Things I like: Eve Online
Posted On Friday, June 19th, 2009 By Jay
#0.75 Work has been crazy and that means we’re very close to shipping. That’s exciting! Eve and Street Fighter 4 have been dominating my play time.
#1 I love Eve Online’s Skill Development system. More skills = more options. Options include but are not limited to: Bigger ships, industrial focus, auction house focus, crafting focused, making what you use on a ship better, etc etc. It is a true horizontal development system, and I love it!
#2 When I defeat someone in PVP, there is a real world dollar value attached to the defeat. In the smaller frigates, maybe 10 cents a ship. For the later ships, you’re looking at anywhere from dollars to thousands of dollars per kill. And you thought losing a BG in WoW was an inconvenience.
#3 Griefing isn’t stopped in Eve, but the attacker will be destroyed if they engage you. See #2 into why only for the crazy is this an acceptable activity.
#4 Different activities allow for varying levels of player interaction. Mining, crafting and selling are HIGH social activites. Meaning instead of looking at a horrible crafting UI, you can chat while your merchandise is being created. PVP combat is a LOW social activity in that NOT using voice chat will get you dead.
#5 The play areas are VERY controlled. There is no player-controlled free form flight in EVE. You MUST pick a destination(could be a ship) and either fly to it, or warp(IE fly very fast and be immune to combat) to that destination. Each system has a number of entry/exit points and/or planets/asteroids. Each point is a destination. Obviously, the greater the number of lines that can be drawn between points, the greater the possibilities of engagement. All of this includes safe spotting, which I’ll not discuss.
#6 and the BIGGEST reason why I enjoy EVE is that within 2 weeks I participated in an END GAME activity. READ: Before I payed for the game, I got to experience what EVE had to offer me as a player. No 6 months of catch up time. No gotta reach max level + gear up to raid. Every player has a role to play no matter the skill level. Its almost like there is a fleet of ships, each with a specific role that requires differents skills(both player and in game) that need to be accomplished. Hrm, everyone has a place, I likes. Reminds me slightly of Planetside, with support lines and transport ships…
I am very much enjoying my time playing Eve. I’ve chosen the combat path. I’m not a miner. I don’t really enjoy the economics game and in general I dislike playing the auction house. I look at spreadsheets all day long, no need to do that in game! BTW, I really do appreciate all the folks that find playign the market fun. Without you, most of the games that I enjoy would not have any form of community. So while we have different flavors, you are respected in my book. Now just send me an email with your system, ship names and location and I’ll come over and “thank” you for your efforts.
