Somenone has told that this game is boring and simple, Laura has answered that it can be boring sometimes, but its far from simple...

I think both are right and wrong at same time. EVE is utterly simple, its pure mathematic and you can  play it like you cook a cake with a cake recipe (you get first this skill, then this and then the other..), its like chess, simple and intelligent. EVE do not have a mechanic which uses the creativity of the player, instead, it uses the intelligence. The player which perceive the way to do that on this way, and this way is better will have not a huge advantage, but TOTAL advantage in the game.

Althought it seens like a sandbox, EVE is a game closed in its own mechanics, you dont have much space to move, do not have a mechanic which let you do that, and in this way, its plain simple.

No matter how intelligent it is, and it is, the game lacks imersion and creativity. There is no terrain, for example, and terrain is the major point of strategic gameplay. Having a terrain, you have (note I am using as example) a tree, which you can try a new tactic of staying behind it to avoid ranged attack, yeah, you discovered that and you will try to use it everytime, but look, you are on a terrain without tree, what to do now? In that sense, EVE seens pretty automatic, you can sense ships, or not. You can be stealth, or not. You can perceive stealth, or not. See? Its very binary, simple, dependable of logical mathematics (what you have is much more important than what you do). On a game with terrain you, at least, have the hope to do something to avoid things on a total new way (ok, you are stealth, I perceive your stealth because I have more skills on perception, however I can use the terrain on my favour, I can lure you to go to a closed place where your ranged is totally useless, or even your stealth can work fine on some territory, but not in others, tatically speaking).

The lack of terrain, and therefore the lack of a major perk of any strategy (read Sun Tzu, the Art of War) makes not only EVE totally dependable of logical math but also a void of immersion. Not to mention all ships like each other (no customization of ships, and the chars you dont even bother to see it, since its a tiny frame which mostly even avoid loading the picture on chats). And on EVE you are what you pilot.

I played EVE, its a good game, but its not my kind of game, I do like to feel myself immerse on the game, on the character, I do like to explore new territories, to have a sky over my head and a terrain under my feet. A sun shining on the sky and a moon at night, to discover a new tavern, people with different chars, emotes, with stories about a place hidden on a dark forest, near a fallen tree, in which a different kind of bear stalks. A story, to develop my character on it. To not pursue a skill , but a goal. To go on a cave where I never went, and discover that this cave can have something different which I imagine, can be used on PVE. EVE gives me the terrible sensation of cold and void, exaclty like the endless spaces which my unmodificable ship floats...  

Dont get this personal, its not my kind of game, I do like to ,at least ,feel like I have more options than numbers (yes, I do know that every game ends being pure math, but the sensation of it can be reduced if you have an immersion, with different terrains and people, and mobs who act totally different, EVE throw in my face that the game is pure math, no more no less than that, and I dont like it).

My perfect game? Ultima Online (the first one, without all the expansions  which killed the open PvP). This games gives you the sensation of being something on a complex, everchanging world. Another game? SWG, before NGE. You had the EVE intelligence and cold math printed specially on craft, and also all immersion you could handle.

I do respect the EVE players, though, for they are much more mature and intelligent than the majority of MMO players (yeah, I have been on WoW, its like an intelligence debuff, I had to play EVE again to get my brain back).

Well, thats my personal opinio, I hope you respect it. Thanks all for the attention of reading ALL this.

It is rather refreshing to hear a review from someone who never tried the game before.  As someone who started in May 2003, it makes me feel nostalgic.  A word to the wise.  Try to decide early what you like otherwise you end up with a ton of useless skills and a rather large clone cost if you get killed.

Your introductory review of Eve was interesting.

I have been playing for over 2 years, and would love to see what you think after a couple years.

The problem right now is that the game has gone to the blob.  Not only have the developers consistently put things in favor of blobs, they have created no technologies in the game for players that give even a remote chance of dealing with simply being out numbered by lesser ships.  There is no skill involved anymore, it's either you have numbers, or you run, and it is only getting worse with the coming update.  CCP has input many new ships, that favor gang tactics, and continue to degrade the power of individual ships to hold their own.  In any setting, after so long, technologies would be developed to improve the chances of survival, but there are none.

Your T2 fitted Battleship (130mil to 200mil, fitted and insured) has no chance against 5 much smaller cruiser class ships, and your ship costs 3 to 4 more times to outfit, then those 5 cheap cruisers (50 to 75mil all fitted and insured), but you can't win, you can't get away, you're just dead.  It is removing the need to train for months, and spend lots of money to get to flying Battleships and Carriers/Capital ships, when a group of small ships can take you out.

What they are doing is moving away from 'useful' specialized and powerful ship classes, and towards more general and weaker ship classes.  Good players all say the same thing, "Pretty soon we will all be flying an Ibis with Civilian Gatling guns (the rookie ships new players start with.)

In trying to entice new players to the game, the are seriously gimping the veteran players who have invested lots of time and money to build a strong character.  CCP is snatching the prize from us just before we achieve it, and folks are voting with their feet.

There are lots of other problems with the game I won't bore you with.  In the world of stock trading where I come from, I say Eve-online is a mature game, lots of faults, bad decisions, all making your subscription decision a hold or sell at this point, definitely not a buy.

EVE is the best mmorpg I have ever played by far and to the last person who left a comment the new t2 bs a over 1 bil each fyi and a bc can beat 5 cruisers if he knows what he is doing.

Just a note Dominecus, while I respect your opinion, I believe you are quite wrong about UO being the best game for you.  When you reminiss you usually remember the good and forget the bad, I am quite sure you are doing that with UO.   UO was quite good for it's time, but it had so many flaws, which you seem to forget, that it would not fly in this day and age.

As to your complaint about terrain, there is plenty of it in planets, belts, space stations and moons in each system, you are just looking at it from the wrong perspective.   Eve probably has more of your terrain than any MMO out there right now.

Eve to me has more immersion factor than any other MMO at the moment.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Just a note Dominecus, while I respect your opinion, I believe you are quite wrong about UO being the best game for you.  When you reminiss you usually remember the good and forget the bad, I am quite sure you are doing that with UO.   UO was quite good for it's time, but it had so many flaws, which you seem to forget, that it would not fly in this day and age.

As to your complaint about terrain, there is plenty of it in planets, belts, space stations and moons in each system, you are just looking at it from the wrong perspective.   Eve probably has more of your terrain than any MMO out there right now.

Eve to me has more immersion factor than any other MMO at the moment.

Like he says EvE has plenty of scenry and terrain its just in a space setting rather than on a planet thats all.

If you need any help with PvP, ship choice, or anything in general (but I mostly do piracy), feel free to convo "Kuzya Morozov" ingame, I'll be happy to help :)

Originally posted by Domenicus
...

 

But of course there is a terrain in eve. The battles can take place at so many different settings and even with different rules in 0.0, low sec or high sec. It takes a very different tactics and approach if one fights at a gate, a station (friendly/enemy/neutral) in an asteroid belt or in a plain empty safespot. Its far from being pure math also, your own individiual act in the moment will decide if u die or live another day, as anything can be countered some way, it just takes experience and/or the ability to think fast, which are all human factors not math.

great article.

one thing to consider when feeling daunted by the whole, "wow these people have been collecting skills for 3+ years" is that there is a diminishing return, plus people with massive amounts of SP typically have it spread over several disciplines. so you usually can "catch up" in a particular field, like combat, in a fair amount of time. if you focus your training you can be sporting a decent heavy assault cruiser or battleship in 6-7 months. that's a decent lifecycle in an MMO, and the great thing is you don't have to completely start over if you decide you want to try out industyr, covert ops, or corporation management... whatever.

EVE is not without it's flaws, there are many, but there are also plenty of unique things that make it a great diversion from the typical MMO. i find it to be an awesome compliment other actual "game time required" MMOs if you're a 2 subscription kinda person.

Originally posted by Ekibiogami

 

Originally posted by Solatar

well let me give you an idea of my playstyle from 'other' mmo'.

I like playing the melee/tank type (paladin/warrior/rogue)

Not so much into ranged effects (rangers/mages/etc)

 *additional*

When it comes to picking the attribute disbursment, which should I go with? Should I dump all 5 pts in one or spread evenly?

Just a Fair warning Carisma is by far the Most useless stat of them all.

Takeing a Char with 3 Char is about the most Inportant Advise i can give you. There are a few skills that need it butnot Nearly as many skills that you will get a beenafit from having a high Percep/Willpwoer(Combat) and Int/Wisdom(Indust/Trade/research). You will want to train a few points in Char down the line but you can get a +4 Implant for less than ANY other +3 Implant.

A Even Spread of Skills tho Is not a bad thing (Cept for Char), It will let you be a Jack of all trades(Not a goodthing Early on)

BEST RULE FOR EVE, If you cant Replace it DONT use it!

Be wary of following the advice of min/maxing your attributes.  There will be a time when you attempt to learn skill requirements for either a module or a ship that will cal on those stats.  Being that the rate of skill points learned uses a primart and secondart attribute as a base modifier you could be very well screwed later on. 

For instance, A Paladin type of role generally tanks some damage, gives massive defensive buffs, and possibly offensive, while occasionly healing your team mates.  This is a standard roll for Battlecruisers and Comand Ships!  These ships excel at providing a platform to buff you allies and the modules required to grant those bonuses are in the Leardership category.  Leadership skills require... Charisma!  If you put that stat down to 3 and find out you'd like to play the "paly roll" you're going to wish you knew the name of the person's character who gave you the bad advice so you can pod their ass. Trust me.  ;)

As stated, if you can't afford it then don't fly it!

I tend to count anything I undock as already lost.  This is why I ALWAYS have the highest insurance contract taken out on my ship; you'd think they'd investigate me for insruance fraud at the rate I lose ships!

p.s.

My character's base attributes without implants:

intelligence: 16;  Perception: 24;  Charisma: 21;  Willpower: 15;  Memory: 17

I commonly have +3's in unless I'm running market orders in Empire which then I'll be in a clone with +4's.

Makes eve account,downloads client........... Befor this review id tryed eve but never really gave it a chance. Now i belive i will. Nice review( i read the whole thing ftw)

Fighting older players may seem like a stupid thing to do, as you'd assume that with their many years of training they must be incalculably better, but most skills you learn at that period of time are for capital ships and other things that make little difference to their skills as a frigate or cruiser pilot. 

As a result, it only takes a couple of months training before you could potentially tear them a new black hole.  There's one thing that's always good to remember in EVE: age doesn't equal wisdom. Just because they have the skills, it doesn't mean they know how to use them.

EVEMon is not against the TOS. In fact I believe CCP endorses the use of it. They stickied the post on the official EVE-Online forums.

http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=517517

There are also special security codes that are generated by CCP to safely use the application.

And I strongly suggest using it because you can only benefit from it in the long run.

That is a great story. Best luck to you on eve. maybe i'll see u around sometime

Originally posted by mindspat

Be wary of following the advice of min/maxing your attributes.  There will be a time when you attempt to learn skill requirements for either a module or a ship that will cal on those stats.  Being that the rate of skill points learned uses a primart and secondart attribute as a base modifier you could be very well screwed later on. 

 

For instance, A Paladin type of role generally tanks some damage, gives massive defensive buffs, and possibly offensive, while occasionly healing your team mates.  This is a standard roll for Battlecruisers and Comand Ships!  These ships excel at providing a platform to buff you allies and the modules required to grant those bonuses are in the Leardership category.  Leadership skills require... Charisma!  If you put that stat down to 3 and find out you'd like to play the "paly roll" you're going to wish you knew the name of the person's character who gave you the bad advice so you can pod their ass. Trust me.  ;)

Basic math. You are wrong... :) Even if he realizes later how much he loves being in a command ship he will be better of with higher perception and intelligence skills and the lowest possible charisma as he gonna need much more skillpoints on gunnery/missile, support and starship command skills then on leadership skills.                        

Originally posted by csatti

 

Originally posted by mindspat

Be wary of following the advice of min/maxing your attributes.  There will be a time when you attempt to learn skill requirements for either a module or a ship that will cal on those stats.  Being that the rate of skill points learned uses a primart and secondart attribute as a base modifier you could be very well screwed later on. 

 

For instance, A Paladin type of role generally tanks some damage, gives massive defensive buffs, and possibly offensive, while occasionly healing your team mates.  This is a standard roll for Battlecruisers and Comand Ships!  These ships excel at providing a platform to buff you allies and the modules required to grant those bonuses are in the Leardership category.  Leadership skills require... Charisma!  If you put that stat down to 3 and find out you'd like to play the "paly roll" you're going to wish you knew the name of the person's character who gave you the bad advice so you can pod their ass. Trust me.  ;)

 

Basic math. You are wrong... :) Even if he realizes later how much he loves being in a command ship he will be better of with higher perception and intelligence skills and the lowest possible charisma as he gonna need much more skillpoints on gunnery/missile, support and starship command skills then on leadership skills.                        

There is a difference between Min Maxing your character and letting it be a low stat. I did not take Charisma as a 3, I took my skills within 2-3 points of each other with Charisma being the lowest at  7. Depending on what you do you can easily end up spending a lot of SP on Charisma related skills, Corp Management, Leadership, Social, and trade all use Charisma, Try getting that Fleet Command 4 or 5. Its a stat while its seems useless it can easily put you several months back on training. Sure in 20 years it may have been better to put it in something else but lets worry about you playing for 20 years in 20 years. Not to mention who knows what skills are going to come out in the Future.

Originally posted by Aristea

@ Kyleran.  5% might be the difference between 1/5th and 1/4th ..which means something might fit now, that previously didn't. Even if you only gain 1 point because of that 5%, you might just be able to fit another Coprocessor and upgrade your systems by 10%. So the last skill, is definitely not useless, you just have to decide whether it's worth it for you to spend time and virtually make no progress for a month.

Don't even get me started on being 1 CPU short...

Great read! and i hope you return to EVE!

Originally posted by caspar21

I have been playing Eve for just under 2 yrs and one thing i have found in 0.0(no holds bared) space is that we need those newer guys in frigates to tackle. there is no need to spend 6 months training to be effective in pvp.

Whenever we get someone with 1 month or less under their belt we direct them into small fast ships capable of holding just about anything down so the heavy hitters can kill them. this role is completely nessesary, even with interdictors around.

 

So don't think you need 6 months or 3 yrs before you are in a role that is effective.. Us heavy hitters would not get any kills without the noob tackler buzzing around with a warp scrambler.

 

eritalker.

 

 

 

Can't agree more on above statement.  I have been playing for 3.5 years now and I find myself jumping into smaller ships and enjoying it more.  Most pilots want to grab their BattleCruiser or Battleship so there is always a shortage of tacklers.  So a new player can add value immediately and for me I enjoy it more since I don't really care about losing the ship and using speed, scramblers etc.  Is just fun! 

Nice review but one small concern I had is the reference to flying ships and being the same race etc.  Once you train your skills you can fly any ship.  The bonus / buffs are on the ship and normally refer to weapon type.  E.g. Raven has missile bonus so you would want to use missiles.  Being a Caldari doesn't make any difference.

EVE is an out and out grown up game and the player base tends to be quite serious and take their corporation's needs to heart.

Just started playing recently, and when I'd googled Eve-Online I found my way across this article.  I must say the more I read, the more I love it!  Because this game seems to take a more cerebral approach , as opposed to just the typical MMO which is a HUGE selling point to me.  In addition to this, it's just plain fun to play and it is oh so gorgeous.

So far I've played for 4 days now, and I've said to heck with it and upgraded to a full subscription.

At the moment I'm playing a Gallente (same name as on this forum) and aside from training a few skills to facilitate money making (salvage is SO worth it) to buy the higher end learning books.  I've been mostly working on getting my learning skills to 4 which has not been too much of a torture since I've been busy with school and studying.  From there I'm hoping to work on skills so I can maximize my use of the CPU, and Powergrid. After that, work on skills so I can use warp jammers, nos, and webbers.  From there gunnery skills so I can really start to put a dent in people for PvP (maybe pirating :>).  (I've read way too much on this on the side :>)

I am curious though, what is this "Corporation School" thing?  Any source of information that I can obtain (and more personalized training to boot!), is something I would like to look into.

I am at the moment flying an Incursis for my main fighting ship since and have stuck the largest close range guns I could get ( ion beams I think?)  And have been having relative success in killing the npc rats in .5 space, but am looking forward to getting the Noseftaru, and Webber to try to do some tackling and maybe even getting lucky enough to blow a ship up.

Also since I started with the special ops subset of skills, it has been made much easier to get into the destroys with little training time. So would it be worth it, when it comes to tackling etc?  Or should I just go into cruisers?

Thanks :) 

   -Looking forward to future communications, Kusachiho

 *EDIT*

Had to include this for any people who may also be starting out.  If you are training skills and want to do so efficiently "EVE Mon" is your best friend!  I started using that, and it has been very easy to use and taken a number of hours (about 10) off of my training times.  But also broken my wallet in the process since it recommends the high end skill books early on.