BW went backwards in space combat?

STO, though that took two years before they got the ground combat close to fun and the space combat is literally ripped right from CO's flight mechanics (you have to speed up in order to 'lift off' from the 'ground' in sector space) and space combat doesn't have full 3D freedom either.

...I'm guessing you wanted better examples

yeah i hope space combat evolves into something more, which it sounds like it will. As it is though after the first couple missions i haven't even bothered with it. a single player on rails shooter just seems out of place in an MMO. If space ship PvP gets implemented (hopefully in a way described in a previous post) this game will be even more awesome. its like Sleekit said though or at least thats what i hope. maybe if we are lucky the first expansion will introduce a more fleshed out space game. (or if we are REALLLLY lucky even before then)

There are people who enjoy it - and through commendations people who likes doing it dont do it in vain.

It is a secondary gamemode that the player do not have to play, unless he/she wants to. It gives the players more things to do - if they want.

It works much like WoW quests where you operate some moving construct of sorts like a flying balloon dropping bombs or on a flying creature. I think the final quest in booty bay had a flying sequence of some sorts, worked very much like space combat in SWTOR.

If BW went backward then what lies forward? SWTOR gets you to the action with plenty of options where to shoot. You could not fly to the hotspot any quicker nor navigate any better once there. I think asking for free style navigation is too much because of the extra dimension in space. Obviously space combat was made to look like the classic battle at Endor and it does. You just couldn't duplicate those maneuvers, it would be dumb.

If anything take away the need to fly around asteroids and other obstacles.

i play STO and to me its not "free flight" (and trek "flight" isn't flight anyway ;P)

as you said its a thinly disguised adaptation of the existing engine complete with loading screens. hell i've even fell to the "floor" in my ship...

I dunno man, my ship is going forwards. I don't think you are doing it right?

I can fully control my ship in my imagination

eh, they put it in the game so the marketing dept. could sell the feature of "Space Combat."

Honestly, I think putting in the barrel roll homage to Star Fox only serves to point out how bad it is since Star Fox did it better and almost a decade and a half ago.

Hopefully space combat will evolve into physical dogfighting (even at an arcade level) instead of just being along for the ride from a gunnery position. It's more of a minigame than actual combat right now.

not going to happen