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Originally posted by adammain

My question is that if all the items are generally the "same" such as cloth being just as effective armor as plate, what is it going to take to set yourself above other players in pvp?

Obviously players being on par with gear is going to make it so that you have to use skill in pvp to win, but I view individualism as working hard enough to totally obliterate another charcter.

I understand that you are the hero in your own story and such but what can I do to be recognized by the world? What will I be able to do for people to recognize my name when I walk into town? That is true individualism imo.

I guess what im getting at is that my impression is that your going to be the hero of your own story and this doesnt seem like it fits with the MMO genre. I want to be a presence in the whole world, not just the dominator of my own story. I would like to be part of other peoples memories in the game whether it be that I stumble across them and wipe the floor with them, or vice versa.

Theres hardly anything more memorable than strolling along and somone just totally annihilates(spelling) you.

---

1) You've already stated the one BIG thing that will set you apart from everyone else in PvP. Skill.

The amount you PvP will also set you apart. As you become good at PvP, the more people will know who you are. It always happens like that in MMORPG's. There are always certain names that make people cringe or cheer when they are seen.

Clan/Guilds names will also be part of it if you wish. It doesn't matter how good you are if your entire clan/guild is not focused on PvP. There is strength in numbers. Not just "player count" either. If your clan/guild is out there PvPing, you've got more people becoming good at it, sharing tricks and techniques with each other.

Luck. This will always be a factor.  I'll assume you try to limit this factor to the smallest possible. 

Items will play a part. Just not to the point where "everything" above doesn't matter because you have uberLootdedSwordFromHell. Besides, people will call you on it.

All of the above you already know if you are asking the question.

You'll have to make your own name in HJ.

How you go about that is your choice. It's your journey. ;)

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Originally posted by SpiritofGame

I had read earlier in this thread that the gameworld could be compared to CoH/CoV in regards to common areas vs. instanced quest areas.

My question is:

Are the common areas 1) a seamless landmass (like Asheron's Call) or 2) zoned but contiguous (like EverQuest 1 or Anarchy Online) or 3) zoned but separate (like EverQuest 2)?

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Originally posted by Shroom_Mage

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Originally posted by HJ-Royce
Yes there will be player cities. Here's a quote from Melissa Meyer.

Socializing
Hero’s Journey’s cities, towns and villages will be located within common areas where players can meet, create hunting parties, exchange services, trade and socialize. However, instances will be used for player housing (instanced neighborhoods), as well as for Guild housing.

Quest areas are 100% different from player cities.

You won't be able to place a house "anywhere" you want. There will be an area that is specific for "your" clan/guild. All yours to do with what you want.

---

Okay, this sounds really good to me, as I previously thought that player cities were out of the question.

What you're describing is a complete, instanced area that your clan/guild owns. On this land any players (who belong to the clan/guild) can build their own personal houses. Is this correct?

I plan on making a very small clan that will become a part of a much larger guild. Does this mean that my clan can have an entire instanced area to ourselves, and each member can build his/her own personal house in this area? Would this be the same instanced area where the "private hunting grounds" are located?

Or is it that the clan hall alone will be in this area, and each of our personal houses must be built in an "instanced neighborhood" that includes several players that may or may not know one another?

I'm just looking for some elaboration on what you said.

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As it sits, you and your clan will get an area to add your housing. Now, if your castle/guildhall is a different "instance", I'm unsure if that's been decided.

The hunting area will be a different area.

Quick disclaimer. This may change before release, as with anything I've said over the past 37 pages. If a better way is found to do something, it will happen.

---

Originally posted by HJ-Royce

How you go about that is your choice. It's your journey. ;)

---

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Originally posted by adammain
...
My question is that if all the items are generally the "same" such as cloth being just as effective armor as plate, what is it going to take to set yourself above other players in pvp?
...

---

I see this all the time and I have to point out that at no point has anyone said "all items are the same".

In fact it has been stated in several interviews that you'll be able to "grow" your equipment as you advance.

What has been said, and the point Steph was making in last weeks Dev Journal, is that what that item LOOKS like in the game - the actual pixels that get rendered on your screen - isn't dictated by what some artist thinks it should look like. In other words the stats of the item are seprate from the look of the item.

As for the rest of your question I think Royce answered that pretty well. Your reputation, what sets you apart, will be dictated by your actions not by what gear you have. One interesting aspect of the system described though is that what you look like can be a factor in your reputation. If you come up with a unique look that fits your style then you can become instantly recognizable as you walk through town vs most current games where one level 50 barbarin warrior looks pretty much like every other level 50 barbarian warrior because they're all wearing the same gear.

I appreciate both of your answers.

The reason I was concerned is because, I will admit, I have been a WoW player since Beta. The game is good....for awhile. When it comes to the point that you have nothing to do but raid or pvp, it can get kind of tedious, and your forced to work on twinks.  Im glad that you said that it will boil down to skill, and I hope that you can truly verify that skill will be a big part of it. There was a guy on our WoW server who paid poeple to play his account and keep him in BG for 24 hours straight, and he eventually got Grand Marshall thus proving in WoW that Time, not effort > skill. Everything about this game looks to be better than WoW and the pvp was the only thing I was concerned about.

Now, that leaves me with one more question. I must first say that im not comparing this game to WoW because you guys arent trying to be like another game, you have your own standards and I love that. But how will the lvl system affect pvp? For example, in WoW. 1 lvl 60 could kill 60 lvl 1's. It seems like even though they were lvl 1's they could still at least give him a little bit of a run seeing as though are 60 of them. Now im not saying that a lowbie should  be able to be a high lvl character, but if someone is griefing the lowbies, will people at least be able to ban together and show this guy a good time? Im just curious I guess of how lvl's will affect people in pvp all together.

Thanks for you time.

---

Originally posted by adammain

For example, in WoW. 1 lvl 60 could kill 60 lvl 1's. It seems like even though they were lvl 1's they could still at least give him a little bit of a run seeing as though are 60 of them. Now im not saying that a lowbie should  be able to be a high lvl character, but if someone is griefing the lowbies, will people at least be able to ban together and show this guy a good time? Im just curious I guess of how lvl's will affect people in pvp all together.

Thanks for you time.

---

This one is difficult to answer since the design doc for PvP/Combat has not been released to the pubic as of yet.

There "is" something there though to answer your question. But, I can not reveal it at this time. And for that I am sorry.

I can't forget Beta as well. We will need to see how customers react to the way we have things. It may change or be adjusted based off of what we learn from player testing.

PvP is a very hot topic though and one that has had alot of thought on our end. We know it's an important part of gaming for alot of people.

On a side note, blatant attacks against lower level characters just for harm their gaming experiance has always been against policy in all Simutronics games (Except fo TF, anything goes and you know that when you log in). I know this wasn't your question. But it needed a mention anyway.

Hrm will there be a HJ:TF? That I don't even have the answer to.

hELLO mR rOYCE. i HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT THE USER INTERFACE. Guess you can tell I hit the cap lock... Anyway.

I always hate that everything on screen isn't customizable (word?). I never understood why some things could be moved and others couldn't. Is there a technical reason for that? Or is it just that not enough thought went into the design?

And why hasn't any game, correct me if I am wrong, set up the hot keys so they aren't visible unless you target a mob? They hide when you aren't in combat mode. Obviously there would be a key you could map that would pull them up at any time you needed to swap things out or whatever.

I like to see nothing but the world when I am playing. I know that sometimes I will need tabs on the screen to interact. But let me make them as unobtrusive as possible while they are there. And make them totally unobtrusive when they aren't needed.

Oh, and I hate chat boxes. I know it's weird, but I hate them. Can you do away with them please? I always make them as small as possible and when you do that they never update correctly. Maybe just on my computer. How about a single line across the very bottom of the screen, like a ticker tape? Moveable of course. And since we do have to have junk cluttering the screen, can you please make it pretty?

I know you may not be able to say anything about the game's UI. But maybe you could respond with your own thoughts on the perfect user interface??

But I pray this game does not have stuff on the screen that you can't make invisible.

Thanks for your quick reply.

Im sorry if my questions seem critical, after reading them again I think they sound like im shaky about the game. I must say that im 100% resolute that I will become a Simutronics customer. I think this is going to be a great product.

In regards to the griefing lowbies things. I want to offer a suggestion that I think is the best system. Giving people freedom to do what they want is a good thing in an MMO. I think that simply allowing people not to grief lowbies is a little too restricting..I think there should just be a good punishement for it.  For example -

If a player were to gank some one x number of lvls below them, they would recieve a "criminal" tag. This tag would mean that a player cannot go into a town or anything that has a mass amount of players for y number of hours without being attacked or killed by the guards. This number would increase exponentially. If the player ganked someone that was say... 10 lvls below them, they would be a "Criminal" for 30 min. 11 lvl below would be 1 hour, 12 would be 2 hours, so on and so forth.

In addition, the timer should only be able to wear off while the user is logged in. This would prevent people from logging a char off once they have a timer simply to log on and do it again. This kind of system gives the player a sense of freedom, but also makes it so they have serious consequences to their actions.

I know this goes a little in depth, but I also had another idea. Kind of a pvp quest if you will. It would be very cool if once a player was flagged as a criminal, there name would appear on a bulletin in town. Players then could accept a quest to kill the player, and once the player was slain, he would lose his criminal tag ad the player who killed him would recieve some sort of monetary value. Now again, I dont know the scope of the HJ engine or quest system, just would be neat. The only problem I can see with this is that the "criminal could simply have a friend kill him for the money and to remove the tag, but im sure you poeple are Simu. are very intelligent and could find a fix for that ^_^.

Just a few ideas, probably more suited for the suggestions portion of the forums, but I thought getting them commented on by a GM more appease me a little more. ^_^

keep up the good work guys!

In regards to negative player interactions, I think instancing for quests is really one of the best ways to do it. I've been gaming MMORPGs since....Hmm, Ultima Online back in '96. And the thing that always annoyed me to no end was waiting for a mob or an object to spawn, only to have someone 10 levels higher zip in, kill/take it, and then zip out.

From a gaming stand point, that's Hugely Annoying. Now you'll have to sit there and wait again, and hope someone else doesnt run in and KillSteal your NPC or whatever.

From a storyline quest standpoint, you (and your party) are being assigned a mission by an NPC to complete some task. Now, if this task was a top secret type quest, where the mayor is asking you to steal back the town seal from a band of brigands....it would dilute the whole experience if you snuck into the brigand cave, only to find 50 other people wiping out bandits left and right. In that case, the whole experience of the quest is cheapened and trivialized.

I can understand where there's a sense of "loss of community" by using instances for quest. But with that loss of having hundreds of people at your beckonned call, you're gaining an entire area, set up just for you, for you to experience the quest as it was meant to be. I know, that once people hop into HJ and experience the quests there, they will no longer compare HJ's Quest Instances to other games' instances.

And don't forget, there is still the rest of the world to explore and travel in...and those are not instances and will offer ample opportunities for community building and RP.

In regards to PVP and Griefing Newbies...in my own personal thoughts, I think the FAIREST way to handle higher level players killing lower level player is not to allow it....unless the lower level player attacks the higher level player first.

Example: Bob the Level 10 Rogue and Dirk the Level 50 Warrior are both PVP flagged and pass eachother on the road. Dirk cannot attack Bob, even though he's PVP Flagged. Bob can attack Dirk, but the second he does, Dirk can beat the snot out of him. Of course there'd need to be a level range which restriction comes into play, but you see what I mean.

I've seen too many people in too many MMO's that are just jerks. Plain and Simple. And those people won't be deterred from ganking lowbies no matter what penalties you place on them.

Okay, back to work for me.

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Originally posted by Laoosaer

hELLO mR rOYCE. i HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT THE USER INTERFACE. Guess you can tell I hit the cap lock... Anyway.

I always hate that everything on screen isn't customizable (word?). I never understood why some things could be moved and others couldn't. Is there a technical reason for that? Or is it just that not enough thought went into the design?

And why hasn't any game, correct me if I am wrong, set up the hot keys so they aren't visible unless you target a mob? They hide when you aren't in combat mode. Obviously there would be a key you could map that would pull them up at any time you needed to swap things out or whatever.

I like to see nothing but the world when I am playing. I know that sometimes I will need tabs on the screen to interact. But let me make them as unobtrusive as possible while they are there. And make them totally unobtrusive when they aren't needed.

Oh, and I hate chat boxes. I know it's weird, but I hate them. Can you do away with them please? I always make them as small as possible and when you do that they never update correctly. Maybe just on my computer. How about a single line across the very bottom of the screen, like a ticker tape? Moveable of course. And since we do have to have junk cluttering the screen, can you please make it pretty?

I know you may not be able to say anything about the game's UI. But maybe you could respond with your own thoughts on the perfect user interface??

But I pray this game does not have stuff on the screen that you can't make invisible.

---

My own personal thoughts on interfaces is, I like information. The more I can get the happier I am. I'm a coder so it's only natural for me to want to know everything that is going on.

You are right in assuming I can not reveal this yet, but...

You'll be a very happy person when the information is released.... as will people like me.

---

Originally posted by adammain

Thanks for your quick reply.

Im sorry if my questions seem critical, after reading them again I think they sound like im shaky about the game. I must say that im 100% resolute that I will become a Simutronics customer. I think this is going to be a great product.

In regards to the griefing lowbies things. I want to offer a suggestion that I think is the best system. Giving people freedom to do what they want is a good thing in an MMO. I think that simply allowing people not to grief lowbies is a little too restricting..I think there should just be a good punishement for it.  For example -

If a player were to gank some one x number of lvls below them, they would recieve a "criminal" tag. This tag would mean that a player cannot go into a town or anything that has a mass amount of players for y number of hours without being attacked or killed by the guards. This number would increase exponentially. If the player ganked someone that was say... 10 lvls below them, they would be a "Criminal" for 30 min. 11 lvl below would be 1 hour, 12 would be 2 hours, so on and so forth.

In addition, the timer should only be able to wear off while the user is logged in. This would prevent people from logging a char off once they have a timer simply to log on and do it again. This kind of system gives the player a sense of freedom, but also makes it so they have serious consequences to their actions.

I know this goes a little in depth, but I also had another idea. Kind of a pvp quest if you will. It would be very cool if once a player was flagged as a criminal, there name would appear on a bulletin in town. Players then could accept a quest to kill the player, and once the player was slain, he would lose his criminal tag ad the player who killed him would recieve some sort of monetary value. Now again, I dont know the scope of the HJ engine or quest system, just would be neat. The only problem I can see with this is that the "criminal could simply have a friend kill him for the money and to remove the tag, but im sure you poeple are Simu. are very intelligent and could find a fix for that ^_^.

Just a few ideas, probably more suited for the suggestions portion of the forums, but I thought getting them commented on by a GM more appease me a little more. ^_^

keep up the good work guys!

---

First, let me say that at no time did I assume your posts were critical. They were quite valid.

And it sounds like you proposed a "bounty hunter" type system in the quest you mentioned.

Hrm, very intereseting. It would go well with a PvP server that's for sure. But it would be very tricky to use on a standard server. RP servers would REALLY be hard to make it work.

The "Wanted" boards sound very similar to ones in Dragonrealms currently. This ability would fit well there with Paladins and Barbarians, so long as the only time lethal force is used, is for a murder charge. The reason I say Paladins and Barbarians is, Paladins are justice. Plain and simple. Barbarians can be "mercenaries".

If you and I were talking about Dragonrealms, I would probably propose this system there and build it. It would be fun for both the hunter and the huntee if done right. (Besides, half the system is already in place for this.)

As for HJ... this would make PvP servers more interesting.

Good post.

---

Originally posted by HJ-Royce

---

Originally posted by Laoosaer

hELLO mR rOYCE. i HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT THE USER INTERFACE. Guess you can tell I hit the cap lock... Anyway.

I always hate that everything on screen isn't customizable (word?). I never understood why some things could be moved and others couldn't. Is there a technical reason for that? Or is it just that not enough thought went into the design?

And why hasn't any game, correct me if I am wrong, set up the hot keys so they aren't visible unless you target a mob? They hide when you aren't in combat mode. Obviously there would be a key you could map that would pull them up at any time you needed to swap things out or whatever.

I like to see nothing but the world when I am playing. I know that sometimes I will need tabs on the screen to interact. But let me make them as unobtrusive as possible while they are there. And make them totally unobtrusive when they aren't needed.

Oh, and I hate chat boxes. I know it's weird, but I hate them. Can you do away with them please? I always make them as small as possible and when you do that they never update correctly. Maybe just on my computer. How about a single line across the very bottom of the screen, like a ticker tape? Moveable of course. And since we do have to have junk cluttering the screen, can you please make it pretty?

I know you may not be able to say anything about the game's UI. But maybe you could respond with your own thoughts on the perfect user interface??

But I pray this game does not have stuff on the screen that you can't make invisible.

---

My own personal thoughts on interfaces is, I like information. The more I can get the happier I am. I'm a coder so it's only natural for me to want to know everything that is going on.

You are right in assuming I can not reveal this yet, but...

You'll be a very happy person when the information is released.... as will people like me.

 

---

Well, talk about timing for this question. This was just released from the home office in a post on our website concerning GUI's.

The intent is for it to be moddable/skinnable. :)

Skippy

I know it's a tad general but I thought you might be interested.

---

Originally posted by adammain
Thanks for your quick reply.
Im sorry if my questions seem critical, after reading them again I think they sound like im shaky about the game. I must say that im 100% resolute that I will become a Simutronics customer. I think this is going to be a great product.
In regards to the griefing lowbies things. I want to offer a suggestion that I think is the best system. Giving people freedom to do what they want is a good thing in an MMO. I think that simply allowing people not to grief lowbies is a little too restricting..I think there should just be a good punishement for it. For example -
If a player were to gank some one x number of lvls below them, they would recieve a "criminal" tag. This tag would mean that a player cannot go into a town or anything that has a mass amount of players for y number of hours without being attacked or killed by the guards. This number would increase exponentially. If the player ganked someone that was say... 10 lvls below them, they would be a "Criminal" for 30 min. 11 lvl below would be 1 hour, 12 would be 2 hours, so on and so forth.
In addition, the timer should only be able to wear off while the user is logged in. This would prevent people from logging a char off once they have a timer simply to log on and do it again. This kind of system gives the player a sense of freedom, but also makes it so they have serious consequences to their actions.
I know this goes a little in depth, but I also had another idea. Kind of a pvp quest if you will. It would be very cool if once a player was flagged as a criminal, there name would appear on a bulletin in town. Players then could accept a quest to kill the player, and once the player was slain, he would lose his criminal tag ad the player who killed him would recieve some sort of monetary value. Now again, I dont know the scope of the HJ engine or quest system, just would be neat. The only problem I can see with this is that the "criminal could simply have a friend kill him for the money and to remove the tag, but im sure you poeple are Simu. are very intelligent and could find a fix for that ^_^.
Just a few ideas, probably more suited for the suggestions portion of the forums, but I thought getting them commented on by a GM more appease me a little more. ^_^
keep up the good work guys!

---

This all sounds well and good for a 1 ganker vs. 1 gankee situation but off the top of my head I can think of a couple of ways to exploit this.

The easiest is to get a group of your higher level friends together. You go and gank a bunch of newbies and then head off into the wilds to wait out your timer while your friends protect you from anyone that comes looking for you.

Everyone always assumes that anyone that would go around ganking newbies is scum that doesn't have any friends. I've seen roving bands of level 20's in EQ preying on any newbie in the zone.

It doesn't take much of this kind of behavior to drive new players away from your game and there really isn't anything that the GM's can do about it if they're operating within the rules of the game.

<<It doesn't take much of this kind of behavior to drive new players away from your game and there really isn't anything that the GM's can do about it if they're operating within the rules of the game.>>

Would you say it depends on the type of gamer you have? If you look at EvE online, you'll see it's basically gank city. Most 0.4 sectors you set foot in you are swarmed with gate campers and if you are not mucho leeto or fast, you had better keep your clone upgraded with good insurance. And EvE is breaking all kind of records. Different genre, but same base.

In respect to ganking, look what Dragonrealms and many other games do. If you kill, or get caught stealing, etc. in down, you get to make friends with the judge, and sitting on the nasty ole bale of straw is no fun! If the guards don't get you, you are still flagged, and they will eventually get you once you return to town. However, outside of city limits, most everything is fair game. Grave robbing is always a unique challenge, and i'm interested to see what HJ has in the works. That is always a touchy issue. Then you have spells like Mental Blast (DR) that used to make the castee drop items. There is a whole 'nother set of issues too.. See, these GMs are more busy then we thought :-P

I am in BIG FAVOR for a Bounty Hunting system. For much reasons.

-Aelrion

Does anyone know how to remove a topic that you started? Or thread or whatever it is called? Not wanting to go off topic I started a new topic. I just wanted to know if a user could change the order of the listings of posts when they were viewing a topic. Basically I want to set it so the most recent posts are listed first. instead of having to click on the "last" tab. Or is that something that only the originator of the post can do?

Since I started clue me in a little more.

What is a sticky? And what is the difference between a Post, a thread and a sticky.

No laughing. I honestly do not know. And everyone assumes you already know forum speak.

So if you can think of any other terms that someone new to forums might not know, feel free to explain.

The topic that I started that I wish someone to remove is called "Forum controls". Catchy, huh.

A post is just this. This is a post.

A thread is what the posts are in.

And a sticky is a post that an admin made "stick" to the top so that it never gets lost in the sea of threads.

Thank you my dear for your timely illumination. I hope all future posts are as kind as yours.

I have met with nothing but kindness here in this thread of threads.

And I am sure that due to this threads unworldly goodness its future stickyness is ensured.

Did I get that right? Now if someone would just remove that post I made that is cluttering up this section of the forum...

About the GUI. I am not sure if I am all that happy about being at the mod community's mercy. Some great mods were made for EQ II, or was that WOW, can't remember now. But the fact is they were nice but buggy. Especially after patches. So after each patch of the game you would have to run a patch for the mod. That is if the moders had already had time to adjust for the game patch.

So I say great. Gotta love the moding community. But my hope is that the UI is so well thought out and implemented that only the super picky or the adventurous would feel it necessary to down load a moded UI.

Not to mention some mods are unusable for the computer illiterate unsavvy like myself. I immediately look elsewhere when it goes beyond just downloading and running a program. As soon as the instructions start talking about open this file and delete this file before copying A into Z, etc., I don't want to play anymore. I am afraid of messing something up and having a program that takes up disk space but refuses to do anything else.

Sorry if I sound like an ungrateful brat. I just think that customizing your game play is important.

Besides if my friends come over I don't want them to be able to figure out how to play any of my avatars.

---

Originally posted by Leiron
<<It doesn't take much of this kind of behavior to drive new players away from your game and there really isn't anything that the GM's can do about it if they're operating within the rules of the game.>>

Would you say it depends on the type of gamer you have? If you look at EvE online, you'll see it's basically gank city. Most 0.4 sectors you set foot in you are swarmed with gate campers and if you are not mucho leeto or fast, you had better keep your clone upgraded with good insurance. And EvE is breaking all kind of records. Different genre, but same base.

In respect to ganking, look what Dragonrealms and many other games do. If you kill, or get caught stealing, etc. in down, you get to make friends with the judge, and sitting on the nasty ole bale of straw is no fun! If the guards don't get you, you are still flagged, and they will eventually get you once you return to town. However, outside of city limits, most everything is fair game. Grave robbing is always a unique challenge, and i'm interested to see what HJ has in the works. That is always a touchy issue. Then you have spells like Mental Blast (DR) that used to make the castee drop items. There is a whole 'nother set of issues too.. See, these GMs are more busy then we thought :-P

I am in BIG FAVOR for a Bounty Hunting system. For much reasons.

-Aelrion

---

First of all let me say that for a PvP focused game I think EvE did a great job.

It's not a gankfest simply because a new player isn't put into an area where he's likely to be killed. The whole sec level thing is explained clearly and simply and you have to make the choice to go into those areas. You can spend your entire gaming life and never be at risk if you choose.

But...there's always a but...even that system can be exploited. An example I saw posted just a few days ago is actually one of the things I was thinking of when I made my comment. An experienced player logs into a high sec area and just shouts in OOC "Where's my momma" to which some newbie replies "In my bed". The high level checks, sees that this is a new player - or at least low level and possibly new - and tells him that's the best response he's gotten all day so he's going to give him some free stuff. He loads up a pod, jettisons it and walks the newbie through getting to him and taking the pod. The newbie is then flagged as a thief and the high level blows him away and pod kills him to boot.

Now put yourself in that newbies position. Was that fun? Does that make you want to continue playing the game? Personally I'd log out and un-install right about then.

I play MMO's because of the community and from the little time I spent in EvE they have a really good community. The problem is that incidents like that and most especially like the big guild infiltration incident leave me with the feeling that while there is this great community I can't really trust any of them.

Also EvE may be breaking records but they're technological records. 20,000 + simultaneous users on a single server is impressive but not the same as the 1 million plus online at one time initially set by the original EQ and since blown out of the water by WoW. EvE is, and always will be, a niche game. The developers seem to know that and seem to actually want it that way. They built the game they wanted to play and they're sticking to it, for which I applaud them even if it's not the game I want to play.