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EVE Online's Next Frontier
If you look at the graphs over at MMOGChart.com, most of the lines that aren't WoW seem to be heading downwards. The little engine that could, though, is personified by the Icelandic dynamo EVE Online. FiringSquad has an interview with CCP Senior Producer Nathan Richardsson. He discusses the popularity of EVE right now, and goes into some of the company's plans for making sure the game stays that way in the future. From the article: "This iterative process is based largely on our crazy future views of how EVE should be and a lot on player feedback. We then want to do some revolutionary stuff to the EVE universe and then evolution comes and bites us in the ass, reminding us that it's not cool to always throw new stuff in, the current game needs to be constantly maintained and evolved. In the end, we're never happy and I guess this is part of what is fuelling our continued passion for EVE."
Great. Now how about a Mac version!
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Hit the EVE site and go to their movies section. All of the videos show actual gameplay, though frequently the interface is removed (key combo in the game). There are segments in most videos that show everything.
Alternately, this forum on the site, which is freely accessible without requiring an account, has links to a ton of player created videos.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
I might play Eve. In fact, I think it may be what the MMORPG genre was meant to be in its fullest form. I downloaded the free trial and after a few hours of gameplay, I hadn't finished with the tutorial. The game is huge. It's not all about killing or casual violence, it's about a life. You can buy, sell, trade, build companies, overthrow other companies in bidding wars, all sorts of things. You never have to fire a shot.
Yes, you can dance to Radiohead.
As someone who's played a bunch of MMOs, I find EVE to be an anomaly. The ridiculous attention to detail and depth hooked me more than any other game I've played, and has been the only game which has inspired me to create an online comic for the community. In fact the community of players in EVE is unlike anything I've seen before, willing to create streating audio and video sites to cover events (EVE Radio), create special sites for hosting pictures and videos for other players (EVE Files), and planning large scale gatherings on other continents for folks who can't make the yearly fanfest in Iceland (EVE Gathering). It's really quite something. For the curious, my comic is called Warp Drive Active. The humor is fairly contextual, but I try to make it general enough that folks not having played the game might still be able to get the jokes.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
You can also check out http://www.eve-files.com/, which has a ton more pictures and some movies and such.
Or, youtube, of course. http://www.youtube.com/results?search=eve+online
Gonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
I'm playing EVE right now.
EVE I consider somewhat like Shadowbane-in-space, without the sb.exe and with a far better engine.
EVE graphics are great. Far better than anything else on the market that is an MMO.
I love the depth of EVE - you can trade, mine, pirate (PK), pvp, run NPC missions, or kill NPC pirates.
The huge amount of players online at any given time is great too - it isn't like standard MMOs with everything being on seperate servers.
EVE has a different levelling system also - basically time based. You set a skill up, it finishes after a set amount of time. No need to kill a mob over and over again, then move on to tougher mobs. Just time, based on the attributes of your character.
EVE requires a high performance system in order fully experience it in all its glory. I am using a p4 2.8 C, 1 GB ram, gf fx 5900 ultra typically at 100hz @1024x768 and my framerate is somewhat substandard. Going to build a new system specifically for this.
Also, alt usage is rampant in EVE. Because you can only train up one character at a time, a significant % of people run alts. I know of people that have as many as 5 accounts!
EVE's territorial, and risk vs. reward system is far superior to most other modern MMOs. In most other MMOs, there is no risk really, because of the watered down pvp. You die in WOW, you basically lose nothing. Not so in EVE. Dying in EVE can be seriously painful because of the massive expense of well fitted ships.
My only gripes with EVE is the time based levelling has some of the oldest players nearly at 55 million skill points (SP) so newer players cannot dream of competing with them, not for years. There is significant amount of time to be spent in your initial learning tree, and follow on into chosen skills based on your professions.
For a few months now. I think the biggest thing keeping people playing it is the complexity. On eve-online there are programs to help you choose the right types of weapons for range, speed, ship size, ammo type, and so on. There are about five different types of each turrent, going from really cheap to really expensive...and there is a definate difference in game play. Hundreds, if not thousands, of different combinations of different ship moduals that can change various attributes of the ships such as CPU usage, power output, sheilding (against four different types of damage like explosive, thermo, emp) all combine to make a complex game just to start out with.
.4 or lower (on a scale of .0 to 1, with 0 being mad-max land) anything goes pretty much. A few times I've come through a gate to be immediatly attacked. If I have a mission into low-sec space I'll put 2-3 warp coil stabilizers on the ship just so I can escape if I'm jumped.
Throw in corporations, pirates, wars...it really is like a different world. What I find most interesting in it is the fact I can start my character training on something, and then don't really need to go back and mess with the game until the training is done if I don't want to. The biggest problem is the amount of ISK (in-game money) that things cost. It takes weeks to get enough ISK together to build a decent battleship, and you can loose it in less than a minute. You sit in your escape pod...hopefully you bought some insurance, and even that isn't enough to get a ship like you had. There are pirates everywhere in low security space, and once you've dropped to
EVE is definetly not a game for the casual player. To get a really good character is usually takes at least 6mo to a year to build up one character. But, if you enjoy space combat and corporate subterfuge, it is a very fun game. Also, even though it have great graphics, it's not overly-taxing on the system like WOW and COV.
Maybe we DID take the blue pill. You wouldn't remember anyway.
You only fought NPCs. You were in high security space the entire time.
You mentioned nothing of true tactics in ship vs ship pvp.
When it comes to player vs. player in EVE, EVE has so much more tactics and strategy than most other MMOs. The simple reason behind this is the massive variety of ships, loadouts, skillsets. Whereas WOW has certain classes that specialize in killing other classes, and strictly defined skilltrees, EVE has far more variety.
Yet another newbie posting on a game. This is like a level 5 nub in WOW talking about endgame.
It's not a flight(space) sim in any sense that'd be familiar to someone who's played Descent. You can't play the game with a joystick. Your mouse does not directly control your space craft. There's never a cockpit view. You don't aim your weapons, you just tell which ones which opponent to fire on.
Think of it sort of like Star Trek, where you're a guy sitting at a control panel telling the ship's computer what you want it to do. Except that the control panel is your computer screen, and you push the buttons using the mouse cursor. And your view is outside of your spaceship, not from inside it.
The really interesting parts of the game, in my opinion, are the social aspects of it. The organization involved in running a succesful alliance or corporation, the logistics of big wars and holding territory, the strategy and tactics used in big fleet battles. It all requires a lot of coordination, and it's a lot of fun if you get yourself into a big group.
Then there's a lot of technical depth that you can get involved in. There are hundreds, probably thousands, of different fittings that can be piled onto dozens of different ships. The economy is player driven, very deep, and very active. There are people who really enjoy producing, collecting and trading minerals, creating stuff, and selling it. There are some people who can't get enough of the mining, while other people find mining to be boring as all hell.
There really are enough options in EVE that just about anyone should be able to find a niche that they enjoy. The biggest problem with the game is that that complexity can be overwhelming at first, so it's not surprising when people give up before they can find a niche they want to fill. Unless you're lucky enough to fall into a corporation that actively trains its newbies, you'll have to stick out a rough beginning.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.