Eve Online

[MeklorIlavator]

Any players in the playground? I might be thinking about joining the game(I know someone who plays and could get me in a guild). What's the game like? Alot of grinding involved? What does it do different than, say, WOW or Guild Wars(besides the whole space thing)? Does it do the Space thing well? Is there anything one should know before one jumps in?

[Cybren]

EVE online is all or nothing.

[Erloas]

There is almost no meaningful way to compare EVE with EQ/WOW/Guild Wars etc.

I played for a while and then left then went back for a while. It was a game I realy wanted to like but in the end just couldn't. It is a very good game, but it is a very good game for a very select type of people.

The game takes a lot of time, it is an investment to play the game. Its not just in-game time though, the whole skill system requires you to play for months to get a solid base on the game. Although that is something they've been working on changing to make it more new player friendly but I couldn't say how effective that has been. The skill system is at the same time one of the best and one of the worst aspects of the game.

The PvE is very grindy, and probably the most obvious grind in just about any game I've seen. Especially the mining. It does however gain a lot from playing with people you know and like. Mining is trivial in its player activity, but it can still be fun with a good group, which of course comes pretty much just from converstation and the enjoyment comes from outside the game. Of course mining isn't necessary, it is possible to play without doing it, but it depends on what your goals for the game are. It is pretty much a given for most members of alliances. Smaller corps (guilds) can get by without doing it if they aren't trying to build capitol ships and claim 0.0 space.

The game doesn't play like most flight based games, in that reguard it is very much an RPG.

There are a fair number of people that spend all their time mining, trading, or running missions, but the meat of the game is PvP. PvP extends into every aspect of the game too. To get to areas with the best mining you have to go into PvP areas, most trading runs tend to go through PvP areas, and pirates know the most active areas and tend to camp them.
It has been a while since I've played, but at that point the 0.0 was getting somewhat stagnent because the allainces that controlled them where simply too big for any of the others to actually beat. There was always fighting going on, but the control of space wasn't changing drastically.

PvP can be very harsh. Every death results in the lose of the ship you are flying and usually about half the equipement on it. The other half is left in space for anyone to collect, you can get it back most of the time in PvE but it is generally lost in PvP. Of course some people make a living out of killing people and taking their stuff. It is possible to PvP a lot with only a moderate amount of time doing PvE to earn money but it generally requires the use of frigates (smallest, and cheapest types of ships) and basic equipement. It isn't uncommon for equipement to well outcost the price of the ship. With some good skills it is very possible to be a successful pirate with frigates, they are also used in most corp/allaince fighting. About the only time they aren't very useful is with gate camping and taking out stations. They are still useful for scouting, but not so much for combat. But scouting is very important in PvP. It can get pretty expensive if you try to PvP in battleships, but battleships tend to be too slow for run and gun PvP but are the staple for holding systems and taking out enemy structures. The cruisers generally see the most play because they are very versatile. The T2 assault cruisers are (or at least where when I was playing last) the most versatile and most dangerous ships for PvP, but being T2 they had limited numbers and where often prohibitively expensive for most people to PvP a lot in them.

Its hard to give specific advice without knowing what you plan on doing in the game. You would also have to find someone that is more up-to-date on the game.

[NEO|Phyte]

http://www.eve-pirate.com/uploads/LearningCurve.jpg

As for the questions this picture DOESN'T answer, yes, there are playgrounders in EVE (myself not included currently, I need income before I can start paying). The game is whatever you make of it (piracy, anti-piracy, faction warfare, mining, production, trading, corp management, etc.). With the way skills work, you can't really grind to better yourself, but money to buy shiny new toys to play with doesn't make itself. Only thing I can think of off the top of my head regarding differences between EVE and stuff like WoW is that in EVE, if your ship gets blown up, it's exactly that. There's also stuff where players a few hours into the game can make MEANINGFUL contributions to Corp warfare as Tacklers (http://eve.allakhazam.com/db/guides.html?guide=814) (I don't know about corps in general, but the one I'm aware of through some other forums will gladly hand out free ships for just this purpose). I'm not really the person to ask on how it handles space, but I feel it works out fairly good.

((Note that this post was made by someone who's only personal experience with EVE has been 3 14-day trials, and was only in WoW for the open beta, so his information may not be entirely accurate))

[Cybren]

That curve is drawn wrong- it shows how easy EVE is.

[Tengu_temp]

EVE online is all or nothing.

A fitting description. Either you have the time and patience to play this game 8+ hours daily, with some long-sighted goal in mind and not expecting satisfaction right away (because indeed, most of what you're going to do won't be very exciting), or this is not a game for you. And since almost everything is player-run and you lose a lot after you die, there's quite a lot of scammers and griefers.

In other words, not a game for me. People who say that WoW feels like work, not fun, haven't tried Eve. Well, at least it has pretty graphics. But I'm not paying monthly for a nice screensaver.

[Eita]

Any players in the playground? I might be thinking about joining the game(I know someone who plays and could get me in a guild). What's the game like? Alot of grinding involved? What does it do different than, say, WOW or Guild Wars(besides the whole space thing)? Does it do the Space thing well? Is there anything one should know before one jumps in?

EVE is not a game. EVE is an interactive screensaver.

[Tom_Violence]

That curve is drawn wrong- it shows how easy EVE is.

Indeed, the Y axis should say something like 'Gaming Skill Required'.

[Battlefield]

Why does EVERY meteroite have tritanium? WHY???

I can't stand having 60 times the needed amount of tritanium for a recipe, but 1/2 the amount of isogen.

GAH!

[Brother Oni]

I'd like to point out that unlike most other MMOs, EVE Online's skill training is real time based. If a skill takes 12 hours to train, you could set it the night before, then wake up in the morning and it'd be complete.

It's what allows casual players to be able to stay in the game - I personally haven't played for longer than half an hour for over half a year now due to a new baby, but my skills and character development still keeps on improving.

Once you've managed to get a handle on the game, it's perfectly possible to play only for half an hour a day and still advance just as well as somebody else who plays 8+ hours a day.


As another poster has mentioned, PVP extends into all aspects of this game, even the market. If you undercut somebody else's sell order, that's sales and money you've stolen from them.

As mentioned, the PVP aspect does make this a niche game though. If you can't handle major setbacks, large death penalties, unfair interactions with other players and want instant gratification, EVE isn't the game for you.

[Brother Oni]

Why does EVERY meteroite have tritanium? WHY???

I can't stand having 60 times the needed amount of tritanium for a recipe, but 1/2 the amount of isogen.

GAH!

Go mine Omber then, but you do know that Veldspar is currently the most valuable ore in high-sec, right?

With the price of tritanium in my region, you could quite easily sell it for a profit and go buy the isogen instead.

[The Evil Thing]

Or do what we veterans do: grind level 4 missions and use the money to buy the minerals we need. In the late game, mining is only viable as a source of income if you need to be regularly AFK or you live in 0.0 space.

If anyone wants to say hi, my in-game name is Penchance. Unless I have work (I work very strange hours in exchange for a moderate pay boost) you might find me online.

[Triaxx]

This is one of those games I wish I could get in on, but they want me to pay for it.

I've heard rumors of being able to pay with ingame currency. Is that one of those things to draw you in then end up being impossible to acheive without dedicating 90% of the day to it? Or have I heard wrong?

Or is it something that can't be bought with a mere 15-free trial?

[The Evil Thing]

Yes, you can pay for a subscription using only in-game currency. However, it is very expensive - prohibitively so for early players.

Generally, you can buy GTCs (Game Time Codes) from other players (who bought them using real currency). You should expect to pay 400 million ISK for a 60 day code. I think there are also 30 and 90 day codes available but I'm not sure offhand.

For comparison, you should expect to end up roughly 10-20m ISK in your 14 day trial if you work hard.

[Battlefield]

Can anyone find out if there is a company already named Order of the Stick or (Whatever) in the Playground?

[Brother Oni]

Can anyone find out if there is a company already named Order of the Stick or (Whatever) in the Playground?

There is a one man corp called Giants In the Playground with ticker GITP.

It's run out of Yulai VIII Inner Circle Tribunal station by Galmar Grief. It was founded this month so it's a new corp.

I can't find any corp named Order of the Stick. There's plenty of 'Order of the [Blank]' corps though.

[illyrus]

My experience with Eve has been a bit different than other posters.

First of all, I hate mining, missioning, and ratting. I care about trade only so far as selling stuff I've acquired and research and production only so far as I can make ISK (the Eve currency) while not online.

I belong to a fairly small PvP corp (I'd call us profiteers) that does various PvP ops (operations) once or twice a week. I'm semi-active with the game and have only been playing about 8 months for probably about 12 hours a week. Our profits from pvp ops is split x+1 ways where x is the number of people coming to the op with the corp itself getting a split as if it's a person. Splits can be less than whole if you bring a cruiser or frigate to a fight where we need you in a battleship for example. You can fly a battleship reasonably well after a month and a T2 (advanced) frigate after a few weeks. I've made anywhere from 15 million to 100 million ISK an op with the average being around 40 million. We've accept brand new players and attempt to teach them the game. For some it has worked out, for others not so much.

These ops allow us to avoid what we personally consider boring activities and still have the ISK to purchase and replace equipment losses.

That's not to say that our corp is doing it "right" or that there are not more profitable ways out there (day trading is a huge ISK maker for example). We simply want to have fun and make ISK playing the game. I'm not trying to say "come join us we're awesome". What I am trying to say is that you don't have to spend 8 hours a day mining or staring at the market to make a reasonable amount of ISK to fly cool ships and can still get a great deal of enjoyment out of the game only putting in a few hours a week.

It's a harsh environment but if you can thrive in that environment then it can be alot of fun. Eve is a sandbox environment where there really is no "right" or "most efficient" way to play.

[Triaxx]

So... I need to play with some one who already has enough. I wonder just how rich he is?

[downtym]

To piggyback on Illyrus' statement as one of the other people in the "Profiteer Corp":

EVE Online is a really simple game if you want it to be. I spent my first month or so playing trying out every aspect of the game from a newb's perspective and I quickly came to the conclusion that everything except PvP is incredibly boring.

People who say that highsec mining, transporting, or research is "fun" must really enjoy watching paint dry because that's what you are doing when you partake in those aspects of the game. And don't even come at me with "You don't know what you're talking about". I've sat through a 4 hour mining op providing "Security". Best sleep I've ever gotten!

The PvP combat is interesting, though. It has many components and plays more like a chess game then many other MMO's. With such a limited number of equipment slots and the logical limit on what is and what is not a "Good Build" solo or small group PvP in EVE Online plays out more like submarine warfare or a chess game then the fast paced "Click your abilities in X order as fast as possible" many other games have become. Often, in EVE, you will have time to contemplate your next move and there will be many times when you have plenty of time to contemplate your mistakes. Sometimes the combat is fast and furious, but the number of fights that actually give you time to contemplate your moves out number those furious fights.

Anyway, once I determined that PvP was what I liked, the next question was "Can I be profitable doing it"? As Illyrus and I have seen, the answer is a resounding "Oh, heck yes." There is an incredible amount of money to be made stealing and destroying in EVE. And as long as you realize that "Frigates, Destroyers, Cruisers, and Battlecruisers are TACTICAL WEAPONS. Battleships are STRATEGIC" then you can survive easily and make a ton of money.

And I really think Illyrus and I have figured out the "right way" to play EVE - I know Illyrus would argue this point, but we've managed to distill EVE down to a certain purity of form. We log on for a few hours, run around looking for targets or engaging targets, and then we log off. Some days we make 0 isk, some days we make 140 million isk each. But everyday we have FUN. And I don't mean "Oh, yeah, I have a lot of fun mining for 8 to 12 hours. I walk my dogs, eat dinner, watch some TV, read a book, and occasionally redock to sell minerals." When I say FUN, I mean "Oh, yeah, we chased a guy down and blew up his ship then looted it then sold the loot then split the money then logged off. All in the space of about an hour or two."

I continue to be aggravated at the designer's emphasis on "Huge Fleet Fights" which is a place where I think EVE breaks down. Instead of being an interesting combat, the large fleet battles turn into "Everyone target and kill X first. Now Y. Now Z". And whoever goes down the list faster and more efficiently wins. Oh, and the lag is unbearable. Where EVE actually shines through is in solo and small group PvP. However, because of the mechanics of the game many people are unwilling to fly anything but the best and the biggest ship they can afford. And they are often unwilling to engage unless they are absolutely, totally, 100% sure they will win.

Fortunately for Illyrus, myself, and the rest of the corporation we are in; the fact that they often fly preditable builds and underestimate us in small engagements works in our favor and results in some hilariously awesome kills.

[Kizara]

I got to say that your little guild sounds incredibly cool and is EXACTLY the kind of thing that made me interested in EVE in the first place.

Why would I want to play a online game? To kick other people's asses at it. Really, most MMORPGS are excercises in very inventive ways to waste your time. If I want good competition, I'll play DotA (which I do alot); if I want RPing, I'll play DnD; if I want building-based game, I'll play Civ.

Anyways, I would be very interested in joining your guild once current real life issues are resoluved and I can spare the time and money. You guys sound like you are having exactly my kind of fun.

To quote the motto of my old DotA clan: "Farming is boring, pushing is a crap shoot. I play DotA to hunt people."

[Kane]

Well, I'm afraid I don't have much positive to add; EVE is a wonderfully open world, good SF sim, but really, it's not fun for me. I downloaded the free trial, created a character, went in and was thinking, "Okay... I could use some money. I think I'd like to upgrade ships." I go in, and start mining, since as far as I know, that's the safest way to reliably make money.

I realized I ought to be in bed around 4 hours later. It wasn't fun, it was more of a repetitive thing that made me lose track of time. I kept going, "A little more..." and it just... eh. Whatever. I uninstalled it the next day.

Keep in mind, though, I'm heavily biased against MMOs. If you enjoy it, go for it, I just don't want to get caught up in one.

Plus I'm hoping that if these die off, MMOs will eventually become 'free' things as opposed to something that expects you to stick out your arm to be bled every month. I don't like the idea of any game doing that.

[illyrus]

Kizara:
Looks like you have the right mentality to enjoy the type of activities we engage in. Just PM me on these forums or contact "Kuroi Hoshi" or "Petra Arkania" and mention that you you spoke with illyrus/Xanral (my character in Eve) on here when you get started in the game. Downtym plays Downtym in Eve as well.

[Jimp]

I would have loved to play EVE online in that kind of pvp guild, but the free trial just left me kind of lost. I found the game very confusing :smallfrown:.

[Erloas]

Not to say that what Illyrus and Downtyme said isn't true, but it is highly dependant on what you want from a game.

I was in a small PvP corp that living in 0.0 space and we had a few people that pretty much did nothing but PvP. However in order to actually hold any space (ie stations) or build any of the capitol ships it simply couldn't be done without mining. A few people got to do nothing but PvP, but it came at the cost of other people mining while they weren't around.

Of course that can be avoided by staying in low sec NPC controlled space, but it does mean loosing out on some aspects of the game.

One other issue I had, which is admitedly highly situational, was that I was minmatar and flew minmatar ships, its what I had trained in and what I wanted to fly. However most of the rest of my corp all flew ships from other races and just about the only minmatar ships being flown where battleships, of which I couldn't afford to PvP in. So basically minmatar ammo was scarce, as was all of their weapons and their ships. It wasn't that we didn't have the BPs (I bought most of them for the corp to have) but that we had limited slots to build and all the builders focused on other things. It was also time prohibative to fly into empire all the time to pick up a new ship, especially when they didn't last a long time in PvP.
It basically ment that I couldn't even pratically PvP in cruisers and tacklers/friagtes unless I wanted to start training for another race's ships and weapons, which I didn't want to do.



As for the training time, I know they've done a fair amount of work to reduce the introduction time to the game, but they must have changed it a lot if you can fly t2 frigates in weeks and battleships in a month. You would have been hard pressed to even be able to dock and undock them when I was playing, let alone fly them in that period of time. It used to take a month just to get the learning skills down (pretty much a given requirement if you wanted to play long term), but even beyond that it took a month or two to get the basic general skills down to fly ships successfully. Things like lock time/distance, shield or armor repair, tracking speed, weapon range, etc. I think frigate 5 (which was required for T2 frigates if I recall correctly) took at least a week entirely on its own. Then it took another month to get into larger ships and the weapons that go with them.


My biggest problem with the PvP though was simply the fact that 99% of the time it wasn't fair. It almost always just came down to ganking. You almost never run into a situation where a fight is close. You might find someone mining or traveling, or someone might find you like that. You might go out to fight alone and find a group, or go out as a group and find a much smaller or much smaller group. Most fights came down to if someone could get someone else locked down so they couldn't flee then they where dead, otherwise they get away or you spend the next hour trying to track them down. Even people that are set up for combat is no guarentee that it will be a good fight, a few frigates vs a battleship it is usually the case where the BS is set up to handle frigates and blasts them, or the frigates close range and the BS can't do anything at all against them.

The biggest thing about EVE is that there are so many variables that you never quite now what you'll be facing. But what it also means is that there are lots of situations where one side or the other simply has no way of handling what comes up.
At least with your normal MMORPG the group size generally sets what you would expect to see in other roaming PvP groups and any reasonable group has some way of handling everything, but that doesn't happen in EVE.

*what did they ever do about the Jump to 15km thing and the 5000 BMs everyone had to carry around to travel through non-empire space without being ganked constantly?

[illyrus]

Erloas did a good job describing the dilemma most people have with Eve and the standard of how PvP can go.

To answer your question first Erloas, they allow you to warp to 0 on a gate or station and autopilot puts you about 15 to 20 km out.

Defending is always more of a pain in the butt than attacking. Player Owned Stations are cool, I was in another corp before my current one that had one and access to a half dozen in our alliance with a set of 3 0.0 systems we owned. The big problem with them is that they take alot to upkeep in time and ISK.

I think alot of people get caught in a little downward spiral in Eve (and alot of other MMORPGs). "I want a carrier capital ship" turns into:
-"well the most cost effective way to get one is to gather the ore myself so I'll mine for 2 weeks"
-"I'll need to buy all the component blueprint copies and the carrier blueprint to save money"
-"but I'll need money to buy the blueprints"
-"I'll need to pick a good station in low sec to assemble all of this"
-"now I'll have to transport all my materials thru low sec space to assemble it"
-"dammit I got blown up, I hate this fricken game!"

to which at the end of the day they'll be spending 90% of their time supporting this massive production setup. As opposed to:

-"oh I want this carrier"
-"huh I'll have to pay 10% more in money to get it off of someone else"
-"hmm, I'll spend my time doing things I enjoy to get that money at a slower rate"

To which they'll end up spending 90% of their time doing fun things and will actually get to enjoy that carrier.

That's not to say producing ships is bad, some people love doing the whole crafting portion in MMORPGs and it's a ton of fun for them. Nor am I saying "hey we'll never go for having our own little section of 0.0". We're not going to try something like that though until the work to fun ratio is much further in favor of the fun side.

Edit - As for the learning skills, yes they're very useful in the long run but focusing on them for the first month will cut down alot of options you could have tried out during your trial. You can put in maybe 2 days in the first month to get all the tier 1 learning skills to rank 3 from starting and have a good base for the next month or two of gameplay.

[illyrus]

I would have loved to play EVE online in that kind of pvp guild, but the free trial just left me kind of lost. I found the game very confusing :smallfrown:.

Yeah, when I first started playing Eve I lasted about 45 minutes before uninstalling it. The second time was months later with a friend (who had only been playing for a month himself) helping me out in understanding what was going on. A couple of things:
1. http://www.eve-ivy.com is a corporation dedicated to teaching people how to play the game. They have some good guides on how to play and from what I've heard are helpful people.
2. You can have an infinite amount of trials

[Kane]

2. You can have an infinite amount of trials

What? You're kidding, right?

[illyrus]

Not kidding, heh. You have to make a new character for each trial account (so you can't string together 20 14 day trials and build up a well skilled character) but you can have as many trial accounts as you like.

[MeklorIlavator]

I think I might actually be interested in this game. We'll see, and I'll have to try some things out first, but if i like it, I might be interested in joining your corp.

[The Evil Thing]

*what did they ever do about the Jump to 15km thing and the 5000 BMs everyone had to carry around to travel through non-empire space without being ganked constantly?
They allowed warp to 0km which basically obsoleted instas. :smallbiggrin:


As for the learning skills, yes they're very useful in the long run but focusing on them for the first month will cut down alot of options you could have tried out during your trial. You can put in maybe 2 days in the first month to get all the tier 1 learning skills to rank 3 from starting and have a good base for the next month or two of gameplay.
Listen to this man. Only train the learning skills when you've finished the trial and have enough money to simultaneously buy all of them (of course, you don't simultaneously buy all of them, but it's a good benchmark).

[Triaxx]

Sounds like it needs an offline trial version that starts you flying a cruiser or so. Something with a system or two. Of course, one system should be 1.0 security and the other 0.0 to prove what it's really like.

[The Evil Thing]

There's no way you can simulate 0.0 offline with just NPC actors. It's both scary and safe depending on who you are and where you live. If you desperately want an offline version of EVE, your best bet is playing Homeworld 2.

[downtym]

I was in a small PvP corp that living in 0.0 space and we had a few people that pretty much did nothing but PvP. However in order to actually hold any space (ie stations) or build any of the capitol ships it simply couldn't be done without mining. A few people got to do nothing but PvP, but it came at the cost of other people mining while they weren't around.

Let me toss out my personal philosophy which may or may not be shared by Illyrus or the other individuals in the corporation, but will provide a frame of reference for the things I'm about to say:

Holding space in EVE Online is a chump's game. I long ago decided that the payoff for holding territory in EVE is that you have an industrial backbone that gives your organization the ability to wage fleet battles and conquer more space. However, fleet battles are horrifically laggy unsurprisingly and degenerate into "Can you go down a line killing 1 target at a time faster then the other guys?" And there's diminishing returns as far as I'm concerned in conquering space because while you gain more and more in game resources you lose more and more human player time to maintaining the conquered space. Quick question: Which of these two objects is finite? Game Resources or Human Time? Exactly.

So, my decision came down to "Have Fun". And what I've discovered is fun is stealing from other people, fighting other people, and generally doing what I want when I want. I fly frigates, destroyers, cruisers, and battlecruisers almost exclusively and I enjoy the heck out of it. I've gotten a decent number of kills for someone that went from "Carebear-lite, getting ready to quit" to "Pie Rat". And even on nights when I can't find someone to fight and kill, I still have fun because I'm enjoying the hunting. And I know that eventually I'll start moving further and further towards always having a fight at hand.

I really think the game shines if you accept the Frigate<->Battlecruiser philosophy and learn to live "Cheap".

And if you really want to know what we do every night, the following is a good description:

http://www.battleclinic.com/eve_online/pk/view/corp-Ajo+Heavy+Industries-kills.html

Everyone said you couldn't play EVE Online without a fleet backing you. And I think we're challenging that assumption very well.


Of course that can be avoided by staying in low sec NPC controlled space, but it does mean loosing out on some aspects of the game.

Illyrus and I have seen a healthy amount of 0.0. I have made runs through Goon, BoB, Red, MC (When they existed), CVA, Hydra, etc. space - for those that don't know, these are fairly well known and large Alliances that control big sections of 0.0 - and Illyrus has participated in small fleet actions. What I learned is that even occupied 0.0 is mostly empty and soulless. I really don't see the value of controlling 0.0 or lowsec space except to say that you can do it, honestly.

My opinion essentially boils down to a set of questions:

Oh, great, you can afford to build 1 Titan class ship a week from the amount of money your Alliance makes. How much time did people spend resupplying the stations needed to generate that income? How much time did people spend maintaining and defending the stations and space to generate that income? Was it really worth it? Was it fun?

Honestly, I don't see it.


As for the training time, I know they've done a fair amount of work to reduce the introduction time to the game, but they must have changed it a lot if you can fly t2 frigates in weeks and battleships in a month. You would have been hard pressed to even be able to dock and undock them when I was playing, let alone fly them in that period of time. It used to take a month just to get the learning skills down (pretty much a given requirement if you wanted to play long term), but even beyond that it took a month or two to get the basic general skills down to fly ships successfully. Things like lock time/distance, shield or armor repair, tracking speed, weapon range, etc. I think frigate 5 (which was required for T2 frigates if I recall correctly) took at least a week entirely on its own. Then it took another month to get into larger ships and the weapons that go with them.

Getting a Tech 2 Assault Frigate - the smallest of the Tech 2 ships - takes about 1 week for Frigates V, 2 weeks for Engineering V, and 2 weeks for Mechanic V. And I know people will laugh at the idea of a Tech 1 fitted tech 2 ship, but the honest response is that the big thing about the Tech 2 ships is that they have significantly better defenses. So at least on the scale of Assault Frigates they can be totally worth it.

As for a Battleship, you can train Cruisers on your first day of playing and leap to Battleships within a week. The Large weapons can be trained within a week or two. And the supporting gear can be trained within a week. So it's definitely possible to get a Battleship for supporting strategic operations extremely quickly with some focus.

The trick to EVE I've discovered is to accept that somedays you don't need to play. You just set up a 5 day skill to train and if you don't want to log in for 5 days, that's great. Otherwise, just log in for an hour or two a night and go hunting. If you find a target, fight it. Win or lose, go home or try again. If you learn to fly cheap and buy multiple replacements then the losses really become less and less over time.

For example, in my personal hanger I have at least 1 fully equipped replacement for every one of my ships. I have 20 fully equipped Frigates, 5 fully equipped Cruisers, 5 fully equipped Assault Frigates, 2 fully equipped Battlecruisers, and 2 fully equipped Battleships. I also have who knows how many Industrials scattered throughout the galaxy which I use to move ill gotten gains. =) And I have over 100 million isk in the bank. For a guy that makes his money can flipping, picking fights in high sec, low sec, and 0.0 and whose biggest profitable fleet so far has been 8 people, I have to say I'm kind of happy.


My biggest problem with the PvP though was simply the fact that 99% of the time it wasn't fair.

I would like to retort that this is true of any MMORPG and many FPS games I've played. 90+% of your fights will be against people who are either completely out classed or who completely out class you. Finding a "fair fight" is something of a rarity. Anyone that's played EQ, DAoC, WoW, AoC knows this. And anyone that's been royally thrashed in a game of Quake, Counterstrike, or Battlefield knows this too. Finding "equivalent combatants" is something of a rarity no matter where you look.


It almost always just came down to ganking. You almost never run into a situation where a fight is close.

I've had a couple fights where I survived low in structure. But, yes, a "good fight" is woefully few and far between. But this is true in any game as I've stated before.


You might find someone mining or traveling, or someone might find you like that.

I found the solution to "someone might find you like that" is to minimize your time mining or traveling. =)

If you go out there with the mindset of a hunter then you're likely to fall into a trap, but very rarely are you simply docile prey.


You might go out to fight alone and find a group, or go out as a group and find a much smaller or much smaller group. Most fights came down to if someone could get someone else locked down so they couldn't flee then they where dead, otherwise they get away or you spend the next hour trying to track them down. Even people that are set up for combat is no guarentee that it will be a good fight, a few frigates vs a battleship it is usually the case where the BS is set up to handle frigates and blasts them, or the frigates close range and the BS can't do anything at all against them.

EVE is much more like a chess game that way. Once an engagement has begun there's much less an influence of probability and much more of an influence of what you brought to the battle. There's much less "Rock-Paper-Scissors" and much more "Scissors-Scissors-Scissors" in my opinion - meaning that a particular ship or equipment type is not a guaranteed win against another ship or equipment type. There's a lot more room for tactical ingenuity - as I would call it.


The biggest thing about EVE is that there are so many variables that you never quite now what you'll be facing.

I really like this aspect. It makes battle more challenging and promotes lateral thinking. For example, I once got jumped while in a Frigate by an Assault Ship traveling 10 times faster. It was, effectively impossible for me to win. But if I could escape his Warp Scrambler then I could snatch Defeat from the jaws of Death. So I approached him while he was orbiting far away which made his ship align to fly away from me briefly, then I turned 180 away from him which made him head straight towards me. Then I turned towards him one more time and went full speed. Because the other player was fighting to keep me at a particular range and I kept juking back and forth on him, he attempted to directly approach me and we ended up shooting past each other. Since he was going so fast he overshot me by a distance greater than his Warp Scrambler range and I was able to warp away.

Essentially, by taking advantage of the physics involved I was able to escape a fight that I should have lost handily. And, honestly, that makes it fun. If I go into a fight knowing exactly what my opponent has then I should never lose. If what my opponent has outclasses me then I don't engage him when the environment favors him. If what my opponent has is weaker than me, I engage him as quickly and furiously as possible to end the engagement before the environment changes. In a game like WoW, you can "Spec out" your opponent at a glance and know whether the fight has been lost or won before it starts. In EVE its a lot more difficult. A guy that I steal from could be bringing back anything to fight me so I have to be prepared for a lot more contingencies. People react differently so I have to be on my toes.


But what it also means is that there are lots of situations where one side or the other simply has no way of handling what comes up.
At least with your normal MMORPG the group size generally sets what you would expect to see in other roaming PvP groups and any reasonable group has some way of handling everything, but that doesn't happen in EVE.

Games should not promote "I Win Buttons". While I denigrate the "Rock-Paper-Scissor" model, I also find the "Swiss Army Knife" approach to be silly too. Their have to be risks in a PvP game and one of those risks is that you will come up on a situation for which there is no escape, there is no way to fight, and there is no way to win. That's acceptable. The hard part is that you want to minimize those situations - thus reducing the "Rock-Paper-Scissor"ness of the game - without eliminating them - thus keeping the game from becoming a battle between "Swiss Army Knives".

[downtym]

I think I might actually be interested in this game. We'll see, and I'll have to try some things out first, but if i like it, I might be interested in joining your corp.

Hit me up in game and I'll donate 1 million isk to making your trial easier.* =)

You can EVE Mail me or just try "Convo'ing" me in game if I'm on. I'd suggest EVE Mail.

*Don't try to take advantage of this and get multiple millions. ;) And it would be nice you paid me back (FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY, WE'RE OFFERING 0.000000000000000000000000000000% INTEREST FOR THE NEXT INFINITE YEARS!).

[downtym]

I would have loved to play EVE online in that kind of pvp guild, but the free trial just left me kind of lost. I found the game very confusing :smallfrown:.

If you're in the United States and want to give it another try, make a new trial and hit me up. I offer free training lessons to people willing to come hang out with me and answer any question I know the answer to.* =)

There's very little in EVE below the Battleship and Capital level that I haven't figured out. And what I don't know, I'm sure one of the other corporate members will.

*Prospects must be willing to handle crude humor, off color remarks, stealing and shooting without provocation, and my general sense of superiority and jerk-ish-ness.

[downtym]

I think alot of people get caught in a little downward spiral in Eve (and alot of other MMORPGs). "I want a carrier capital ship" turns into:
-"well the most cost effective way to get one is to gather the ore myself so I'll mine for 2 weeks"
-"I'll need to buy all the component blueprint copies and the carrier blueprint to save money"
-"but I'll need money to buy the blueprints"
-"I'll need to pick a good station in low sec to assemble all of this"
-"now I'll have to transport all my materials thru low sec space to assemble it"
-"dammit I got blown up, I hate this fricken game!"

I SEEM TO HAVE DROPPED THIS BASKET CONTAINING ALL OF MY EGGS. IF ONLY THERE HAD BEEN A PARABLE ABOUT THIS THEN I COULD HAVE AVOIDED THIS FATE.

=)

In all caps because no one ever pays attention to this lesson.

[downtym]

Sounds like it needs an offline trial version that starts you flying a cruiser or so. Something with a system or two. Of course, one system should be 1.0 security and the other 0.0 to prove what it's really like.

An example of a typical 1.0 Star System:

Make a trial account and fly to the nearest 1.0 Security system - I like Duripant. Go to all the asteroid belts. Admire that the people sitting in these belts mining will still be there mining in 8 hours. Watch them mine for 5 minutes. Try not to fall asleep or become distracted by your internal clock which is ticking your life away 1 minute at a time. Imagine a world in which these people were doing something more fun. Weep for humanity.

An example of a typical 0.0 Star System:

Warp to a planet in the above 1.0 Star System. Now imagine that the only person in Local is you. Close your eyes and listen (Don't fall asleep). Hear that silence? Yeah.

An example of a combat ridden 0.0 Star System:

Go to a Stargate in the above 1.0 Star System. Jump through the Stargate. Immediately upon arriving on the other side imagine all the ships around the Stargate are enemy ships waiting at a gate camp. Target one and fire, quickly! Notice that your ship is destroyed. Pod away as fast as you can.

:smallbiggrin:

[Erloas]

Well not wanting to get too much off on a tangent, I think most games end up being more fair in PvP then EVE.
I'm not an amazing FPS player and don't play a lot, but I could still go into any game and have a good chance of winning. Much more then 10% of the time for sure. That of course was almost always in Rainbow Six games because I don't really care for many of the other FPSs, and the RS games are designed in such a way that things are naturally a bit more balanced, you don't have to know where all of the power ups and best weapons are.

I would also say DAOC's PvP was very fair the majority of the time. Though I know that was variable depending on the servers, but in its prime on my server you could go out any night of the week and PvP and have close fights that you sometimes won and sometimes lost. It was also possible to be effective in a good PUG with good players. Of course I know other servers had a lot more zerging, our server was fairly zerg free most of the time, and our realm had a very good community and while there where a lot of "PUGs" they where generally with the same set of 8 out of maybe 50-80 people that RvRed all the time. So while it wasn't a defined group, it was generally playing with people you knew and played with before even if they weren't in your guild.


It just seemed that in EVE it always came down to the hunt, it was all about the hunt, and the kill was just a brief part of that. Outside of fleet battles it just seemed to come down mostly to hunter or prey, and very little contest between equals. The gank or be ganked approach to PvP is never one I cared for, on either side of things.

[Amotis]

So I'm starting back EVE again. ^_^

Right now I'm playing an Amarr, waiting for my RL friends to join in as said faction so we could have some fun.

Downtym, Imma hit you up.

[SmartAlec]

Is this game worth a go if you don't actually have anyone to join up with?
I remember giving EVE a try a year or so ago - I really enjoyed Elite, Frontier etc, so I thought I'd like it - but I couldn't even get through a day of the trial, it seemed so dull.

[Tengu_temp]

Not worth it. If you didn't enjoy the trial, you won't enjoy the actual game either.