The cockblock of EvE

[Murgos]

The idea that I could play every day for a month or only log in and learn skills for a month and would not, in an important aspect of the game, have advanced...

But that is demonstrably not a true statement.  As long as you had set a skill to train it would have advanced.  As long as you were playing you would have advanced other things such as standings with NPC faction corps or your in game wealth or your pvp kill count or etc... etc... etc...

No one is saying you can't like a game or a mechanic of a game but that is NOT what you are have been saying.  What you have been saying is that the game itself is stopping you and that is an untruth.

[Viin]

It basically comes down to this: Some people like cock, some don't. End of story.

[dwindlehop]

Viin: 

Pro tip for the OCD gamers who can't advance fast enough: fly faction ships and fit deadspace or faction modules. You will not need much SP at all, just loads of time to make isk.

For those who say Eve blocks you from doing what you want: Eve does a poor job of showing people the path. I'm lucky enough that I stumbled into a group of guys that play late PST who enjoy the casual 0.0 NBSI. It took a lot of missteps to figure out I wanted that and to get to that place, though. In my opinion, though, you can always do want you want in Eve, even on your trial. It's just difficult to find out what you want and how to get it.

T2 modules are important for effectiveness. I always feel embarrassed when I fit named. But T2 modules are cheap, cheap, cheap.

It's pretty important to note that no matter what kind of ship upgrade you get, you'll still be doing the same stuff. Running L4s in a Raven is still running missions, just like L2s in a Caracal. Flying a command ship in a roaming gang is still being a small gang PvPer, just like the frigate tackler. Mining in a Hulk is still mining, just like mining in a Scythe. Solo ganking in an Arazu is still solo ganking, just like a solo Vexor.

[lamaros]

But that is demonstrably not a true statement.  As long as you had set a skill to train it would have advanced.  As long as you were playing you would have advanced other things such as standings with NPC faction corps or your in game wealth or your pvp kill count or etc... etc... etc...

No one is saying you can't like a game or a mechanic of a game but that is NOT what you are have been saying.  What you have been saying is that the game itself is stopping you and that is an untruth.

When I said "an important aspect of the game" I mean "one specific aspect of the game".

I don't have control. Sure, I have control over advancing some parts of the game at will. But not over skills. And I want control over all the parts of the game I might choose to play, it doesn't matter if it's just one part of 20, if that is a part which matters to me then I want the same from it.

[IainC]

When I said "an important aspect of the game" I mean "one specific aspect of the game".

I don't have control. Sure, I have control over advancing some parts of the game at will. But not over skills. And I want control over all the parts of the game I might choose to play, it doesn't matter if it's just one part of 20, if that is a part which matters to me then I want the same from it.

But EvE is less limiting from a skill perspective than almost any other MMO out there. Sure there might be a limited number of ways in which you can increase the rate of skill gain but the actual choices that you get to make are unparalleled. Whatever it is that you want to do, you can learn the skills for it. You aren't told that because your starting guy was muscley he can only learn combat skills as you are in most class or archetype based games. You plot how your character develops and only you get to make those choices, the game doesn't foist the picks of the design team on you as you advance.

It seems to me that you're seeing skill gain as the analogue of level advancement and are frustrated because you can't grind levels in EvE which isn't really a valid analogy for the reasons that have been laboured to death already in this thread. There are no 'Ding!' moments in EvE really. There are milestones you pass but you can define those yourself and decide your own route to them.

[lamaros]

No, I understand and appreciate the difference, and the skill system itself has many things I love.

It just doesn't let me play the game the way I best like to play. Personal taste.

There is also an aspect of not wanting to play a game where I cannot catch up to people who've been playing for 4 years, even if I could get within 99% in a few months. I think that's a silly system. (Just as I think levels in DIKUs are fucking stupid too).

[ajax34i]

There is also an aspect of not wanting to play a game where I cannot catch up to people who've been playing for 4 years [...]

The only thing you cannot catch up with is some theoretical "character" that doesn't exist that you've imagined and set your sights onto.

I've played for 4 years.  Seriously, since the last days of beta.  Participated in the free-for-all-with-battleships that was the day before the opening day.  Have character with bugged employment history that doesn't show, a bug that's only possible with characters created in 2003.  What's my highest SP character?  5 million skill points (a newbie), and I'm selling it.  Highest all-time? 20 mil, sold more than a year ago.  I've taken breaks, some of them a year long.

I will grant you that there are a few who have kept and advanced their release-day characters, but most people have taken breaks or restarted or quit the game.  People do that all the time.  And so you CAN pass them.  You can be a wolf, better than the majority of the playerbase in this PVP game, quite easily.

The problem with EVE is that there is no cap, that one could theoretically progress to infinity.  So people imagine that everyone else has progressed to infinity.  In WoW the limit is L70 with full Black Temple gear, all the mounts, Exalted all factions.  You don't worry about beating others to it, you just worry about reaching it, in say 3 years (let's forget that they keep adding content and raising this limit (Tier 6, etc) before most can reach it).  In EVE, it's infinity skills with infinity cash, and we don't know what other players have, really, so I suppose we imagine that everyone's piloting all the ships from all the races, and can also do manufacturing/industry with maxed efficiencies.  That's unreachable.  Nobody has that.

I guess games need a cap of some sort, a limit to reach, an end.  Without it, some people feel like they can't catch up, even though they can. 

[lamaros]

The reality of EVE is one thing, but I also just dislike the idea of a time based skill system.

In WoW the limit is L70 with full Black Temple gear, all the mounts, Exalted all factions.  You don't worry about beating others to it, you just worry about reaching it, in say 3 years (let's forget that they keep adding content and raising this limit (Tier 6, etc) before most can reach it).

In WoW I started TBC knowing that no one else had an advantage over me in it by dint of having played more. It was a clean slate. Also, TBC gear is a flat point, It's not just diminishing returns. You can get up to the idealised character.

I don't like the idea of a game where I have to make a significant commitment before I can do what I want to do. I don't mind a little commitment, or a learning experience, but I think that there's no good reason to limit what skills I can have (which in turn will stop me from doing some things) because I've only played for a little bit of time.

EDIT: WoW is the same - no MMO is great. But its method at least lets you speed things up for yourselves by playing more if you wish; it's at your discretion.

[ajax34i]

I think we're arguing what "significant commitment" is, then, and also the fact that WoW and EVE are different enough games that it's possible for you to be OK with the WoW commitment requirements but really not OK with the EVE ones, and me vice-versa.

[lamaros]

Of course. I said right from the start that it was just personal taste.

I just outlined it because of the silly stuff some people were saying about how people who like EVE have better personal taste.

[Typhon]

What the EVE defenders don't seem to have the same level of distaste for the nature of the rate of advancement.  Best way I can think of explaining it is like this - in WoW you are limited by how many hours in a day you can play the game - that is a "natural" limiter of how rapidly you can advance.  In EVE, the game decides how fast you gain skills, the player has no control over how fast you gain those skills, it's an "artificial" liimiter.

Regardless of whether or not it's a significant impediment, it is immersion breaking for some folks (such as myself).  I realize that for the amount of actual time I could spend playing the game, EVE's system would probably allow me to advance more rapidly then in WoW, but it still doesn't feel right in my head. 

Witout the illusion, these games are all just spreadsheets.

[TheWalrus]

What the EVE defenders don't seem to have the same level of distaste for the nature of the rate of advancement.  Best way I can think of explaining it is like this - in WoW you are limited by how many hours in a day you can play the game - that is a "natural" limiter of how rapidly you can advance.  In EVE, the game decides how fast you gain skills, the player has no control over how fast you gain those skills, it's an "artificial" liimiter.

Which is freakin awesome for those of us that married time nazis that won't lets us play any games for more than a twenty minutes stretch without askin why we aren't paying attention to them. Oy.

[Ratman_tf]

Which is freakin awesome for those of us that married time nazis that won't lets us play any games for more than a twenty minutes stretch without askin why we aren't paying attention to them. Oy.

Send that bitch back to the kitchen where she belongs.

[Murgos]

In EVE, the game decides how fast you gain skills, the player has no control over how fast you gain those skills, it's an "artificial" liimiter.

I think Falconeer said it best about how in games like WoW or EQ2 the same limit applies but you are allowed to work at less than that optimal rate.  If you were able to play WoW or EQ2 24/7 with a perfect group there is a maximum rate at which you can earn exp, and a statistical rate at which you can earn drops (Bernoulli Distribution).  However, the less you play and the less optimal your groups are the longer it takes you to reach that max point.

[Calantus]

Yes but you still feel you're in control. You can point out all the ways in which it's still arbitrary and whatever else, but you feel in control. Like Typhon said, illusion is everything in gaming, so the reality is meaningless if the design can smake and mirrors its way into making you feel in control.

[shiznitz]

I'd play WoW if I started with a level 70 character out of the box.

Buy an account with a 70 toon.

Bad shiznitz, bad. Don't buy accounts people, its a surefire way to have it taken back from you. I used to hear about it happening all the damn time.

He is just making a bullshit excuse for why he isn't playing so I snarked at him.

[Murgos]

Yes but you still feel you're in control. You can point out all the ways in which it's still arbitrary and whatever else, but you feel in control.

Nah, I don't anyway.  Other wise I would still be playing CoH.

[Krakrok]

He is just making a bullshit excuse for why he isn't playing so I snarked at him.

I refuse to level anymore. Still waiting on my $30 level 70 WoW character from you.