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.

Comments

And now for something different

[Jellybob]

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

Not to everyone's tastes

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Ups and Downs

[JHMirage]

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.

That's the type of thing that I just don't get... do they really believe that NPCs, the economy, or working race/faction systems don't need any beta testing? Are they high? Seems like they're just setting themselves up for really bad reviews and gamer backlash.

Have we learned nothing from Anarchy Online? Either we're going to have a ton of unbalanced, untested, buggy features thrown in at the last moment, or it'll be released with a great chunk of promised functionality missing... choose your poison.

Re:Where's my crew?

[Daddio]

I like it I want to try it. The crew problem is twofold, what od you do when your crew is not online and well everyone wants to be the captain. I have read that the largest problem with mmog is that westerners want to all be cowboys and heros and really dont undertand the concept of teamplay or sacrafice for the greater good.

Re:Beta observations...

[JHMirage]

I guess you need to ask "what is the point to my real life existence?" and apply the answer to your game play

There are several problems with that...

This is supposed to be an alternate universe... if I wanted an accurate recreation of the goals of RL, I'd play The Sims. I've had 30 years to learn the rules of my RL universe... in EVE I'm supposed to "just know them?" The universe in EVE has it's rules set by the developers... however much you think you control everything, they still own you. (maybe not with quests, but certainly by tweaking the dynamics of the game and/or engine.) In RL, I have absolute necessities, like food and shelter... maybe do a little procreating... there are no equivalents in EVE. You're given a ship, and you don't need to eat. (And I won't even get into what MMORPG pr0n would be like...) So... Why do anything?

My point is that, whether you want to admit it or not, the developers had a certain type of gameplay experience in mind. It's NOT totally up to the players. By pretending that it is, they're just forcing us to suss out what they want us to do the long/hard way.

Fun for you? OK. Not so fun for me, though.