Eve Online

[Ignot]

http://www.eve-online.com

Has anyone played this game? What did you think? Friend of mine said she loves it but I don't know if i want to fork out some more money on a game without getting some feedback. Looks cool, but sounds boring.

Thanks

[Artha]

The Great Eve Online Scam (http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:pMTxsPwCRQ8J:static.circa1984.com/the-big-scam.html&hl=en&lr=&strip=1[/url).

[Ignot]

The Great Eve Online Scam (http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:pMTxsPwCRQ8J:static.circa1984.com/the-big-scam.html&hl=en&lr=&strip=1[/url).

That's interesting.

[radamanthys]

I play, and it's damned fun- definately worth it. Look up a trial/free pass from somewhere. They're all over the net.

[AestheticDeath]

The scam was a decent read. I would have been royally pissed off too. I cant believe the guy fell for the library phone trick.

And after all that he says he gave away all his profit from the scam? What a loser. Although, seeing as how he is now a scammer/lier I would not be surprised if he made up the part about giving away the 300m.

[StrayRogue]

Yes, a good read, even if the writer tries to copy Hunter Thompson too much.

I might even give it a try.

[Asha]

enjoyed that read.

[Seran]

It's a fun game to play, and it's one I've done off and on for about a year and a half. What is unique about it is the beautiful scenery, between the planets and the ships and various interspacial phenomenon. The gameplay itself is fun, especially for people who love to outfit ships, and enjoy a great deal of customization via skills.

One thing about it however, is that it's a 100% pk_ok game. You can get insurance for a ship, but when you get killed, you lose everything in it. No where is truly safe either, so I don't recommend it for the weak at heart.

[radamanthys]

It's rather real in that sense. Just as much as you'd not want to be in a dark alley in <insert dangerous place here>, you don't want to be caught out in a pk field. It's not too hard to avoid, though, if you're careful.

[Anebriated]

Fun read, game sounds interesting.

[Fallen]

That was an entertaining read. I wonder how much of it is purely fiction.

[Methais]

I couldn't help but think of the big alleged Rozak scam when I finished reading that story. Good stuff.

[FinisWolf]

For a business major (at least thats what I understood him to be), he sure is one hell of a writer.

Finis

[StrayRogue]

Not really. He steals a number of metaphors from a wide variety of sources, and he's obviously OD'd on HST novels.

[Numbers]

I used to be play Earth & Beyond before EA canned it. It seemed to be a better game that Eve, though it got stale towards the endgame. And it had the misfortune of being run by EA.

Eve sounds like too much of a grind for my tastes. Though I think it would be interesting to join a pirating group that had access to one of those big battlecruisers.

[StrayRogue]

Yeah, I can see three sorts of people who would enjoy it:
Those who want to progress as far as possible/amass so much wealthy/get best ship.
Those who want to ruin the fun of everyone else or gank everyone (pirates).
Or those who just play for a laugh.

Ironically the same can be applied to World of Warcraft.

[Methais]

Or any MMO.

[Augie]

That read was definitely enjoyable. The game seems kinda interesting.

[AestheticDeath]

It was interesting until I browsed the page for it. Way to much time involved just to get started, and way too much time to get somewhere. Or so it seems to me.

Kinda like GEMSTONE! Cept I already got started and addicted.

[radamanthys]

It's mostly the exact opposite of that, really.

[Ignot]

Something about traveling for hours and hours just to get somewhere seems unappealing. My friend is sending me something to get a free trial so I will let you guys know how it goes

[radamanthys]

There's not that much travelling to be done, unless you're a trader.

[radamanthys]

The thing about EvE-online is that in order to skill up, you don't have to play. It's time based. Money will run you short, but an operating income is actually really easy, unless you want to become some sort of corporate magnate or something, then it takes a ton of work. It's pretty damned open ended. Many races haven't even BUILT the biggest ships yet, so spending the 200 days to train to fly a Titan is rather moot. So I can train just piloting skills, and be a pilot. Or, train 0 piloting skills, and all industrial. Or mining. Or Mining/Industrial. And not only that, but non-combat miners even sometimes have a place in Deadspace (Instances) since they can use tractor beams to gather loot and mine rare asteroids for money. It's pretty damned interesting, to me.

[Renian]

Something about traveling for hours and hours just to get somewhere seems unappealing.

There's auto-pilot. And at most it takes about 30 minutes, usually.

On that note, Eve Online is pretty good if you get into a good corp and PvP a lot. And the fact that, as Radamanthys said, you don't have to play to skill up is absolutely sweet. But it can take weeks to gain one level in a skill.

[Mistomeer]

Never played but thought this video was pretty cool:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8989001614632621894&q=goonfleet&hl=en

[Ignot]

that looks pretty cool

[crazymage]

http://www.fileplanet.com/162522/160000/fileinfo/Eve-Online-14-Day-Trial

[Numbers]

I tried out that free trial.

Got about 3/4's of the way through the tutorial before I was bored out of my mind. Definitely not my kind of game.

[Drew]

It sounds like an MMO version of Freelancer.

[Atlanteax]

Amusing how he went through all that Drama to end it like that.

[Anebriated]

You cant really judge a game by its tutorials imo. They are geared towards people who are clueless and really dont understand how games work. For a slightly more advanced gamer that translates to boring as hell but some people find it interesting. Its the same as any game, how many of you actually go to the thrak and pay attention to what he has to say now?

[Latrinsorm]

On the other hand, the sprite quest is pretty enjoyable.

[Numbers]

Eve had a really good tutorial, is the thing. The problem with that is that it showed how tedious and poorly designed some aspects of the game were. To find some simple information, it felt like I had to click through dozens of menus and what not. Ship navigation was crummy, the galaxy map was unintuitive, navigation as a whole was weird, and combat was boring.

I'm sure the game is really fun once you start making some cash and get some of the (much) better ships, but getting to that point seems like it would just be a long slodge through tedium.

[Skeeter]

less tedium more fun. that's our motto.

[radamanthys]

I really find it non-tedious. Sure you can subscribe to the tedium... but isn't that the same with every game? "I'm gonna grind my way to 60!" etc.

Imagine world of warcraft- but no soulbound items, and each talent took time to train. Everyone is the same level, but there's 38 years worth of different talents to train, so noone can ever "max out". It's just the best planning and best use of money. You lose money when you die. It's pretty realistic in that sense. The only setback is a feduciary one. And money is pretty damned easy to earn, really. You can be rolling in the endgame even within a month if you felt like it. Guarding mining operations in low-security space and such. They always need people. It's nuts.

*shrug*

[Drew]

http://news.com.com/2061-10796_3-6110296.html?part=rss&tag=6110296&subj=news

[Atlanteax]

I DL-ed the 14-day Trial Period, just to see what it is all about. Ran that DL and made an account.

However, I seem to be "stuck" at the log-in screen where it says "acquiring bulk data". I'm guessing that it's because it's DL-ing all the files that would otherwise be on the CD if purchased at the store?

Did not see anything on their tech support page in this regard.

[Bobmuhthol]

If you had bandwidth monitoring software, you'd know the answer to that question.

[Atlanteax]

If you had bandwidth monitoring software, you'd know the answer to that question.

Windows Task Manager shows that EVE's memory usage is in fluctation.

[Numbers]

I had to download a patch with the 14-day trial, but it was pretty small. 10 megs or so, nothing that should take too long to download.

As for the game itself, I'm sure if I read some sort of beginner's guide, I'd be able to jump in more readily. I guess I'm just not looking to jump into another MMO at this point. You're right in that almost every MMO out there is tedious, which is probably why I don't play them for too long. GemStone is different in that it's the community that keeps people coming back for more.

But I was super-disappointed during my trial of Eve that you had no direct control over your ship. I understand that you can double-click on space to go where you want, and whatnot, and maybe I missed something obvious, but I was expecting to go in and be able to fly the ship manually. Combat was a case of clicking a pirate, clicking approach, clicking lock, clicking orbit at 1,000, clicking my weapon button once, and waiting for the pirate to die.

When I played Earth & Beyond, I was a jenquai warrior, which were essentially the rogues of the game. You had direct control of your ship, that class could cloak, and a lot of the challenge of hunting with that class was constantly maneuvering for the best shot.

I guess Eve is also intimidating in that many of the areas are PK zones, and a lot of the players have been playing for a loooong time, have the best ships and weapons available, and have no qualms about screwing over a new player. I'd rather not deal with HotStuff69 running his own virtual toll bridge to rob me of money I'd make in the game.

[Bobmuhthol]

<<Windows Task Manager shows that EVE's memory usage is in fluctation.>>

That really doesn't indicate anything. Especially whether or not it's downloading something.

[Atlanteax]

I had to download a patch with the 14-day trial, but it was pretty small. 10 megs or so, nothing that should take too long to download.

I'm talking about the log-in screen *after* that.

I got that patch/file easily myself. It's the trying to log in after running that little installation.

[Numbers]

I assume you registered and got a login/password?

[Atlanteax]

Correct.

[Numbers]

Not a clue, then. Try to reinstall?

[Atlanteax]

Did, I'll just have to wait for their Feedback/Support depart to write back.

[radamanthys]

and gemstone is any better? at it's core:

loop:
Att kob
loot
waitfor a kobold
goto loop


but we all know there's hell of a lot more to it than that.

[Artha]

WoW uber alles.

[Wezas]

I highly suggest using the tutorial, as the controls aren't very self-explanitory.

After getting most of the way through the tutorial (I just wanted to find out about mining) I played around a bit. I amassed about 40k credits from mining & salvaging from the n00b NPC enemy ships. At the spacestation where you start, some of the salvaged items weren't sellable (no demand) but I found processing them works much like disenchanting in WoW. And made decent coin off of items that were just taking up ship space.

I managed to attack a ship that was in red, but evidently I didn't look close enough and it wasn't an enemy NPC. My ship was creamed in less than 15 seconds.

I used my 40k credits to buy a bigger mining-based ship only to find that my skill had not trained yet (still needed 2 more hours to be able to use the ship).

Unfortunately at that point I looked at the cable box to my right and it said 4:30 am.

If that 2 hours needs to be in-game time, maybe I'll kick it off tonight in the background while playing WoW. They both seemed to run reasonably well together.

[Seran]

The great thing about Eve is that your character continues his studies in the skill you chose even when your game isn't running. I actually started learning my final rank in Mining Barges which would take 24 real life days, so I just canceled my account and will start up again when it's done.

To say it takes 2 days to level up one skill is rather ridiculous, unless of course it's the 5th and final rank of a skill.. and that is understandable, as any guild master might tell you. Truly you can have all the skills trained you need to be a formidable player in about a week, you just need to occasionally log on to tell it to train something else. The skills are what make the game unique, in that you can completely customize your character in one of a couple of hundred skills. The sky and time are the limit.

I currently have nearly 5 million skill points, and I have to say that I've liked nearly aspect of the game. Yes the point, click, approach can be tedius, but there really isn't much different than typing in numerous entry commands into Gemstone, only Eve is more forgiving.

You're not going to get a true opinion of the game if you go in with a bad attitude, so I'd recommend to anyone to look at their record 28k concurrent players shows.

[radamanthys]

I'm clocking in at a massive 3.5m SP, and currently piloting a Jaguar. It's hot.

[Wezas]

Didn't have much time to play last night, but picked up a pulse cannon and found a few different crystals to try in it. However for as show as my ship is, I find I need to use more of a long-range crystal instead of heavy damage ones.

The ship looks bad ass, and I'm sure they'll just look better over time.

Is there any way to increase the number of slots you have? Or is it a matter of getting a bigger/better ship? Right now I've only got 2 slot sets (2 high, 2 med, 2 low power) and I'd really like to add another gun, but don't want to lose use of my mining laser. And my ship has power to spare.

[radamanthys]

It's a matter of getting a bigger/better ship. What race are ya focusing on to start?

[crazymage]

I'm Caldari, Letum Black so far so good... till i saw a noob named Vicky vixen, and assumed .. er she didnt want to polish my knob

[crazymage]

and I are le dead.

[Wezas]

Yeah, I'm hoping to afford a fighter ship by tonight, and I'll upgrade it and take it out to play around with PVP.

[Ignot]

Okay so I am just going through this tutorial...well, the visuals are nice...

[radamanthys]

The visuals are great, no doubt. Especially impressive for an older game.