EVE Online

Oh. A note. Shocking. Well, bit bored tbh, need something to occupy my time, so thought I’d warble on about my experiences so far in EVE Online.

I’ve always had a niggling voice in my head, telling me to try EVE out, but it wasn’t till I re-watched Firefly with Kara a month or so ago that I finally caved, and dragged Rob down with me. The original plan was to wait until the Christmas holidays, and try out the 14 day free trial then. However, we caved in and started a few weeks ago. Here are my thoughts so far:

The Good

• It’s very pretty. Even more so with the new Trinity graphics engine. The ships and stations are incredibly detailed, and the backdrops are sumptuous.
• It’s incredibly complex and deep, especially compared to WoW. This could be seen as a negative point, but if anything it just shows how simple WoW really is. In WoW, there was very much a ‘best’ set of gear and a ‘best’ spec for any given class. There’s nothing like that in EVE. One can literally do anything. Take out contracts, run mining cartels, engage in wars with enemy corporations. There’s so much to do. And that’s not even touching on the market (CCP have hired an economist to monitor the market and compile quarterly reports on it).
• When it works, it’s really fun. Rob and I tried a Complex (lit. a dungeon) the other night. It was hard, but enjoyable and really got the pulse racing.

The Bad

• Lack of mission variety. This could be said about any MMO, but it’s especially evident in EVE. WoW has maybe 10 mission templates (Kill X of Y, Bring A of B to C, etc), but they’re so varied in their enemies and locations that you don’t really notice. EVE, likewise, has 10 regular mission types. But they don’t make aims to hide it. Literally, you will be given a mission, complete it and there’s a chance you’ll get the exact same mission again. Also, space is well, pretty empty. The locations you do the missions in aren’t overly varied, and nor are the enemies.
• Looting is a pain in the arse. Often, you’re looking at distances of 5-10km between you and your target, and once they’re dead you have to be 1.5km away to loot the wreck. When you’ve just completed a mission that involved killing 50 enemies, looting the remains can be so incredibly annoying and tedious. Tractor beams alleviate this, yes, but they’re expensive.
• It’s far too harsh, even on simple mistakes. Rob took out a contract that it turned out he was unable to complete. He lost 10,000,000 ISK (the in game currency) in collateral. I accidentally hit Rob with a Smart bomb (a PBAoE weapon, deals damage to everyone within 2km of my ship) whilst we were doing a mission in High Security space. CONCORD (the ’space police’) perceived this as a hostile act, and instantly warped in and destroyed my ship. So that cost me 10,000,000 ISK in insurance and new fittings. Because I’d dealt a piddly amount of damage to one of my group members!
• Twats. Low Security space in EVE is full of gankers. Except, unlike WoW, ganking in EVE is encouraged, and it costs the victim a lot LOT more. Today, Rob and I were doing some mining in a zone with a Security Rating of 0.4 (CONCORD don’t patrol in zones with a Sec Rating of less than 0.5). He’d docked into a station to drop the loot, and I was milling about in the asteroid belt. Until, low and behold, a pirate warps in, traps me and ganks me. And then pod kills me too. Another 10,000,000 ISK down the drain. Woo, and indeed, hoo.
• Following on from the above, there’s not really much to do in High Sec space. You can mission run (gets boring), you can do contracts (most are scams or un-doable by people who don’t have freighters) or you can mine (the ore in High Sec space tends to be of lower quality). But you really don’t want to go to Low Sec till you have a properly pimped out ship. So what do you do? Who knows, I’ve yet to figure it out.

This may, on the whole, sound incredibly negative. But tbh, I think most of my vitriol is directed at losing 20 million ISK in the last 48 hours. I’ll still carry on playing, because when it’s good, it’s really good. And pretty.

~ by Seniath on February 8, 2008.