Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
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.
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.