Eve Online

[Tiger]

Been thinking about re-explanding into MMORG's to kill time when I'm not wanting to fly WW2 crates.  

Any opinions on Eve Online?  Looks kinda interesting to me.

[Angus]

Well, it's Icelandic

Anyway, lots of players, lots of possibilities, and very nice graphics.
Sucks for me not having any time for it.

[virgule]

I played EVE-O. for near a full year before realizing how much of a budget-sink it really is. This is a rather dark and pessimistic review of what you will find there as for this is what I found out:

EVE Online is a place of much evil where you can lose hundreds of hours of work in a matter of seconds, just for being there. Its not a game, its a job you pay real money for. If you ever felt "flying formation" for an hour or two for a couple minutes of action if not funny, steer clear of EVE.

It look much better than it is. Actual fights are as fun a locking-on a target (ctrl-click) then shooting all you got (F1, F2, F3, F4... <--- thats your weapons's triggers) while hoping your tank (armor) will hold longer than his. The pilot with most Skill Points will win. The most actual "skill" (as in player skill) you need is ability to keep track of information on your overview, much like a Radar Operator must do..)

You dont get to pilot spaceships at all.  Double-click in space and your ship will head there.. never reaching anywhere. They dont even behave like spaceships but more like submarines... To visit a space station you just click it in the Overview and use the "Warp To" button. Once there you click the "Dock to Station" button.   Galactic navigation is easy yet _SO_ time consuming: Bring the map, locate and design target solar system and activate autopilot (autopilot is the only way to reach anything outside you immediate vicinity). Only 3 things happen and its a loop! : 1- Warping to StarGate 2- Approaching Stargate 3-Jumping thought StarGate. Congrats, you traveled to the next Solar System. You can watch as you autopilot haul you bellybutton thought all 157 StarGates to you destination. Better not fly on autopilot everywhere as for you could land in a GateCamp, thus dying within 3 seconds, and loose all you got with ya. There is one way to survive an hostile gatecamp: go around (and spend a extra hour(s) loopin' the 3 steps above)

You evolve your character thought Skill Books. There is a S.B. for just about everything and anything. The game have enough skill book for over a decade of "learning" (read: watch a progress bar..) A Skill Book can improve your cargo space and armor capacity...... All S.B. are a progress bar you have to wait for....  The earlier ones, (simple stuff like Frigate piloting, Small arms and light armor) will be trained in a matter of minutes, if not seconds. Later ones need weeks of training while the most Advanced ones can go on for _MONTHS_ (no ****).  You will soon find find yourself stuck with a progress bar to do something as simple as outfitting better armor plates..... or upgrading 3% your turn rate)

Then there is Band Of Brothers Alliance... flying around and blowing stuffs up in TITANS which take literally hundreds of real-life hours to many dozen real-life humans to build. One must "play" EVE to a guess-o-meter minimum 6 months before even being "Skilled" enough to fly a TITAN, nevermind outfitting those XXL 4000mm CarLauncher Howitzers (pretty much!), thats another few months of training for each and every single damn piece of the game.

Seriously, man. Try this game if you would but better tame the Evil goddesses first. This truly is not for everyone...... Once you fully outfit and your first ship you can consider yourself done with the game. All the rest is the same old crap but on a bigger, longer and more expensive scale.

[Tac]

I concur with the above.

Graphically the game is awesome.

Gameplay wise, its the biggest online gaming scam there is.

I was subscribed for a year. I spent 8 months WAITING for training to complete so I could have a SMALL chance in the game world. (Training happens in real-time and also offline. You can only train 1 skill at a time and one skill level can take up to 2 weeks of real-life time).

The game is enjoyable only in your first 3 months when you're discovering the beauty of it being the only MMO space game out there (I have no problems with it being point and click.. its no different from RPG MMO's like Everquest and the likes. Its just this time you're a spaceship not an elf or some crap like that).

After those 3 months you realize:

1) It will take you years to acquire training in skills that let you have an inkling of a chance to compete with older players. The instant you go against someone with a month more training time than you do, there is no chance in hell for you to fight OR get away. You're simply.. DEAD.

2) You lose your ship and it will take a week to get it back (for even if you do have the money to buy your ship all over again, the chances of you getting the components to outfit your ship like it was before is very low..that is.. if you find your ship hull for sale in the first place).

3) Battles are always won by those with more money. This is true in the event you DO manage to battle someone that has equivalent training time than you have. The simple fact is.. if you both have tech 1 outfitted ships but the other guy has ONE tech 2 component in his vessel.. you're completely, absolutely and totally.. fediddleed. Component/weapon performance has a massive gap between them. This has been tested extensively and proved that when two EQUAL ships whose pilots have EQUAL skills except for one having reached tech2 in one component... the pilot with the tech2 uses that one component to dominate the other player with little to no effort. And tech2 my friends, costs a buttload of money.

Consider #1 and #2 and think of the chances you have of having lots of money to spend. (no chance).

4) If by any miracle you happen to overcome #1-3 ... guess what? You're still fediddleed! The game at that point consists of nothing more than ridiculous hours spent fighting a really stupid AI opponent in 'npc missions' and when you do finally engage in some combat against other players it all rules down to the gangbang combat system.

Imagine it being the Isles map where you have to fly c47's taking cargo from one end to the map to another to earn enough perks to fly an Me262.

And when you launch the 262 you find the sky filled with other me262's in the biggest gangbang furball you ever saw.  


Quite frankly, I have more fun playing NETREK than EVE. http://www.netrek.org . And Netrek is FREE.  

Below is a small animated gif of the game. The speed at which it plays is like 4X speed in fast forward. The game is really not that fast.

Its simple, fun and very addictive. Been playing it since 1995 . Send me a ring if you want an online guide to wean your noobness in the game.




 

[virgule]

There. Just to insert a bit of fun and humour about EVE Online: http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Eve_Online

[Mickey1992]

Originally posted by Tac
Quite frankly, I have more fun playing NETREK than EVE. http://www.netrek.org . And Netrek is FREE.  

Oh, no.  Netrek.  That game is responsible for my undergraduate degree taking 6 years to complete and simultaneously destroying my GPA.

[Tac]

admit it: no regrets.

[Terror]

I have been playing EVE Online for over 3 years now and still enjoy it.  I am the CEO of a small industrial/exploration corporation and am proud to have grown it from scratch to a multi-billion isk (game currency) operation.  I feel I have definitely gotten my moneys worth out of the game.

Yes, EVE has it's version of grinding just like every other MMO out there.  Grind for isk.  Run missions, mine asteroids, kill npc pirates in asteroid belts, you have to do *something* to make isk in the game.

I disagree on the opinion that combat is purely decided on skill points.  Smart outfitting and choosing your battles is much more a part of victory than pure character skill point totals.

It's true that a new player will *never* catch a veteran player in skill points, skill points are based on real time training.  But since skills are a diminishing return, new players can still compete with veteran players in a relatively short period of time.

Also, with the Revelations expansion, new players start with ALOT more skill points than they used to.  They can definitely do better than when I started....

I have two notes for new players:
1. Be prepared for a steep learning curve.  It takes a while to learn all the different aspects of the game.  Especially proper outfitting for a given ship.
2. Death penalties are STEEP.  Do not fly what you do not feel you can afford to loose and be sure to insure your ships.  A ship loss can set you back weeks and can be very discouraging.  If you fly lower end ships losses are manageable.  I'm a 55M SP character, and I still fly Tech1 ships with Tech1 outfittings and still manage to compete successfully and keep losses to a minimum.

Terror

[Tac]

In other words terror, you prove my #4.


The fact of EVE is, it is not a game for those who wish to be their own 'privateer' type character. You are absolutely forced to join one of the mafia-like corporations to access the better resources or get anywhere in the game in any sort of proffession path.

[indy007]

Originally posted by Tac
In other words terror, you prove my #4.


The fact of EVE is, it is not a game for those who wish to be their own 'privateer' type character. You are absolutely forced to join one of the mafia-like corporations to access the better resources or get anywhere in the game in any sort of proffession path.

That's *every* progression based MMO.
If you want higher end content, you must team up. Period.
It's the same in WoW, Everquest, DAoC, Matrix, etc, etc.

Skill points, to a certain extent, are irrelevant. Once you get out into big boy space, any time an alliance defense is called for, you're in a gang of at least 30 guys. Sometimes over 100. Then, battle breaks out. At that point, yes, extra skill points help, but they're most definately not everything. Why? Because if the other team, with their 30+ guys, targets you, you die. You die before you can blink. Even the heaviest non-capital tanks can not survive that kind of firepower for more than a few seconds.

On top of that, with minimum skill points, you can play the role of "tackler". You die. A lot. However, the ships & fittings to do that job are very, very cheap, and easily replacable. In 1 hour you can grind enough isk to replace 20 of them.

Last bit, the railing on about having to fly a c47 past swarms of 262s is false. There are many, many, very lucrative trade routes in perfectly safe space. The most dangerous space in the game is lowsec 0.4 to 0.1.
There is rarely, if ever, a reason to go to these places. The only time I even go through them, is when I'm making the long haul to & from my 0.0 home constellations. Even then, there's only 1 system that's regularly camped, in a 45 jump long route. Then you just ask on your alliance chat if it's camped. If yes, wait it out. If no, keep on truckin'. Pretty simple.




hey Terror you in an alliance?

[Terror]

Originally posted by Tac
In other words terror, you prove my #4.


The fact of EVE is, it is not a game for those who wish to be their own 'privateer' type character. You are absolutely forced to join one of the mafia-like corporations to access the better resources or get anywhere in the game in any sort of proffession path.

I have not joined in and of the "mafia-like" corporations.  I created my own.  My corp does not belong to any alliance, yet I still operate in low-sec/no-sec space.  Just gotta be prepared for the eventual ship loss and podding.

Terror

[indy007]

Originally posted by Terror
I have not joined in and of the "mafia-like" corporations.  I created my own.  My corp does not belong to any alliance, yet I still operate in low-sec/no-sec space.  Just gotta be prepared for the eventual ship loss and podding.

Terror

Should check out Dark Matter Coallition. Eastern drone region residents. No mafia-ness. Democratic, peaceful, multiple outposts, really good farming, and surrounded by neighbors who want us there. The only important thing is to join the defense gang when called for.

[Terror]

The problem is that my corp is REALLY small.  About 4 regular players.  Most alliances don't think the expense is worth such a small corp.

Terror

[Apache]

Indy007, what are the requirements for your corp again? I forget.

[indy007]

Originally posted by Apache
Indy007, what are the requirements for your corp again? I forget.

3m sp. 12 mil a month membership fee in lieu of any corporate tax. so instead of paying a corp tax on any & all transactions, you just pay a flat rate per character in the corp. CEO, research guys, pvp guys, mining foreman, doesn't matter, everybody pays the same. it's actually a freaking fantastic deal because you can make 12mil off of 2-3 rat kills using just a Drake battlecruiser in about 15 minutes.

http://www.ascent-of-ages.com

if you reference me, use the name "russou" so they know who you're talking about.