EVE Online

[SystemsFailing]

I believe there is a free two-week trial you can get for EVE. That should be just enough to expose you to the game's simplest mechanics.

PS. Don't skip any of the tutorials.

There is even 21-day Trial, which is given via invites.

the first five minutes of my trial i spent it wildly zooming in and out, thinking that i was actually travelling. lolnope. Eve's ship controls are annoying, and its basically wow in space. freelancer is twitch-based, but eve is click-click-click.

Game contains damned load of functions and possibilities, it would be too hard to implement Freelancer-like controls there, it's impossible. As I said, it's RTS-like game. It's smooth, slow and coordinate-oriented.

It means that you can only choose objects and head to them. Players aren't allowed to simply fly somewhere. You only can fly on low speeds to where you face. It won't give you any advantages, though.

In Freelancer we mostly use Cruise to fly somewhere, in EvE people use Warps.
Warp prevention is similar to FL's cruise prevention.

Mining, bounty hunting, Mission making, trading, (industry) - it all reminds of Freelancer sometimes.

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';.;'