Gushing EVE review - feedback?

[Hoax]

@Teleku:
-I'm not sure I follow the grind comment, I've heard it several times though.  I agree with the general sentiment that activities that dont revolve around other players aren't that fun.  But if you fly smart and insure your ship its pretty hard to take any steps backwards when it comes to your wallet.  At 30mil with a new character you should be sitting pretty, your only real expense is skill books which aren't bad other then the advanced learning skills which run you about 450k I believe.  But you could probably break even running missions for 2-4 hours a week over the next two months while you skill up.  Plus flying a frigate tackler in pvp is a rush no matter how you slice it, ask anybody in the corp  :-D

-I like EvE's playerbase, people talk in local once you get out of the huge empire hubs (where they talk but it is more like WoW general chat) because you get to know the other people who fly a given area.  Even our enemies have been nothing that even remotely resembles a gank/griefer type player in most MMO's.  The maturity level is through the roof, newb corp chat never rubbed me the wrong way either but I have to say I'm nowhere near as touchy about what other people decide to talk about as most ppl on f13.  As for death penalty, the game wouldn't work without it, this isn't WoW and it isn't trying to be.  Thank god for that.  Getting a ship blown out from under you sucks, and getting podded sucks more (esp if you have implants in) but that is how the world works.  Some people don't mind, some like it and some hate it.

-While its true that the visuals are nice, but they dont really matter, CCP has tried to add more points of interest with the various deadspace missions, complexes and the like.  It doesn't matter to me either way (I never understood the whole explorer mentality) but I guess I see what you are saying.  On the flip side, exploring in EvE can get you podded, quickly, nothing like running a dangerous route through space where there have been some recent podkillings to get the blood pumping as you jump.  Your not going to get that zoning into a high level area in an EQ clone.

[squirrel]

@Teleku:
I like EvE's playerbase, people talk in local once you get out of the huge empire hubs (where they talk but it is more like WoW general chat) because you get to know the other people who fly a given area.  Even our enemies have been nothing that even remotely resembles a gank/griefer type player in most MMO's. 

Just wanted to quote this for emphasis. TheBoB - a pilot we were at war with for a while - was a really decent guy, funny as hell. Even when he was blowing me out of space, he wasn't trash talking me. We had a long conversation in local about whether interceptors look better in powder blue or fuscia. This was as he was excorting my pod back to neesher (he'd podded twice that night, guess he felt bad.)

I don't find the community to be arrogant or elitist at all, but as in all things YMMV.

[MahrinSkel]

You get some smack-talk in local in 0.0 from time to time, but most people have figured out that talking trash in local tends to get you called the primary target and turned into pod-bait.

--Dave

[Fargull]

Nice review.  Now I am thinking of trying.  So, can I just merchant myself in this game?  Pull off something similar to Firefly, without obviously the on planet high jinx?

[Nija]

First, this is one of the grindyist games I have played since EQ1.  You need to go grind ISK endlessly if you want to do anything, and there is no real fun way to do it.  Going around killing rats endlessly is about the most entertaining way, but not that great, and much slower than mining or trucking.

Well, it depends. If you start a character with racial frig 4 (say, minmatar) and spaceship command 3 you can get into cruisers. Buy Min cruisers level 1 with that char and get it to 1. Training mining to rank 4 (might take a few days with no learning skills)

Now buy that character a Scythe and some Miner 2s. With this very poorly developed character you can make about 12 million isk/hour where I am currently.

But yeah, that's mining. Who wants to do that? It takes more skills to get into an effective ratting ship, but once there you can make good cash doing that too. Some of the faction stuff dropped sells good. Yadda yadda. Just depends if you really NEED the cash. You can sit down one night with a 12 pack of good beer and knock around asteroids for 5 hours and that'll finance a weeks worth of tooling around getting blown up by people with 50x more skill points than you have.

Like I said, it all depends. It's as grindy as you make it.

If you want quick fun, look around near where you are for Ice Fields. The isk farmers love those. All you need is a friend, a hauler, and a shuttle. Guy with the hauler goes up near the group of farmers and waits. Guy with the shuttle goes up to them, jettisons a can (we use bookmarks, anything to create a cargo container) and drags the ore from the farmers' can to his can.

Once the ore is in shuttle's can, the hauler guy takes it from there without flagging as hostile to the miners. Warp to station, dump, return, repeat.

Guy with the shuttle has to be on his toes, though, because eventually the farmers will have their BATTLE-CHINKS log on. These guys are jokes though. We've killed 4 ravens this week (got them killed by CONCORD, by timing the aggression timer as we warp back to the belt.) and around 10 haulers. Each raven is.. 98M? Pretty expensive to replace.

Anyways, a hoarder only takes Industrial 2 and it's 500k, so it's not too hard to get into. Shuttles are 9k each. Each piece of ice is 1,000 m3 and you can refine it and sell it that way or I've just been cheap and selling it in bulk for 82.5k each piece. I'm losing about 5k a piece by not refining, but it's easier. 9 pieces of ice per load (3x +18% cargo expanders in a hoarder) so if you haul one load you've paid off your hoarder.

[squirrel]

Nice review.  Now I am thinking of trying.  So, can I just merchant myself in this game?  Pull off something similar to Firefly, without obviously the on planet high jinx?

Yup. In fact from what I can tell if you're just starting it's better to specialize in something - ie. merchant/industrialist/trader, combat/piracy, science/research, as you're better able to quickly get the relevant skills up to speed. I have a character who couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag but who hopefully will be a killer miner/builder.

[Evangolis]

I've just been bumbling along with my trial account char, and it isn't too bad.  I mostly have been running courier missions in secure space, and I've bought three new frigates, (only lost one, an Executioner, to rats on a Level II mission) just trying out the various offensive/defensive weapons systems.  Not thrilling, but not really grindy yet, mostly because if I get bored, I hook up training on Learning V and go do something else for 1 to 36 hours.

[Teleku]

@Raging Turtle
Yeah, from the sounds of it, hopefully money wont be so annoying to get at higher levels (from what everybody has said so far).  Agent missions actually sound like a good way to get money, since I'm mainly wanting to try combat anyways, but I keep getting god damn courier missions, which started killing my very soul after the 6th one.  Man travel takes forever.  I need to figure out the agent system better though, hopefully I can work it to get solo'able combat missions (running around in a kestral my old trial account char had, which I gave to the new one.  Caldari missles ftw!).  I just still feel the game is more grindy than it should be though, with how slow getting ISK is at low level, and how slow it is to do missions.  While I agree the whole training offline thing is cool, I do have issue with it, mainly in how slow that goes as well.  It starts taking a really long friggen time to train those skills.  It just seems like one giant cockblock to me.  Forces me to stay subscribed for a REALLY long time before I can start flying the upper end ships and using upper end weapons.  Sometimes I wish they would add in a way for me to make it go faster.  I wouldn't care if it was some stupid mindless task that I just repeated over and over again, at least I would feel like I'm advancing more.  5 days to auto train a skill?  Screw that, let me advance it, I know I could do it way faster than that! :)

@Hoax
I kind of expanded on my grindy comment above in my reply to Raging Turtle.  Just over all, I think it just takes to long too do anything at lower level (mine, agent runs, trade), and its really borning.  Thats what I call grinding, heh.  I'll fully acknowledge that it could be all fine and fun once you get leveled up and out into 0.0 space (since I haven't yet gotten that far), but I think its a major flaw in the game that newbie players are forced through hot coals for awhile.  Especially if they dont have any contacts in game already and no corp to jump into to help, as the pain is prolonged till they get established (grind enouph money for ships, make friends and contacts, ect.)

On the flip side, exploring in EvE can get you podded, quickly, nothing like running a dangerous route through space where there have been some recent podkillings to get the blood pumping as you jump.  Your not going to get that zoning into a high level area in an EQ clone.

I was just curious how you mean that?  One of the coolest things I've found is exploring high level zones in MMOGs, since they are usually the coolest looking, and there is always that danger.  I spent days in WoW running around with my level 28 hunter exploring new zones and up to all the top end zones.  You are always in big danger of getting mauled by some crazy mob you've never seen before.  Its double exciting in WoW if you play on a PvP server, since then you are dodging high level players left and right.  Never know when I need to go jump into a bush when I see some group of level 60's comming down the road.  So yeah, was wondering why you say that, gets my blood pumping great, heh. ;)

[Raging Turtle]

@Raging Turtle
Yeah, from the sounds of it, hopefully money wont be so annoying to get at higher levels (from what everybody has said so far).  Agent missions actually sound like a good way to get money, since I'm mainly wanting to try combat anyways, but I keep getting god damn courier missions, which started killing my very soul after the 6th one.  Man travel takes forever.  I need to figure out the agent system better though, hopefully I can work it to get solo'able combat missions (running around in a kestral my old trial account char had, which I gave to the new one.  Caldari missles ftw!).  I just still feel the game is more grindy than it should be though, with how slow getting ISK is at low level, and how slow it is to do missions.  While I agree the whole training offline thing is cool, I do have issue with it, mainly in how slow that goes as well.  It starts taking a really long friggen time to train those skills.  It just seems like one giant cockblock to me.  Forces me to stay subscribed for a REALLY long time before I can start flying the upper end ships and using upper end weapons.  Sometimes I wish they would add in a way for me to make it go faster.  I wouldn't care if it was some stupid mindless task that I just repeated over and over again, at least I would feel like I'm advancing more.  5 days to auto train a skill?  Screw that, let me advance it, I know I could do it way faster than that! :)
@

evegeek.com.  Hit the 'mission types' button.  Odds are you're working for an agent class that gives a lot of courier missions.  That path leads only to madness and grief.  Find a combat agent and save your soul.

Get all the basic learning skills to III or IV, that speeds it up a little.  Once you hit frigate IV, you can go into Cruisers, which offer a lot more punch than frigates.  Or you can do Destroyers with III, but they aren't very effective IMO.  Or you can go a little crazy and train up to Frigate V, and start getting the skils for Interceptors and Assault Frigates if you like the little ships.   

[TheDreamr]

Hate to say it, but training in EVE is as only as much of a grind as you make it - becoming a competant pilot / merchant / minor / whatever just needs you to train up the core skills for that role a little, and then you're set to go out and have fun.

Becoming highly specialised or the "best" in your niche is where you start running into the skill grind - all in the name of getting that extra 2%.   Those little extra %'s won't make you enjoy EVE any more or less, and a lot of the time there's another way to get them without training (implants, named items etc).

To echo what squirrel said earlier, having a goal and working towards it seems to be the way to go - work out the required skills you need to train and once you reach your goal start building up the support skills that turn you from just average in that role to really good at it.


You didn't say what your goals were in relation to the high-end ships, but (with my noob hat on) it seems like high-end ships (BS, BC, HAC etc) can nearly always have their asses handed to them by smaller ships when those smaller ships are well piloted and setup intelligently for the type of target they'll be facing.

In a nutshell that'd seem to mean that you don't need to have the most pimped out battleship to enjoy the high-end gameplay because there will always be a place in the team for every role.

[Evangolis]

Try Internal Security for missions, I draw combat every time there.

I don't expect low security space to be particularly neat looking relative to high security space.  Graphically, I find EVE to be nice wallpaper, nothing more.

One of the reasons I'm still in High Sec space is that I can offset travel boredom by doing work around the house while the ship travels on autopilot.  We shall see how the game goes once I get a computer that I hope will run combat in something other than slide show mode.

Can you have more than one character advancing in skill at the same time on the same account?

[hal]

Only 1 character per account can be training skills. Aye , theres the rub

[dwindlehop]

I am still on my first month, but for me the "world" is not the belts and stations, it's the connection of the systems.
http://www.eve-files.com/media/corp/CRII/Latest.jpg

[Llyse]

I was just curious how you mean that?  One of the coolest things I've found is exploring high level zones in MMOGs, since they are usually the coolest looking, and there is always that danger.  I spent days in WoW running around with my level 28 hunter exploring new zones and up to all the top end zones.  You are always in big danger of getting mauled by some crazy mob you've never seen before.  Its double exciting in WoW if you play on a PvP server, since then you are dodging high level players left and right.  Never know when I need to go jump into a bush when I see some group of level 60's comming down the road.  So yeah, was wondering why you say that, gets my blood pumping great, heh. ;)

If anything PvP is more scary in Eve than WoW since you'll lose your whole ship than just die and have to run from the graveyard.

If you want Combat missions try agents from

Command
Security
Internal Security
Surveillance

They'll give 95% Kill missions.

If you want excitement that's not grindy go Rat in a low sec area but be warned you might die.

Some tips are to always keep an eye on local and check out new comers
like someone said early have a safe spot and instas (the corp has some for the area we're based at)
Finally check the map and display settings under stars and check ships killed, pods killed in the last hour, pilots in stations, active in space and jumps to see how highly populated or used as a highway the system you're aiming to rat at.

Ratting with a partner makes it less grindy plus you can take on alot more, me and Megrim killed a 1.4mill bounty Battleship with two frigates. He lost his Rifter though XD

But yeah otherwise have fun!

[AcidCat]

If you dig virtual worlds, EVE is your MMOG. 

That seems like a strange comment, how can you have a virtual world without a world? I like exploration but it seemed like exploring EVE was just like rotating your desktop wallpaper. Great, here' s a new system, the nebula is a different shape and color *yawn*. Granted I didn't stray all too far from the newb areas during my trial, but I didn't see anything to get excited about. Sure EVE has virtual-worldy mechanics, but I think that's just the thing, the game is all mechanics, so much of it is so abstract.

I guess that was my main problem with the game, it's just too abstract, too cerebral. Not that I want a dumb game, I just need something more tactile, more immediate. I didn't feel like I was playing  EVE, I felt like was interfacing with a set of mechanics and numbers and details, and it all kind of hurt my brain for very little reward. And the travel time just plain sucks. After FFXI I swore off "AFK gaming" and warpjumping in EVE was just as bad as sitting around LFG in FFXI.

[squirrel]

That seems like a strange comment, how can you have a virtual world without a world? I like exploration but it seemed like exploring EVE was just like rotating your desktop wallpaper.

Because for a large amount of people the 'world' being referenced is social, political and economic, not pseudo-physical. WoW for example has tonnes of geography to explore, all of it trivialized by the fact that everyone is channeled into instances.

So if your looking for mountains and coastlines to map, no EVE isn't your thing. But that in no way reduces it's 'world' aspects.

[Hoax]

I guess that was my main problem with the game, it's just too abstract, too cerebral. Not that I want a dumb game, I just need something more tactile, more immediate. I didn't feel like I was playing  EVE, I felt like was interfacing with a set of mechanics and numbers and details, and it all kind of hurt my brain for very little reward. And the travel time just plain sucks. After FFXI I swore off "AFK gaming" and warpjumping in EVE was just as bad as sitting around LFG in FFXI.

I've found that any game can be eventually reduced to "interfacing with a set of mechanics" some games might hide this more then EVE but in the end if you min/max enough all MMO's become just a series of numbers and details wouldn't you say?  Not that I have a problem with the statement at all, I think it is a decent insight into why some people just can't like EVE even if the ideas in theory should be something they would like.

As for the travel time issues, various people have commented on how that really is a non-factor if you accept it is a reality of the game and an avoidable one at that.  It is hardly the time of painful time-waste that the forced grouping in FFXI (is?) was.

[Krakrok]

I guess that was my main problem with the game, it's just too abstract, too cerebral.

I think I can try to quantify that by saying it isn't "human" enough. I can't land on planets. I can't invade planets. My ship doesn't have a crew that ejects when it explodes. I can't appoint officers which give me stat boosts or some such to how the ship runs. I can't board other ships with Marines. I can't salvage anything. It feels very robotic and alien without much of a human face on anything. The "NPCs" are just as static and boring as any other MMOG. There is no bar or pub at the stations where people can mingle or get quests or whatever (Privateer/Wing Commander had a bar, Wasteland had bars, Pirates! had a bar).

Earth & Beyond had minimal characters when you landed on a space station and it was a pain in the ass though to run to the "terminal" to trade something. AutoAssault has the same kind of thing with the characters tacked on for use in towns to basically run to a vendor terminal and then leave. I don't think either of those two are a good example of how to do it "right" though.

DarkSpace does allow you to build crap on planets (from space) and even space station defences but the problem was that all the planets are built up and defended already.

[AcidCat]

I think I can try to quantify that by saying it isn't "human" enough. I can't land on planets. I can't invade planets. My ship doesn't have a crew that ejects when it explodes. I can't appoint officers which give me stat boosts or some such to how the ship runs. I can't board other ships with Marines. I can't salvage anything. It feels very robotic and alien without much of a human face on anything.

Yup.

[I think it is a decent insight into why some people just can't like EVE even if the ideas in theory should be something they would like.

Exactly. I kept wanting to like the game. I could see why players could get really into it, I just couldn't. Really liked the offline skill training too. Immersion is really important to me though ...  a game like WoW hides the min/maxing numbergame much better ... well not so much hides, it just is more of a minigame to a more tactile, personal, and identifiable gameworld experience.

[5150]

I think I can try to quantify that by saying it isn't "human" enough. I can't land on planets. I can't invade planets. My ship doesn't have a crew that ejects when it explodes. I can't appoint officers which give me stat boosts or some such to how the ship runs. I can't board other ships with Marines. I can't salvage anything. It feels very robotic and alien without much of a human face on anything.

Yup.

[I think it is a decent insight into why some people just can't like EVE even if the ideas in theory should be something they would like.

Exactly. I kept wanting to like the game. I could see why players could get really into it, I just couldn't. Really liked the offline skill training too. Immersion is really important to me though ...  a game like WoW hides the min/maxing numbergame much better ... well not so much hides, it just is more of a minigame to a more tactile, personal, and identifiable gameworld experience.

I can relate to the lack of immersion (especially since your avatar is only a portrait) it was offputting to begin with, unfortunately I wanted Eve to be more like Elite/X-Beyond the frontier and less like Supremacy/Rebellion (in terms of the space combat) - it doesnt bother me much now, just a case of accepting it if you want to play it

If we ever see it, Online Universe (x-beyond the frontier online basically) should be more to your tastes, given how much its slipped timescale wise (but then so did X2) it may just be a pipedream

[AcidCat]

I would love to see the bastard child of EVE + PlanetSide.

Ah, I can dream.

[Yegolev]

Future plans for EVE include planetary stuff, but who knows when that will arrive.

It might do some good for the game to put in animated avatars, even if they didn't really have a function, but it's not something I feel I am missing out on.

[Krakrok]

It might do some good for the game to put in animated avatars, even if they didn't really have a function, but it's not something I feel I am missing out on.

I'm not missing the avatars either but it is kind of a disappointment about no crew and no ship boarding because I played Nexus: Jupiter Incident right before EVE and it had both of those. I'd prefer to steal some guy's battleship than to just blowing it up.

[Nija]

Planetary stuff would require an incredible ammount of people to pull off. It's one of those things that only works when lots of people are playing it.

It's pretty hard to do. At launch you'd need lots of people, and if you don't get lots of people then everyone will quit. Then you'll NEVER have lots of people and your game fails because these huge battles aren't huge and Battlefield XXXX does it better.

Or to sum that up in a single word - Planetside.

[Merusk]

It might do some good for the game to put in animated avatars, even if they didn't really have a function, but it's not something I feel I am missing out on.

I'm not missing the avatars either but it is kind of a disappointment about no crew and no ship boarding because I played Nexus: Jupiter Incident right before EVE and it had both of those. I'd prefer to steal some guy's battleship than to just blowing it up.

My ship IS my avatar.  I'm fine with that.  Now, customization, that's another thing.  Even If they'd just plaster my corp insignia on the hull a-la Planetside I'd be thrilled.  

Krakrok is absolutly correct on the ship boarding thing, though.  I want to be able to board and steal other people's ships.  Add-ons like "troop pods" from MOO2, and skills for training a crack assault squad so you can have a better crew/ space marines would be fantastic.  It'd also make 'self destruct' a lot more sensible.  You'd be weakening the boarding party's ship, not just destroying all your stuff out of spite for the pirate who's got you locked-down.

[Raging Turtle]

It is possible to pirate another player's ship - you just need to convince them to eject and warp away, and once they're gone you switch your ship for theirs.  Works on people who can't pay the ransom and/or don't want to lose their implants over their ship. 

This is limited by thefact that you need to be able to fly their ship, but its better than nothing.

[Hoax]

More customization would be a cool thing, how awesome would kill marks ala old school fighter planes be?  For each killmail you are involved in you get one on your ship.

Just an FYI alliances do have special player-created logos that appear on the ships of the alliance, Huzzah's is a weed leaf looking thing in silver that says Huzzah for example.

http://www.eve-online.com/alliances/a_1041482450.asp

[Yegolev]

I'd prefer to steal some guy's battleship than to just blowing it up.

I know what you mean, that would be cool, but seems like it would totally change gameplay if you could capture ships... you know, without losing yours.  The other guy would probably just self-destruct anyway.

There is talk of a graphical upgrade in 2006, I would like to dream that they could put a bit of customization in.  At the minimum, corp decals like Merusk said.  Just some tinting options would be nice, too, if paintjobs are completely out.

More customization would be a cool thing, how awesome would kill marks ala old school fighter planes be?

How awesome?  Totally fucking.  However, I'd request that I get kill marks for asteroids. ;-)

Planetary stuff, I can see them doing in stages.  They like to do things incrementally, so I think the initial foray into planetside gameplay would not be PVP battle but resource gathering.  First off, it's easier to just plant ore or archaeological sites on a planet, and second it would be in character for them to just place "bait" out there and let the players fight over it.  This would probably be simple orbital blockades/slugfests until some sort of surface warfare was implemented.  But Nija is right about the amount of work in delivering the total package.  It would be like some other game inside the main game.

[schild]

By the way, the review was frontpaged. :)

[Furiously]

(Insert EVE affiliate link after article please Schild). Whore yourself!

[WayAbvPar]

(Insert EVE affiliate link after article please Schild). Whore yourself!

That ain't a half bad plan, really. Might as well pimp a decent game.