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EVE Online - Review Background
MMORPG.com Community Manager Laura Genender has written a review of CCP's EVE Online that we've split into two parts. Part one will look at some of the background of the game and the different aspects of its gameplay. Part two, which will appear on Monday, will focus on the traditional review aspects of the game and produce a score.
Five months ago, I embarked on my EVE experience, figuring I’d spend a month learning basic gameplay mechanics to further benefit my skills as an MMO writer, then move on to another game. I never watched Star Trek, or even the original Star Wars movies; I’ve never had any strong connection to the grit of the Sci-fi genre. Yet somehow, here I still am: enthralled in the progression and complexity of the EVE universe and intrigued by the community that lives within it.
Progression
One of the big contention points of EVE gameplay – hot or not? – is the skill/progression system. In World of Warcraft or Everquest, you spend three hours playing and gain (or lose!) experience during those three hours; your progress or lack thereof correlates to the effort you put in. In EVE, your skills progress based on a real-time clock. A skill that takes 5 days, 15 hours, 16 minutes, and 31 seconds will take that amount of time whether you are at the computer or logged off for the entire time. These training timers can be altered based on character stats – determined via starter stats, cybernetic implants, and some skills – but you can’t will a skill to train faster.
The upside to this is that the casual gamer can keep up with the more hardcore, providing they find some sort of income to buy the skillbooks (and the ships they learn to fly) and remember to update their skills when needed; the downside is that a hardcore MMO player can’t start EVE and earn their way to the top. Some of the top corporations even have a minimum skill-point level to join up, effectively barring new players despite any skill they possess. After c. five months or so I’m up to 4.3 million SP; some corps had requirements of 20 million or more.
For me, this really hasn’t been too big of an issue; sure, I’m slightly jealous when I see another player fly by in a Vargur (Tech 2 battleship) and realize it’d take me 93 more days to be in their shoes, not counting support skills. But at the same time, I can fly a smaller ship like a frigate or destroyer with relative competence, and I’m not too shabby in my Tech 1 battleship, either. When it comes down to it, you need years of experience to fly a capital ship or be a jack of all trades. But as a newbie, you can do one thing fairly well fairly quickly.
;)
In EVE, your skills dictate your progression but your ship dictates your purpose. The average pilot will have dozens of ships lying about with different strengths and weaknesses; a ship’s size, fitting capabilities, and special abilities dictate its best use. For example, a battleship has a lot of shields and armor, and can put out a lot of damage, but it’s a slow mover and its guns are too large to accurately hit small ships. A frigate, on the other hand, has the speed and the accuracy but it blows up if you sneeze in it too loudly.
Some of these ships have even more specific uses dictated by their special abilities. The Osprey, for example, is a cruiser with a 20% bonus to mining laser yield per cruiser level, a 10% bonus to capacitor use of shield transporters per cruiser level, and a 500% bonus to the range of shield transporters: this makes it a good mining ship or a good shield repair ship. The Rupture is also a cruiser but its bonuses are 5% bonus to Medium Projectile Turret firing speed per cruiser level and a 5% bonus to medium projectile turret damage per level – this ship is obviously meant to do damage. There is, in my experience, no “perfect”, well known ship set up, but its pretty obvious what general path you should take with each ship.
With the lack of class-based progression, “what should you do” in EVE translates easily to “what do you WANT to do?” Players have various options in PVP, PVE, and economy-centered activities. For the non-EVEers out there, though, let me take a necessary moment to describe the galaxy setup.
PvE
EVE is divided into three types of space, rated by “security” on a scale of 0.0 to 1.0. Space rated 0.5 to 1.0 is considered “hi-sec” (for high security), and is patrolled and operated by NPC nations. Randomly shooting at other players in high security space will get you blown up by local police force CONCORD, though be warned that there are always work-arounds to start trouble in EVE. Space rated 0.1 to 0.4 is considered “low-sec.” There is no CONCORD here, and players are free to engage others in PVP combat; that being said, there are guns on the jumpgates that will shoot you if you engage too close to them. And finally, there is 0.0 space, where there are no guns, no CONCORD, and often no stations. 0.0 space can be occupied by player corps and this is where most of the explosions happen. And of course, as is only appropriate, more risk = more reward; most forms of PVE are viable in hi-sec, but its more profitable to do it in dangerous 0.0.
PvE in EVE is often hailed as pretty damn boring – a necessary evil to gain ISK and feed your PvP habits. Perhaps I’m an anomaly but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed some of my PvE experiences.
Your initial options for PVE are somewhat limited by your skillpoints: you can mine, run missions or kill pirates at local asteroid belts.
;)
Mining involves the harvesting of various minerals, gasses, or ices. You can mine minerals such as Veldspar, Omber, and a handful of others ranging from “common as dirt” to “dangerously rare.” All in all, I found mining to be about as fun as smashing my forehead in with a rock, but to each their own and I suppose it wouldn’t be a bad activity while AFK or on an alt account.
My favorite method of PvE has so far been mission running: NPC “agents” in various stations will give you missions to kill pirates, rescue stolen goods from pirates, rescue stolen damsels from pirates, perform several dozen more acts of violence against pirates, or bring cargo from one station to another (this last option is considerably more boring than the above options of killing pirates). NPC combat is fairly simple and I’ve adopted a method of shooting and flying away that works every time, but there’s some variety of tactics when it comes to different opponents. The wise mission runner refers to sites such as Eve Survivor (http://eve-survival.org/missions/) to guide them to the right damage types and tactics to succeed in a mission without getting blown up!
As a note to those who don’t want to kill pirates, you can also run missions for them and kill CONCORD instead.
If you don’t want to do missions, there are often pirates hanging out at local asteroid belts and sometimes even gates! While these ‘rats are fairly harmless in hi-sec and even low-sec space, the ‘rats you find in 0.0 pack a mean punch but a worthwhile bounty.
Once you’ve spent some time training skills, another PVE option opens up: exploration. Exploration involves scanning systems for unmarked anomalies or signatures of hidden systems or complexes. Exploring is more luck-based than your average pirate killing; one can go for days without finding a lucrative exploration site, then find paydirt in a complex worth upwards of 300 million ISK. One of the plus sides to exploration is that those scanning skills can be put to work in PVP, too, in scanning down enemy ships!
PvP
Which brings us to the PvP side of things. I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t had much experience here, though I’ve hung around with plenty of PvP erudites and spent a passable number of hours waiting for a PvP target before getting bored and leaving. PvP can be divided into three segments: small gang PvP, Empire warfare, and 0.0 warfare.
Small gang PvP is often the life and trade of a player-turned pirate (not the NPC kind) in low-sec or 0.0; find some poor sap of a mission runner, blow his ship up, and take the spoils to sell on the market. If you’re an honorable pirate you might disable a ship and let the pilot pay a ransom fee to survive; if you’re a dishonorable pirate you might disable a ship and let the pilot pay a ransom fee to survive, then blow him up and take the spoils to sell on the market again. It’s an open-ended mechanic wherein players let their morals dictate their actions. This being said, not all small gang PvP is pirating; many players will patrol space in anti-pirate gangs, or hunt pirates down for their bounties (assigned by other players).
If you’re in a corporation – the EVE version of guilds – this opens up the option of warfare. Player corps can spend a fee (about 50 million ISK) to declare war on another corporation; this money is used to bribe CONCORD to look the other way as you shoot your enemies and they shoot you back. Wars are declared to settle disputes or target a corporation that harbors a known scammer or otherwise criminal, but player pirates will often band together into corporations and declare war on newbie or industrial style corps. This might not be the most noble form of gameplay in the MMO world, but it gives pirates a free pass to shoot at easy targets. Hence even industrial corps must keep some muscle on hand to beat the pirates down when they get cocky!
Lastly, the most famous facet of EVE PVP is the contest over space out in 0.0. Players are constantly jostling over control of different regions and systems; there’s a long-standing war, currently, between former 0.0 giant Band of Brothers and the zerg-like Goonswarm. These wars often involve hundreds of ships from each size, ranging from cheap little frigates to massive capital ships. View the latest galaxy map with color coded territories here.
EVE will soon have a new challenger to a throne of best SC-FI MMO - Jumpgate Evolution
It won't. Two very differen games and very different playstyles. You will probably see Eve-Players playing Jumpgate AND Eve.. ;)
Nice write up, would like to see more on the economy and market PVP. Also the map linked in the article is a bit outdated. here is a more detailed and up to date one: http://www.eve-files.com/media/corp/CRII/Latest.jpg
Actually, the one Taera linked is the most recent. It is updated dayly after downtime automatically. So it is always the most up to date map you can have.
(Not the most accurate, through. While it is absolutely accurate in giving you the information who has sovereignity in which region and system, it can not tell you who actually is the main force there. There are a lot of Regions that are practically not inhabitated because the owners are not there at the moment (in a war somewhere else), and it can not show the situation in regions that can not be claimed.)
Yay, a multi-part EVE review by a five month player who doesn't PvP.
Next week, a five-installment review of WoW by a level 7 Paladin who's never had a Horde toon.
Yeah, I'm afraid to say I'm not the best market PVPer, as you put it. When someone undercuts me by 1 ISK I start to see red and breath fire ;)
if you look at the two maps you can see the one i linked is more accurate and more up to date with sov changes.
@ Taera: I perfectly understand that frustration, i can only do small bouts of trading before i have to stop with fears of popping a blood vessel.
Taera linked a map from 08-Feb-2008 07:06. Actually, she linked the link to the latest map, which is influence_2008-02-07_2008-02-08.png right now.
The Map you linked is from 04.02.2008. Thats four days..
{ Mod Edit }
As to those who would prefer a seasoned PVP veteran write a review, nothing's stopping you, feel free to post away. MMORPG can't help it if they don't have staffers who are seasoned vets in every game.
Besides, reviews generally written to entice new players to join a game, and this one covers the basics that every noob wants to know.
No point it describing life in Fleet Battleship wars that a player won't see for 6 months anyways. (besides, then you have to tell them about lag, blobs and the "fun" of gatecamping.
Over all, a decent review, and I'll look forward to the next one.
Its always good to see EvE get some reviews. If only they had 10 million players instead of WoW..... Im confident they would put the money back in the game rather then their pockets. As for JE, that looks to be a great game as well. I would be willing to bet every EvE player also plays JE but never quits either. The two teams should just merge IMO =P.
I never said i dont like EVE. I love EVE - it is the only TRUE MMO in my oppinion.
I personally couldnt get into it for several reasons.
JGE will be amazing game, i can bet on that right now.
And i recommend people interested in EVE , also to check it out. Because you just might find it very interesting. It will not be as social complex as EVE (although that remains to be seen)
But , imagine EVE , with twitch based flight and combat. With no skill learning at all.
Where outcome of fight is determined by how good you fly your ship , not by how long you played the game
and had skills learning.
All my respect to EVE
, but it trully believe JGE will become a serious contender for SCI-FI mmo supremacy 
No need to imagine, that's how EVE is right now. Player skill > avatar skill.
Uhm...yes...right....
if JGE turns out to be a level based space MMO i can tell you it will FAIL! as it should, i dont remember the last time any MMO has actually come out of the clone level based grind-mill with something new in order to keep players.
So again, if JGE turns out to be a level based space MMO it should fail!
As for the reviews some good basic stuff there
It is not true at all
Nice review. Maybe some abstractions would be in place at certain points (since non EvE players really know how much 50mil ISK is). Would have been nice with a mentioning of escalating missions and complexes from the PVE part (where you actually need to band together with your friends to finish it).
Keep up the good work
JGE?! Might be good, might be bad (it's sharded afterall) but it really doesn't belong in this thread.
(I am going by my own experiences in the game over a 7 mounth period)
Does EVE really need another review? Does it really deserve a 2 part review?
It really hasn't changed that much. The graphics overhaul just wasn't as great as it was played out to be and the gameplay is still stale.
The game is so boring that, when I won a free month of gametime, I logged in like twice and not for very long. I then forgot about the game until my free month was up and my account was charged a fee for the next month of play. I promptly canceled again, for the 3rd and final time.
I've been gaming online for years and have played tons of games, at length. That being said, I really don't think that EVE deserves the coverage and hype that it gets. I understand that this is my opinion. I know that many on this site disagree, but it just seems like this site is a bit too EVE-centric sometimes.
I frequent alot of gaming sites and forums and this is the only site where people that don't like EVE get slagged down by the people that like the game. The people that like the game insult the people that don't and question their intelligence because they don't like the game.
Well, Kryogenic, apparently the staff (or the reviewer, at least) has liked EVE so far, and wants to do a 2-part re-review from the point of view of someone beyond the first 'noob' hump (around 5-6 months played).
I don't know about your many other forums you frequent, but I'd think there people didn't also come to the EVE section of the forums to flame against the game either, which here is sadly very, very common.
I have seen, sadly, that there are those who cheerfully counterflame the people who attack EVE. I wish they would stop that, but the truth is when someone directly attacks something you care about, be it a hobby, a friend or an opinion, people get annoyed.
You find it insulting that someone tells you down when you're lumping all eve-players into, for instance, 'mindless business-grads who rather play a job then a game', yet find no fault with the people criticizing the game on opinions often so skewed that they bear no resemblance to any game I've ever played, EVE or any other.
'EVE is so boring'-lines are starting to sound like 'your momma's so fat' -jokes, really.
I don't know where you got the mindless business grads comment from. I don't find it insulting when EVE fans fall back on their "you must not understand it if you don't like it" comments. I find it close-minded and almost neurotic. It's like someone saying that you don't understand food because you don't like eggplant. It's not a personal attack for someone to have a different point of view.
This thread is to discuss the article not people's opinions about the game.
The only reason I posted what I did is because this is the 3rd time this game has been reviewed on this site. Not only that, but the game really hasn't changed that much since the last review. The 2 major things that changed since then are the graphics overhaul and the fact that new characters start out with more skill points then they used to. Both of these changes had multiple features on the site devoted to them. It just seems to be over-kill to me.
Nice review. Gives a new player a good idea of what the game is about. Just one suggestion, the emphacis for the new player should be learning the smaller ships first and then moving on to the larger ones, much later. Whenever I see a two or three month old character in a battleship I laugh because I know he is strictly sharkbait having few skills to fight such a ship effectively. Heck I have been playing for over a year and still rarely fly a battleship.
Anyone whining about not having an experienced pvper giving the review has lost it. Think about it, you don't need that kind of a perspective for a beginner to get a feel for the game. Existing players don't need the info.
As to Jumpgate, I played it before and while I know they are updating it, it will not in my mind be in any form a competition to Eve. Jumpgate while fun at first gets old fast, and I doubt the updated version will change that. Nothing in that game to keep you in it long term in my opinion unless they are making drastic changes which at present I do not see.
Excellent review but new players shouldn't be scared. If they take the time to read and ask the right questions, watch a few you tube video, visit some forums, they will be PVP efficient within 2 months. Even in WOW, you're not really PVP efficient in that amount of time.
I've been playing since 2003 and made a bunch of new characters and have kept 1 very old one that I simply pay a month here and there for giggles. My new characters are usually able to PVP within the first 2 weeks and they can kick the ass of some 30 million SP players. It really depends on how you're doing it. I've learned all these little things by documenting myself and talking with my buddies on EVE. Corps that only accept 20 mil SP characters will make exceptions if you're smart enough with them. The most powerful tool is to be smart about what you're doing.
As for the Market, Laura wouldn't be able to fully review the market if she doesn't actually do it for like a month or so. You can't just jump in EVE and start reviewing everything by the surface... seriously, the market is dull at first sight then you dig deeper and start noticing that it's as complex as real economics lol
Shark, again, if the person knows what he's doing, he can jump in a battleship within a few month and be efficient. Their is no right and wrong really, BS is also a good way to make money in L3 and L4 (solo)... However, yes, the new players should stick with smaller ships. It's actually way better to go from Cruiser to tech 2 cruiser then battleships. (you get a better ships that doesn't require MORE advance weapon and tanking skills)
So we can put each other at the same level. I've just quitted EVE since these days I'm too busy to play a game like that. Is EVE my actual favorit game? Actually, no it's not.
So why do I praise EVE if it's not my favorit game?
EVE is technically a masterpiece. The lore is deeper then any other MMO, the science, the mystery and world is more alive then any other game out there, the meaning of a true persistent world is EVE. In a game like wow, you can't leave your mark in the game, in EVE... if you take the time to explore the actual EVE rift and fly for few hours towards the gate, you'll notice a bunch of cans... if you continue following these cans, you soon notice a beautiful setup of cans with a poem... if you take the time to read it, you'll notice that this mark is actually a tomb for someone that died 2 years ago. A bunch of players decided to take a moment and make a monument to their lost mate. 2 years ago mate... still there and shining.
I admit that the new graphic engine is really good but not as good as I actually expected however, it's much nicer then anything else around. What do you expect, it's space... you won't see a fountain with little birds but what you see is extremely nice.
I will admit that we tend to think as us EVE player being superior to any other MMO players. You know, in a way, I don't blame them. All we get is people saying: "EVE IS BORING! and EVE SUCKS"
Our best defense is the complexity and maturity of the game. Sure you'll find the young kids and big mouth on EVE but in general, you'll meet a much more mature crowd. In my corp, most of the guys have university degrees and alot of culture, they are all very respectable people. I'm not saying that we're not dumb... :P We do like the occasional sex joke and do make funky noises on vent. However, it's the first game where most of the people I've met are really more mature in general. I guess, EVE attracts that type of crowd and obviously, we tend to be proud.
quote "I never watched Star Trek, or even the original Star Wars movies..."unquote...how old ARE you??? ...there has been some form of Star Trek from 1964 up to 1997 (at least!)...not to mention Star Wars (1976~1983)...and points beyond...and I can't even begin to list all the space-based games BEFORE 'EVE'...where ya been girl?!?!?
Nice article.
Well done.
Personally I began playing Eve back in 2004-2005.I stopped 2-3 times due to money issues($15/month is not cheap),but each time I have come back and now I am kinda addicted to Eve.
PVE is fun and is a good way to get Isk.
PVP,I don't have much experience with it but being member of TGrads,I know I will soon see plenty of PVP :)
Should have also mentioned that EVE is a developer sanctioned RMT game now where players can buy EVE time game cards and trade them in game for isk(coin) and items.
A lot of gamers such as myself don't approve of this possibility being sanctioned and offered directly by the game developers because we want to play and compete on a fair level playing field where players are supposed to earn everything thru expended effort in game, not by using real money to buy advantages.
You might be against it or for it... The reality is this, if you buy a timecard, you buy it from an official EVE reseller or CCP itself. Therefore, the money goes directly to CCP. Goldfarmers in other MMO are selling money for real life money which is not the case in EVE.
You want to compete on a fair level?
So let's see, if I sell a timecard, I make about 350 million ISK. If I do trades, I do about 1 to 2 billion isk within 1 week. If I sell a timecard, I help someone that wants to play EVE but that might not have 15$ per month... The money still goes to CCP.
So what's the big issue here? I can still buy a carrier by doing trades or by selling timecards... only difference is one will come out of my own pocket and the other will simply take a few more days. You don'tneed to be rich to compete, you just need to be smart.
Here's a different perspective :)
While not stating any numbers, I make alot of money and paying 15$ is not a big deal. A few months ago, I had 2 corp mates that simply didn't have the cash to pay for an extra month. So I made them a deal that could benefit both them and I. I got them a 3 month timecard for half the market price. So I made about 300M Isk or so per tiemcard. It only took them 1 week to make that amount of isk and none of them are traders.
To counter, it's easy to make isk in EVE if you're at least somewhat creative. If you feel you need to work for hours a day before you can enjoy a game, sure you can run missions and rat. However, I spend maybe 30 minutes every day or two to fund everything I need. At 10 months playing I can buy my own carrier + skills if I wanted to. There's even research alts that passively make you isk. Since money is just switching between players, the economy is not effected.
The difference between someone getting isk for their money and me getting isk for datacores I passively gain from my research alts is minimal, at best. All I see it as is another option instead of killing the same boring mobs for hours a day.
The first sci-fi TV show/movie that I liked was Firefly. Until then, I was busy reading fantasy novels, I guess! ;)
I've been playing for about 4 1/2 months :) And I agree, you CAN start fleet battles on DAY ONE, even!
they need more
i would like to see npc wars, and other events or mini games etc to give you more to do then just fly around or fight rats. yeah you got pvp but you have down sides to it and then hours of grind to recover from the faction penalities, or gate campping in 0.0 space
look at what you do when playing the game later on
fun? not really
other things they can do is new skills, new ship mods and, new ship models, new weapons (a new damage type might do alot to further this end)
I HATE EVE. I've been playing for over 14 months with my main char and have a second of 5 months and i cant stop playing. Even my GF has 2 chars and the most technical game she played before EVE was Crash Banicoot. Now we argue every day as to who's turn it is on the comp. Not only dos this game cost me 4 monthly payments but now is going to cost me the price of a second comp.
On a more serious note what makes EVE for me more than the game play is the comunity, I love how u can chat to everyone in local space and have chat channels to talk to ur friends even if they are at the other side of EVE. Also the fact that EVE is on one server so u have the chance to meet everbody that is online playing the game not just the people on ur server. I'm a noob to the life of MMO's so I'm sure some one will say "Oh u can do all that on this game or that game" So far I've played Guild Wars, WOW and EVE. And in my opinion EVE wins hands down.
Nice review, hope to POD u soon lol
The idea which PvP yield better rewards is about as presponderous to me as the concept of raiding in EQ.
It also explain why I would NEVER even try a trial of such a lousy game.
If you need to give more rewards to players for them to PvP, then your core design is flawed beyond repair.
Hm, maybe I conveyed it wrong; it's risk vs reward, not reward for PVP. I am sure there are players who make a lot of ISK for PVP, but there are also many who PVE to support their PVP habbits.
PVP is a METHOD of high reward for pirates and corps, but a lot of ISK comes from PVE. What I meant by risk vs reward was that your PVE rewards are much higher in 0.0 space, where there's a chance of getting jumped by pirates or another corp.
This review was brought up on the general forums of EVE (http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=704282), I'll just re-post here what I posted in that thread:
*** All in all a very good summary of this game, some things are inaccurated but the majority is a good view from a fairly new players perspective, I'm sure.
Something for CCP to take note of tho, is when she describes the community:
During my first 14 days of gameplay I was lucky enough to find a group of people committed to helping newbies. I had, in an ignorant sort of way, assumed this was the norm for the EVE community…boy was I wrong.
This is something we often see on these forums too. "Man I was just scammed!", "Evil pirates make low-sec impossible to play", "suicide ganking cry cry". The devs have posted multiple times on these forums that EVE is a 'dark' environment, that it's bit of an anarchy. For experienced EVE players this is nothing new, but obviously this isn't clear for those that start this game, and might in fact give it poor reputation.
It seems to me that CCP might consider making it more clear to players that this game is what you make it to. It's not very 'friendly', but that doesn't make the community 'unfriendly'. ***
And just to add in here on MMORPG, as an old time mmo-gamer and member; it shouldn't be listed as a con that you're likely to be scammed or shot down etc. That's one of the pros in EVE. In how many games do you have the option to go about and live as a pirate, that dedicate their life to steal and plunder, and still get away with it? And in how many games can you go on to be anti-pirate? This game give alot of options that other games doesn't.
EVE gives alot of options when it comes to economy and diplomacy, even players not directly involved in the big matters are still always affected by what other players do. To the pros and cons list, it should be noted on the +list that EVE actually let's you do whatever you want.
I Would like to expand on that post.
A common misconception is, that the one who just killed you dislikes you or just is someone who likes to grief newbies.
Truth is, if you are in an area where you should not be (in 0.0 space without an alliance for example), the inhabitants will remove you from there. That has nothing to do with hostility towards you personally, but because they want the territory free of potential dangers.
If you get killed in lowsec, then it's mostly because either the killer is a pirate and lives from the loot, or the player belongs to a group who need to secure somehing and shoot at anyone suspicious.
But getting shot is not a personal attack against you as a player. I have killed countless newbies in their frigates, destroyers and cruisers, because they were in my systems. Some convoed me and asked why i killed them, so i told them. And more importantly: what they did wrong. This is common practice amongst many greater alliances, some even give you enough money to buy a new ship. (Btw. i do that with the ones not insulting me of course..hatemail is just a piece of entertainment and will never be taken seriously)
Understanding the point of view of your oponents is important in Eve. If you just call your enemy a brainless griefer who needs to push his ego, instead of understanding what got him to shoot you in the first place (there is always a reason why someone opens fire. Nobody takes the risk and shoots at random people!), you are denying yourself a great part of eve.
So, if you want to rate Eves community, you should realize that people can shoot each other and still chat about how great the fight was afterwards. We do that with Tri a lot..
I'd rate the community with a 6. CAOD has been mentioned earlier in this thread, the latest goon vs. bob smacktalk-escapade and the fact, that metagaming is strong amongst most alliances (our ts has been ddos'd how many times again?) really destroy a great part of the fun. Stealing real life pictures out ot private forums to make insulting forum signatures out of them and many similar things have happened in the past and are happening. It's just not funny anymore.
On the opposite, you have great things like Eve University, or the Eve Cementary (where the corpses of fallen warriors are buried), or the Eve Fanfest. The way the Devs interact with the community is nearly perfect, the tools generated by players are numerous (Evemon, EFT, the eve-dev killboards, EveTube, Eve-Files etc.), the videos created very professional and interesting. The roleplaying is great (CVA vs. UK), the community in most alliances and corps very helpful (free ships for newbies anyone?).
Overall, the community is great, but the smacktalkers and griefers stand out much more, and ruin large parts of alliance warfare. You can not start a single thread on CAOD without getting flamed, no matter what the topic is.
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I think my start date for EVE is May 2005, but that's not a reflection of my actual time played. I've stopped and started again several times. Between us, my husband and I have four accounts. It's been a love/hate relationship from day one. As so many have said, EVE is not for the faint of heart, it's a brutal environment out there and only the strong will survive and thrive. Whether you PvEor PvP, there's no way to get ahead without risk and that's generally a plus for us. While not actively engaged in PvP for it's own sake, we have lived in 0.0 on several occasions and are not adverse to defending our home when necessary. My husband is a miner and a builder. I prefer to shoot things but will mine when necessary (until my head banging and tooth gnashing gets on his nerves and he calls a halt.) For me, one downside of EVE is the HUGE risk you take financially every time you undock. There is no experience penalty when you die but then again, you don't rez at a safe spot afterwards, either, with all of your gear still on and basically intact. If you're lucky, you find yourself hurtling through space in your pod. If you're not lucky, you wake up in your clone at a distant station somewhere. Either way, you're going to take a huge hit in the ISK wallet. You can insure your ship for the value of the minerals, that's it. You can't get insurance for the value of the mods, which can be millions or hundreds of millions of ISK on a battleship. If you were podded on top of your ship destroyed, there's also the cost of those implants - again, that can be hundreds of millions of ISK down the tubes. Then there's the time you're going to have to spend to locate and purchase replacements. Could be simply a few hours - could take days searching the universe for the right mods and implants to refit, so it's more than a minor inconvenience. This is a big "minus" for me in enjoyment of EVE. Particularly given the lag factor when you jump into an area. If I die in a fair fight, I can live with it. If I jump in, lag, and wake up in a pod, I can't. That's not fun and I play games to have fun. Period.
Another thing that annoys me about EVE is related to the skill training. I don't mind the huge time investment involved, honestly. A little realism doesn't hurt and it keeps the power gamers from gaining too much of an advantage over those who have to work for a living. What I mind is the absurdity of not having a "skill queue" to line up training skills. Every minute counts so nobody wants skill training to end on one skill during an offline time, which means you may have to turn off the skill you were hoping to have finished tonight with six hours left and start a longer one before you go to bed OR you have to set your alarm and get up in the middle of the night to change skills. That's just dumb in my book.
But finally, the reason we don't play EVE anymore is that there is no place for our small corp to live. Despite what others have posted, "low sec" is nothing but gankers. They're not honest pirates nor people defending their homes. These people run from a fair fight and only take someone on if they're sure they can win. They spew obcenities and childish insults. The reward factor for living in .1 - .4 is also small. The rats don't pay well, the good rocks aren't found there. The missions are too dangerous because of the chance of being located by a pirate while engaged by 25 rats in a mission and wanked while you're basically defenseless. The rats ignore the invading pirate and he can just waltz in and pick you off. So there's really nothing you can do in low sec.
High sec, or safe space, is just plain boring after a certain point. Baby rats, little roids, ugh. And missions ... after you've done them all over and over and over again, even level 4 missions become dead boring. But to get back into 0.0 means giving up our corporation and merging into someone elses. We've tried it but mostly find it's not a good fit. High corporation taxes aren't a problem but corporation requirements for your online time can be. I only have so many hours a day to play and being told what I have to do during that time tends to turn me off. I have to deal with someone else telling me what to do all day at work, I'm not in the mood for logging on at night and having my CEO immediately start issuing orders for what I'm going to do during my "fun" time.
So, IMHO, what it comes down to in EVE is a choice of play styles. A lot of people are of the mentality that "it's an MMO you need to group!" That's fine, EVE is perfect for you then. You need to be part of a large group at all times if you want to move into the rewarding and challenging aspects of the game. I'm not a large group person at heart so, once again, I'm looking for something to play that is fun for me. That's not to say EVE isn't an awesome game. It is. If there were a place in 0.0 where my little corp could have been a part of things, we would probably have taken on the risk and moved. But there's not. It's owned by the mega alliances and they're not interested in taking in little corps, even if you can pay their fees.
Maybe in a few months we'll get bored again with whatever MMO we're playing and log back in to EVE. I know that if I do, my hanger will still be full of those rather awesome ships I've worked so hard to earn and I can just jump in one of them, grab a mission and go out and relearn how to fly. EVE is going to be around for a long time.