Would love to play on those servers. But, I'm smirking as I read this other Forum post, as Smed tries to explain away some of the bad reputation the company has come down with.

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/178496/page/1

True, I totally agree, and, yes, before I became a paying customer on AO, I was a free player, but, that doesn't change the fact that some companies actually hate the idea of giving anything away for free, SOE/LA is the number 1 scorer in that regard. The only thing they give out free is those passes, and, I've never used one since I've quit SWG, all because I've never been approached by SOE to indulge in even the veteran pass, and, I'm sure as heck not even going to log in to the station pass just to get one either.

Are you kidding, SOE/LA would never go the way of AO with the allowing of a Free Player base system, they are about the money, nothing more, nothing less, take a look at all that they did with the game when the turned it into the now 'Brillant Game Strategy' from the one where they had 300k+ paying subscribers. they didn't listen then, and they refuse to listen now. They even said that Server Mergers aren't an option.

Ky. I disagree, Eve has gotten far more brutal of late, I have to agree with the OP.

And, yes, you can check me out ingame, I'm still playing, and, a 4 year player.

But, as I said, the game has become far more brutal, 2 years ago, you had a few hundred ore thiefs, while today, the number of loot/salvage/ore thieves has boomed to a few thousand, not only that, the number of smacktards has also increased.

People have certainly taken some of thier darkest mindsets into the game, I know from a conversation last night alone that about 6 or 7 were ganging up on 1 player, all because his "gear' wasn't adequate to play Eve.

I know of even 1 Corp. that has actually called a few 'Girl' gamers whores, and bitches, to get off Eve and back into the kitchen and bedrooms for thier men.

So, just from those few snippets, I've seen the lack of mannerism has indeed slipped in eve, no wonder the Devs/GMs have even taken a few liberties themselves. And, as for just saying its the Goonswarms mindset that, its fun to grief the new players, or, 'Carebears', trust me, its all the big alliances that are doing, all because they feel its Thier game, and, that ppl must play it the way they want you to play it :(

*chuckles*

4 year player here, and, just broke the 54 mill SP mark. I know how its, in nearly 90% of the MMos, you see the xp bar go up and then you log off from the game. Your bored of it for a few weeks, you come back and pick up from the exact point you logged off with no improvement.

But, in Eve, if your gone for a few weeks, or, a few months, and log in, your amazed that you can fly that most wonderful T2 ship, or, fire that impressive T2 weapon, there is actual benefit for taking time away from a game like Eve.

You can also try Eve, its a little harsh, and, has alot of empty space, but, it has alot to offer.

darn, am a bit tired, so, just glossed over the first part of your questions.

There are 4 main races in Eve, Caldari, Gallente, Minmatar, and Amarr, you can then customize your character from there into different types of race related field work, Mining, Combat, Science, and Industry.

There is a huge crafting element to the game, but, the crafting is basically set to certain standars, so, you can't craft an elite item, or, invent up beyond a Tech 2 item.

As for Auction Houses, no, but, there is a great Contract system in game that allows ppl to see any of your contracted items anywhere in the Eve Universe.

The one thing you must remember to, is that Eve is all one Universe, its not broken up into several smaller independent servers that have thier own Universe either. If you log in and see the population total is 36000 ppl, that is actually how many ppl who are playing on the server at that time.

At the moment, your character and your ship are one, but, the Devs and GMs at CCP are working on Ambulation, which will have you exiting your ship in stations and allowing you to walk around.

Actually, you do get to play Darth Vader, and, its at the beginning where Darth is looking for a secret apprentise to train to fight the last remaining jedi between the movies III and IV.

So, its set before A New Hope, and The Return Of The Sith

I agree, the Jedi slap in the face was the end for me, I tried the NGE, I didn't like the targeting system at all. All my hard work to achieve several master badges, and, the work to achieve towards Padawan was just gone.

Isn't that what we play games for?

To achieve a sort of victory after so long trying to achieve a goal, then, after that goal is reached, trying for that next big step?

But, no, SOE/LA didn't care about the long time players who worked hard at thier characters, and, thier achievements, we weren't good enough to have a say in how we wanted to play the game. Yes, they built the world, but, we were the ones who lived in it. All the Devs and GMs had to do was create theier Great Characters, THEY!!! never actually took the time to build those characters, they never actually did the quests from start to finish, nor, did they actually sat in local and listened to the conservation of the local, or, any of the chats. Why should they, it wasn't thier policy to get the feel for the players, or, the community, after all, even though we were paying customers, we were no more than great big bundles of money bags that they couls squeeze every last little penny from, then, when they were done, throw away the game we loved, all because of the word, progress. To shame :(

wow, a step ahead indeed for the players rights, but, even so, the so called CCP Steller Management is nothing more than a stop gap for CCP. They only put it in action, after they were found to have Devs/GMs who were not only playing Eve, but, were actually assisting certain corps and alliances and throwing the balance of the game off for regular players, even now, CCP staff have promised many things to help ALL players, but, have failed to keep those same promises for a certain core of the players, I do agree the game is more pvp than any other, but, in a great many cases, they always seem to have the pvp players better interest over the casual passive player. The old saying goes in Eve, you want to mine, then, we will allow you to have your ore stolen from you, but, hell with you if you for trying to defend your ore, or, your mission wrecks.

And, what about SWG, the casual way that SOE/LA entirely replaced the game play, just because they rewrote the EULA to thier liking. Absolutely no regard to players in any context, or, fairness to the players who wanted SOE/LA not to change the game play at all, but, in many forum posts only wanted SOE/LA to keep thier promises of fixing the game bugs, and advance the game play.

But, SOE/LA instead went ahead, and cared so little about thier own subscribers that they refused to believe that such an exudose from the game would happen, now, its 3 years, and they still are ignoring thier player base, all in the name of the EULA

I had a friend join eve about 3 weeks ago, so far, he has rerolled his toon twice, and actually started paying the monthly fee for the game, and he has reached cruiser status on his second toon in only 4 days, so, its not hard to get a very good start within the game.

But, I'm a vet., been playing 4 years, and, I've seen players with 6 months ingame skill training do very well. They usually specialize, and, get established in a good corp.

I think there is only 1 actual player who has more than 90 mill skill points, but, he was the first in Beta. but, that shouldn't frighten you from the game.

Xennith is correct, get that clone upgrade, because, if u get podkilled again, and your clone doesn't cover the skill points, you lose 10% of the trained skill points that your clone doesn't cover

*sigh*, I see it alot in this game, the name calling, the outright hatred that some players for lower skill based players, and it sometimes sickens me.

Yes, I've been called a 'carebear', 'wuss', and the dreaded "NOOB" word. and it really pisses me off,

But, even so, in a way, after breaking the 50 mill SP mark just recently, I still I need to learn alot about the game, I've been podded several times myself. But, I carry on.

So, quitting only makes it worse, those certain players laugh and tell others how they made a player leave the game gets to me, and I forge ahead, hoping one day, I'll get at least one of them to quit, all because he wet himself, and went and cried in the corner all in the name of being called a "Noob" after losing his ship :)

well, for me, I'll never come back either, but, if there was a set criteria, I'd say, a Full Apology from both LA, and SOE, a total firing of Smedly and the top crew who was instrumental in the fiascoe, and, to top it all off, every vet gamer who came back would get a 1 full year free game access pass to SWG.

Afterall, they took our money and then kicked us in the teeth, it only seems fair that they lose more than thier share of cash revenue due to some jerk who didn't care about the gamers in the first place

the state of the game makes me sick, and sad, was almost ready to unlock Padawan, and never got any further :(

the new stuff just doesn't have any hope for me :(

chances are its not really SOE thats taking ur money, but, someone posing as SOE, as for your bank not stopping those charges, I'd be taking the matter over your local Bank Managers head, because your bank actually does have the power to stop a charge being applied to your account, you might also want to take a hard copy of the webpage that shows your account at SOE, and show them that you may be a target of a set of fraud charges.

yea, a few of the patches require that u restart the client again, to keep the patching going

You guys are getting lucky, haven't had one vet offer since I left the game a year ago :(

Mine was the Pistoleer Trainer in Anchorhead, thats the small city near Jabba's Palace