Good news and bad news

Game: Starships!

OK, here's the good news! The game is truly free. You can buy things in the game through donations, but there's nothing you can buy with donations that you can't earn in the game. And there's a lot of things you can't buy with real money. You have to earn in in the game. There is tons of names you can get for free or you can make a donation and get a special name. I thought that was stupid so I just cycled through the free names until I found one I liked. I think the game designers could have used spell check a couple of times but otherwise everything is pretty cool. Remember it's a free game so there's not a lot of cool graphics and it's heavy on chat. It is a free game so you're getting a lot for your money. Now the bad news. If you get on at a high peak time be prepared to get knocked off. And there seems to be a lot of high peak times. I heard the game designers are moving to a new server so maybe that will fix the problem. If you're a newcomer be prepared for the game to be slow and for the veterans to be abusive. To be fair, a lot of new players don't bother reading anyting, so I can understand why the veterans get testy. There's a built in chat feature called subspace radio that let's players chat in character and gives hints on places to buy things. The radio gets like a soap opera at times. The one thing you don't want to do is run afoul of a little clique made up of the game designers and their friends. If you do they'll make your lives miserable. But if you just get along and are patient the game can be fun.