Today in a fit of boredom I downloaded Eve Online and played for about five hours.

I take back everything bad I ever said or thought about sandbox and sci-fi MMO's because this game rules.  It's like Oblivion in outer space.. well.. kinda.. but you know what I mean.

Hopefully it won't turn into crap later on, but somehow I doubt it.

i love eve but the only thing that hurts this game in a bad way is ccp they have no idea how to run a mmo and they should all be beaten with a rug i swear my raven got glitch killed and they claim it was not there fault hell it wont let me move for 5 minutes in teh middle of a complex and i mean 5 minutes while everyone around me moved just fine and no it was not my comp cuz i was able to click and do everything except turn on modules and move or warp because of this and the 5 other times something liek this has happened i might quit but ill give it time to relax and then ill try again.

i dont say this to rant*ok kinda* but this is something you will learn soon enough

ccp blows hard

It gets better as you play longer. Funny thing is I didn't believe that sentence until I played for a month. Anything I did in the first week was stupid in comparison to the real stuff you do in the game.

Eve is the best MMORPG on Earth, even if it does take place in space!  I have played for 20 months now, and it just keeps getting better.  To be really good at Eve, you will need 2 accounts.  1 combat pilot and 1 industrial pilot is a terrific combination.  The industrial pilot makes all the money (isk) and the combat pilot spends it (buying new ships after getting blown up in PvP).  Also, you don't have to dilute your skill training and you get a lot better a lot faster at both combat and industry.

M y main has 25 million skill points mostly in combat skills.  My alt has 13 million skill points mostly in industrial (mining, manufacturing, trade, and transport).  If my industrial char has to travel into dangerous space, he is always escorted by my main in a Vagabond or Sleipnir (both ships strike fear into the hearts of my enemies!)  I also mine with my industrial character, while my main ferries the minerals to the station.  My alt has just enough combat skills to run missions, and running missions with 2 characters is way way easier and faster than with one (I have a good video card and 2 monitors on a dual-core system and control both with one keyboard and mouse).

Eve is an extremely complicated and difficult game.  You must join a good corporation, not a young corp, an old well established corp will have much more resources and can make your gaming experience so much better.  I'm in an old corp (founded during the beta test), and we have original blueprints for almost 20 tech2 ships, plus around 100 T2 modules.  So if I need a Sleipnir cuz it got blown up in PvP, I can get one quickly and for way less money than on the market.  My corp won't even consider you for membership unless you are 25+ years old and have at least 10 million skill points, but you get into a corp like mine, and you will love this game.

Specialize, specialize, specialize is the mantra of Eve.  Early on, decide what ship you want to fly and train only the skills you need to fly that particular ship well.  If you try to do everything, you won't be good at anything!  I would suggest that a combat pilot train for an interceptor first, and fly that while training for a HAC (heavy assault cruiser).   After that, you might consider getting into command ships (currently the hotest ships in the game).

Eve is constantly evolving.  Each race in Eve has had its time in the sun.  In the beginning the Caldari were dominant, then, Gallente were the best ships, after that, Amarr was the best, and currently, Minmatar are the best race.  This will keep changing, so chose a race you like and specialize in those ships.  You won't regret it.  If you spread yourself too thin, it will take you much much longer to get good.

Just a few hints from an old hand at Eve.

Eve is a revolutionary game and will set a standard for many games to follow in the future.  The one problem I had with this game is that the inherent travel system and PVP are a bad fit. I dont have a good solution but its quite anoying. Everything PVP wise is centered around the gates IE. gate camping or not. There are never any battles like you see in the movies its all about catching the other guy off guard and running to the safe gate or POS.  ITs like playing a cross between "whack a mole" and paintball. If you can work with in that system its great.

The first months are the best. :(

Now newbies don't go through the same anymore though. Ahh, when reaching 1 mil SP was an achievement you made parties about. :(

The best thing about eve is the fact that I sold my toon and bought a 21 sony flat pannel with the $$.  Made lots o friends in eve, just got tierd of having to mine all the time to replace ships every time I jumped through a 0spec. 

Originally posted by x_rast_x

Today in a fit of boredom I downloaded Eve Online and played for about five hours.

I take back everything bad I ever said or thought about sandbox and sci-fi MMO's because this game rules.  It's like Oblivion in outer space.. well.. kinda.. but you know what I mean.

Hopefully it won't turn into crap later on, but somehow I doubt it.

Hope you're willing to spend years catching up to everyone else just to play seriously later on. This game should come with a 'commitment' warning on the website; like marriage but in outer space. 

I played EvE for 2months and then uninstalled it. It is a impressive game, but with some serious balancing issues. More than 40% play Caldari for some very good reasons, it is the best race to start with, looking at stats, Cha is the least used stat in game and Caldari is able to spend least points in it at the start. Add to this that it has the best ships for mission running. The only reson to not be Caldari is that it their ships is regarded to be bad in single pvp. However since the Cladari players currerntly is having a campaign to buff that part meaning there will most likely be even less reason to roll another race.

There are 3 Classes you can be in EvE and these classes have 2 sub-classes. These Classes are Soldier , Trader and Industrial. Most  mains are Soldiers, fewer of them but most alts are miners, miners is a Industrail subclass. Very few are Traders, again for a very good reason, it is pve class in a game with no pve area, is the cargo worth enough Isk you can, and most likely will be shoot down even in high security space.

However EvEs "goldfarmers" are alts with minimum skill points that is doing the highest quality of trade missions. Doing a rank 4 quality  20 combat mission requires a battleship, a trade mission of that quality and rank requires a bot and a ship worth 1/200 of that of a Battleship. And yes, the Isk sellers are indeed very active in EvEs chat channels.

Biggest flaw has to be the combo of Titans and Sov 4 systems. Titans are impossible to destroy in Sov 4 systems since capital ships, that is their only threat can´t enter those systems. Meaning that the side that can make most Titans will eventually "win" EvE even if that side in terms of players is heavily outnumbered.

And since EvE is a pvp game this is the thing that will kill it. With a winner there will be no pvp since there is no one to fight. That is what happend with EvEs China server. Needless to say, that server doesn´t have many players left.

Add to this that the biggest corporation in EvE with at least 3 times as many solarsystems than the second biggest corp, having most resorces and is given rent from its Allies thus virtually has unlimited resoureces to build Titans and having a history of EvE game developers among its members. ( BoB got a monument raised to their honour when they killed a driver less ASCN Titan, unsurpricingly there is no monument  of the only Titan destroyed in actual combat since it was a BoB Titan).

The last thing, the corruption of CCP, siding with a corporation in such way, is why I will not ever trust CCP as a game developer. It is as if they want a side to win within 1, max 2 year and then move on to next project, since EvE with a winner and thus no pvp will have no future.

Tried it for about 4 months. grind for isk for weeks get ganked by a gate camp. never felt i could catch up to eveyone else. very boring game for me.

I like it because morons can actually fail because of their own idiocy, causing them to quit the game (usually crying the entire time). It's rare to find a MMOG which actually punishes you if you can't play worth a shit.

Originally posted by RollinDutch

I like it because morons can actually fail because of their own idiocy, causing them to quit the game (usually crying the entire time). It's rare to find a MMOG which actually punishes you if you can't play worth a shit.

Now, I've been doing noob missions in 0.5 and dabbling a bit in 0.4.. and yes I've gotten blown up a couple of times in my noob Rifter, and I don't see what the big deal is - just keep enough ISK in the bank to replace your losses and never fly around in anything you're not prepared to lose.  Being free to do absolutely anything you want is just awesome - still not sure what career path I'll follow ulitmately, had to log off for the holiday and I'll be back on Wednesday - still not a big deal though, gives me a chance to train up Minmatar Frigates IV - offline training is another awesome thing for people with weird work schedules like me.

Anyway I think I've ranted enough.  I think I'll start looking for a corp though in a couple weeks once I've settled on what I want to do.

Hehe, well I started playing EVE-Online about 2 month ago......for the third time. Yes I have quit the game 2 times, not because I thought it was a bad game, just wanted to play the "next big thing" and here I am again. EVE is a good game and it have survived for a long time and will do so several years more I believe. Maybe the 3rd time is the charm.

In regards to the post above about "never catching up", it's true in some respects and absolutely false in others.   The same goes for taking over 0.0 space.

Let me address "catching up" first.  Simply put, you will never have as many skillpoints as older players unless said players simply stop training skills...but that doesn't matter one bit.  The difference between level 4 and level 5 in a skill is usually a measly 5%, and getting to level 5 from level 4 takes 5 times as long as getting to level 4 to level 3.  This results in newer players being able to get into shouting distance of older players that much more quickly.  On top of that, older players only use a fraction of their total skillpoints at one time - there are only so many skills that can make your projectiles more uber and your MWD take less cap and grant a higher speed boost, after all.

The primary advantage the older players have in this regard is simply diversity - they can fly many more shiptypes and do many more things than newer players.  Through specialization, a newer player can become competitive within a given ship class fairly quickly, though the newer player will, of course, not have the broad spectrum of abilities the older players do.

Furthermore, a lot of other things factor into your ability to win the fight.  Fitting, tactics, and timing all play crucial roles.  As such, it's quite possible for a newer player to absolutely destroy an older character simply through superior tactics or having the right fitting to counter their opponent.  As an example, I killed a 28 million skillpoint character back when i only had 10 million skillpoints (I have 40 million, now).

In regards to taking over 0.0 space, when I joined in June 2004, all of 0.0 space was already claimed, and many of the players in my corporation and our allied corps lamented the fact that we'd never be able to hold our own 0.0 space.  Now, however, most of us are back together in a single corporation (Shiva), holding space in Tribute 0.0, and our CEO (whose character is about 2 weeks younger than mine) runs Morsus Mihi alliance and coordinates the entire northern coalition.

i think that eve is a sick game that is very addictive and fun. ill be starting my toon up again shortly to start over...played a few weeks back but had to stop. cant wait to start W00t

In regards to "not catching up" its not entirely true.  Whoever has been playing for 4 years cannot train a skill past level 5, period.  And there is only 1 skill that affects your ships sub-warp speed, for instance.  If you have it at 5, your the same as the guy thats been playing for 4 years.  This analogy can easily be expanded to any skill set, the key is to specialize.  Figure out what you want to do, mine, build, research, pvp (bs, ceptor, whatever) and specialize.  Once you get those skills, your on an even playing field.  The only difference between you and the guy playing forever is breadth, not depth.

Also, yes it will take a month before you really get to do anything fun.  However, if you started a WoW character right now, how long would it take to get it to level 70?  That's really what your talking about.  There are plenty of little things you can do like high sec ratting, but you want to pvp in a corp in 0.0, well, thats the end game.  Can you think of any game where you can participate in the end game in 1 month?