Author Topic: EVE Online  (Read 31855 times)

Blondeshell

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EVE Online
« on: December 27, 2012, 05:24:35 PM »
I'm a little surprised no one's mentioned this game yet as a possible alternative to CoH. I've had free accounts with WoW, Aion, LotR, STO, CO, and SWtoR, but never could keep my interest in any of them. I'd played a trial of EVE about five years ago because I liked the pure science fiction setting, but it was tough to figure out what to do because it was so drastically different from a traditional MMO. I decided to check it out again because the levelless design now intrigues me, there have been significant upgrades for contact missions, and who wouldn't want to be captain of their own spaceship?! (I've also been trying TSW because of the levelless design, but EVE is a lot friendlier to my computer. I don't think I'll be able to seriously get into TSW until I get a new rig, but I really dig that game's ambience.)

The original game intro video (no longer used): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjbwsyhJjUs

Current pilot training video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI4VkO6qr0U

The character creator had also undergone a complete rewrite since I'd last played, and you now get to create a full-body avatar rather than just a bust, though most of the customization is still available just for your head and face. The only "avatar" other people will interact with is what ship you currently happen to be flying, but you do actually get to interact with it while you're docked in your captain's quarters.

PROS:
  • As mentioned, as in TSW, there are no distinct levels to train. Rather, you develop ranks in individual skills that affect how well your ships perform or how you interact with other players and contacts. You can purchase individual skill books on the market or get them as mission rewards. There are over 400 different skills you can learn (each with five ranks for better bonuses), allowing for extreme flexibility in how you develop your character's strengths.
  • Training happens in real time, even while you're logged out of the game. There's a community-developed monitoring program you can download to keep track of your characters' training queues, progression plans, market status, and other info. (Think HeroStats, but directly linked to your account and useable offline.) If you've got space in your queue, you're wasting time, so you should always be training some skill. (This has been really nice for me over the last couple months. As I've been tied up with RL and PWiki documenting stuff, I can monitor my progress and log in when needing to update my queue.)
  • There are certificates you can earn upon training skills to certain ranks (similar to books in TSW). The certs don't do anything specific on their own, but they do indicate that you've reached a certain level of competence and some are required for unlocking access to ships and equipment.
  • Speaking of that, there's an incredible amount of customization you can do with your ships, depending on the role you want them to have. EVE is basically a min-maxers dream when it comes to calculating how much of a bonus you can eke out by increasing equipment or skills. The role you perform when solo or teamed is primarily determined by what ship you're flying.
  • The game "world" is huge, as in an entire galaxy, complete with stars, planets, asteroid belts, space stations, and more. Each star system is basically its own zone with its own local chat channel. There are regularly 20-40,000 players online at any given time on the single server shard.
  • Depending on how involved you want to get, you can join corporations and alliances (EVE's equivalent of supergroups and coalitions), or join hundreds of other players in epic fleet battles. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDVEHE10nHc)

CONS:
  • You can only have three characters per account. However, because everyone has access to all skills, given enough time and ISK (Eve's inf), you don't need a lot of different characters slots.
  • High-end character builds can take a looong time to train (read: years). Some of the tertiary skills I'm learning now for core certificates take over a week to train from level 4-5, and I saw someone mention in chat that their next skill level would take 31 days. You can get boosters that increase each of your five attributes, thus reducing the needed training time, but be prepared for a long haul.
  • Although the revamped player tutorial makes it much easier to learn the ropes than it used to be, there's still an overwhelming sense of drowning in all the options you have in deciding your career path.
  • The game world is huge and, as you might expect in the real universe, there's a lot of empty space where you won't meet anyone. Travel between systems follows pre-set paths and can take a while to get to your destination. (Auto-pilot helps, but is slower.) With so many possible destination systems, there's not one place (that I've seen so far) where a majority of players congregate.
  • PvP can be a big part of this game, primarily if your corporation decides to go to war against other corporations. You also have people who thrive on ganking you, especially in low-security systems, and some of them have equipment that perma-holds your ship so you can't escape. Watch your scanners.

These are just some of my observations so far. I don't have any thoughts on the finer points of the game yet, as I'm still trying to determine what area(s) I want to focus on, learn different ship designs and roles, and haven't spent any time teaming with anyone. But the game now seems interesting enough for me to stick around at least for a little while.

Edit: A couple nicely-informative reviews can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Eve-Online-Commissioned-Officer-Edition-Pc/dp/B003VJID7E/
« Last Edit: April 29, 2013, 02:02:49 AM by Blondeshell »

Tenzhi

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Re: EVE Online
« Reply #1 on: December 27, 2012, 08:20:57 PM »
EVE Online is perhaps the most tedious game it's ever been my misfortune to play...  which, along with the PVP and heavy dependence on a player-driven economy, puts it at the top of my list of "Worst MMOGs"...

Which is unfortunate, because there are some great things therein.  I'd love to while away the time smiting space pirates, mining asteroids, and building bigger and better ships but PVP and goals that seem nigh-unattainable are the Anti Fun Equation.
When you insult someone by calling them a "pig" or a "dog" you aren't maligning pigs and dogs everywhere.  The same is true of any term used as an insult.

Blondeshell

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Re: EVE Online
« Reply #2 on: December 27, 2012, 08:36:22 PM »
I'll agree that the extreme slow-burn playstyle can be a turn-off, but the fact that you have tangible character advancement while you're not playing (unlike Day Jobs) helps offset that for me. I haven't dealt with the player-driven side of the market yet (everything I've purchased so far has been from standard NPC corps).

Tanglefoe

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Re: EVE Online
« Reply #3 on: December 28, 2012, 02:47:33 PM »
I've had my fun (and unfun) in this game.  I met a small group of people a couple of years ago when I first started playing this game.  We formed a corp together and together we have joined big alliances and backed back into our own corp several times over the years.  We've even ventured out and played other games together but always met back up in EVE.  Right now this is the only game I pay for since The Secret World is FTP but I rarely log in to play it.  I mainly keep my characters (2 accounts) on the cooker, keep tabs on friends in my corp via email, and monitor research.  I always end up back in this game but I rarely stay long because it goes from fun to tedious very quickly for me.

JaguarX

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Re: EVE Online
« Reply #4 on: December 28, 2012, 05:56:38 PM »
Well this is good information for people looking for a game to play. For some, this may be a type of game they are looking for.

For me, it wont do and I havent found it to be enjoyable. Too much in the way of being PvP oriented. I played it and kept thinking that for PvP, I'd have ten times more fun playing Call of Duty and games of that sort without the tedious stuff of EVE.

The player driven econonmy on the level that COX had was a niggle but in EVE it's front center and COX market on steroids and became a main deal breaker for that game for me.

Yet, for people who loved the COX market and player oriented economy and PvP, EVE is an excellent game. It has alot more pros than cons and can be enjoyable for those that find fun in putting in alot of work for little reward at a time. This game, if found to be fun, will keep a person playing for hours. Unfortunately, the main things I find fun and play games for are not there in EVE for me but even then I cannot say it's a bad game at all. It's just not one for me, but I am an oddball when it come to games and what is important fun factors  so many people probably will find it to be very enjoyable. I say at least give it a try if it have a semblence of appeal.

Blondeshell

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Re: EVE Online
« Reply #5 on: December 29, 2012, 02:15:44 AM »
Heh, just saw this. EVE's version of Holiday celebration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxlvsXekP2A

Night-Hawk07

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Re: EVE Online
« Reply #6 on: December 29, 2012, 08:14:45 AM »
I like the game for the most part, it's just after a while things get a bit tedious and it becomes like a second job. Haven't been on in a while (maybe a year or so).

Kaiser Tarantula

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Re: EVE Online
« Reply #7 on: December 29, 2012, 09:17:10 AM »
The game rewards grief-oriented PvPers by letting them shoot down your escape pod after you die.  If you lack a backup clone of your character that can hold all of your character's skills, you can lose those skills permanently, forcing you to retrain them.

As mentioned in the OP, this retraining can take weeks or months at higher levels.

I'll pass, thanks.

Tanglefoe

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Re: EVE Online
« Reply #8 on: December 29, 2012, 12:17:02 PM »
The game rewards grief-oriented PvPers by letting them shoot down your escape pod after you die.  If you lack a backup clone of your character that can hold all of your character's skills, you can lose those skills permanently, forcing you to retrain them.

As mentioned in the OP, this retraining can take weeks or months at higher levels.

I'll pass, thanks.
This can happen but rarely does to even people who regularly PVP.  When your pod dies, your clone is activated.  Your clone holds a specific # of skill points that you can upgrade at any time but because training happens in real time, you sometimes have months to even years before you outgrow your clone's capacity. 

Losing skill points only happens to very forgetful people who aren't paying attention to things.

Catching pods in PVP is very difficult too.  I pvp with one of my characters and haven't lost a pod in almost a year.  My other character that I've had for almost 3 years has never lost a pod.  Sometimes when I ugrade my clone in that character, I feel like I am waisting my i$k (but I know I better do it).

Mistress Urd

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Re: EVE Online
« Reply #9 on: December 31, 2012, 01:42:55 AM »
I played EvE for 3 years it is the only game to come close to CoH in terms of keeping me playing it.

If I was going to play an MMO again, it would be my top choice. However, I have to deal with Genre limited friends who apparenly won't play a sci-fi game and pvp paranoid ones who won't play a game where its possible to have pvp anytime even in high sec. In 3 years of EvE I had 2 high sec incedents which resulted in some very silly person to die a very quick death. I have one friend who will only play an MMO if it is Superhero based and he says DCUO and CO sucks. Oh well, I can only shrug. At some point I may have to just go that road alone. Maybe we can get some ex-CoH folks and form our own corp.

Of course if CoH comes back, I would probably go back to CoH. CoH is a much more casual game with a much better and friendly community. Many of the things in CoH that we take for granted are simply not in other MMOs.

Its not like EvE doesn't have flaws although I like the player driven economy. PvP is like many games with open pvp aka pvppppppppppp. I could do without all of the cloak and dagger stuff. Some corps demanded screen shots of my login screen and required me to be on teamspeak and have a valid e-mail account. Spying and corp theft is common enough that it is one of the reasons why I left the game. Once I was able to do "everything" the game felt more like a second job, not a fun way to spend time to take my mind off the real world. I found the most fun of the game is the first few months while you see your character grow in skills and you learn them quickly. The other odd thing about EvE is how common it is for players to have more than 1 account. Players have between 1 and 8 accounts. I had 3 of them which I used regularly and a 4th one for 2 months.

Blondeshell

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Re: EVE Online
« Reply #10 on: December 31, 2012, 05:31:38 AM »
The other odd thing about EvE is how common it is for players to have more than 1 account. Players have between 1 and 8 accounts. I had 3 of them which I used regularly and a 4th one for 2 months.

This is something that I noticed today in the CAS corp channel, how people were talking about their alts and multi-screen setups like it was second-nature. I suppose it's because having extra accounts comes in handy when you're scanning/mining/hauling at the same time, or if you want an alt to pvp or check for gate camps or spy on other corps.

They were also talking about the upcoming change to the Battlecruiser and Destroyer skills of making them racial instead of generic. So now there's a rush for everyone to make sure they're trained up because they'll be given the racial versions at the same skill level as the generic ones when the change comes.

Mistress Urd

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Re: EVE Online
« Reply #11 on: December 31, 2012, 11:19:51 AM »
I think all of mine have that trained to level 5 already. After a certain point skills start taking more than a month to hit level 5. Skill queues helped quite a bit. It was never fun to have to rush home from work or get up early to select another skill. Funny that DSL and server crashes always seemed to happen when you had to change a skill.

It certainly helps to have 2 accounts. After that its disminishing returns. As I said before, I like the early part of the game when each time you login you get something new to try out. After a few months skills start taking a couple of weeks to finish.

The game has been doing a rebalancing on all of the ships. I looked over the changes and they look good. 

Mistress Urd

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Re: EVE Online
« Reply #12 on: January 02, 2013, 09:11:31 AM »
I started up a 14 day trial account to try out the new tutorials, new character creator and see all of the changes to the ui/ships etc.

Well, I am a bit rusty on the controls and interface, but after a few hours its starting to come back to me. Its still the same old eve, just looks more pretty.

Blondeshell

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Re: EVE Online
« Reply #13 on: January 02, 2013, 06:56:48 PM »
Aw, you should've contacted me first. I could've given you a buddy code for a 21-day trial.

Mistress Urd

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Re: EVE Online
« Reply #14 on: January 03, 2013, 03:44:23 AM »
I was mostly trying to playtest the 14 day trial. Its quite lucrative for a new player to complete the tutorial/career path missions. I made 2.5m after the first day and have assets around 4m. So the game is much better at jump starting a new player to EvE. Now some of that is because I know the basics of the game already and some of the known "tricks" still work. Even taking a Caldari in the most crowded sector of space I had no issues with lag or overwhelming crowds of players hogging up the industry lines. Oh yeah, one thing I did notice is that they got rid of learning skills and gave players the attributes of any player who has maxed out learning. That makes new player experience much better.

PvP can be easily avoided, if you are in high sec "empire" space you are very unlikely to have a PvP grief encounter. Its standard darwinism here, don't make yourself look like an easy suicide gank target that's profitable. Keep a low profile and don't smack talk.

If I am going to resub I would probably turn one of my old accounts back on.

I did like the full body avatar part. However, you can make something look pretty awful. I think I managed something that looks acceptable.

Mistress Urd

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Re: EVE Online
« Reply #15 on: January 11, 2013, 01:22:48 AM »
Well 10 days back into the game and I am having fun, but missing CoH. I like the building part of new characters, I am going to resub the new one. I love the revamped frigates and cruisers alot. The Caldari gunships are no longer split weapon jokes, I'm still trying to decide if I want to stick with hybrids and maybe crosstrain Gallente or go start working on Minmatar or Amarr.

I'm in the process of getting 3 friends to join up as well, so i'll have to see what happens next. If I see you in game, I'll say hi. I prefer to team up in Eve and I'll probably be forming a new corp to get out of the 11% tax on being in the newbie corp.

Mistress Urd

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Re: EVE Online
« Reply #16 on: January 11, 2013, 10:20:26 PM »
For those wanting to play Eve Online, the community has made some nice tools to help you.

Eve Mon to planout your character skills. http://evemon.battleclinic.com/

Eve Fitting tool to plan out your ships. https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=24359

From spending lots of time in Mids I find these tools to be just as valuable.

Mistress Urd

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Re: EVE Online
« Reply #17 on: January 21, 2013, 09:58:13 PM »
Apparently the December 4th patch to the game (Retribution) for the new tougher AI for NPCs isn't working as intended. NPC enemies will need to be readjusted and range on electronic warfare will need to be reduced. Its much harder to solo missions now but 2 players can make the new "AI" wimper. Never mind that drones were nerfed pretty hard due to the NPCs activly killing them.

I made a player corp and I have a couple former CoH players I know in RL in the corp. If you are interested PM me here and I can point you to the corp.

PzTnT

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Re: EVE Online
« Reply #18 on: January 22, 2013, 09:17:16 AM »
There is also another tool that I used to prefer back when I was still playing, called EvEHQ, it is like those two tools combined and a LOT more as well.

Link here: http://www.evehq.net/

Part of me wants to go back and see what has changed but I doubt anyone I knew is still around and eve solo isn't fun at all imo.

Mistress Urd

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Re: EVE Online
« Reply #19 on: January 22, 2013, 10:29:17 PM »
Thanks for that PzTnT, I'll have to try it out.

Eve is still Eve except there have been many nerfs to reduce how much players earn in game. For all of those other games studyng Eve, they should take note on another game called Pirates of the Burning Sea. Anyways, with changes players adapt quickly and it would appear a few players have found serious flaws in the new AI. I certainly hope that the folks at CCP are in crisis mode and are working to fix things. I can see prices of Plex dropping slowly suggesting less demand. Since the best way to make money in high sec seems to be mining atm. A week old character in the new mining frigate can pull down 4m/hr which is pretty decent.

I don't know how long ago you played, but for me it was 3 years and the game has certainly changed but not that much. Most of the missions are the same, the new AI makes missions harder and if you are playing a new character you will be in for a surprise. I talked with a few old timers who have been playing for 5+ years and they were surpised to die in L4 missions because of the new AI changes and broken electronic warfare.

I am having fun because at the lower skill levels every time I login I have some new ability. The game gets into more of a rut when I look at my next "short" skill only taking 31 days. Oh, how I miss ghost training.