Zero Punctuation: Eve Online

[Alleged_Alec]

I see a lot of people saying that Eve is one of the best MMO's ever. On the other hand, I see a lot of people saying that the first few weeks suck, and somehow, I can't put those two 'facts' (?) together. A game which isn't fun for the first weeks you play it, isn't worth to be called the best MMO.

Really, those first days should make you want to play the game more. I don't know if you guys have ever played WoW, but I know that when I did for the first time, I was blown away. I was amazed by the lore behind everything. I had a great time. I'm not going to play a game if the first few weeks, I don't enjoy it.

 

[Flayra]

From someone who does play EVE regularly, I must agree with Yahtzee on a lot of points. EVE has a learning curve that is steep as f*** and it takes at least 1-2 months to get properly into what is what. But once you get into the advanced part of the game (which might take up to 6 months or more, another con against EVE), it really starts to light up.

The idea behind EVE is great, the implementation is less-than-stellar, but still really damn cool once you get the hang of it. I wish someone would rip it off blatantly and improve on all the flaws

 

[Archedgar]

I keep taking offense to Yahtzee referring to WoW as the quintessential MMORPG, when it is actually a rip off of already existing MMORPGs of the past.

Me having played EQ(1), Lineage 2 and other such games, realize this, but it drives me crazy that he kepts referring to them , indirectly I'll bet, as "WoW clones" when WoW itself is a major(and horrid I might add) clone of other MMORPGs.

I suppose an accurate comparison would be, he keeps referring to "FPS" games as Quake clones when Doom/Wolfenstein did it WAY sooner.

 

[Veloxi]

Thank you for such an excellent review. As a space game fanatic, I'll play anything with a spaceship in it, and while I can handle most games, EVE bores the CRAP out of me.

If you want to try a space-based MMO wherein actual skill does matter, try Jumpgate -- wherin you actually have to fly the spaceships rather than simply pointing and clicking. Far, far superior, IMO.

EVE has a number of older players and players who do not enjoy twitch-based gameplay, including myself.
Looking over the page of features for jumpgate, it seems to have many of the same features as EVE (plus what looks to be a PVP flag).

I don't see anything on the scale of EVE's player-made corporations and alliances and those are where much of the best content is.

JG is much more of a niche title due to the space-simmy elements, so it doesn't have as wide an appeal as more sedate, easier-to-play games such as EVE, in my opinion. This means it has less players as well, sadly, and while it doesn't have corporations, it does have squadrons which is somewhat similar.

Jumpgate Evolution -- the sequel to JG Classic -- is on its way and will hopefully have more of the elements you discussed, but I'm unsure if it will at the moment.

 

[TimMc]

I'll be probably the 50th person so far to say "Eve PvE Sucks hairly monkey balls". But seriously get over it, its ment to.


You see, the only way to make people actually cry when you kill them, is to make you have to work to get there. When you kill someone, they get SO angry (ranging from bitching at you for an hour to quitting the game) because it can take them hours, days, weeks or months to earn it back. Drinking the tears of my enemies is one of the features of Eve Online.

The PvP basis of the game is made even more fun by the politics of corporations and alliances, the capturing of more than 2/3s of the game and the economy that's almost as realistic as RL.


The main downside? Well I've been playing for almost 2 years now. It took me 2 weeks to understand what was going on and 6 months before I could really kill anyone. But thats the joy for some people, figuring out what is going on. You say the new player experience was rubbish? Well its alot easier than when I started, and before my time there was no tutorials at all. It just threw you out there.

 

[lord667]

Im really surprised you never mentioned dying. When you die, you lose everything youve built up, and i was sure this would twist up your panties, but you never delved into it.

If he only did missions and didn't join a corporation, he likely didn't do much dying. Plus he was only on a two-week trial, which means the biggest thing he could have lost is a cheap cruiser. This is the basic reason why Eve's PvE is so notoriously boring; it's basically impossible to die once you even kind of know what you're doing, doubly so if you're not in a corporation (and thus immune from war).

 

[Lunarbunny]

The whole dice-roll combat system pissed me off, I played EVE for all of about 1 hour and decided it wasn't for me. I am however looking forward to Jumpgate Evolution, which you actually shoot shit instead of letting the game do it for you. I got to play with that at PAX08 and while it's not ready for release yet, it's definitely good looking and enjoyable.

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

 

[TimMc]

The whole dice-roll combat system pissed me off, I played EVE for all of about 1 hour and decided it wasn't for me. I am however looking forward to Jumpgate Evolution, which you actually shoot shit instead of letting the game do it for you. I got to play with that at PAX08 and while it's not ready for release yet, it's definitely good looking and enjoyable.

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

Its not actually a dice roll. Thats a very simple way of looking at it for the simple minded.

Information such as transversal velocity, gun tracking, range to target (is it within optimal or falloff), signature radius and obviously the damage modifier on the gun determine how much damage your gun does.

Eve is for mathematicians.

 

[Kelduum]

Ok, well, I've been watching ZP right from the start, and found Yahtzee to be spot on with everything.

I've been playing Eve Online for well over 2 years now, and yes, im one of those bizzaro world people with shoes on my head.

And, you know what, Yahtzee is spot on again.

Eve is, put very simply, a load of chatrooms and spreadsheets, glued together, with some pretty spaceships sprinkled in, and certainly if he avoided player corporations, then thats exactly all he would have seen for the first 2 weeks.

The best bits are when you join one of those player-run corporations, as there's far more to Eve than you would typically see from just messing around in the default starter corp.

I'm one of the directors (read: head-shoe wearers) of Eve University, and for well over four years now we've been training new players, just like Yahtzee, and getting them up to speed with the game.

Right now, we have 1300 active members, who join, learn the basics with us, and then go on to do whatever they want, be that industry, PvP, running their own corp or whatever.

We have veterans providing tips, information, and their first hand knowledge free of charge, forums with loads of posts about ship setups, things to do, see, and get involved in, and we run regular classes on detailed subjects, not to mention corp chat which usually has 80-100 people online, who can usually answer just about any question.

Eve is a sandbox, and to review it in 'single player' mode is like the sandbox without the sand. Its a box - theres nothing there, and nothing to do.

So Yahtzee, I humbly request, no... challenge you to re-review Eve Online, after being part of a player corp such as Eve University, for the majority of those 2 weeks of trial.

You are of course free to say "I was right, Eve is BORING", but I suspect if you are looking for something which is not like WoW, you may be surprised when you get involved in player corps.

The same goes for everyone else. Eve is not the starter corporations, its the player corps, although it does have a steep learning curve/wall, we do what we can to provide you with the ladder.

--
Kelduum Revaan
Director of Diplomacy and chief head-shoe wearer
Eve University

 

[Arichan69]

I must first admit that I'm one of those strange zombie-people who finds WoW and other MMOs to be fun games, despite the lack of color to my now-translucent skin. I know Yahtzee's feelings in general towards MMOs, so I thought to test out Eve before I went around Yaying or Naying his convictions. I have never before felt such a loss at that hour of my life. I'm about as Nerd as they come, but this made me want to go outside and play with rabid dogs for a bit. Anything to shut it off.

 

[KiiWii]

The whole dice-roll combat system pissed me off, I played EVE for all of about 1 hour and decided it wasn't for me. I am however looking forward to Jumpgate Evolution, which you actually shoot shit instead of letting the game do it for you. I got to play with that at PAX08 and while it's not ready for release yet, it's definitely good looking and enjoyable.

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

Its not actually a dice roll. Thats a very simple way of looking at it for the simple minded.

Information such as transversal velocity, gun tracking, range to target (is it within optimal or falloff), signature radius and obviously the damage modifier on the gun determine how much damage your gun does.

Eve is for mathematicians.

that explains why i cant stand it. If i wanted to do maths, I'd be in college.
speaking of which, does anyone else enjoy rabbit algebra? *sarcastic overtone*

 

[cocodaclown]

I dont know why, but as an Eve player I found it hard to agree with most of what he whines about.
Eve has very little in common, if anything at all, with WoW. WoW requires that you grind at a skill, Eve doesnt. Eve requires intelligence and forward planning, WoW requires even more grinding.
It is skill based for sure, but those 'skills' can take you into different, in game, facets. Industrial, merchants, pirates, player corps etc etc. And as for his stupid 'kicking at shins' comments. How wrong he is. Eve is tactical, very tactical. From solo play to small fleets to mass fleet engagements. Battleships, Carriers, Titans, Dreads, Frigates, Logistics, Electronic counter measures, Interceptors, Assualt ships etc.. all have a VERY important role to play and nothing to do with sitting there and 'slugging it out until someone falls over'. A fleet of Battleships with frigate support and logistics can take down the biggest ship (Titan) in the game. A ship that takes 10's of billions in game currency to buy and years of training to fly. All lost to players without those years in skills. Thats part of the joy of Eve, the challenge to do better, to hit above your weight.
Wars happen everywhere in Eve, giving ample opportunity for all players, regardless of skills to take part. They can be fun, the server can be laggy. But an important part ZP missed, its all ONE server. No shards. You cant skip to a different server to avoid a war or a pirate, its there, deal with it, win or lose.
Also, just because you have been playing Eve for 5 years doesnt mean you cant have your arse handed to you on a plate by a player only 3 months old. Tactics tactics tactics.
Stick to reviewing FPS games ZP, you seem alot happier there.

 

[herodotus]

Not your funniest by half. I think you were actually serious this time. Saw you on Saturday at Toowong Village (you MacDonalds hound)...was going to ask what you were doing this week but you went for seconds. Now I know, maybe next week will be better.

 

[filthgrinder]

Although the review was funny, the points he made to pick on were only due to lack of knowledge of the game.
Complaining of not knowing what a skill is is just wrong. If you read the info on the skill it tells you...that simple.

The games attraction is not the missions (altho they are GREAT in higher level agents) its the hardcore PvP and the community.

The whole video just stunk of "not really understanding the game, so I will trash it".

That said, I am glad EVE puts people off. The people that dont enjoy the game are usually hyper FPS twats.

 

[keyton777]

i played EVE online and i had tghe same problems he did, why the **** would you have "go to sleep and wait" for you to level up?doesnt make sense, and i have to whole heartedly agree with teh interface remark about teh well and the monitor, felt like i was a retarded chimp trying to fly a boeing 747 with no fingers

 

[keyton777]

and to anyone that trashed him about the fact that he didnt like EVE

HES NOT ALONE!!!
find something else to get mad about, or you could get a job with most mainstream news crews you might have a lot in common

 

[lord667]

I see a lot of people saying that Eve is one of the best MMO's ever. On the other hand, I see a lot of people saying that the first few weeks suck, and somehow, I can't put those two 'facts' (?) together. A game which isn't fun for the first weeks you play it, isn't worth to be called the best MMO.

Really, those first days should make you want to play the game more. I don't know if you guys have ever played WoW, but I know that when I did for the first time, I was blown away. I was amazed by the lore behind everything. I had a great time. I'm not going to play a game if the first few weeks, I don't enjoy it.

My experience with WOW was that it started off awesome at level 1, went downhill from there to become flatly mediocre towards level 50-odd - by which time I was playing purely out of habit and a misguided sense of guild loyalty; it perked up a bit at the start of the raiding phase as we Fourty Stooges-ed our way through the beginning of Molten Core, and then got gradually more boring again as we got organised and made progress. The low point for me, and what ultimately led to me quitting, was when we beat Vaelastrasz for the first time and I realised that I actually didn't give a toss, because we were just moving on to the next scripted grind-wipe-discuss-repeat.

Compare that to my experience of Eve. At the beginning, the lore was good but the play was merely passable; I orbited things and auto-shot at them, occasionally pausing to get a different ship. But then I joined a corporation, and there were mining ops and a sense of community; and then that corporation was in a war and I discovered PvP; and then I joined an even bigger corporation, and there was an even bigger war; and then I was having so much fun with PvP that I abandoned the nicey-nicey corporations and set off to become a pirate; and then, etc., etc. In a nutshell, I was having more fun and discovering more cool aspects as time went by, whereas with WoW, the more I played, the more I got the sense that I'd already had the best times I was going to have.

For me, an MMO that has an okayish beginning and gets solidly better from there is far preferable to one that has a brilliant start and then gradually dribbles away into tedium with occasional diminishing fun-spikes. When you play an MMO, you measure your time wasted on it in months and years and it's essentially open-ended, so for me, "how much fun was the first day?" is less of a pressing issue than "how much more fun will I have after this particular bit of fun?"

 

[vitrael]

Yahtzee, I'm a fan of yours. I'm critical of games and that's why I like you. But I am also a fan of Eve. Having played, hated, and sickeningly come crawling back to virtually every MMO ever released, and being a 3 year veteran of Eve, I feel qualified to tell you you screwed the pooch with this review.

You didn't join a player corporation.

The entire point of the game is to join a player corporation.

The tutorial tells you to join a player corporation.

Everyone who is having fun in Eve is in a player corporation. Everyone else quits inside a month because they haven't actually played the game.

I'm not an Eve fanboi. I'll play it until its subscribers disappear and it is laid into the grave, but I'm still critical of its grueling new player experience, troublesome UI and extremely bland single-player objectives.

But all of that is water under the bridge for the player corporation experience.

If you ever get your senses about you and feel like actually playing this game, make a character and join EVE UNIVERSITY. It is a massive alliance of teachers and students designed to introduce people to the game. Why does Eve need a player corporation to teach people how to play it? Because that's how Eve is my friend- by the players, for the players.

Funny review though, I guess.

 

[Singing Gremlin]

JG is much more of a niche title due to the space-simmy elements, so it doesn't have as wide an appeal as more sedate, easier-to-play games such as EVE, in my opinion. This means it has less players as well, sadly, and while it doesn't have corporations, it does have squadrons which is somewhat similar.

Jumpgate Evolution -- the sequel to JG Classic -- is on its way and will hopefully have more of the elements you discussed, but I'm unsure if it will at the moment.

oh... oh. You've got fanboy bile aimed at you now. I shall resist, but please don't say "this game is more .... than this game" when you really don't understand the latter one.

Easy to play? Sedate? EvE? You've never actually been in proper combat in EvE have you?

I'm miffed that while most people are moaning that it's far too complex to proceed to accuse it of being easy to play. It isn't.