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EVE Online: Our Exclusive Review
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Our own Reed Hubbard (Koltrane) has spent many consecutive weeks living inside the virtual world of "EVE Online" - the award winning sci-fi/space MMORPG by CCP Games. Well, he is back now and ready to share his opinions of the game with our community! Here is a snippet from his review:
| EVE is a space game with a thriving economy, but it could be easily argued that EVE is an intricate economic simulation with a fancy, outer space interface. The economy of EVE is both the most complex and most rewarding feature of EVE. Ore, minerals, goods, items, ships, skills...everything in EVE is for sale and the mantra of, "buy low, sell high" applies. The economy is driven by players in pursuit of Interstellar Kredits, or ISK. (Note: ISK is also the international currency symbol for the Krona, the primary currency of Iceland. CCP, the developer of EVE is based in Reykjavik, Iceland.) NPC corporations manufacture ships, but they need minerals to do so, and those minerals are supplied by players. If no one is mining ore, then no minerals are refined which means no items are being manufactured which means no ships are being assembled. Money can be made providing myriad services in this economy. Mining ore brings a price, as does transporting minerals, etc. |
To read the full review simply click here. If you are interested in taking EVE for a spin, you also might want to check out our 14 Day Trial offer.
- MMORPG.COM Staff -
The dead know only one thing: it is better to be alive.
Comments
On another note, after 14 months of playtime I state my reasons of why I have left EVE.
All those months I have tried almost all of the well-known and established mmorpg games in the market and after detailed thought I found that not even 1 mmorpg is near flawless or perfect. Every mmorpg has some serious gaps and problems to fight for. Some of those games try to focus in those gaps some other bypasses them and try to support and shape their other strengths.
But eventually I think the mmorpg scene has reached its own zenith and its proven that after ascension comes the descent. The mmorpg genre while still maintains to be popular and lucrative it seems that started to fall in decay. All those games that are released or prior to be released featuring and introduces various of different gameplay aspects and mechanics but not even one so far managed to solve all the problems that infest this genre...
Bellow is my (I think) objective analysis of what I feel is wrong with EVE or at least what I didnt like.
1. (General comment) CRUCIAL=EVE is a great game but it lacks of content and goals within the game. The story fluff isnt helping much since they are no major or regular world events.
The EVE team has emphasize the load of work for fixing bugs and balance issues instead of adding new content (POS) or implement and finalize features like Factories (Reverse Engineering, *cough* planets promised since beta but never seen the light of day).
2. (Gameplay) It can become very boring and depressing to travel to system after system doing completely nothing seeing nothing different and bypassing a whole solar system without any interest to it.
2b. (Explore) The absence of experience or of a sort of experience system, makes many things including exploring completely futile.
Not to mention there is nothing to explore most of the time. In fact Ive noticed one the greatest sites, the last waypoint to Eve Gate has completely refaced thus -to fit the overall new mood of the game- the pirate bases and asteroids are removed.
One other thing with those sites is that most of them (at least those that are noted in the map and are within Empire space borders) may be nice to look but offer nothing special to the voyager.
3. I was tired from constant endless mining (which is very boring I must add) and useless npc fighting. Missions are very generic and indifferent.
4. The gameplay is very much PvP oriented. While I like PvP and I think the PvP system that EVE and Anarchy Online utilizes are the best so far, in EVE there is unquestionably a HUGH GAP between PKs and carebears. Whoever goes with the non fighting approach of things he is going to suffer a great loss of time and features, constraining himself into safe boundaries and 2 avocations: mining and trading. Both boring, slow profiting and uninteresting.
4b. (Harshness and Punishment) Venturing into non Empire - deep space is not only difficult from a money perspective but its also very dangerous. Even if you managed to own a Battleship its almost certain that you will die pretty soon down there. And you know what? BattleShips are VERY expensive for the casual gamer or even for the hardcore gamer (plus the money for Insurance, Clone and Implants or the loss of rare items +the time to obtain a BS).
While a hardcore gamer will be a high lvl character after 3-6 months of gametime in other mmorpg, in EVE he/she can lose everything in a moment Veeery frustrating...
5. (Unrealizable rate of progress) The slow pace of the game is followed by the VERY SLOW skill progress. It is counterfactual to wait 30-40 real days time for a skill to finish! And ---forgive my words--- if you have done this to keep the player subscriptions active its sadistic and fascist.
5b. (Jack of all trades) while with the skill system you can virtually be whoever class you want and theres no restrictions or penalties to undergo, sometimes you lose your place with this short of to personalization and soon you will discover you are forced to be a jack of all trades.
5c. (What module item should I use?) You may be a jack of all trades but even if owning a BS you will never have enough slots to fit modules. While all other mmorpg haves those hotkey quick action bars in EVE you have High, Medium and Low slots. I understand that isnt very realistic to cast fireballs from a frigate spaceship and this isnt what I meant, but the slots are very limited (8?). I believe there should be more slots categories like High Weapons, High Energy etc..
6. (Ship Demands) Even with Engineering /Electronics skills to lvl5 (or use of energy modules that cause the above problem) it seems that your ship never have the required power to load and fit your desired combination of modules. And its a shame to have such penalties from modules like Micro Warp Drives and Cloaking Generators when they could have been used in such a strategic way (which the game fighting system doesnt endorse).
7. (Corporations and teaming) while in many other mmorpgs, teaming isnt so vital for advancement in the game, in EVE its a luxurious necessity!
You will be virtually doomed if you decide to play EVE by yourself. If you want to make profit, fight, own big ships and good equipment or to travel to deep space you will certainly need to be member of a strong, big and organized corporation.
8. (Usual rant about..) Since beta the camping at waypoints harasses and instabookmark exploit hasnt changed. Oh and I am still waiting for that new interface (like that in the box) that never introduced and better /faster -more accurate drone control and drone effectiveness.
That's an extremely good critique methyl. I've only been there about 3 months, but I'm finding essentially all of your criticisms getting to me already, even though things can still be fun. I'm getting to the point where most skills I need now take several days to train, and, of course, it gets far worse. Don't really know how long I can tolerate that - particularly given the fact that's there's little to do in the interim but mine or repeat missions which become little challenge after a while. Yes, there's PvP ... not a big PvPer myself, and then you've pointed out the problems there. And having the challenging parts of the universe essentially cut off from everyone but the big corporations that control them seems rather pointless. War games can be great, but I've never understood a war game with a war that never ends and no one can ever win, e.g., DAOC.
It could be better. E&B was better in some areas and Eve is better in some areas. They could start by looking at the areas where E&B had the better approach. For one thing, maybe it's just me, but I really liked being to get off the dang ship sometimes and walk around ... even if E&B never provided enough of that. And E&B gave you actual interesting mobs to fight ... you could fly into many spots and get different challenges, etc., rather than just the same type NPCs all the time.
Frist I want to congratulate n-methyl for playing for 14 months. With that said, I do not agree with most of the points he makes. I have been playing for about 8-months and after playing other MMOG´s I am convinced that EVE is the best mmog for many reasons, whith that said here are my comments.
1. I have yet to discover lack of content and I am continusaly finding new things to do, but after you play for a few months you will discover that it is heavily depenent upon yourself and your imagination. I am in a corp that is very ambitious and it is preparing to enter deep space using the player owned structures in Shiva - very cool stuff.
2. I travelled a lot in the beginning and long travels do take much time as the Eve universe is much larger than any other game universe I know off at least. And do agree that it is not fun to spend much time travelling specially since there is nothing to do while you travel. This will thankfully change in the next release as you will have access to the market while flying so your travels will become a great tool for trading.
2b. One of my responsibilities in my corp is exploration and I am always looking for good mining and trading spots, and I have made much profit for my corp. As I also instamark all routes so when the fleet is travelling we travel fast to all places we want to go. So exploration is deffinitly a must.
3. Personally I don´t mine that much as I have specialized in trading, but when we strip mine for new BS´s for new members and the occasioinal loss, it is hard work that requires attention. Specaially when you mine in a dangerous spots. So for us it is very exciting venture. Missions have changed a lot recently and the new group missions in Shiva sound like a good thing.
4. If you don´t like PVP, then don´t play EVE. That is my advice. Get in a good corp that will help you if you loose your ship and PVP will become great fun. You don´t have to fly a BS to do well in a combat. It is more depended upon corp coordination and planning.
4b. Insure your ship and buy a clone and don´t plug in your high prices named modules when you are not in strong group. That way your loss is minimal. But the fact you do loose if you get shot down is what makes it exciting! If the loss was minimal then we would have constant fighting, and exploits of the insurance system. Also be in a corp that will help you out if you loose your ship. At least that is the way of my corp, and we have a blast.
5 and 5b. The leangthy training time of the high level skills is what actually forces players to become specilized so the statement that you can be a jack of all trades is absolutly false if you are planning to become good at something. Which is why I have 2 characters, one for combat and one for mining and production. No way I could be good at both with one char.
5c. Now this is just a foolish statement. This is one of the great features and allows you to counter the bigger ships with a better setup. If a player could fit just about everything then the experienced players would just dominate the game. I have shot down a BS´s with 2 other frigate friends, because we where smartly fitted.
6. Again, you have to be smart in fitting your ship and the last thing we want is super powerful ships that no one could take down.
7. Totally agree, and corps are great as you will make very good friends there.
In conclusion I would like to say that if you are looking for one of the most challenging MMOG where you will be up against some of the best players around, then EVE is something for you. But be aware, you need a brain and u have to use it. If you need things to be handfeed to you then look somewhere else.
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />I wont comment on your thoughts mango2 because my post was not meant to start an argument or a conversation of what sucks or what its good at EVE, its just a post that explains my own reasons of why I quit EVE. And I think some players may found it helpful.
You have the right to counter those statements and to express your thoughts (like Reed Hubbard did). I will only say that I found them all workarounds.
Oh and good luck when you will browse in-flight the market at Jk-Fix or while <<exploring>> the asteroid belts for Crokite..
I've said it before and I'll say it again - EVE is MMORPG without the training wheels and handholding. It is a subtle game with little treasures of game play and storyline waiting for a player to discover them. Some of those discoveries come from moments of 'Ah, so that's why that works like that!' rather than being directly related to some moment of game play. And, just like learning the game initially, these discoveries take time and patience. The game is very open-ended and, IMHO, that's where complaints of 'I'm bored and don't know what to do' come from when a player says they've played for 4 months or 2 months or 10 days or 3 hours.
The actual physical activity of EVE (mining, trade running, hunting, building, PvP, agent running, etc.) can get old quick and the distances to travel, while realistic, can pall (I've gone through far more books since starting this game than I used to) but these things are true of any game. If you do them long enough they got dull. Fortunately with EVE there are a lot of things to do and if you give it some thought, set a few goals for yourself, you'll always have something to do to keep your interest going, even if the physical activity gets dull.
The be all and end all is not to get the biggest ship the fastest. You can fly a BS in a month if you have the ship skills and the ISK but that's no guarantee it won't be shot out from under you by some savvy cruiser or even frigate pilot if they know their stuff. The ability to do a thing does not guarantee you are invicible. That's where smart skill planning and playing with ship mods comes in.
You have the opportunity to build a character in whatever direction, with whatever focus you prefer. Becoming a jack of all trades means being mediocre at a lot of tasks and not real good at any so thought and care are important. And in a world of fast food, fast gamining, fast everything, having to career path, goal set and think about your choices can seem daunting.
There are flaws with this game - more CCP-created in-game story content would be wonderful, although they're slowly improving that; more unmarked, interesting portions of space that allow you to garner some sort of reward or gain from exploration, whether it's mods, ISK or skills; more 0.0 regions uncontrolled by alliances would be great (I'm hoping that when they open Jove space they'll have 0.0 space that cannot be alliance controlled and open to smaller corps, freelancers, etc.); and, a personal bugaboo, unnerf projectiles!
With this game, you have to be the motivating factor and that's just fine with me.
Methyl, I just couldn´t help myself answering your post as I totally don´t agree with them, and in my experience draw an incorrect picture of EVE. As the last post says, it is a open-ended game so it depends on the player to use it´s imagination - a rarerity in games today, where you are more or less lead down a predetermined path. So I am not arguing with you, just don´t agree.
Don´t think I will be browsing the market JK any time soon
imo EVE overall has potential in the mmo(rts) type genre, but still is along way off from sorting some more glareing problems, maybe shiva expansion will sort most of this, who knows.
But atm i don't like EVE much, i don't like waiting months to "lvl" up, i don't like spending hours on end traveling the trippy-but-ulitmatly-boring warp tunnel thing with nothing to look at, sure i might spot a few cool looking ships along the way and a cool looking planet or somin but ultimatly the all look the same after a while, and wtf is the deal with all the planets/suns being the same size?
to me it seems while the gfx might all polished and shiny and award winning it lacks physical content. just my humble opinion, rts fans will love it, sadly not for me.
1. I have no idea from what you wrote what game you were playing but it sure as hell isnt EVE.
2. If you were playing EVE you did just about everything wrong or were very uninformed.
3. Just about everything you said isnt true.
That about covers it thanks