Zero Punctuation: Eve Online

[sumofnothing]

Eve Online in .. some lines.

- There´s Goons
- There´s Goons Pets
- There´s Bob
- There´s Bob´s pets
- There´s AAA
- There´s goons?
pause to change skill training .. "Advanced Boring RL Level 3 Completed"
- There´s Empire (scratch that, Empire sucks)
- There´s POS warfare (that sucks too)
- There´s a "ESC" button.. go ahead and press that
- There´s a "Quit boring game" button.. go ahead and press that too
- There´s Life, go ahead and get one

 

[TOGSolid]

You know whats really interesting? The majority of EVE online players posting here are actually really articulate. Correct grammar, correct punctuation, and well spoken. Not to mention that pretty much all of them have said they completely agree with Ben (yes, i shall call him Ben). These are reasonable people, not like the fucking crazy ass console fanboys who would kill a whole generation of babies to prove a point about their console.

Hats off to you guys. seriously. =]

As the CEO of CCP games is always trying to point out ... the average age of the Eve player is 27. Not 15. That means that we 'can' be more articulate, more patient, more likely to use spreadsheets to plot our future within the game. Many of my corp mates have incredibly serious real life jobs with, quite scary, responsibilities. Many even own their own real life companies. Eve is for the more, usually, serious minded player. It ISNT an instant gratification game. It soes take time. If you want instant gratification, go play wow or COD4 or whatever. Dont play Eve.

However, if you REALY want to see how pathetically childish we can be, come visit our forums, especially C.O.A.D. We really scrape the bottom of the barrels in there for trolling, childish behaviour, whines and tears. Even if the average age is 27

I'm pretty sure that when Obi-Wan said: "You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy" he was actually talking about the Eve forums. I know I make a point to avoid them at all costs.

 

[Tibike77]

Just for the record, there's a large-ish thread (getting larger) about this on the EVE-O forums too

http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=862606

I'm not surprised to see that the majority of people there feel pretty much the same way I did : it's funny (but could have been funnier), it sadly points out a few nasty flaws in early gameplay (for the most part, the review is quite accurate given the circumstances) but also it's an inherently skewed review because of that "don't want to join player corps" attitude.

 

[theklng]

Hm, Yahtzee making an effort to find a new and inventive MMO? Is it raining custard? Have my legs suddenly turned into Belgian tourists?

Good God, it's for real.

Oh, wait, he's ripping the shit out of it. Thank goodness, I'll spit out those Asprin and keep typing.

Never even heard of EVE until today (no I didn't look at the ads, what do you take me for, someone with money?), and after today, well, I won't go near it without a flamethrower and a spray gun full of Holy Water. Never being much of an MMO fan myself, you pretty succinctly pointed out eveything that needed to be said:

Tries to be WoW.

Fails miserably.

Still murders your social life with a pickaxe.

Good man. Funny, angry and laced with bile. Not unlike my porn collection.

i like your writing. but you need more arrogance. sort of like cristopher walken needs more cowbell.

 

[Tony2077]

i found eve fun and i'm not a nerd so and i can't think of anything to say.

 

[Wewt]

Yea i answered inside the Quote

bitter much?

I don't see how making a counterpoint makes me bitter.

 

[The Lost Big Boss]

I have played the 21 day free trial about 5 months ago, and i must say it was very VERY complicated and not user friendly at all. Still i did find that fun because it wasnt holding my hand, it was complicated. Also i noteced you needed like one year of playing to actually get like the huge ships that you see in the trailer, no joke they cost like 100,000,000 credits. And i personally like to be a lone wolf type of person, I would only do shit with like 10 close friends. No matter what MMO WoW, or EvE i was always alone (In the since that i was only in it for myself i would do shit with other people but not to help them.)

 

[AdamAK]

Excellent review. Spot on!

I tried EVE online about a year ago, and while some of it was interesting, there was one thing that I absolutely hated about the game: The totally unfair skill training. Sure, you can say that casual players get a chance to compete with the hardcore players, but that's exactly what makes it so unfair. Why the hell would I want to 'play' ( - most of time you're not even playing EVE, because you can go AFK - ) EVE for several hours per day if I can achieve the same by playing it an hour a week?

Sure, the economy is 'realistic', but instead of wasting money on messing around with this 'realistic' simluation, I might aswell make some real money in real life.

The UI is horrible. The font is annoying and there are too many menu's.

The interaction with other players simply involves either clicking on 'attack' and setting an orbit distance and watch what happens, or chatting with them. I've tried the 'oh-so-awesome' PVP, and it hardly involved any skill. It's about who has the biggest guns and the most SP.

The Corporations fight for empty space with minerals. They COULD form an alliance with other corporations, but for some reason everyone wants to have his personal space where (s)he can do absolutely NOTHING.

The only thing I like about EVE is its steep learning curve. It eliminates all the people that can't handle it, leaving the commited ones behind. Kind of like "Survival of the Fittest".

Well done Yahtzee, the review was great, though lacking some information, but great nonetheless.

 

[haruvister]

Totally agree with all Sir Yahtzee's comments about EVE. 'Tis a game for people who find numbers more interesting than other people.

 

[Wewt]

Well actually, imagine WASD controls. Imagine the lag. Imagine it, dammit.

 

[PxDn Ninja]

Eve is a game that is about the polar opposite of MMOs like WOW, where instant gratification are the thing that keeps players coming. In EVE, it is the planning, strategy, player to player interactions, and political atmosphere that keep the players involved. If you only play for a few minutes, then you never get a feel for the game (which is true for any MMO out there, even WOW takes a good 30 minutes to get a feel for what the whole game is).

 

[Batolemaeus]

Someone already made a video about eve from a newbies view. I recommend watching it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMSjd6HNQdY

For the zp review (read: rant): Yep, spot on.

And it's still the best mmo for me, entertaining me during evenings after hard work.
*buzzzz* *buzzzz* *buzzzz* *refine*

 

[geldonyetich]

Spot on enough review, really.

EvE online is not so much a space game as it is an economic simulation. If you get excited about the idea of Virtual Online Communities then EVE Online is made for you. Its a game where you hand-forge your own player-run civilization from nothing through the endless toil of refining space rocks into something. However, if you like to play games to have fun then EvE's novelty wears off rather quickly. The most exciting part of the game is when giant player-run corporations face off against eachother, and even then it's pretty much number crunching who's able to tank the longest.

If Yahtzee wants to play a fun MMORPG (which, I'm sure he agrees, sounds like a real oxymoron by now) then I heartily recommend he give City of Heroes a spin. It's one of the few MMORPGs that was designed with enjoyable gameplay in mind. However, I think two caveats are neccessary in this case:

1. Like any other game, City of Heroes does not remain fun forever, and then all that's left in the grind.

2. If you play it like the path to victory is kicking eachother's shins, that's exactly what you'll get. City of Heroes allows some creativity and tactics in combat, but you have to try.

 

[thucom]

You know whats really interesting? The majority of EVE online players posting here are actually really articulate. Correct grammar, correct punctuation, and well spoken. Not to mention that pretty much all of them have said they completely agree with Ben (yes, i shall call him Ben). These are reasonable people, not like the fucking crazy ass console fanboys who would kill a whole generation of babies to prove a point about their console.

Hats off to you guys. seriously. =]

My experience with EVE is that this is part of what makes EVE online great. The rough game front weeds out most of the undesirables.

I only played the 14 day trial myself and found the first few days rather dull and unnerving, but it felt like the ball needed to get rolling for it to be any fun. Apparently I ran into a bug with the initial mission line that wouldn't let me have the next mission so I ended up having to earn the fancy new frigate you would normally get through mission rewards. After I did that and was able to actually get through some of the level 1 missions and the experience was pretty good until I felt the missions repeat... over and over. That is not to mention that they started sending me several gate jumps away. The thing that really bugged me was that even though I had gotten a cruiser, I was still fighting frigates. I remember someone saying that higher level missions get you larger ships, but none of the level 2 mission givers would talk to me yet. The worst part about it is that the cruiser, while being bigger, has a harder time than a smaller ship, the destroyer, at blowing up frigates due to the whole speed issue. And while you could equip it with larger weapons, the weapons also were slower tracking that made it just not worth using a cruiser in the trial(unless there is some sort of shortcut to get to the level 2 mission givers that I don't know about).

So the bigger boot thing doesn't work after a certain point in EVE. I mean you can have a bigger shield/armor to get through and that's effective at surviving, but you have to actually be able to hit the smaller "boot" to get the loot. I've found that if you have any ship set to full stop and enemy ships orbiting you, you will barely ever hit anything. That is how important speed is.

 

[Artinam]

The review seems interesting, might as well try the Trail/

 

[PxDn Ninja]

Excellent review. Spot on!

I tried EVE online about a year ago, and while some of it was interesting, there was one thing that I absolutely hated about the game: The totally unfair skill training. Sure, you can say that casual players get a chance to compete with the hardcore players, but that's exactly what makes it so unfair. Why the hell would I want to 'play' ( - most of time you're not even playing EVE, because you can go AFK - ) EVE for several hours per day if I can achieve the same by playing it an hour a week?

Sure, the economy is 'realistic', but instead of wasting money on messing around with this 'realistic' simluation, I might aswell make some real money in real life.

The UI is horrible. The font is annoying and there are too many menu's.

The interaction with other players simply involves either clicking on 'attack' and setting an orbit distance and watch what happens, or chatting with them. I've tried the 'oh-so-awesome' PVP, and it hardly involved any skill. It's about who has the biggest guns and the most SP.

The Corporations fight for empty space with minerals. They COULD form an alliance with other corporations, but for some reason everyone wants to have his personal space where (s)he can do absolutely NOTHING.

The only thing I like about EVE is its steep learning curve. It eliminates all the people that can't handle it, leaving the commited ones behind. Kind of like "Survival of the Fittest".

Well done Yahtzee, the review was great, though lacking some information, but great nonetheless.

Wow, you didn't even scratch the surface of what Eve offers, even over that year it seems. Combat is much more involved than you give it credit, and it is not all about who has the bigger gun and most SP. Actually, the bigger guns have a drawback. If you are in a battleship with large guns, and I'm in a frigate with a high speed and small, short range weapons, then I have the upper hand, and in terms of training, I can get my equipment long before you would have the skills to use the Battleships stuff. Just about every aspect of the game is deep and has many different things to consider, similar to a tactics RPG.

As for being unfair, the hardcore players are rewarded where casuals are not in the terms of money. While most games are level based, Eve is money based. You can train for years, be able to sit in the largest, most armored ship, with the best weapons for that ship, and still be stuck in a frigate because you play casually and never will amass the billions of isk needed to afford what you trained for, while the hardcore player will have a hangar filled with different cruisers, battleships, a capital ship, and other variants, thus being prepared for any situation. All because they play a lot and can afford the nice items.

That said, Eve is definitely not a game for the masses, but when people go in expecting the usual MMO stuff, they will be caught extremely unprepared for what is presented.

 

[Batolemaeus]

Yahtzee, even the game developers agree with you:

http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=862606

As well as nearly all the players...

Now that's sad...

It's hilarious that the developers of the game are endorsing the video, just wow

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not agreeing with most of what was said - and consciously deciding not to join a corp is pretty much deciding that you don't want to have fun, in my experience. Doesn't stop it being funny though, which is what it's for, right?

Please read the whole topic.

 

[Aerach]

Eve is quite possibly the most boring game I've ever played, I tried the trial out last year and it was nothing more than a colossal waste of my time. Yuck.

 

[Wewt]

Wow, you didn't even scratch the surface of what Eve offers, even over that year it seems. Combat is much more involved than you give it credit, and it is not all about who has the bigger gun and most SP. Actually, the bigger guns have a drawback. If you are in a battleship with large guns, and I'm in a frigate with a high speed and small, short range weapons, then I have the upper hand, and in terms of training, I can get my equipment long before you would have the skills to use the Battleships stuff. Just about every aspect of the game is deep and has many different things to consider, similar to a tactics RPG.

As for being unfair, the hardcore players are rewarded where casuals are not in the terms of money. While most games are level based, Eve is money based. You can train for years, be able to sit in the largest, most armored ship, with the best weapons for that ship, and still be stuck in a frigate because you play casually and never will amass the billions of isk needed to afford what you trained for, while the hardcore player will have a hangar filled with different cruisers, battleships, a capital ship, and other variants, thus being prepared for any situation. All because they play a lot and can afford the nice items.

That said, Eve is definitely not a game for the masses, but when people go in expecting the usual MMO stuff, they will be caught extremely unprepared for what is presented.

But the fun is just gone when you have a smaller weapon but more agile.
I remember in Mechwarrior: mercenaries 4, i got the Cougar light mech, Put on Machine gun racks ONLY. Imagine the terror when i saw an ATLAS (reallyfockingbing) mech coming down.
I knew that i had to use skill to beat him, and i knew that i could. But in EVE i simply knew that fatass ship with a huge penis is going down simply because i'm more agile, the stress of knowing that you're completely outnumbered, so you can just go out blazing is gone, making it a passive experience for me. Although i have to admit, when i tried EVE, i traveled. A. LOT.

 

[BlueInkAlchemist]

Couldn't agree more with the sentiment. WoW is enough of a second job, tyvfm.

Still clever and spot-on but not QUITE as clever and spot-on as last week. But that's my opinion.