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EVE Online Beta Reviews
LevJohnson writes "KCGeek gives a gushing review of EVE Online, the new MMORPG space opera for PC by CCP Games, with screenshots from the beta. From the review: 'It's like Trade Wars 2002, had it been designed in 2002.'" Now the NDA is lifted ahead of its release next month (press release), there are some great guides and handy previews to this intriguing title.
I've been on the "beta test" for a month and a half, and i've yet to actually play the game. Why? Because the patching system is buggy. And it's not just me - there are hundreds of long, tired threads on the beta boards with people having the same types of patching problems.
And absolutely no developer commentary or feedback.
Good luck.
Admittedly, I've only been beta testing for about 6 weeks, but my play experience definitely fell into the "What the heck do I do now?" category. Maybe playing too many other MMOGs has left me unimaginative and in need of heavy-handed guidance, or maybe the gameplay is a little too undirected. I spent a lot of hours when I started just searching for ideas on what to do next. The responses I got on the beta board (ignoring the ever-present and highly helpful "YOu r DuMB! EVE r0x!" posts) generally boiled down to "Whatever you want!" Okay... but give me some idea of a goal or a point to my existence.
Anyway... the graphics are really as impressive as everyone says. And the character generation feature is a lot of fun to play with. (I just wish your carefully constructed face is used in more detail or in 3D elsewhere in the game... if it is, I've never seen anything beyond the approx. 200x200 snapshot used in chat.)
I keep hearing about how innovating EVE is... could someone list some specific points of originality for me? I seem to have missed them. The preview/review(?) above doesn't seem to introduce any except the sheer expanse of the universe. Yes, it is large, but how is that enhancing my gaming experience?
A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking nonsense not to himself.
that game looks sweet. those screenshots are just simply amazing.
MORTAR COMBAT!
I've only tried playing Eve about 3 times, the first time I destroyed a drone in the tutorial instead of just disabling it so it threw an error and crashed. The next time I think it crashed in the market someplace and the time after that I was just exiting a space station when it notified me of a hostile target so naturally I tried targetting them and before I knew it another set of errors, which somehow led to my ship being impounded and me being arrested.
Prior to this the actual gameplay post tutorial did leave me a little dumbfounded as to what to do, it said something about seeing someone for some missions or going to mine on your own, but I got way too bored before I worked out how to do either.
Maybe for players willing to put in the time to learn what you need to do it might be a good game but for me it just looked pretty and had a nifty character creation process.
In the drops - An Aussie's musings on all things cycling
Look at the number of people accepted for the beta, look at the number of people playing it. Yes they did a wonderful job on the graphics but that is it. The game is a nicer looking version of Jumpgate, asteroid mining and all.
One thing that has been sorely missing from space multi-player games has been the option for several players to be the crew of a ship. In all the one's I've seen, once you leave the planet/station/whatever, it's everyone in their one-person space ship.
Now, I'm not in the beta for Eve, but from the previews it looks like Eve follows this trend and only has one-person ships. Can a beta tester confirm/correct this?
Now, don't get me wrong, it can be fun to fly around in formation and all. But the usual SF template for this sort of thing is a small group that's the crew of a ship (the Falcon, the Enterprise, Moya, etc).
Now, I guess that the reason for this is technical. Having one-man ships makes the coding similar to wandering around the landscape in a fantasy game, but with one more dimension. While multi-person ships would add a whole new level of interaction to be coded.
But I wish some company would break out and make multi-player ships. I've got four friends would would love to be sitting around the mess table while the ship cruises to Alpha Something III, when the proximity alert goes off and we all run to our battle stations and man the helm, the guns, the engines, the sensors.
I wanted to write about my experiences in EVE beta, but I found a review that pretty much sums up my feelings. Here that review is: FourBelowZero
Having seen all the ranting about how bad the game is, I thought I should tell how I've found it :P
It's amazing... sure during the beta there have been some bugs... *that's what a beta is for*! But despite the fact it throws up errors at me all the time, and parts of the game randomly die, it's still one of my favourite games, because it's what everyone has been waiting for since Elite.
Multiplay Elite.
In a huge universe (try turning on the full universe option in your map. Everyone of those dots is another system.) which feels like space... empty! But not in a way that you get bored.
Jon
After "playing" the beta for almost 5 months I'm hooked, however in that time I've seen so many other testers come and go. It's a really pity you can't "try before you buy" with MMORPGs, more so with EVE - you'll either fall in love with it or despise it with a passion.
Still, it's very pretty though.
I've been with Eve a fairly long time. I signed up for the beta in the middle of 2000, and received access in early 2001. I've seen it go from a very dull and drab interface with few working game features to a very nicely rounded game.
Admittedly, it does have plenty of bugs still. There should be many more fixed now than there are. However, it is a good system.
As some others have said, though, there is little to do in the game, as it stands. Currently, about the ONLY way to make money is to mine ore for like three weeks to be able to afford new equipment and ships. However, when the game goes live, an entire basic NPC economy will exist which will allow you to fufill more or less every role in the game by working with the NPCs. Of course, if you stick to working with just the NPCs, you'll have limited income since they're designed to help you get started. The real money comes from the players and their custom jobs they create for other players.
It's hard to see and grasp what that will be like now, since there's nothing there like it already. Personally, I hope it works out great. I left the community because of several bad interactions with CCP on a personal level. I attempted to get involved on a higher level, and was absolutely tossed out in the cold for it.
One thing to consider, however, is that this game benefits the hardcore gamer MUCH more than other MMO games ever will. That's not to say that new or slower players will be left out, because it's impossible. However, advanced players will wield considerably much more power than others, on the order of something like a fleet vs a single freighter.
Again, that doesn't mean that lower players will be left out. More advanced players will be able to do so many more things, but if you break down the economy, it's still the little guy at the bottom who can do all of the actual work for the big guy. That's what makes this game so unbelievably advanced for it's economy. It mirrors a real life economic system fantastically. The diversity will hopefully keep Eve going a long time.
Slashdot doesn't seem to like my login. This is Keiran Halcyon posting.
I got into Beta 7, and despite the eye candy, there was nothing much to do in the game besides mine rocks. The skill system was strange as well, basically you "activate" a skill you want to learn in your character sheet, and it counts down the time until you sucessfully "learn" it. The thing is, you don't have to be actively playing the character to learn a skill, you can "activate" a skill that will take 4 days (real time) to learn, go on a vacation, come back and you are a master miner (or whatever).
While I've been waiting eagerly for a space-centric MMORPG, I'll continue to wait.
I've been beta testing for about a month now, and I just wanted to add my two cents. When I first started, I had the same reaction as many of the others: "What the heck do I do now?". They teach you extremelly basic mining, refining, and combat, and that's it. At that point you are expected to figure out how everything works and what the next step is. That said, once my head stopped spinning I actually just decided to dive into mining and started to piece things together from there. Once you learn a few systems, the rest work in a similar fashion, so it's just a matter of experimenting and building on past experience. I will also say that I am a member of a corporation, which helps tremendously. If one person experiments with something, they can share their knowledge with the rest of the group (our beta testers forum is quite large, containing many hints and tips on what to do and not to do). You will probably read in many places that this game is a mining sim. I would have to agree to some extent. You will spend much of your time mining, but if you join a corporation you can specialize. I actual am playing the role of a scientist, so I will mine for much of the time, but there was also a period of about 2 days where I didn't leave the station I was in, I just kept changing what I was researching. As far as the buggy patching system, yes I too have had that problem several times in the past. All you have to do is keep your installation software handy, and if that happens start over from scratch. Your characters are all kept on the server, so you won't have to spend much time backtracking. I do agree that the problem shouldn't even exist, but I haven't had that problem for several weeks now, so I'm satisfied. All in all, I would say I am tremendously pleased with their progress. I have my copy pre-ordered. I do think they should delay for a couple of weeks, but they seem to be able to do some great things in a short amount of time, so they may get the game set to go in that time.
I was accepted for the beta a few weeks ago. I spent a night tinkering around with it. I would have to say that I echo many of the sentiments of the people posting here. There was a lot of "What now?" in my experience. I think my big problems with that had to do with the interface.
1.) Anyone else think that a RTS-style "double-click to go there" is really HARD in 3D?
2.) It also seemed to me that I was always juggling windows. I know Shadowbane uses floaty windows as well, but it feels like they did more work on avoiding clutter than EVE. Did it seem like they designed this game on 21"+ monitors to anyone else?
2b.) Speaking of big monitors...it seems like to go anywhere, you had to double click on the little dot floating out somewhere in space. Since these things seemed to cluster together, all I could see was a cluster of little dots off in the distance, with microscopic text describing what it is.
3.) 3D Radar? Could it be harder to get your orientation by having to move the CAMERA to rotate the radar?
I felt that the interface was determined by programmers and artists, and that few people that had ANY experience with interface design spent much time with it.
After trying to settle on what to do next, I wanted to go mine some asteroids, but as I had NO clue how to find them, I just gave up.
I've been in the beta for about two weeks now. I was hoping for an experience along the lines of the early days of EverQuest, when it was more about exploring and experience than the acquisition of phat plat. What I got was a very pretty game with very little to actually do.
The UI for character creation is fun enough, though I suppose one could dismiss it as a virtual version of that old Barbie head my cousin used to abuse. After picking your race and bloodline, you alter the look of your character by tilting the head to and fro, changing the eyes, applying a beard, placing a scar and so on. It's a neat use of the 3d engine, but really all you're doing is making a static avatar for in-game chat and to appear stamp-like in the upper-right corner of your HUD.
The game itself is admittedly gorgeous. At times, it is like playing in one of those Astronomy Pictures-of-the-Day. But you know, that can get quite tedious, feeling more like a Photoshop image with too much lens flare. The ships are unique, not drawing too much from existing and standard sources like Star Wars or Star Trek and so on. The stations and jumpgates all are built to the standards set by the creating race, from rusty i-beam industrial for one to shining gold and glass for another. Out from the stations are the asteroid belts, huge hanging semi-circles of boulderous rock, around which lurk the occasional pirate.
And that's about it. You have two choices of action. You fight pirates or you mine asteroids. Fighting pirates is far too risky at first, so you spend a lot of time mining asteroids. So much time that many on the boards of the beta suggest having a book handy to occupy your mining time.
The comradery in the beta has been good and I've had a couple of good nights out in the higher yield mines with fine folks from Toronto and Europe, still awake at 4am their time when I'm just getting started at 10pm EST. But really, it all comes down to the acquisition of more cash to get a better ship to use to then get more cash.
And I won't go into the massive bugs that still exist this late into the beta, many that result in a sudden crash to the desktop and others that have managed to lay waste to a few users' harddrives (but not mine.)
All in all, I think I prefer old Norrath to the new coldness of space.
"Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you mad."
-- Aldous Huxley
I am in the beta, but admittedly have not spent much time on it. The thing about the game that struck me instantly was this: What is different in this game from Earth&Beyond (which I also beta tested)? To me it seems like a pretty (a very very pretty one granted) remake. Stunning visually, but it is all the same, watch your ship zip through space to mine some rocks. Maybe it is better than that, but htey need something in the game to show you what makes it special or it will not go off any better than Earth & Beyond did.
Waterthread also had a review and some comments on Eve on their forums. Overall, they were not great. Eve looks great graphically but suffers from both gameplay issues (it's boring and the death penalty is huge) and stability issues. Basically it's another MMOG that was pushed out the door early. So sad. Why can't someone plan and execute a decent MMOG?
This is more a testament to the way we have been TRAINED to play games than to the game itself. What do you do if I sit you in a sandbox? what do you do if I hand you a blank sheet of paper and some crayons? Do you wonder where the picture and lines are?
I have found EVE to be the most liberating game I have ever played. I can do WHATEVER I WANT. I can change my stats, there are no CLASSES. I can go shoot bad guys, I can shoot good guys, I can rob people, I can hunt don those who rob others. This is the tip of the iceberg. OK another thing to remember is we are all in beta. supposedly alot of content is not in there.
My Disclaimer: I may sound like a fanboy, if anything I am a (45 year old) fanboy of gaming in general. I went into the beta dead set on disliking eve from reading posts that dissed it everywhere.
Speaking as a former beta tester. EVE is great for about a week, but unless you really get involved with other players and if you expect 24/7 action, you will get real bored.
If you are into that, EVE can be great fun, but me, I would rather go with something like Planetside where there is constant action.
Nothing against EVE, it just isnt my cup o tea.
I've had some issues with the patch system as well. But Gemini's download page contains all I need. Hopefully, the patch device will work correctly at release.
The only real beef I have with this game is the steep learning curve on the user interface.
To know is to have knowledge....to understand is to be enlightened.
MS Allegiance had this feature and it rocked. But the Zone no longer supports it.
The graphics are beautiful, I like the market system, but it's just not fun.
Unless the producers hold many game events, this title will fail. Quickly.
I'm not a beta tester but still i've been following Eve's development for years now and must say that I'm very excited about this game. Fourteen years ago I played "Elite" on my brothers sturdy 8086 and ever since I've craved for a modern multiplayer version of that game. I'm hoping that Eve will satisfy my hunger!....
After the NDA dropped, the internet is absolutely flooded with information regarding Eve.
Without going into too much detail on my findings, I will say that people seem to be compeletly divided when it comes to their opinion on Eve. Either they love it or absolutely despise it.
I find it amusing how many beta testers dismiss Eve on the fact that it is "buggy"(what's beta testing about anyway?). All QA people out there know that stability of builds can vary immensely.
If you bother to read the latest patch fixes (like I do) you'll see that many of the bugs stated above have already been fixed!.
I'm also thrilled with Eve's combat system(at least what I've read about it). Finally a combat system that relies more on strategy than the speed of your neural reactions like too many first person shooter games currently cramming the market.
Ernir
Yep, I've been waiting for multiplayer Elite. How well does this game handle PvP combat? Is it real-time flying and shooting like Elite, or is it a case of pressing buttons to select the next attack move, like MMORPG Dark Age of Camelot?
I've briefly looked into developing an Elite-style MMOG, and one crucial area that had me stumped was how to handle dogfights in a scalable way. It's all fine until a hundred people gather at the same location and start trying to shoot each other. I've a feeling there's a solution involving clients talking directly to each other rather than through one of the servers, giving an attacker a more rapid update of their victim and vice versa. However, direct comms between clients, unchecked and unfiltered by the server, is potentially open to all kinds of abuse.. hmm.. time to dig out my notes again, I think!
As a beta tester don't you think you should read all about the game on the gemini site before you even log in?
I've been playing for a while and I see the same questions over and over and over again and the answers are in the faq on the page you clicked through to download the game. Stop whining about being a beta tester. Why did you apply?
I've been in the beta for a while, but I'm still can't quite get past this -
So you set up shop trading. What exactly do the people do with the stuff they buy from you? They either shoot something out in space, or mine something out in space?
It seems that the game still only has 2 ways to interact with the environment. On top of this is the promised free-roaming universe where players can do anything they want. This has boiled down to a universe where you're either (a) Mining (b) Killing something near space that's meant for mining or (c) facilitating better ways for players to do (a) or (b). I *could* also opt for (d) exploring, but nothing really differentiates one system from another except for color of the planets and stars, and the number of asteroid belts and stations.
Eve seems to have a lot of tools to let players gather into corporations, which is the mechanism to drive player driven interdependency and conflict. Cool. Nothing like a good ole fashioned syndicate war. The problem is that any mark that a corporation makes on the world is never fully protrayed within the game. There are no maps charting Corporation position and boundaries.
There's no lasting presence. Regardless if you're on on a station or in a ship miles away, communciation is still through this limiting chat client. It's hard to set up lasting relationships if it feels like the person you're talking to could be really anywhere.
Sure you can build stations, but they don't ALTER
the environment much; they're just pre-modeled giant hulks of metal that float out in another non-descript star system. No player driven style, no atmosphere.
Your character's presence within a station doesn't have any lasting context either. I don't really go into the offices of Corpation X to "Talk Turkey" about my cargo of medical supplies. Instead I dock and find the highest bidder within that station's market. This could be a player corp, might be an NPC corp, who knows? *shrug* I click "sell now" and that's it... That was my entire interaction with the corp. *wipes hands* Sure, that ore could help a player produce some new lasers... but I'll never know. As a miner, I never feel like I'm doing business with a *person*.
Off I go again into space
to mine or freight some more.
No poltical intrigue. No real adventures or subterfuge. Just me, a rock floating in space, some pirates, and a station interface that's a spreadsheet.
*yawn*
Now I *so* want Eve to be a great game. Of all MMOG out there, this one has the most potential in breaking that god-forsaken, turn-based-combat, leveling treadmill, no player-skill game design that's been beating a dead horse for YEARS now. So please tell me, what part of the game am I missing?
Someone please tell a tale of an adventure they've had in Eve.
Please,
Grinn.