I’ve been playing Vendetta Online on and off now for a couple of months. For those of you not in the know, Vendetta Online is a space based MMORPG that runs on Windows, OSX and Linux. It offers an experience that is vastly different to EVE Online. Where EVE offers a third person ‘point and click’ type space experience, Vendetta places you in the cockpit of your chosen space vehicle, battling face to face with bots and players across a variety of missions.
Another important difference, is that Vendetta Online is produced by only 4 people. In my opinion, this has had 2 massive effects on the game. First of all, unfortunately, it means that the game is lacking a little in scope. It’s not easy to find truly unique missions as the focus seems to have been on the core ‘learning the game’ and ‘generic always there missions’ to date. This means that the awesome history and thought that’s gone into the world doesn’t get to shine through. Also, the graphics aren’t quite up to EVE’s standards. Don’t get me wrong, they’re great for a team of 4, and produce a wonderful experience, but it’s unfortunate that they have to sit next to EVE in a comparison.
The second effect on the otherhand, is absolutely amazing. Being led by only a team of 4, and having a tight-nit community has led to some innovation in the MMORPG genre. The game has a Player Contribution Corp; a group of players who have access to a set of tools and guides for contributing missions, plugins and skins to the game. Some of the community made plug-ins really fill those gaps that the development team simply haven’t had time to plug yet.
Being able to contribute to a live MMORPG is really appealing to me. As someone who is just starting his career in the gaming industry, I love the idea of being able to join a friendly and ambitious community, put a handful of hours into a mission, skin or plug-in and see it in action in a real live game. It was this that spurned me on to write this post. I’ve started work on a new skin for the engine that I hope will help the engine shine a little more on my monitor, and wanted to share some thoughts about my experience.
The bottom line is this; If you’re looking for an MMORPG with a small yet friendly player-base that will allow you to contribute ideas and suggestions to the development of the game, then Vendetta Online is definitely something you should try out. I’m not going to lie - the first 30-60 minutes might be a little different to your regular MMORPG experience - it won’t be quite as shiny, but you will pretty quickly get to witness the community first hand. Hell, they’ve got an 8 hour trial (that’s 8 hours in game, you can spread it over a few weeks if you wish) - so why not give it a shot?