tight-knit. New Player guides to help you install the game and get started are available on the website. When in-game feel free to ask for help or advice. People are pretty friendly and new players are always a welcome sight.
Simply register on Net-7 and download the original game (files on N7 site) along with the Net-7 client. Run Net-7 and log into the game with your credentials. The Net-7 site is your account hub and through it you can transfer items between your avatars, create new accounts linked to your original account, and access handy game resources like the item database and the wiki. Bookmark it if you intend to stick around.
Since the game is quite old the requirements are very low compared to a modern game in terms of resources and disk space. It will run on a potato. The game does NOT have space flight physics. There are no Zero-Gravity dogfights. You will not need a joystick. You can do everything with just a mouse but a few keyboard shortcuts can help.
Gameplay is quite simple but some of the quests (Missions) can be complex and you will need to read what the NPCs tell you in order to figure it out. The game doesn't hold your hand as much as modern MMOs tend to do. Again, consult the new player guides to help you get started. They will explain how the game works in greater detail than this little blurb. Experience is earned in 3 categories: Combat, Exploration, and Trade. You earn them by doing tasks related to each. Kill shit for Combat XP, explore new areas of space (or help someone else find them) for Explore XP, and trade items (to players or to NPCs) for Trade XP. Each category goes from 0-50 with an Overall Level of 150 being the max. The game can be a bit grindy but there are tricks to improve the speed at which you gain experience. However, its a great game to play while listening to podcasts or whatever it is you also like to do in the background.
Certain upgrades such as shields or reactor tier depend on your Overall Level while others depend on specific types of experience level such as Combat for weapon upgrades, Trade for manufacturing skills, and Exploration for mineral refining. Find yourself in tough combat situations? Level up your trade and exploration, boost your Overall Level until you can install better shields or even unlock a new weapon mount for your ship, and return to blast your enemies with your upgraded spaceship. Tired of fighting? Find a nice quiet asteroid field and prospect for minerals and gasses used to create components.
The game rewards you with bonuses for grouping with other players from increased critical hit chance to durability. The game was meant to be played with other people. While it is possible to do most things by yourself some of the more serious "solo" players do so with multiple alt accounts and play them simultaneously so as to maximize their bonuses and XP earned.
Most items in the game can be analyzed and built by player avatars. In fact, players can make items of superior quality to those available from looting enemies or buying them from vendors. This includes ammo!
The game still has some bugs, most notably while using warp gates to go from sector to sector or entering and leaving starbases, it's rare but it happens. It can be a pain but the easiest fix is to force quit the client and restart. Can't be helped. They had to build the emulator from scratch and they did a damn good job all things considered.
There are 3 races to choose from: The Progen from Mars, the Terrans from... well, Terra (Earth), and the Jenquai from Jupiter.
Progen ships have the toughest hulls, the strongest shields, and can mount the highest number of weapons. They favor projectile cannons which consume ammo and have a medium range and you must face your targets to fire upon them. The fastest way out of a tough situation is to face your enemies head-on and blast your way through them.
Terran ships have the largest cargo bays, the fastest engines, and favor missile weapons which consume ammo and have long range and can fire in any direction. Think of an archer or ranger playstyle. Enemies you cannot take head-on you can outrun and kite from a safe distance lobbing missiles over your shoulder as you stay out of range.
Jenquai ships have weak defensive capabilities but make up for it with stealth. Jenquai ships are the only ones that can cloak. They also do massive burst damage with their beam weapons which have the shortest range but do not require ammunition. Think of it like a "ninja" or "rogue" playstyle. Uncloaking, dumping damage, and cloaking again before the enemy can hit you back.
Each race has 3 classes. 1 fighter, 1 trader, and 1 explorer, for a total of 9 options:
Fighters are the toughest for their races and boast the most weapon slots. All 3 fighter classes can manufacture weapons and ammo, which is especially important for Progen and Terran as the superior ammo translates to extra damage. Ammo of different types can be used. Some do all the damage at once (explosive, impact) or do damage over time (chemical, plasma). Some weapons even do EMP damage that drains enemy reactors although most players do not bother with EMP weapons as the NPCs aren't really that susceptible to having low reactor energy.
Traders occupy a mixed role in combat and can repair friendly hulls or boost their shields (think of a medic or healer) as well as boasting the most varied manufacturing skills in the game. Terran traders, in particular, can build components that can only otherwise be found by looting or dismantling other items. This becomes quite important for end game as certain elite weapons require ammunition that isn't available in starbases and must be manufactured by players.
Explorers are the weakest in combat but have other skills to help them out that become available as you level up. In addition they have the best scanners and are the only classes that can mine asteroids and refine the raw materials. Unique among explorers, the Jenquai Explorer, has a wormhole skill that enables them to transport themselves (and party members!) across the galaxy.
Piece of advice for character building: Take the weapon skill into consideration when making your character(s). The highest weapons in the game as tier 9, and weapons that aren't ideal for your race (ie: beams on a Terran) can only skill up to tier 8. If you want to pew pew with lasers play a Jenquai.
Also make sure you have enough skill points to upgrade your reactors and shields as soon as you get the level requirement. Wasting your points on things like leveling both Build Engines and Build Weapons and not having enough to upgrade your primary skills can leave your ship in a bad spot. The game website has a character planner to help you out.
All that aside, give it a shot if it sounds interesting to you. It's not "hard Sci-Fi" and is more like a mix of Star Trek and Star Wars. There is a lot of backstory but its not really necessary to understand to jump in. If you find yourself enjoying it be sure to read the new player guide.
Also, if you would like help from me please PM me so we can meet up ingame. I can help you get started by building you some starter weapons, giving you some cash, or even giving you a ride back home if you end up lost in deep space. I have 3 maybe 4 days left before I need to hit the work grindstone really hard so now is an ideal time for me to be available at odd hours to help you out so please don't be a stranger if you decide to play. We can exchange avatar names via the Hexbear DMs.
Extra notes: I highly recommend playing the game in windowed mode. The game does not like being minimized so if you want to open a web browser to look up game info or play some tunes via youtube or whatever be sure to run it in windowed mode.
The game is fucking loud for whatever reason. First thing you'll probably want to do after making a character is turn down the sound effects and music. Seriously. So fucking loud.
Lastly, starting a guild. If enough people show interest and like playing we could start a guild. I was thinking of calling it Six Sided Bears or something like that so we could keep all our commie spam to ourselves. Hope to see you around the space lanes, comrades.