Eve Online

[king.com]

Eve Online, i got into it last month (perhaps over anticipation for Star Trek online who knows) and was wondering if anyone of the forums plays it? I can send you a 21 day trial if anyones interested.

Thoughts, opinions, tips, ideas?

[toasty]

There was a thread for this a while back. I've never played EVE myself but I've decided once I get the time and money for an MMO I want to try EVE Online. It seems much more like my kind of MMO.

[loopy]

EVE isn't a spaceship game. EVE is a political and economic simulator with spaceships tacked on, haha.

That being said, its awesome. I'm a merciless corporate spy and raider. My ships crap, but as long as I can keep talking my way into valued positions and then pillaging my way through their investments, I am sweet. :smallbiggrin:

[BooNL]

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3088/2335016192_6003c39c4c.jpg

Says it all, I think.

[king.com]

Not a bad thing though.

[Inhuman Bot]

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3088/2335016192_6003c39c4c.jpg

Says it all, I think.

Awww.... You posted that before I could. :smallfrown:

[Gamerlord]

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3088/2335016192_6003c39c4c.jpg

Says it all, I think.

WOT?
The color black should be dwarf fortess.
I tried the trial, stopped when the tutorial started speaking spainish.

[Optimystik]

http://cdn.themis-media.com/media/global/images/castfire/mini/2ab4365c1daa313de85fcdb18bce33cf.jpg (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/208-Eve-Online)

Don't forget that

[Thorcrest]

Very good game, rather difficult to get the hang of, but definetly worth it.

TIP: If people give you a time frame for doing something, like getting a certain ship, don't believe them, they assume you have nothing else to do in your life.

Otherwise, it's awesome, probably the only MMO where you actually need some intelligence to play, although if you can sucker a bunch of idiots, its the easiest way to the top.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

You know, I've heard that some very interesting political and economic situations have evolved naturally within the gameworld...like, independent of developer input. Not playing EVE myself, I'm just curious about it...any of you guys playing know what I'm talking about?

[Jimp]

Only played it for a month but really enjoyed it. Wish I could have gotten in deeper though :smallfrown:

[Comet]

You know, I've heard that some very interesting political and economic situations have evolved naturally within the gameworld...like, independent of developer input. Not playing EVE myself, I'm just curious about it...any of you guys playing know what I'm talking about?
Never played it myself (well, I did once a long time ago), but I have read some interesting articles on the economy of EVE. It's basically gotten to the point where the in-game economy works very much like a real-world one, with all the trading being done by actual players.
The developer team has even hired a bunch of guys who are highly trained in economics to observe the in-game field of trade and analyze/slightly influence the flow of goods and money within the game.
The statistics that these experts have gathered from the game are an interesting read. I don't know where you would find them, though, as the articles I have read are quite old.

As some like to sum it up: The economy of EVE Online is more stable and functional than that of some nations on our planet earth :smalltongue: (not going to drop names here)

As for the politics part, the guilds/factions/companies/whateveryoucallthem that the players can form can reach pretty epic proportions from time to time. I have witnessed one battle between two big companies in real-time and it was awesome. Or at least it was awesome whenever the game wasn't lagging like hell. Those big fleets can really bring your framerate down. :smallbiggrin:

[SolkaTruesilver]

Only played it for a month but really enjoyed it. Wish I could have gotten in deeper though :smallfrown:

You had the choice between playing EVE and having a life.

I think you chose well.

[The Glyphstone]

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3088/2335016192_6003c39c4c.jpg

Says it all, I think.

I've seen this identical graph slightly modified - along the side, instead of 'Gaming Skill', it says something like 'Jerk Level'.

It's still 100% accurate...I've yet to meet an EVE player, in RL at least, who wasn't, absolutely pretentious, obnoxious, and convinced they were one of the holy chosen few selected for their intelligence to play a Real MMO for Smart People, instead of all those useless wannabe MMO's like WoWitsucks and WoWwhichsucks and there's also WoWdidtheymentionitsucks.

Then again, I'm drawing from a small sample pool of people who also happen to be pretentious and obnoxious about non-game stuff too. It's possible that EVE includes successful, powerful players who aren't complete jerks, but I've never met one, and considering how prevalent both the community and the game mechanics themselves push 'nice guys finish last', they've got to be rare.

[king.com]

You know, I've heard that some very interesting political and economic situations have evolved naturally within the gameworld...like, independent of developer input. Not playing EVE myself, I'm just curious about it...any of you guys playing know what I'm talking about?

Yep many wacky things do that due to the complete freedom of eve. The most well know example is the Eve Investment Bank. This was openned by a player and functioned like a normal bank giving interest and the player would spend on the stock market. Once the invested amount reachd something like 600 billion, the player shut down the bank and ran off with everyones money.

Oh and The_Glyphstone, really dont judge people like that, I for one like both eve and WoW for different reasons.

[Talkkno]

But the thing is in real life theres a tiny bit more checks and balances I think. :smallwink:
As not every country is a lazzier faire after all.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Yep many wacky things do that due to the complete freedom of eve. The most well know example is the Eve Investment Bank. This was openned by a player and functioned like a normal bank giving interest and the player would spend on the stock market. Once the invested amount reachd something like 600 billion, the player shut down the bank and ran off with everyones money.
OUCH! That sucks. Seriously...was there backlash against the guy in the future?

[The Glyphstone]

Nope - as far as I know, he got away scot free, transferred all that money to an alt account that no one ever identified, and lived happily ever after.



Oh and The_Glyphstone, really dont judge people like that, I for one like both eve and WoW for different reasons.

My count of decent people in EVE has risen to 1.:smallsmile:

I personally find EVE to be fascinating in its mechanics, it's just the playerbase I've come to detest - it's the ultimate example of a sandbox game and what people will do when completely unhampered by an unchallengable authority (well, there's the Space Police that I can't remember the name of, but they only patrol a small portion of the game world).

[NEO|Phyte]

OUCH! That sucks. Seriously...was there backlash against the guy in the future?

Assuming the guy was smart, he ran the bank through an alt, and his main is safely anonymous.

I've got a fellow in a major 0.0 alliance, it's fun times out in deep space, shooting NPC pirates for monies in between flying disposable tacklers in fleet fights.

[loopy]

My count of decent people in EVE has risen to 1.:smallsmile:

Count me as two, assuming that you think that I'm decent. :smalltongue:

I've played pretty much all the current-gen MMO's. EVE is my personal favorite, with WoW running a close second, but I do like them for completely different reasons.

[king.com]

OUCH! That sucks. Seriously...was there backlash against the guy in the future?

I think the bounty on this guys character raised to about 5 billion after 2 days...




I personally find EVE to be fascinating in its mechanics, it's just the playerbase I've come to detest - it's the ultimate example of a sandbox game and what people will do when completely unhampered by an unchallengable authority (well, there's the Space Police that I can't remember the name of, but they only patrol a small portion of the game world).

Well thats what i love about it. That your actions actually make a difference in the game world. Space police are called CONCORD, and you can actually just bribe them to not attack you if you want to kill someone in their space (its neatly named a wardec). Funny enough that being polite and getting along with people helps to prevent this from happening to you.

[Lamech]

Well thats what i love about it. That your actions actually make a difference in the game world. Space police are called CONCORD, and you can actually just bribe them to not attack you if you want to kill someone in their space (its neatly named a wardec). Funny enough that being polite and getting along with people helps to prevent this from happening to you. Not always. Sometimes enemy corps do it for ransom. Also since it is a corp v corp (clans) it really only takes one corp member to mess it up. The only way to really be safe is to join an NPC corp.

[SolkaTruesilver]

Not always. Sometimes enemy corps do it for ransom. Also since it is a corp v corp (clans) it really only takes one corp member to mess it up. The only way to really be safe is to join an NPC corp.

is Concord a NPC or PC corp?

[Zovc]

My friend who plays EVE calls it EXCEL: the game.

I don't play it.

[SolkaTruesilver]

My friend who plays EVE calls it EXCEL: the game.

I don't play it.

I don't like people who say "it's an EXCEL game". Just because something has number that you have to balance out and properly think about organisation of stuff doesn't make it a bad game per default.

[Zovc]

I don't like people who say "it's an EXCEL game". Just because something has number that you have to balance out and properly think about organisation of stuff doesn't make it a bad game per default.

He plays the game. I don't...

I never said it was a bad game, either.

[SolkaTruesilver]

He plays the game. I don't...

I never said it was a bad game, either.

I wasn't aiming the jab at you directly (nor him). It's just that it's something I hear a lot on the internet about somes games where intense actions is not favored, and it rubs me the wrong way.

[NEO|Phyte]

I don't like people who say "it's an EXCEL game". Just because something has number that you have to balance out and properly think about organisation of stuff doesn't make it a bad game per default.
Well, if you get into manufacturing and stuff, I hear that IS an excel game.

[SolkaTruesilver]

Well, if you get into manufacturing and stuff, I hear that IS an excel game.

But you can go into piracy and soldiering, if I remember. Then it isn't.

It all depends what gives you fun, in the end.

[AgentPaper]

Chalk me up as one of the people that likes both EvE and WoW for completely different reasons, though WoW edges out in front by a bit. There are a number of ways to progress in the game, (aka, make money) though they tend to boil down to:

Mining (aka alt-tab to do something else with the sound on)
Missions (grind mcgrindgrind)
Pirating (antisocial jerk)
Espionage/Scamming (social jerk)
Manufacturing/Trading (excel: the game)

Not that any of these are bad things, and I could probably have fun doing any of them, except espionage/scamming, but more because I don't think I could pull it off than because I wouldn't enjoy it. The great part is that you can literally start doing any one of these straight out from the tutorials, even pirating. As you progress, things start to get a bit easier, and more lucrative, but you also have more to lose, whether it's big, expensive ships, or the big order of trade goods that may or may not sell, or the reputation of your character. (people tend to trust older characters more, since there's less chance of it being an alt made to scam with)

Of course, it's most definitely NOT a game for casual players. You could get by not spending much time on it if you're doing missions, but anything else takes up more time and attention than can really be called "casual". And if you're just there for grinding (such people exist) you can probably find a better, more interesting space combat game to spend your time on, since the combat mechanics aren't exactly complicated, at least against NPC mobs. PvP combat is a bit more interesting and deep, though, especially in small-number combat. Assuming you aren't swarmed by 100+ capital ships while you and your 5 friends are cruising around in your frigates. :smallwink:

[Brother Oni]

Well, if you get into manufacturing and stuff, I hear that IS an excel game.

Depends very much on what you do to try and get rid of the competition.

Trying to undercut their prices to force them out of the market very much becomes an excel game, depending on how much you`re willing to skim your profit margins or even take a loss on each sale.

Alternatively, you could identify your major competition and arrange for a war dec or a suicide gank to eat into their profits that way.:smallbiggrin:


Not to mention that market manipulation can help you win fights - I remember one big tournament where side A secretly bought out all the explosive and kinetic drones in the regions occupied by their opponents.

When the tournament came round, all their opponents were sporting thermal and EM damage drones, which side A were conveniently tanked for. :smallbiggrin:

[Inhuman Bot]

I don't like people who say "it's an EXCEL game". Just because something has number that you have to balance out and properly think about organisation of stuff doesn't make it a bad game per default.

However, it does make EVE bad. :smalltongue:

[NEO|Phyte]

Alternatively, you could identify your major competition and arrange for a war dec or a suicide gank to eat into their profits that way.:smallbiggrin:

Sadly, were I to get involved in manufacturing, my primary competition would be alliance members, so I would have to play Excel to beat them, as shooting blues is generally frowned upon.

[SolkaTruesilver]

Depends very much on what you do to try and get rid of the competition.

Trying to undercut their prices to force them out of the market very much becomes an excel game, depending on how much you`re willing to skim your profit margins or even take a loss on each sale.

Alternatively, you could identify your major competition and arrange for a war dec or a suicide gank to eat into their profits that way.:smallbiggrin:


Not to mention that market manipulation can help you win fights - I remember one big tournament where side A secretly bought out all the explosive and kinetic drones in the regions occupied by their opponents.

When the tournament came round, all their opponents were sporting thermal and EM damage drones, which side A were conveniently tanked for. :smallbiggrin:

That is awesome. Are there Chronicles of Eve Tales?

So many clever things, so many variables. Human intelligence at its best pitted against others. No rules, just a jungle of interests.

That, my friends, is the seed of a truly Epic.

[Triaxx]

Mostly on the EVE forums. There's a few scattered articles, including the big scam, but that's about it.

[Caewil]

It is a very time-intensive game if you want to have any real fun. Most of the time spent boils down to socialization rather than grinding. (though there is that for missions)

Currently, I'm flying an interceptor around 0.0, hitting targets of opportunity for kicks. It's fast enough that getting bubbled isn't a worry and I use dual-propulsion in case I get scrammed.

[Jimp]

So many clever things, so many variables. Human intelligence at its best pitted against others. No rules, just a jungle of interests.

That, my friends, is the seed of a truly Epic.Stories like that and the fact that it's players that control the game is what makes me wish I could stick with the game. Some day maybe.

[SolkaTruesilver]

Stories like that and the fact that it's players that control the game is what makes me wish I could stick with the game. Some day maybe.

And then again, if I had that much time on my hand, I would probably simply make a Let's Play Sword of the Stars...

...

or play RPGs with my friends...

I don't mind people playing Eve Online, I find them to be spectaculary dedicated. I am just afraid of loosing more than I would gain. :smalleek:

[king.com]

And then again, if I had that much time on my hand, I would probably simply make a Let's Play Sword of the Stars...

...

or play RPGs with my friends...

I don't mind people playing Eve Online, I find them to be spectaculary dedicated. I am just afraid of loosing more than I would gain. :smalleek:

Well its very easy to take a break from. You just log in once or twice a week and set skills to train and go off doing what you want. When your in a time period where you want to put lots of effort into it you have ltos of lovely skills to use.

[Prowl]

I spent about 10 months playing EVE, I got up to that part of the learning curve where you see people hanging from their necks.

Problem is that the actual gameplay is usually quite uninteresting. I think I got into a grand total of one fair fight the entire time, the rest of it was either you're in the bigger fleet or you're bugging out in an attempt to survive being ganked. Many of the related game mechanics are very artificial and feels more like munchkinism than game-playing.

There's also an issue in that if you start in 2009, 2010, you'll simply never have a chance to catch up with those who started years earlier. It'll take you a full year plus, simply get the basic skills you need to be competitive in a firefight. To actually be good at it you need several years. Yeah, anyone can tackle right away, but that's not a particularly interesting role and you will get your ship blown up most of the time while doing it.

If the actual combat had been more interesting I'd still be subscribing, I think - in theory I'm just the kind of person they should attract - I like in my games a good measure of difficulty, depth, and strong competition at high levels of play.

The PvE part is substandard, too, I found myself nodding off to sleep in the middle of massive mission battles, since the whole "missile them to death at long range" tactic pretty much beats any mission there is.

In terms of the 'builder' aspect, the universe is about 1/6th the size it should be to accommodate players trying to learn how to build their own bases and empires. Everything worth anything is long since owned by a big alliance or ally thereof.

My final verdict: Intellectually interesting, not enough excitement, not enough space to try your own thing.

[NEO|Phyte]

Problem is that the actual gameplay is usually quite uninteresting. I think I got into a grand total of one fair fight the entire time, the rest of it was either you're in the bigger fleet or you're bugging out in an attempt to survive being ganked. Many of the related game mechanics are very artificial and feels more like munchkinism than game-playing.

There's also an issue in that if you start in 2009, 2010, you'll simply never have a chance to catch up with those who started years earlier. It'll take you a full year plus, simply get the basic skills you need to be competitive in a firefight. To actually be good at it you need several years. Yeah, anyone can tackle right away, but that's not a particularly interesting role and you will get your ship blown up most of the time while doing it.
Not sure where all you were in your time, but out in 0.0, you HAVE to fight to keep your space, so it's not just gank or be ganked, though fairness is still optional.

As for the skills, you don't NEED to catch up, that guy that's been playing for years will not have significantly better skills. The difference between rank IV and rank V in a skill is the same as rank 0 and rank I, but takes FAR longer to train for. You also don't need years to be good, I'm a bit under 3 months in and had I been moving towards it from the start, I could already be flying reimbursable battleships for my alliance, based on the fact that my less-than-focused training has me very close to meeting the requirements.

With tackling, you are EXPECTED to get blown up doing it, that's why the ships are both dirt cheap and provided for free (in my alliance, anyway). I lost three ships last night, made money doing so through insurance payouts, and assuming the killmails weren't eaten due to lag, the only thing I tackled that actually died was a carrier already being tackled to hell by the time I got there. It was still damn fun, and I'll probably be doing the same tonight again.

[Jimp]

Insurance scams eh? :smalltongue:

[NEO|Phyte]

Insurance scams eh? :smalltongue:
Stuff like that does happen, but in my case, it was more the fact that these ships cost me nothing, and you always get an insurance payout when your ship explodes. If mineral prices crash enough, it is entirely possible to build a hull for cheaper than what you get for insurance payout, since the insurance values are static, meaning you can make money from building, insuring, and self-destructing ships. Gotta love the economy.

[Brother Oni]

As for the skills, you don't NEED to catch up, that guy that's been playing for years will not have significantly better skills. The difference between rank IV and rank V in a skill is the same as rank 0 and rank I, but takes FAR longer to train for. You also don't need years to be good, I'm a bit under 3 months in and had I been moving towards it from the start, I could already be flying reimbursable battleships for my alliance, based on the fact that my less-than-focused training has me very close to meeting the requirements.


I'd like to re-iterate this point. Since skill levels cap out at 5, there's only so good a player can get skills-wise at flying a ship. After a certain point, I'm not going to be able to improve on what I'm flying, only diversify.

Sure I may have 1.28 million SP in Battleship 5, but that`s not going to make a jot of difference if I'm flying a cruiser.
Likewise, I may have maximised gunnery skills, but it`s not going to help if you ambush me while I'm moving things in an industrial ship without any turret hardpoints.

If tackling isn't your thing, you could move further into electronic warfare options. I can't think of a single gang that wouldn't welcome a Blackbird or another ewar ship (although the Minmatar one would require a bit more convincing) and they're not hard to train for.

If you want to be the godly damage dealer that everybody fears, then you have to invest time and resources into it, but isn't that the same for any high-end role in a competitive MMO?


To Prowl:
I do admit though that PVP is very much like warfare in real life - if you find yourself in a fair fight, you've done something wrong. If fair fights is more your thing, you'll need to look at tournaments (either official ones or internal alliance/corp organised ones), or find a new game.
Might I suggest Atlantica Online (http://atlantica.ndoorsgames.com/center/default.asp) which is a turn based MMO, which may interest you? In addition to party based mechanics (you have up to 8 NPCs in your party), there is a regular Free League tournament every 3 hours that you can freely jump in and out of at any time.

[Prowl]

Not sure where all you were in your time, but out in 0.0, you HAVE to fight to keep your space, so it's not just gank or be ganked, though fairness is still optional.[quote]

I was out in 0.0 for a significant period of time, long enough to get involved in all the major activities other than mining that one could expect to do out there. The whole way that fighting to keep your space works relies on "blob" fleets, managing timers on towers, and to a lesser degree things like gate camping and interdictor bubbles. In actual play, something like a bubbled gate camp means your death sentence is written in stone before you even see your enemies, leading to a dependency on "watching local" - which is so artificial a game mechanic as to make this rather important aspect of gameplay seem absurd.


[quote]
As for the skills, you don't NEED to catch up, that guy that's been playing for years will not have significantly better skills. The difference between rank IV and rank V in a skill is the same as rank 0 and rank I, but takes FAR longer to train for. You also don't need years to be good, I'm a bit under 3 months in and had I been moving towards it from the start, I could already be flying reimbursable battleships for my alliance, based on the fact that my less-than-focused training has me very close to meeting the requirements.


Because of the way skill interdependencies and ship skill dependencies work, you often must go all the way to 5 in key skills or you can't use an important item or fly a useful ship. You can't just arbitrarily decide not to get level V in a skill and to stop at IV instead. Well, you can, but it means you'll never fly anything interesting as well as never being particularly good at what you do fly.

By the way, if you are flying battleships 3 months in, you are definitely making a mistake. It will take you well over a year training nothing else to make it worth it to put you in a battleship.



With tackling, you are EXPECTED to get blown up doing it, that's why the ships are both dirt cheap and provided for free (in my alliance, anyway). I lost three ships last night, made money doing so through insurance payouts, and assuming the killmails weren't eaten due to lag, the only thing I tackled that actually died was a carrier already being tackled to hell by the time I got there. It was still damn fun, and I'll probably be doing the same tonight again.

The whole 'expecting to get blown up' thing is not as fun as it sounds. Once you do get blown up, your playtime is over for the night as you have to haul yourself back home and somehow hook up with your fleet again, easier said than done on a roam.

[Prowl]

I'd like to re-iterate this point. Since skill levels cap out at 5, there's only so good a player can get skills-wise at flying a ship. After a certain point, I'm not going to be able to improve on what I'm flying, only diversify.

That point can be as long as 4-5 years, by which time the latest and greatest will require more skills, which the elder players will have the luxury of pursuing and you will not. The way the game progression is set up, older characters have a huge advantage. We would regularly check the age of a target in deciding whether or not to attack.


Sure I may have 1.28 million SP in Battleship 5, but that`s not going to make a jot of difference if I'm flying a cruiser.
Likewise, I may have maximised gunnery skills, but it`s not going to help if you ambush me while I'm moving things in an industrial ship without any turret hardpoints.


The way I found people were playing the game is that they would get extra accounts and specialize each one. One account would be an industrialist, another a combat pilot, sometimes more for mining or capital ships as well.


If tackling isn't your thing, you could move further into electronic warfare options. I can't think of a single gang that wouldn't welcome a Blackbird or another ewar ship (although the Minmatar one would require a bit more convincing) and they're not hard to train for.

I actually inquired quite a bit about Ewar and found opinion near universal that they were of minimal use overall. The one Ewar ship accessible to a young account is expensive and dies very easily.


If you want to be the godly damage dealer that everybody fears, then you have to invest time and resources into it, but isn't that the same for any high-end role in a competitive MMO?

That part is OK, the part that is not OK is the 'can never catch up' part. In other MMOs you can eventually catch up to even the top players regardless if you have been playing for one year and them for five.




To Prowl:
I do admit though that PVP is very much like warfare in real life - if you find yourself in a fair fight, you've done something wrong. If fair fights is more your thing, you'll need to look at tournaments (either official ones or internal alliance/corp organised ones), or find a new game.
Might I suggest Atlantica Online (http://atlantica.ndoorsgames.com/center/default.asp) which is a turn based MMO, which may interest you? In addition to party based mechanics (you have up to 8 NPCs in your party), there is a regular Free League tournament every 3 hours that you can freely jump in and out of at any time.

Fights don't need to necessarily be super fair, but what I experienced is the other extreme, fights that were almost never even close to fair. Fights that are predetermined conclusions aren't all that interesting.

[NEO|Phyte]

Because of the way skill interdependencies and ship skill dependencies work, you often must go all the way to 5 in key skills or you can't use an important item or fly a useful ship. You can't just arbitrarily decide not to get level V in a skill and to stop at IV instead. Well, you can, but it means you'll never fly anything interesting as well as never being particularly good at what you do fly.

By the way, if you are flying battleships 3 months in, you are definitely making a mistake. It will take you well over a year training nothing else to make it worth it to put you in a battleship.

The whole 'expecting to get blown up' thing is not as fun as it sounds. Once you do get blown up, your playtime is over for the night as you have to haul yourself back home and somehow hook up with your fleet again, easier said than done on a roam.

That part is OK, the part that is not OK is the 'can never catch up' part. In other MMOs you can eventually catch up to even the top players regardless if you have been playing for one year and them for five.
First off, out of curiosity, how long has it been since you've played EVE? Because based on what I've experienced, I suspect there are quite a few changes from the EVE you've played, not counting Dominion which launched last month, which overhauled the Sov system away from POS shoots (we now shoot other things instead, and you don't have to stront time them, you just say "I want this to come out of reinforced at X time").

I think how skills work in particular must have changed since then, or your standards are higher than that of my alliance, because there's skillplans to cook up a dedicated dread alt in 10 months, which is a slightly lower amount of time than your well over a year for a much smaller BS.

I'll admit that you can't catch up to older players in sheer skillpoints (unless they've V'd everything :smalltongue:) like you can in other MMOs, but you don't strictly NEED to to mess someone up. Yeah, they've got a few extra 5%s here and there over you, but it's not like WoW or somesuch where higher-leveled people are basically immune to lower-leveled people.

I suppose if you're in a roaming gang, yeah, getting exploded would suck, but I've mainly been flying in big fights over sovereignty, meaning as long as I don't get podded, I just pull a new ship out of a carrier's bay, and if I DO get podded, there's regular convoys into the fight.

[Prowl]

It's only been a couple of months since I last played, quit in the beginning of November. Well, not so much quit as faded out due to waning interest.

As far as timing/standards go... I was in 4 different 0.0 alliances in the time I played and none of them would have replaced battleships for 3-month pilots or dreads for 10-month pilots, those pilots simply wouldn't have the skills to make it worth it. It's worthless to put a pilot in a ship where he can't hit targets, can't maneuver, and slows your whole fleet down, in addition to costing a bundle if he gets shot down. Realistically we're talking a 12-month plan to train exclusively for a single type of BS and 18 months for a single type of dread. If you can't fit T2 on it you shouldn't be flying it unless it is specifically designed to be a cheap throwaway ship... and once you hit battleship size, there are no cheap throwaway ships.

I played for almost a year and while I could technically pilot a BS, I wasn't willing to risk my own hard-earned cash on it and neither would anyone else in his right mind! Biggest thing I could fly competently was a Drake, and that was only trained up enough to be able to solo L4 missions for cash and rewards. What I ended up doing instead was optimizing for interceptor so there was at least one T2 ship I could fly well, and even on that I had months left in my fairly modest training plan (no major V skills) for that one ship by the time I stopped playing.

[Ilena]

Well i played for ... 2 years i think? started off mining and did some combat on the side, well trained pretty heavily to do combat after i got my alt, but i had almost attained carrier level to fly the corp carriers, but ran outta funds and just never got back into it, been thinkin about it to join in with the old crew, catch up on things and see whats going, if work never blocked eves website then i probably would be they did so most of my prowling around there just killed my interest, myself i did enjoy the game, expecially just for talkin to people, and roaming low sec for killing pirates :P

[Triaxx]

Well, since my experience wasn't nearly as deep, I still found it fun and something worth investing in if my connection would permit. Being elected to scout for an alliance isn't exactly glorious, but ramming things with a shuttle is kind of fun. Since my job consisted mostly of checking if the gate was clear and getting blown up if it wasn't...

And sitting in for my cousin and piloting his cargo ship in a mining convoy. Fortunately the combat patrols were able to handle the few rats that came to spoil the fun.

Both cases turned out fun even if they weren't what I was expecting.

[NEO|Phyte]

It's only been a couple of months since I last played, quit in the beginning of November. Well, not so much quit as faded out due to waning interest.

As far as timing/standards go... I was in 4 different 0.0 alliances in the time I played and none of them would have replaced battleships for 3-month pilots or dreads for 10-month pilots, those pilots simply wouldn't have the skills to make it worth it. It's worthless to put a pilot in a ship where he can't hit targets, can't maneuver, and slows your whole fleet down, in addition to costing a bundle if he gets shot down. Realistically we're talking a 12-month plan to train exclusively for a single type of BS and 18 months for a single type of dread. If you can't fit T2 on it you shouldn't be flying it unless it is specifically designed to be a cheap throwaway ship... and once you hit battleship size, there are no cheap throwaway ships.

I played for almost a year and while I could technically pilot a BS, I wasn't willing to risk my own hard-earned cash on it and neither would anyone else in his right mind! Biggest thing I could fly competently was a Drake, and that was only trained up enough to be able to solo L4 missions for cash and rewards. What I ended up doing instead was optimizing for interceptor so there was at least one T2 ship I could fly well, and even on that I had months left in my fairly modest training plan (no major V skills) for that one ship by the time I stopped playing.
I think I'm going to chalk this time until worth getting into a BS difference up to differences between alliance standards, because unless my corp is making stuff up when I'm asking, it's only 6 months to t2 fit a given racial BS, with 2 months of that being for t2 guns.

[Jimorian]

I hate you all. I just signed up for the trial, and will probably end up giving this game a spin for a while. Not really worried about optimizing anything, just going with the flow of what sounds fun or interesting at the time.

Jimmor, a Caldari in the Science and Trade Institute.

[Brother Oni]

If you can't fit T2 on it you shouldn't be flying it unless it is specifically designed to be a cheap throwaway ship... and once you hit battleship size, there are no cheap throwaway ships.

I disagree on that point. With current ship prices, you can regularly commit insurance fraud with some ships and still make a profit as Platininum payout > Ship cost+insurance cost.

Once you've got the hull covered, modules only cost about 20-30mil to fully T2 fit, which you can earn back in 1-2 level 4 missions.



I played for almost a year and while I could technically pilot a BS, I wasn't willing to risk my own hard-earned cash on it and neither would anyone else in his right mind! Biggest thing I could fly competently was a Drake, and that was only trained up enough to be able to solo L4 missions for cash and rewards.

The problem is, if you don't like taking losses, then EVE isn't really the game for you. There are some very hard and expensive lessons to be learnt while playing the game, but you have to be willing to try first.
That said, a drake is probably the slowest way to complete level 4 missions which probably contributed to your boredom with the game.



I actually inquired quite a bit about Ewar and found opinion near universal that they were of minimal use overall. The one Ewar ship accessible to a young account is expensive and dies very easily.

I'm not sure who you asked about with regard to ewar, but I suspect they either didn't have a clue what they were talking about, or they mistook your enquries to be in association with fleet battles. Ewar is of limited use in fleet combat true, but for small and mid sized gangs, they're highly effective.

A young account (2-3 months old, enough to fly a cruiser competantly) has access to 4 different T1 ewar cruisers, so they all should range about 3-5mil for the hull with an additional 5-ish mil for T2 fittings. If you include the T1 ewar frigates, then you have an even bigger selection of ships.
If your corp can't support or at least subsidise the cost of basic T1 cruisers or smaller for fleet ops, then they're not a very good corp.



Fights don't need to necessarily be super fair, but what I experienced is the other extreme, fights that were almost never even close to fair. Fights that are predetermined conclusions aren't all that interesting.

As I said earlier, for better or worse, combat in EVE reflects modern warfare. If one side had the equivalent of spy satellites giving them up to date intelligence, would they give that info free to the enemy so they could have a fair fight?

It's natural for people who regularly do risky things to mimise that risk - firemen wear protective gear, builders wear hard hats. In EVE where there are consequences to your actions, there's risk in almost any meaningful combat and especially so in 0.0 space. Would you risk soverignty and control of a system, which you and your corp of 20-odd people have spent the last 6 months building up to be a viable place you can live, in a single fair fight?

Did you try small free roaming gangs? Or maybe small scale piracy? You might be able to find some decent fair-ish fights in that.

[Prowl]

I disagree on that point. With current ship prices, you can regularly commit insurance fraud with some ships and still make a profit as Platininum payout > Ship cost+insurance cost.

This only holds for T1 ships, but all the really interesting things to fly are T2. In a roaming gang of small T1 ships only this math works, no doubt.


Once you've got the hull covered, modules only cost about 20-30mil to fully T2 fit, which you can earn back in 1-2 level 4 missions.

That's going to depend on what modules you need and where you buy them.



The problem is, if you don't like taking losses, then EVE isn't really the game for you. There are some very hard and expensive lessons to be learnt while playing the game, but you have to be willing to try first.


I learned my share of those lessons. Losing a battleship hurts if you're not rich!


That said, a drake is probably the slowest way to complete level 4 missions which probably contributed to your boredom with the game.

I tried in a battleship, wasn't any faster, and in some cases was slower since BS class ships are such pigs. If there was a better way to do those missions no one clued me in on it. It may have been that I just didn't have the skills to fly the BS well, but it would have been a huge time effort to get those skills, and I'd basically have to tell everything else I wanted to do to wait. If all you can fly is a PvE BS, you're just a target out in 0.0 where all the real action is. Since it didn't take me all too long to figure out that EVE PvE content pretty much sucks, the decision to forgo BS class ships was an easy one.




I'm not sure who you asked about with regard to ewar, but I suspect they either didn't have a clue what they were talking about, or they mistook your enquries to be in association with fleet battles. Ewar is of limited use in fleet combat true, but for small and mid sized gangs, they're highly effective.

A young account (2-3 months old, enough to fly a cruiser competantly) has access to 4 different T1 ewar cruisers, so they all should range about 3-5mil for the hull with an additional 5-ish mil for T2 fittings. If you include the T1 ewar frigates, then you have an even bigger selection of ships.
If your corp can't support or at least subsidise the cost of basic T1 cruisers or smaller for fleet ops, then they're not a very good corp.


I asked quite a number of experienced people in the various 0.0 alliances, nobody seemed interested. This was during a period of time when I was trying to figure out how I could be relevant in 0.0 with a relatively young character. I met one person along the way who had his own ewar Scorpion set up, we did some testing, that was interesting.

But the problem with ewar is strategic, since you don't engage in fights you aren't nearly certain to win, those fights tend to be focused on stopping the other guy from fleeing, not stopping him from shooting back. Ewar does nothing to stop someone from fleeing, a fast tackle is much better to have in that case, and that's what I ended up flying (inty, AF).



As I said earlier, for better or worse, combat in EVE reflects modern warfare. If one side had the equivalent of spy satellites giving them up to date intelligence, would they give that info free to the enemy so they could have a fair fight?

It's natural for people who regularly do risky things to mimise that risk - firemen wear protective gear, builders wear hard hats. In EVE where there are consequences to your actions, there's risk in almost any meaningful combat and especially so in 0.0 space. Would you risk soverignty and control of a system, which you and your corp of 20-odd people have spent the last 6 months building up to be a viable place you can live, in a single fair fight?

Did you try small free roaming gangs? Or maybe small scale piracy? You might be able to find some decent fair-ish fights in that.

I did the small gang stuff, that was fun on the occasions it could be done. Most of the roaming gangs ended up being quite large though which was not much fun - not very exciting when you know it really doesn't matter whether you are present or not.

I wasn't saying that you should try to make fights fair for opponents, only that I expected some evenly balanced firefights where skills and tactics would make the difference. In nearly a year of playing, I found exactly one 'fair' fight vs. someone else who was flying the same ship I was flying (which ended inconclusively but respectfully after he realized I was fit better for the encounter than he was).

[Jimorian]

One of the best patch notes ever.


Voice fonts have now been added to EVE Voice. This new feature will allow you to alter your voice during chat to increase or lower pitch or to change from male to female voices. This is certainly not going to be abused in any way.

[SurlySeraph]

I find EVE interesting in concept and I like the fluff, but the "Everyone knows more than you and is more skilled than you and is trying to screw you over" aspects turned me off. I was thinking about trying Dust 514 (http://www.dust514.org/) when it launches, but it appears to be console-only and I'm PC-only, so I probably won't.

[Brother Oni]

I like the Tuxford has been nerfed line. :smallbiggrin:


SurlySeraph: While that's certainly true, it just emphasises the multiplayer aspect of the game and finding a good corp where you can learn the ropes.

There are a couple corps which cater to this ingame - EVE University is biggest and most well known one. They specialise in taking in new players and showing them the basics of the game, up to and including small gang pvp.

After you've learnt everything you can, you can head off to 'proper' corp or stay and help teach.

[NEO|Phyte]

So thanks to a combination of incompetence and possible espionage, stuff just got very interesting in my alliance, in the form of large chunks of sovereignty being lost. I'm vaguely hoping we manage to pull through and keep our space, because hey, 0.0 is nice, but if this goes entirely tits-up, are there any GitP corps in existence?

[SolkaTruesilver]

So thanks to a combination of incompetence and possible espionage, stuff just got very interesting in my alliance, in the form of large chunks of sovereignty being lost. I'm vaguely hoping we manage to pull through and keep our space, because hey, 0.0 is nice, but if this goes entirely tits-up, are there any GitP corps in existence?

What happened? Who attacked you?

[NEO|Phyte]

What happened? Who attacked you?

Whether due to CCP changing something, general incompetence, or intentional action on the part of one of the people with access, our Sov bills were set to take money from the master wallet instead of the sov bills wallet, and there wasn't enough money in there.

As for who's attacking us, IT Alliance, aka Kenzoku, aka Band of Brothers.

[Brother Oni]

I don't think there are any GitP corps simply because we're all too paranoid (we don't seem to have the solidarity of the Goons for some reason).

I'm personally in the militia but I haven't been playing much for a while now and I'll probably let my subscription lapse when renewal comes round.

I thought Kenzoku got effectively wiped off the 0.0 map? They managed to find another alliance to ally with, or was it another hidden holding corp like Kenzoku was inside BoB?

[NEO|Phyte]

I thought Kenzoku got effectively wiped off the 0.0 map? They managed to find another alliance to ally with, or was it another hidden holding corp like Kenzoku was inside BoB?
AFAIK, they did get wiped off the map. They've reformed as IT Alliance for yet another swing at Goonswarm, and with the latest Sov events, they might actually manage to pull it off.

[SolkaTruesilver]

I don't think there are any GitP corps simply because we're all too paranoid (we don't seem to have the solidarity of the Goons for some reason).

Start charging 10$ for subscription, 5$ for an avatar, and other fees for various other elements, and GitP will develop such intra-loyalty.

Also, the board might become much more civil in some discussions
:smalltongue:


Ohhh.... I just thought. Creating a political blog that charges a fee for registering. That would keep all conversation pretty civil... don't you think?

[NEO|Phyte]

Welp, Delve was fun for the ~3 months I got to rat in it, but Goonswarm is officially evacing after the sov ****up. Took some screenshots during the attempts to take down the IT TCUs before they onlined, they are included in the spoiler in all their screen-stretching glory. Currently chilling with everything I care about in NPC space waiting for the convoys to where we're heading.
http://img693.imageshack.us/img693/5389/goodfights6.jpg
http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/2997/goodfights5.jpg
http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/4507/goodfights4.jpg
http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/3497/goodfights3.jpg
http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/6070/goodfights2.jpg
http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/8201/goodfights1.jpg

[SolkaTruesilver]

Welp, Delve was fun for the ~3 months I got to rat in it, but Goonswarm is officially evacing after the sov ****up. Took some screenshots during the attempts to take down the IT TCUs before they onlined, they are included in the spoiler in all their screen-stretching glory. Currently chilling with everything I care about in NPC space waiting for the convoys to where we're heading.

So, effectively, you were part of the Goonswarm, and they got 1-uped the same way they 1-uped Bands of Brother, forcing an evac?

[NEO|Phyte]

So, effectively, you were part of the Goonswarm, and they got 1-uped the same way they 1-uped Bands of Brother, forcing an evac?

Technically we 1-uped ourselves (unless someone knows something I don't), but yes.

[SolkaTruesilver]

Technically we 1-uped ourselves (unless someone knows something I don't), but yes.

Goons are reknown for their self-discipline and protection of intelligence in games such as EVE. I am sure that if there has been a leak, they already have done all in their power to deal with it quietly.

Failure to protect information often led them to victories. Would you have been able to keep Delve if not for that 1-up?

[NEO|Phyte]

Goons are reknown for their self-discipline and protection of intelligence in games such as EVE.

Uh, are we talking about the same Goons here? Because the Goonswarm I know managed to give roles to a week-old account, who promptly stole some 7bil worth of assets, back when Dominion was freshly launched.

[Triaxx]

Remembering that my experience is A) Old, and B) mostly getting blown up or space trucking: What are those big blue bubbles?

[Brother Oni]

We need a bit more info than that Triaxx. :smalltongue:

Was it at a gate in 0.0 (warp disruption field either from a tower or a Heavy Interdictor), at a POS (the POS force shield), around your ship (any number of modules), in a mission (again a forcefield), or something else I'm not familiar with (not sure what all the titan's DDs looks like for example).

[SolkaTruesilver]

Uh, are we talking about the same Goons here? Because the Goonswarm I know managed to give roles to a week-old account, who promptly stole some 7bil worth of assets, back when Dominion was freshly launched.

The same Goons who stole a capital ship and many billions worth of assets to a rival alliance with the very same techniques?

I find it odd that they would have been had by the same trick themselves. But then again, maybe I am talking out of a Boomer's end.

[NEO|Phyte]

Remembering that my experience is A) Old, and B) mostly getting blown up or space trucking: What are those big blue bubbles?
One of those bubbles (the big one with the wavy effects) is a POS shield, the rest are warp disruption probes.

Someone made an image macro regarding recent events!
http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/9361/goonswarm.jpg
It seems to be the general consensus that the main reason this happened was we were being TOO secure, apparently there was two people that had the roles to deal with this, one, the CEO, is on vacation and has no clue what is going on, and will likely be mighty confused when he logs back in and finds his space under IT sovereignty, the other, the guy actually in charge of this stuff, was apparently getting burned out, spending less and less time doing his job. It doesn't help that CCP has sov set up so that you lose everything if you don't have funds handy the instant the bills are due.

[SolkaTruesilver]

It seems to be the general consensus that the main reason this happened was we were being TOO secure, apparently there was two people that had the roles to deal with this, one, the CEO, is on vacation and has no clue what is going on, and will likely be mighty confused when he logs back in and finds his space under IT sovereignty, the other, the guy actually in charge of this stuff, was apparently getting burned out, spending less and less time doing his job. It doesn't help that CCP has sov set up so that you lose everything if you don't have funds handy the instant the bills are due.

I smell potential for emergency Credit organisation :smallbiggrin:

[Triaxx]

Sorry, meant the ones in the pics.

Security is always a concern, but it seems that you ran into the same problem BoB did. A guy who still had responsibilities but wasn't doing his job.

[NEO|Phyte]

Security is always a concern, but it seems that you ran into the same problem BoB did. A guy who still had responsibilities but wasn't doing his job.

BoB's problem was that Haargoth (the director in question) had gotten an alt into Goonswarm (he was initally getting recruit scammed, but the scammer had a change of heart), and found the community superior to that of BoB's, and when his alt failed a security check and was about to be kicked, he offered to defect. The rest, as they say, is history (http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=991219&page=1).