I’ve always been curious about EVE Online, but today I stumbled across something that has made me want to play more than anything else I’ve seen so far:
What a cool guild (er, excuse me, corporation) recruitment. I really think the whole single-server approach EVE has is key here; it creates more of an (authentic) feeling that what you do matters. It doesn’t just affect the 1% of EVE players who happen to be using your server, it affects everyone who plays EVE.
If you are the one guy who tackles the scout who gets killed who doesn’t provide good reconaissance etc etc… you will see the whole EVE blogosphere light up with news about the battle you were in, because it significantly changed the politics and economics of the game for everyone. And that’s really cool.
The main drawbacks I hear about are the crazily complex UI, extensive grinding & downtime, and an emotional emptiness (becuase, you know, you’re spending hours as a gray box flying around in outer space.) And those do sound like pretty big drawbacks.
I’m really tempted to give it a shot, but I feel torn. Could I handle two MMO’s? If something grabs me, I usually really want to get into it, and I don’t think I’m ready to leave WoW behind. We’ll see.
It’s always held my interest, but unfortunately the mac version is still buggy like ants on cotton candy.
Instead of joining EVE, just read the juicy stories, see more Goonswarm posters, watch some of the nice movies made of wars, and maybe drop by their forum. That’ll save you time and money, but still provide epic space enjoyment. :)
Hah. That can be plan B if I don’t like it too!
Since WoW takes less and less time nowadays, I’ve been dabbling with EvE. Even as a trader, changes in the tide of inter-alliance wars ripple back into market prices and volume. If an alliance turns an enemy fleet into space dust, all of those lost ships and spent ammunition will need to be replaced as soon as possible and at any cost. And that’s an opportunity for me.
Note that, unless you’re willing to buy ISK, that’s *extensive* downtime to fly anything big.
Don’t listen to them naysayers saying nay.
When you do decide to give EVE a whirl, just make sure you join a good corporation right away.
It’s a lot easier to get into the game with some oldbies backing you up.
If I can be of any assistance: I would say check out my blog (pimp my blog #1) and all the guides I’ve listed (pimp my blog #2) and also check The Drone Bay (pimp my podcast #1) that I co-host with Crovan and Alsedrech – very noob friendly!
Blog: http://www.crazykinux.com/
Guides: http://www.crazykinux.com/search/label/guides
The Drone Bay: http://www.virginworlds.com/podcast.php?show=17
Welcome to the sand box with land mines!
CrazyKinux
Awesome — thanks! Will totally check it out.
EVE has always been a game I would love to love. I dutifully play the 14-day trial about once every 6 months, but can never get into it enough to actually sub. In the end it’s the boredom of sitting for 15 mins doing nothing but watching my ship go through jumpgates to get anywhere.
I played it for two years; it’s very, very compelling to the technical mind, but compared to WoW it is rather cold. There isn’t really any counterpart to e.g. non-combat pets, no emotes, no /dance; only you can say to what extent that matters to you.
The multiplayerness is dependant on which corp you fall in with. PUGs basically don’t exist – the feature to complete missions in a group was added only very late.
Because of the high cost of PvP, it’s 95% planning and situational awareness (and awareness of gate/docking timer mechanics) and 5% actual pewpew. Actually getting into a fight you can win can take all evening, unless you have a very good mobile squad.
Elapsed-real-time character development means that the best way to try it out is to start now on the free trial, train a few skills based on advice from the forums, and just leave them training while you play the game infrequently. Eventually you’ll need cash to get more skills, then it’s worth putting in a bit of grind time. You can progress skills even while your account is cancelled for a month. Get EveMon and QuickFit (or Eve Fitting Tool) – those are the only bits of 3rd party software you need. There is no equivalent to WoW’s mods or macros.
Patience is rewarded, but unlike WoW that need not equate to time logged in.
Personally I’d steer well clear of goonswarm and their antics, but up to you …
That sounds a bit negative – let me add that the PvP experience is the best ever. It will put fear into you.
@Pete: I’d heard some really negative things in passing about Goonswarm last night and was trying to find more details online. Couldn’t, though. The EVEWiki seemed pretty dry.
I do like their recruitment poster, though. :-)
Thanks for the thoughts.
Beware! By joining the Goons, you’re not playing EVE – you’re playing something awful!
Goonswarm is currently raiding high sec space and more or less, blowing billions of ISK by destroying miners, haulers and the like. They don’t get much, if anything out of it (about a 10% loss at the least) when killing people there since you can’t take out any high value targets. I suppose they’re just bored since they think they “own” the game, having controlled a large section of 0.0 for some time now. Maybe they’re trying to get CCP to release 1.0 space from factional control? Who knows.
Anyway, the end game starts the beginning, so there’s no waiting around for weeks as some others said. With voice chat, I’d say it’s more immersive than hitting two buttons repeatedly in WoW raiding, or having a sex party in Second Life (although I hear they have voice chat now too). It’s also not nearly as hard as someone else said to do something YOU want to do. All options are available at start as previously stated. If you don’t succeed at blowing up someone else, that’s your fault, your ship and your skills, not a generalized 95% chance to fail unless you have an armada behind you.
Overall, I’ve played it on and off since release, but never that deeply. Go for the 14 day trial if you want, but I’d suggest trying to do something you want, I mean, if you want to pirate, GO PIRATE. With the new characters you get 1 million skill points which means pirating at day 1 if you get a few ISK together (not hard considering tutorial mission will net you 100k-200k).
I played EVE for some time, but it always felt like some polished browser game; the meta-game in the forums etc. always seemed more fun than actually flying around and killing stuff. IMHO, it is a good simulation (the economy and the resulting politics are unparalleled), but it is actually quite boring gameplay-wise, due to excessive downtime and a combat system that results in pretty boring battles (select targets, fire, recharge shield, repeat until enemy destroyed, spend half an hour looting thanks to a ridiculously low pickup range). Sorry, it has the right stuff with the single server system and everything that implies, but to be honest, I’d rather have proper gameplay.
I know not everyone is enthralled by space, but the graphics in Eve are far better than a “gray box”. I personally find the graphics to be more visually appealing than any other game I’ve seen or played. What is this about downtime? Going 12 jumps isn’t done every day unless you are hauling goods for profit, and most of my time is spent centered around a few systems. You can still fly your ship while training for better ships/equipment. If you are just waiting to skill up then you aren’t really playing the game. You can have a fun time and help out in any ship as long as you know your role.
PvE combat is boring in most games. Look at grinding for materials or experience in any of the other MMO’s. The combat system hinted at in Age of Conan does look a bit more interesting though. PvE does get more interesting at the higher levels when you can start level 4 or 5 missions in Eve, or do raid instances in most other MMO’s. PvP combat is not boring and involves far more than just targeting, firing, and tanking. The thrill of the chase scanning the target down or following through a gate into a possible trap; trying to flush out a stealth pilot; the race to close distance, target quickly, and get them locked into place, jammed, and destroyed; playing as bait and hoping your either you can warp away in time or your fleetmates can take him out before he destroys you; the surprise attack when caught unaware and trying to escape.
You do have to put in some effort to learn how to play, but it is completely worth it. The Mac client was a bit buggy for me too. I uninstalled and reinstalled after the most recent patch and I haven’t had any further problems so far. Windows is neccesary to use Evemon, but development is underway for an alternative for Mac and Linux.
Goonswarm is something awful coming from SomethingAwful.com (heh.) You got goons in pretty much every online game. It’s the scum from the internet, a lot of well-known internet-memes come from them, they’re griefers and they’re proud of it, but at the same time they got very creative people with them, that make posters like these. Just use google and you’ll find out a lot.
And I’m personally loving EVE. It might take some time until you’ll find your fun in the game, which is different for everyone. Getting in a good and active corporation as soon as possible is important indeed.
HAHAHAHAHAHA… *wipes tears of amusement from eyes* Yeah, go ahead, try EVE. The only way to really communicate what kind of game it is, is to just tell you to play it, try it. LOL.
Boredom awaits you! Go, Play. DO IT.
Goonswarm are the scum of the universe. But hey, they have found a way around the boredom – making weaker people’s lives miserable apparently provides that little “kick” of joy that makes it all worthwhile to them. They hate everything and everyone, including themselves. Hey, if you’ve got that depth of animosity inside you, you might be a good match with them.
EvE is a multiplayer game in every aspect of the word. I can have alot of fun in WoW or other MMOs immersing myself in solo content when I’m not raiding with my guild. In EvE if no one in my corp wsa online I literally sat around with my dick in my hand for 20 minutes and logged off.
When my corp disbanded in EvE it was one of the most empty and depressing feelings I’ve ever felt playing a video game. I’ve never had more fun in a game in my entire time playing games than when I was out in 0.0 playing cat and mouse with hostile gangs and bullshitting over vent with my corp mates, once that stopped the only incentive I had for logging in was training my skills every 20 days and seeing who was around still. There is nothing more thrilling than knowing that your actions have a permanent effect on the world and your efforts will not simply be reset every tuesday.
Anyway now that I’ve gone off on a tangent, you’ll like the game if you have friends to pass the time with, however if you’re a soloist you’re going to be bored to tears.
Give EVE a try. It’s a niche game; some enjoy it, some don’t. Just remember – you have to find your own fun. EVE is not a single player game, and you can’t play it like one. If your gonna try EVE, don’t be shy about it. Go ass over tea kettle and dive in; join a low sec or 0.0 corporation and meet some people. If you want to mine, they’ll protect you. If you wanna trade, they’ll give you information. If you want to fight, they’ll give you the ships and lessons you’ll need to be effective. There’s lots you can do in secure space, running missions or trading or mining. But that’s not what EVE is really offering – thats just the newbie zone. For me, there’s nothing quite as fun as EVEs pvp combat; and the best part about it is every battle has real meaning. That losing could break your corp apart and that winning opens up entirely new doors; and every pilot counts.
Feel free to message Raelyf in game if you’ve got questions or need anything; I’ll be happy to give ya a hand. Hope to see ya in game.
This is the exact same concept I was talking about in my second post.
http://www.mahoganyfinish.org/?p=4
Basically, EVE is what you make of it. One-month-old newbies can affect a skirmish in 0.0 that affects a battle that affects a war that affects the entire game population.
I realize this is a bit old now, but here is my take on getting into EVE.
Frist thing you do is read up a bit on character creation on the forums, then find a good podcast or steady blogger on it. It helps if either of those news sources have an open channel that they mention themselves as hanging out in.
Get into EVE and immediately join the recruiting channel, if you have a channel from above join that too. If you can find a good training corp, or a 0.0/low sec corp that is willing to bring you down and train you, join them. You really NEED somewhere besides rookie help to ask for information and people to gang up with.
Also you need to understand that not all of EVE’s activities are going to appeal to you. I, for instance, have a hard enough time leaving an alt afk mining let alone trying to take time to do it on my main. But after trial and error I found what I enjoyed, belt ratting, and how to make money at it, salvaging.
Hi, I cited this poster in this document (politics of eve 0.0):
http://scratchpad.roaringshrimp.com/?p=84
If you have a more complete citation on its source I’d be interested in referencing it using that.
@nate-c: Sorry, I just found it in a forum, as well. Don’t have an original source for you.
Hey James. I played WoW for 2 years, did the 70 thing, did the arena thing, did the huntard thing, and finally did the NOT a huntard thing (god how warlocks hated losing to an orc with a ghost saber from elf land). I had a blast with it, but then I saw this article about a heist that happened in EVE which would’ve gotten the guy banned from WoW. http://eve.klaki.net/heist/
I immediately downloaded the trial version and after 2 days, I was hooked. There is no *downtime to fly a nice ship unless you buy isk*. All you need is a good head on your shoulders. I’ve been playing for 5 months and already I’m running my own successful corporation in DEEP 0.0 space, flying battleships, flying two different types of advanced (tech 2) ships, and basically doing whatever the heck I want to do. The alliance I’ve gotten my corporation in happens to be friendly with goonswarm and the constellation of solar systems we own, complete with our own outpost, is actually only a few jumps away from one or two of GoonSwarm’s constellations.
I’ve done (and continue to do) all of this without ever having bought ISK. There’s no need.
All of the people trying to discourage you with how complicated it is or how hard it is just aren’t the type of people the game is geared towards, to be honest, and I don’t say that to be mean so I hope nobody takes it that way.
News of that heist was what originally hooked my interest, too. I think I have some future blog entries to write about that (yeah, I know it’s old news…)
http://www.killtenrats.com/2005/10/12/interview-istvaan-shogaatsu/
I still don’t like the idea of the SA crowd and the /b/tard attitude being brought into a virtual world.
Mutilated Furries, Flying Phalluses: Put the Blame on Griefers, the Sociopaths of the Virtual World
http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualworlds/magazine/16-02/mf_goons?currentPage=all
“The ability to inflict that huge amount of actual, real-life damage on someone is amazingly satisfying” says Houston. “The way that you win in EVE is you basically make life so miserable for someone else that they actually quit the game and don’t come back.”
“EVE is the only game I can think of in which morale is an actual quantifiable source of success,” Houston says. “It’s impossible to make another person stop playing or quit the game unless their spirit is, you know, crushed.” And what makes the Goons’ spirit ultimately uncrushable is knowing, in the end, that they’re actually playing a different game altogether. As one GoonFleet member’s online profile declared, “You may be playing EVE Online, but be warned: We are playing Something Awful.”
To the posted above, teh interwebs is serious business indeed.
My advice to the original poster is sign up, and dive in. You will soon find out which direction you want to take your charactor and a corp/allience to join.
Goonfleet is #1 – qoute this if your down
Goonfleet is #1
@Nick:
Quit you’r Hackingtosh and go for a Linux/GNU or (the computing evilest OS in my opinion) Windows OS based systems