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I am an old school gamer in the deepest meaning of the word, I am also a true fan of EVE Online. This blog will be where I will expound on my thoughts about EVE.

Author: Mopar63

 With all the talk of how new player cannot contribute I started a new character to prove everyone wrong and succeeded when a 4 day old character played a major role in a 0.0 space mining operation. 

Now while Kletus accomplished his task he also started something else me in, a fun way to play. Kletus is not your typical gun hungry, kill my enemies type of character. Kletus is a simple, laid back guy that wants to see the universe, haul some cargo and make some ISK on the way.

When I started Kletus I used my main character to give him a little seed money to get him roling. Kletus will have to pay it back of course and he intends to with interest. 

I am having so much fun with Kletus that I started a blog dedicated to his experiences. The blog will see near daily posts and has some interesting pictures in it as well. If you want to follow Kletus' adventures be sure to come on over and check it out, subscribe to the RSS feed if you wish to be sure you are up to date.

snoejob.wordpress.com

Yes this is shameless plug, but still fun. BTW if you see Kletus in space give him a yell out, or if you need hauling work done let him know, he is for hire.

You know with Fanfest coming up, an economic upgrade in the works as well as refinements to Faction War I am kind of suprised to see that this is the most talked about issue:

A long overdue and much needed change will be put in place with the Wednesday, 15 October 2008 patch. Ghost Training, the continuous skill gain on accounts in an inactive or expired state - will no longer function after Wednesday, 15 October 2008. This practice upsets the balance of the game, and capsuleers who actively put their time and energy into working on their characters will no longer be unfairly affected by those few who have not.
 

The jest of this is fairly simple. Until now a player could set a really long skill, say one that would take 90 days to run. stop payment on their account and then come back in time to run the game with the new skill fully trained.

Now before I even begin with the company side of this issue, how is this kind of setup fair by ANY stretch of the imagination to people that are actively paying and playing the game? We pay our monthly fees and play along and yet someone that decides they want to enjoy the ebenfits of play later can stop paying and still reap the benefit.

Or how about from the company point of view. Players are not paying because they do not like the long skill training but want to play when the skill is done so they drop the account until they get what they want and then start paying again. The game maker recieves no income or support for the account but is expected to let the account benefit from this in game?

I can honestly say I see less "whine" when I take the "wine" trail on the weekend with my wife. This is the most CHILDISH and STUPID, yes I said STUPID, out cry from a gaming community I have ever seen. Wait let me back that up a second, the majority of the community really does not care it is just a vocal child care group that is demanding on this.

The outcry for free gaming actually started a bit back when the gamers complained about game card prices from ingame purchases. Basically what a player could do is earn in game money and then use it to buy game cards to pay for accounts. This allowed people, the card sellers, to get ISK by pyaing real money, for the cards and was sanctioned by CCP.  CCP went a step further and let the game card sales use the same free market model that is used in the game, in other words the players through supply and demand and pure greed set the prices. CCP made only one change, it converted from various lengths of time on time cards to a single 60 day card.  This change caused the market to flucuate and the outcry was instantaneous, fix this CCP! Wait this is a free economy, yet we want regulation from the company and our freedom as well. Sorry folks cannot have both.

The truly sad part of this was all the gamers that threatened to quit playing if they could not get easier access to free gaming. Now think about that statement and the pure level of stupid that is needed to have that mentality. If you want free gaming there are tons of them but EVE has NEVER been a free game and yet now you want them to make it easier to be free for you?

Well now Ghost Training is the new cry for how dare CCP make us pay money. The truth of this entire argument however comes done to power gaming. Here is the issue, people want to have three or four accounts so they can power game and yet cannot afford this. So they use loop holes and the time card market to get the extra accounts without hurting their budget. Now the simple solution would seem to be cut back on your active accounts. I can understand two accounts but even that costs less than taking a date to dinner each month. If you cannot afford that then you do not need to be gaming.

How about even looking at this from another angle, these power gamers must have some fairly powerful systems if they two or three box or run multiple PC as once to run all these accounts at once, if you can afford all the hardware the game cost itself is MINOR at best.

Oh but wait other will say I do not run these all at the same time. Rather I want to train more than one character at a time to have different ones for different situations. Thats cool I understand that and the game does allow for up to three alts per account. Oh sure it does they cry but you can only have active training on one account ata time.

Wait a second is the same not true in the other major MMOs. I mean in WoW you cannot run the experience of two ALTS on the same account up at the same time can you? How about LOTRO can you have a Guardian getting experience while your ALT Minstrel does as well. of course not, so WHY should you get this in EVE?

In the end I feel this points to a much simplier problem. We are playing ROLE PLAYING GAMES and yet so many people want to find a way to WIN. They do not truly understand than an RP game is not able to be WON, it is to be experienced. They gloss over content and blast through missions with overkill firepower to rush to the magical end game win. In doing so they miss out on some great material and the feeling of accomplishment when they finish that TOUGH mission by the skin of their teeth. They do know the excitement of the first name module they can add to their ship or the thrill of really enjoying their first cruiser.  Stop looking for the win, RPGs are not about the end game but the journey, take your time and enjoy it.

As for those demanding change from CCP or they will quite, my advice is PLEASE DO! Get out of my RPG and my forum! Let me enjoy the game they way it was intended that within your narrow vision of free power gaming. Also BTW I do NOT want your stuff, I will eanr my own and have a balst getting their without your need to rush forward. I will happily pay my $15 a month to play EVE and if I need a second account I will pay for it with my cash as well. 

CCP has done more than any of the other pay games to give FREE service to it's players. It has never charged for an expansion and shows no signs of it in the near future. The game keeps growing and yet my bill does not, that sounds like a WIN in my book.

Go now Ghost trainers, walk into the light and forsake this mortal coil, go the way of the dead and let the living, and paying players live in peace.  

I am an OLD school role playing gamer. I can trace my first experience back to the beginning days of D&D that was before the A was added. I was recalling the other day with my best friend Doug, our experiences in High School when I decided to take my first stab at Game Mastering. We had a small but tight knit group and our adventures went on to shape us into the RP monsters we are today.

Fast forward to today and the rising of the MMOs. Oh sure we have a blast playing the stand alone RPGs such as Neverwinter Nights or The Witcher. However those stand alone games miss the critical component that makes an RPG what it truly can be, interaction with others. So in this sense the rise of the MMO was to us the true holy grail, a chance to game without the need for 500 books and setting aside an entire weekend, finding gamers without having to advertise in the local paper, ahh life is going to be great.

That is until you get into an MMO. Now in fairness most MMO players are not old school pen and paper RPers so they do not know the difference. For an MMO player RP is about going to a forum and speaking with weird spelling or over the top lines. Sometimes it even involves doing this in the in game chat. That however seems to be the limit of their RP and this is where things fall short.

A true RP is not about what you say but rather what you DO. I will delve into this first from the perspective of LOTRO and then come back at it from EVE.

In LOTRO a lot of players try to RP but my experiences there show few truly know how. Oh you can find all the right words, I mean Dwarves talking about getting drunk and how Elves cause cancer. You can find a Hobbit that will talk about being hungry all the time. But to find a player that actually uses deeds to show their RP is extremely rare, even in just RPing a class. Case in point let’s look at a Guardian.

The Guardian class exists with the mentality that they are the defenders of the weak. They stand between the darkness and those that cannot fight it. In the case of a group a guardian, particularly a Dwarven Guardian is there to keep his friends safe because he trusts no one else to do it. Now if this is role played they way I described above then a battle scene might go something like this.

The party encounters a huge group of Goblins. As the Goblins begin an attack charge, with a yell of Baruk Kazah the Dwarven Guardian charges ahead and grabs as much of the Goblins attention as he can. His companions join the fray but soon they realize the party will be overwhelmed. The party leaders calls for a withdraw; the problem is that if they all withdraw at once the Goblins will pick off the weaker members.
With this in mind the Guardian goes into berserker mode and grabs the aggro of all the Goblins. He stands in the middle of the fray wrecking havoc as the rest of the party withdraws. Once the part is safely away then he attempts to withdraw as well. If he dies in the attempt then his death was noble and to him the best way he could go.

This to me is a GREAT bit of Guardian RP; he has captured the feel and essence of the Guardian. Sadly the reality is very different. Most of the Guardians I saw played would forsake the shield for a two handed weapon so they could dish out all the damage they could, after all it was much cooler hacking orcs than slowing them down for everyone else. Once the fight begins they ignore the rest of the fight and focus on what they can kill. Eventually the party begins to disintegrate because the weaker characters are dying since they are getting aggro the Guardian is missing and so the group leader prepares to call for withdrawal. However at this point the Guardian, seeing others dying has decided it is time to flee and is already half way down the road. The rest of the group dies the Dwarven Guardian thinks it is good RP to brag how wimpy those Elves and Humans are, they need to get tough like the Dwarf so they can live through a fight to.

Sadly this theme however carries over to all MMOs. In EVE the two best races for RP are the Amarr and the Minmatar. Both sides have some great RP groups, well let me rephrase that active RP groups. The reason I say that is they have some really excellent forum wars taking place but the real battles are rare, the reason why, no one will fight unless they have overwhelming odds. The Mighty Amarr, the Chosen of God, undefeatable because God is with them will run whenever faced with equal or worse odds for them. Minmatar ships can be ravaging within the Amarr home system and they will sit in station or hide until an overwhelming fleet can be assembled. Oh they can spout the great words in channel but their actions speak a different story.

Do not think the Minmatar get off any easier. The might saviors of their brethren, the freers of slaves will be happy to do so when they have no chance of losing. A small Amarr patrol rampages through Minmatar space buying up slaves at local stations and using this as an RP hook, claiming they are gather slaves. Do the Minmatar in the system move out to disrupt or stop this abomination? Sure they do, once they can get odds of 3 to 1 or better on their side. Oh sure they will cry with outrage over the chat channel but their ships will remain in station or hidden until the odds are amazing against their foe.

Now I point out these two races because quite frankly the RP in the other two races borders on none existent. I was part for a while of both races RP groups, The Caldari in a Naval Unit and the Gallente as an Intaki separatist. Both groups as mentioned before spent a lot of time paying lip service to their RP but where never willing to put their ships on the line to LIVE the RP.

Now reading this you might I think I consider RP in an MMO and EVE in particular a waste of time, this is not the case. There are exceptions to the above norms. This entire blog entry was prompted by the actions of a Minmatar RPer the other night.

In this go around of EVE I have found my fun in playing a Minmatar freedom fighter. This pilot has great navigation skills and since I love stealth combat, an old submariner here, I decided to train the pilot into Covert ops with his ultimate goal being to get into a Black Ops ship. Since I believe RP should be based on actions as much if not more so than words I set out and found the Minmatar Corporation that would most likely make use of my skills from an RP angle, the Republic Security Services. I have therefore dedicated my mission running to this corporation. During this time I have been frequenting the Minmatar public RP chat channels.

I am about to advance into level 2 missions and so I wanted advice on a cruiser I am looking at, the Bellicose. From an RP perspective I posed my question and had a number of responses, all of them basically saying I should instead get into a Rupture. I commented that while I understand their thoughts I was limited in my budget as my meager income from working for the RSS was being used to fund the advancement of my education. I explained that I was moving into covert operations and the use of the cruiser was only a stop gap so I hated to invest the extra cost if I could avoid it.

At this point I received a mail from one of the players in the channel. In perfect RP language he explained that he and the organization he worked with wanted to help a new pilot that was seeking to work in support of the Minmatar Nation. To this end he was giving 3 million of his own ISK to help me over the hump of moving into a cruiser. He explained that all he wanted in return was my promise to help the Minmatar people.

Now I understand that 3 million ISK to an establish character in EVE is chump change but here is this pilot who does not know me at all, for all he knows I could be an Amarr plant. Yet he puts out his own ISK and takes a chance at helping a new player that wants to save the Minmatar people. He let actions and not words show his RP.

Now this might seem minor to most and in some ways it is but the move showed me a player that is willing to do more than talk his RP. Now if he does this with his ship or not I do not know but it is nice to see the players that do not limit their RP to forum shouting matches.
 

A recent article here at MMORPG took a look at the character creation system and tried to discuss the effects the attributes in game have on the skills. The article leaves a lot of things hanging so i thought I would try to clear it up.

EVE has five attributes: Intelligence, Perception, Charisma, Willpower and Memory. When creating your character you can make decisions that will effect the starting attributes. If you are going to try to maximize your attributes it is important you know what kind of play you are shooting for and then pick the attributes that are important to your skills:

Intelligence is the primary attribute in Electronics, Engineering, Mechanic and Navigation skill groups.

Perception is primary for Missiles, Gunnery and Starship Command

Charisma is the primary attribute of Social skills.

Willpower is the primary for Trade and Leadership skills.

Memory is the main attribute for Corporate Management, Drones and Learning.

Now you have to understand in direct game play the attributes mean NOTHING! Your ability to fire a gun or use afterburners are not based at all on attributes but on skills alone. However the time it takes to train those skills is effected by attributes.

Learning skills are very important then as these skills raise the attributes and thus reduces the learning time for other skills. This means that a beginning character will benefit a lot from putting learning skills at the top of their priority list

I suggest the following training schedule be the first one a player undertakes:

Instant recall (raises Memory)
Analytical Mind (raises Intelligence)
Learning (decreases overall learning time)

This order is to be repeated until all three skills have reached level 3. With these skills at level three now train up Iron Will (Willpower) and Spacial Awareness (Perception). If you are taking your character in a direction that will need Social skills quickly then add in Empathy for Charisma, otherwise this can wait.

Now with the attribute skills to level 3 at least you can now start training other skills you need to be effective. However keep them at lower levels for now. When you log for the night put on one of the learning skills to take it to level 4. In the morning switch back to skills with shorter times when you can manage the skills directly.

This is an important key to the skill based system. You can pause a training where it is, go to another and come back later. Get in the habit of when you are playing, setting short skills that you can change right as they come do. When you are going to be down for an extended period start a longer skill and pause it when you come back.

This method allows you to get a good solid skill set while still moving skills to higher levels. Using this method over the course of about a week you should be able to get Learning, Instant recall and Analytical mind up to level 4. Once these skills hit level 4 you can now begin the tier two of these respective skills and get another 3 levels pretty quick. Going to level 5 with the tier one is nice but it is still only a 1 point raise and not as big a return for the time investment.

There is one set of skills I suggest ALL new players put into the que as fast as they can after getting learning skills to level 3. Once I have hit this point I next train my Science skill to level 3 and then train Cybernetics to level 1. Implants are a great piece of gear that can raise stats as well as enhance the usage of a lot of equipment. The early game mission give you a few implants if you run the missions. These mean a nice boost and are essentially for free. Level 1 Cybernetics lets you use these.

The rest of the skills have not pattern as it is based on the way you plan to play. Personally I try as quickly as I can to raise the base skills for good frigate piloting. That means Navigation, Engineering, Mechanic, Electronics and whatever skills I need for my base weapon systems.

As I mentioned in my previous blog many people RUSH forward to get as big a ship as they can and so try to raise Starship command skills. I personally leave these alone and concentrate on the support skill areas I mentioned. The reason is those skills will enhance EVERY ship command down the road. By putting them first I get to be very effective with my frigate and when I am finally ready to move to cruisers I have great support skills and the ISK to make the move with little effort and the best possible return.

Unlike level based systems the skill system needs a player to take an active role in SHAPING his character. Make a plan and start working for it right out of the gate. If you find out down the road that you want to change your play style, no worries, the basics I gave you here to start will enhance EVERY play style down the road and get you rolling to making your mark on the universe.

While I am writing this blog entry from the perspective of EVE, this will apply to all MMO gamers to some degree.

When we jump into a new game what is the first thing it seems everyone wants to do? Get to the biggest, baddest ship I can ASAP. In the case of fantasy, get to the highest level I can as fast as I can. This is human nature when it comes to gaming, we want to be the best. However in our quest to rush forward we many times end up with the appearnace of knowing what we are doing and not in reality having a clue.

Let me regress to my LOTRO days for a moment to give an example. As I played up my Burglar I took my time and explored each new skill with a vengence. While others where making 2 or 3 levels a day I was lucky to see one every three days. I was not playing less, I was just staying at lower level quests and mastering solo play. After all this is what a burglar should be best at. The result was by the time I had reached level 30 I was better at using my burglar than most level 50s. In fact upon hitting level 45 I knew a lot of groups that would not want the lvel 50 but would rather I join them instead.

The same theory applies to EVE. Since my return I have taken the slow and deliberate approach. I have trained my learning skills first and added my base skills when I had time to micromanage the skills. I mean switch them literally as they come due. I have also curtailed my desire to get straight to bigger ships and have instead focused on mastering where I am.

Right now, if I truly wanted to I could be in a battlecruiser in 2 days, thats right 48 hours and I could be piloting one of the toughest ships in the game. Yet I am content right now to stay in my Slasher. SLASHER? You heard me right, Slasher.

My reasoning is simple. RIght now the Slasher is a ship that is inexpensive and easy on the skills to fly. As I skill up the effect on the Slahser is obvious. I seed speed boosts and my Nav skills come up. As Engineering skills advance I watch my shields get noticably tougher and my power grid improve.  I can see the changes with even one level change and this makes me better bale to fine tune my skill advancement.

Even the frigate pilots though rush forward to get into their Rifter. I stay with the slasher because it is the ultimate of Minmatar, my race of choice, style. It is all speed, that tied into decent fire power, three guns and a missile, and I am finding that I have yet to have an issue with a level 1 mission.

Staying in the Slasher has taught me prudence in combat. I do not feel invulnerable, in fact I am usually a little scared in some of the tougher missions. This is the same Slasher that I got from my agent early in my carreer so I have an attachment and am doing my best to not lose it. This prudence will serve me well in PVP where sometimes it just makes sense to retreat.

Now I still have the normal human desire to be the best so I have shifted my goal, I am going to be th best Slasher pilot in EVE. This means I still have a lot of skills in Gunnery, Engineering, Electronics, Navigation, Mechanic and Missiles to work on before I can achieve that goal. However once that goal is achieved it means when I move to the next level of ship I will not start barely able to fly it. Those same skills will move upward as well and I will be that much more effective when I am in the bigger ships.

So fi you are new to gaming, EVE in particualr, then my advise is avoid the rush. DO not sweat getting into the biggest ship you can as fast as you can. Stay calm and putter around a bit in your frigate. Leanr to master the smaller ship, make it your own. Trust me it will pay off, be a ton of fun and when you hit the bigger ships, watch out!

Well tonight I finished the EVE novel. It was a fun read and as an avid EVE fan it gave me some great insight to what was going on in the game world.

As I read the book I recalled a time many years ago when I was an ACTIVE mech warrior player. At that time I devoured the Mechwarrior books as fast as I could find them. However I was not so enamored that i felt they where great literature. They where good fan fiction that took a game world I loved and fleshed it out, but as far as overall scifi went they where B grade at best.

I wanted very much for the EVE book to be a great novel but it is, like the Mechwarrior books a great book for an EVE lover but only a B grade scifi novel.

The book does a great job of explaining the current situation in the universe of EVE. The Caldari are trying to return to former greatness, the Minmatar are seeking to regain their lost heritage and the Amarr are looking for the fullfillment of a great prophecy.

You might have noticed I did not mentioned the Gallente, well the reason why is they are basically a backdrop in the novel. You are left with the impression that the Gallente Federation is the greatest achievement that mankind will ever have and this is actually pretty sad. there is some great back fiction such as the move by the Intaki to leave the Federation, that could have been exploited with all this other chaos. However with three other races having MAJOR upheavel I guess one race needed to be stable.

I will not give away story details so as not to ruin the book for anyone else reading it. I will say the ending is such that we know a sequel is on the way. The rumor I have heard is that this is the first of a three part series. Also this novel has been heavily incorporated into the game universe of EVE, this is a gutsy and excellent move.

This move deepens the backdrop of the EVE storyline and has the potential to add a TON of new material down the road.

If you are an EVE player then you will REALLY enjoy this book. If you are a general scifi fan then this book is okay but nothing to really write home about.

In other MMOs you choose a race for what it will give you at the start but in EVE the reasoning falls back almost always to simple RP, choose a race that fits something you want to play.  Now the EVE site gives all the "official" race descriptions, what I am posting is my take on the backstories and a simplistic description of the BASE rap for each race.

Amarr: These are religious zealots that truly believe they are the chosen of God. Because they alone are the chosen of God other races must be brought to God and they feel the way to do this is through sacrfice of self to God's good, which means being slaves to the Amarr.  Imagine a cross between old testiment jews (yes they had slaves and did war on none beleiver, read the Bible to see) and crusader catholics.

Minmatar: A tribal society that was massively enslaved by the Amarr only over the last few centuries have broken free. A full third are still enslaved and the Minmatar want to free their brothers. The standard comparision to African tribes is classice and over used, this could also be the American Indians or even the nomadic Arabic tribes. In fact I really believe based on the sub racial descriptions and the fiction I have seen that in many ways it fits the American Indian models the best.

Gallante: It is hard to desrcibe the next two races without falling on political ideology sterotypes. The Gallante are the extreme of the socialist movement, take the US and French government, combine them and move them as far to the political left as you can. They believe in freedom for all and if you do not want to choose them then you must be forced to.

Caldari: This is the political opposite of the Gallante and in the end proves that both extremes are really the same. The Caldari are all about their economy with a military bend, imagine Japanese work ethic with an American economic model and a seious military bend, all taken to the extreme.

Now be aware that from an RP perspective there are always exceptions and I have described the most vivid and sterotypical of considerations for each race. Some of the excpetions are pretty interesting, for example there are Minmatar that have chosen to aceept their slavery and believe it has them on a path to God. There are Amarr that have decided slavery is an abomination and so work to free slaves.

The point is choosing a race in EVE is not about what you can get but what you want to RP.

Now there some consideration concerning base skills but thanks to the skill based system you can do anything you like. When it comes to base skill, ship and weapons here is my take.

Caldari: The easiest of the races to play if you stay with traditional ships. Caldari ships use missiles which are a shoot and forget weapon, they only miss if they are out ran or out of range. Caldari ships rely on shields for their primary defense, this means they have a self repairing defense system. This all means that Caldari are the least dependent on advanced skills to be effective.

Gallantte: To me these are second easiest of the races to place at base technology. Galantte ships rely on a mix of guns and missiles (Caldari also use guns but are heavily set to missiles) Gallantee also rely on drones. Drones are basically small robot fighters, send them out and they kill stuff.  Gallantte ships use armor for their primary desfense which means some skills for repair are needed. This means that from a weapons view point they need a few more skills than the Caldari to be effective but still have a lot of fire and forget no miss firepower. For defense they need more skills than Caldari and their defensive systems require effort in all cases.

Amarr: The Amarr come next in my opinion, they are a more skill intense combat race due to their relience on guns primarily, guns that require power and thus skills to be used effective. While ammo may seem to be an issue for the other races, the Amarr have to change out crystals to be effective and they are limited to only two types of damage with their primary weapons. As such higher skills have a bigger impact early on for the Amarr in gunnery. Concerning defesne the Amarr like the Gallantte use armor and so must have a bit more skills and effort to keep armor up in a long fight.

Minmatar: These are in my opinion the hardest of the races to play IF you stay with the base equipment. Minmatar ships use Ballistics weapons for attack as their primary skill. This means like the Amarr they need to learn some good gunnery skills to be efective. The good news is Minmatar weapons allow ammo shifts that change the damage type giving them an advantage over the Amarr. This is advanatge is off set by the fact they can and do run out of ammo during a fight. The defense however is where they become much harder than the other races as they use bioth shield and armor with no one standing out over the other. As such they must develop skills for both forms of defense. They also add a second type of defense, speed. Minmatar ships are very fast and use this speed to ry to dictate the battle terms, this means navigation skills are vital.

Now reading through this blog you might be confused by my statements, first I say the races do not matter for what they give and then I show each race has very different skills levels for combat. The second section is more about the ships of each race rather than the race itself. Any race can fly any ship if you do the training.

For example if you like the RP of the Minmatar but want the easy of early play from Caldari ships then train Caldari ships and enjoy. By the higher levels of the game the selection of race will amke little difference except from RP,  but we are playing an RP game right?

You know as a serious EVE player I get this question all the time. The person is typically playing a fantsay based MMO and wants to know how EVE compares. My usualy response is that a direct comparision does not work since to me that is comparing apples and oranges however the other evening my brother cornered me on this and would not relent until I would discuss it.

Lets begin in such a comparision not with the game itself but the company. Afterall a great game with crap support will be a crap game sooner or later and a crap game with great support could eventually be great.

CCP right now is, in my opinion, the best MMO copmpany in the market. They have for five years produced EVE, during that time and something like 8 major expansions, no player has been asked to pay extra. No special addition versions, no paid expansions, no version two to fix the issues in version one. In fact CCP has publically stated from the start that the are dedicated to never charging for an expansion and they will not make a version 2 of EVE, just continue to expand the original.

Add to this the fact the company has gone so far as to let the players have their own oversight committee for the games development and you have a company that has shown it is dedicated to it's game and the people that play it.

Next comes the fact that EVE does not have an end game, there is no cap in the game, no point where you have done all there is to do in the game. The strength of the fantasy based MMO in this case also becomes it's strength. Lets use as an example LOTRO. This game has a deep, rich and very developed storyline for the game to revolve around. This storyline however also limits the way the game can go and just how far it can go. After all once the ring is destroyed what is left? Oh I am sure there can be ideas but the problem is the players will not directly effect those ideas.

EVE has a good backdrop of a story but the story does not drive the game, the players do. Oh sure sooner or later the Amarr / Minmatar conflict will end but even when it does the universe is still huge and there is much that can be done.

Also speaking of huge universe consider the fact that EVE could expand thier universe whenever they choose and even have plot hooks already in place to do so. The epxansion would not mess with the story of EVE in any way other than to expand it as well.

In the fantasy based MMO this is just a lot harder to do. The base sotryline limits some of the potential outgrowth. Also most fantasy games have pretty set areas of good and evil. The open system in EVE makes good and evil subjective based on your own actions, there is no black and white but rather infinite shades of grey.

As for game play the level based system is okay but it does not really make any sense. Think about it, when should a human EVER be harder to kill than a dragon? I am talking physically. Also show me one single week old character in WOW that could go into PVP and even hit a 2 year old character with the appropriate levels for his age, much less kill him. Yet in EVE this can and does happen. Oh sure the older character was probably being dumb but even that is a viable weapon.

The skill based system in EVE also means that causal players will advance and stay cloe to more serious, I have no life, players. Before those serious players complain, rmember that while they may match your skill points you will still have them beat in cahs and likely equipment.

Laslty, gone is the class system, in EVE you do not log in and get stuck with a choice. The skill system menas you can be whatever you want to be whenver you want to be it. For example using LOTRO, I start the game as a Burglar and at about level 20 I decide I might like to learn a little of the skills a Minstrel has. Well unless I roll a new character this is not going to happen.

In EVE I might start as a warrior, out to defend the Amarr Empire. After many months of fighting I grow weary of it and want to settle down so I change my skill training to become more skilled at ore mining.  Now while I may not be advancing my combat skills it was from my choice not a limitation of the game and I did not lose any of the skills I acquired. So when a pirate jumps my mining expedition he will find a battle hardened pilot to deal with not some miner elite. After a few months of mining I decide I might enjoy doing some R&D so I switch my training path again, see the idea..

Next we come to PVP, most fantasy games have PVP zones or servers, in EVE the whole game is potentially PVP. Also unlike fantasy games where death might mean a repair bill in EVE death could mean losing a LOT of equpiment, a LOT! It has a real consequence to the actions of the player.

Speaking of actions EVE is also one of the few games where the players actually have an effect in the game world. In LOTRO if you do not defeat the Ranger turned Wraith you will not see the Rangers all slowly killed off. If the Creeps gain control of the Moors you will not see the darkness grow stronger.

Actions in EVE has consequencies in many cases. For example missing a Cruiser as it slips past your gate camp could mean that many of your friends could die from a pirate raid. Or the enemy now has intel on your area of control and you could see a massive fleet attack. 

I guess however in the end EVE can best be compared to most other MMOs with this explination. In most MMOs there is a story and you are along for the ride and can experience. In EVE there is a story and you are creating new chapters for it as you gon, not riding along but actually driving it.

Over the years I have seen more games than I can recall, however only a few have left an impression that still make me go back to them. Total Annihilation, Alpha Centauri, Neverwinter Nights, Mechwarrior and Star Fleet Command are the list that really stand out in my mind, and of course EVE.

I have played many of the MMOs out there, I am still active in LOTRO, I have played WoW and CoH as well as many others but all the others get played for a while and then I move on. EVE however is something that has gotten in my blood and will not leave. I started EVE quite a while back, played for about a year and then left to try City of Heroes. CoH lasted for about 5 months and then i was drawn into various non MMO games but something kept pulling me back and eventually I ended up at EVE again.

For a little over a year I played and once more I stepped away. This time to play LOTRO with some real world friends and my wife. While LOTRO is fun and I enjoy the game with my friends the hold of the One Ring has diminished and I find myself again looking at other games, of course to the top of list crept EVE.

I can think of a lot of reasons for this, the fact that I am a space scifi nut does not hurt. I love the open ended play style, more open than any other MMO I have played. I like the fact that I do not have to limit my play to a set class and deal with leveling. Of course there is the amazing community and CCP has supported this game in a many that other companies would do well to model.

EVE is not for everyone, I know that. The game has a pretty steap learning curve,. The open design I love is something that scares a lot of players. It is not a game for those seeking instant gratification or those that want to have everything handed to them in game. It is not the perfect game for everyone but it is the perfect game for me.