First of all, welcome to Navyfield!!!
This is an unique game, and while old, is still tons of fun to play.
Despite what the naysayers would have you believe, there are no plans to shut the servers down in the immediate future. So long as this tight knit community is willing to show interest in the game, it will continue to run.
In recent years, however activity and interest have slipped due to server problems as well as the implementation of software illegally installed clientside. After this debacle, activity dropped by well over 80%.
During the week, activity is on the low side of average for a game with a community as small as this one, but when the weekend hits, there is usually no problems getting constant rooms going.
This game depends on teamwork in order to succeed in battle, and if you put forth the effort 80% of the time you can coordinate strategy to get yourself a win. There are a lot of players in this game who have been here for 10 or so years. It would behoove you to seek out advice from them. Such players as rehor, and ooh_kill_em are very knowledgeable of the game, and are more than happy to offer you advice along the way. I myself am a crappy player, but know enough of the basics to give you a slight advantage over your peers.
The most exciting things in the game are leveling up your bridge operator and getting to your next ship. You then get to choose a unique name for that ship and blow your enemies to smithereens with said ship. Once you are a high level in excess of 100, you may want to download teamspeak or ventrilo and hop on for some voice comms. You may even find it in yourself to join a fleet and participate in the Harbor Assault game mode once every week. Playing the game mode is glitchy at times, but still fun to see your fleet attacking an enemy fleet in a PVP knockout brawl for control over 1 of the 7 unique harbors in the game.
While glitches and crashes occur quite often, which drives players away from the game, there is always the chance you could be that determined one to overlook all of that and do your best to contribute to a victory.
As for spending money on the game, I would advise you try it out first and get your feet wet so to speak, then if it is something you find enjoyable, spend the money on the essential items in the shop.
Events run quite often around here, and sometimes an item drop is associated with that. If you spend enough time grinding during an event, the chances are you will get some free items. But, if you are impatient like me, and have the $$$ to spend, go for it and buy the items you need.
This turned out to be a much longer post than I intended, so apologies for the wall of text.
~jacopo
