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($15/month is not cheap),but each time I have come back and now I am kinda addicted to Eve. PVE is fun and is a good way to get Isk. PVP,I don't have much experience with it but being member of TGrads,I know I will soon see plenty of PVP
Should have also mentioned that EVE is a developer sanctioned RMT game now where players can buy EVE time game cards and trade them in game for isk(coin) and items.
A lot of gamers such as myself don't approve of this possibility being sanctioned and offered directly by the game developers because we want to play and compete on a fair level playing field where players are supposed to earn everything thru expended effort in game, not by using real money to buy advantages.
Should have also mentioned that EVE is a developer sanctioned RMT game now where players can buy EVE time game cards and trade them in game for isk(coin) and items. A lot of gamers such as myself don't approve of this possibility being sanctioned and offered directly by the game developers because we want to play and compete on a fair level playing field where players are supposed to earn everything thru expended effort in game, not by using real money to buy advantages.
You might be against it or for it... The reality is this, if you buy a timecard, you buy it from an official EVE reseller or CCP itself. Therefore, the money goes directly to CCP. Goldfarmers in other MMO are selling money for real life money which is not the case in EVE.
You want to compete on a fair level?
So let's see, if I sell a timecard, I make about 350 million ISK. If I do trades, I do about 1 to 2 billion isk within 1 week. If I sell a timecard, I help someone that wants to play EVE but that might not have 15$ 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.
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?!?!?
The first sci-fi TV show/movie that I liked was Firefly. Until then, I was busy reading fantasy novels, I guess!
Laura "Taera" Genender Community Manager MMORPG.com
{ 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.
No effence but this is why we need seasoned veteran's writing the reveiw's. What you just said right there is completly false and is why alotof people get turned away from EVE because of these MMO site's that dont play past 2 week's. A new pilot can get into 0.0 pvp fleet battle's within 3 week's. This is why EVE is so great because you dont need to spend 6 mounth's-a year before the fun starts. Im sorry but please dont say thing's that are untrue.
(I am going by my own experiences in the game over a 7 mounth period)
I've been playing for about 4 1/2 months And I agree, you CAN start fleet battles on DAY ONE, even!
Laura "Taera" Genender Community Manager MMORPG.com
{ 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.
i agree the game at start and the game 6 months down the road is why i believe the eve pop is still small and mostly sleepers
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.
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.
Laura "Taera" Genender Community Manager MMORPG.com
*** 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.
Originally posted by Mymh 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.
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.
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.
Comments
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!
Laura "Taera" Genender
Community Manager
MMORPG.com
(I am going by my own experiences in the game over a 7 mounth period)
I've been playing for about 4 1/2 months
And I agree, you CAN start fleet battles on DAY ONE, even!
Laura "Taera" Genender
Community Manager
MMORPG.com
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.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
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.
Laura "Taera" Genender
Community Manager
MMORPG.com
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.
,
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.