EVE-Online - Worth a Try??

Meritor

Meritor

Meritor

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Hey guys,

I recently noticed that there is an EVE-Online boxed set due to be released in the next few weeks and was just wondering what people thought of it? I've never played it myself so I'm a little skeptical but would it be worth giving it a go or is the game to far a head to be worth playing these days?

M,
 
This is the best time to begin playing EVE. Some of the new additions to the game are geared towards the new player. There is a trial as well if you want to try it before you buy :)
 
IIRC there is a three week trial on Steam. IMHO trying out EvE isn't optional. Very few manage to get it (not one of the half dozen or so friends to whom I recommended it stuck with it, but you're much brighter than they), but there is something totally epic and mesmerising and 'real' (!) about this game that nothing else comes close to achieving. That said I played it way too much and way too intensely and got disillusioned. That and I have less time for it nowadays. I did attempt a comeback recently but it didn't work out. I'm hoping for a successful re-attempt in the future because really there is nothing to compare to this. DL now kthxplskbai.
 
Been playing for over 4 years now, long term characters can never get too far ahead, and in EVE your skillpoints aren't as important as say levels are in WoW.

In Eve you buy skill books, actually they're more like the data nodes in Johnny Mnemonic. These skill books use two of your characters five attributes to determine how fast you learn or upload the information into your brain. The higher the primary and secondary attribute the faster you learn a skill, you continue to learn the skills when you are logged off.

Each skill has a rank, the higher the rank, which is a multiplier, the longer to learn, in RP terms I guess the more complex skills, like how to fly a carrier has more information for you to absorb so it takes longer, compared to say fitting a big metal plate to your ship which would be relatively simple and as such has a lower rank and is easier to learn. Ultimately there are a maximum of 5 levels, which you could say are chapters or tiers of the skillbooks, in game terms each level usually only represents a few percentage, depending on the skill in question, however modules and ships as they increase in complexity, the requirements of the skills increase as well.

Now a lot of people think that they will never catch up, and granted you'll never catch up in total skillpoints, but skillpoints don't have quite the same effect in Eve as say levels do in WoW. As you can only ever be at level 5 in a skill, you can easily catch up to pilots in a short space of time if you specialise, say for example you spend a month or so saving up and learning to fly an interceptor and end up with over 1 million skill points and have a good rounded base in the skill set for the interceptors, if you went up against me in 1v1, I have 60 million skillpoints you would most likely win.

This is because I rarely fly interceptors and have little experience flying them, whereas being specialised you will know your ship better than I know mine, ultimately i may be able to run away, but in all likelyhood I will die to you :) The main advantage verterans have is they are trained in a multitude of areas as once you have a ship/skill tree trained for to level 4/5 you can move on to other ships and areas.

Interceptors, frigates are all very much in demand in things like faction warfare and for large corporations looking to increase their ranks and offering financial assistance, advice and materials for their newer members. ANd ultimately in game experience will always count for a lot more than raw skillpoints, I regularly see old characters that have been sold being flown by new pilots with no real experience dieing to small groups of new players :) That's the beauty of it.

And yes the new expansion is going to improve the new player experience a lot more! I may actually be tempted to start a new character and join in with faction warfare for my pvp desires. The boxset will also give you a code to improve standings to a faction so you can jump straight into war, I guess you could count that as conscription from the major empires.
 
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fergie128 said:
This is the best time to begin playing EVE. Some of the new additions to the game are geared towards the new player. There is a trial as well if you want to try it before you buy :)
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Yeah I had noticed the 21 day trial on Steam but I have also read that some of the things in the boxed set will only work on new accounts so I'm in two minds about starting now or waiting until I get the boxed set so I can enjoy the free stuff to go alongside the 60 days Pre-Paid time card/code, will be a shame if I don't like it after buying it though lol!

What does the game play like in comparison to other mmo's? (a more mature audience would be nice). I have read that skills level in real time, wouldn't this mean that people who started back in 2003 could never be caught by new players and would always have that edge over anyone who started after them? Also what is the most useful roll to play because I have read there are three (correct me if I'm wrong) and I don't want to spend the best part of the next three months playing a class that has no real use to things in the bigger picture (think Paladins Pre-TBC on WoW).

Aside from these questions, what do you guys find the gaming experience of EVE to be like? Is it fast paced like a FPS or more strategic and about making the right move at the right time sort of thing as I've watched some of the battles on YouTube and they just totally blow my mind, it looks awesome!

Thanks for the Reply.
M,
 
Just to add to some of your further questions :)

There are no classes in Eve, what road you go down at the start has no bearing on anything other than your start skills (which they are cutting down in the new expansion) and the attribute distribution you start with :) Once ion game providing you have the funds you can learn to fly any ship in the game, use any module in the game and go anywhere in the game doing anything you want :) it's entirely down to you, there are no limits or restrictions on what goal you set yourself.

The audience is relatively mature, however I would stick my neck out and say the PvP side of things can hit extremes, you have the general friendly good natured pvp where good fights all round are said in local chat and it;s all good natured. But there are players who are fiercely aggressive and very outspoken, these people will try to bait you into arguments, call you names etc. in local if you fight or dont fight etc. just like most games.

The area where the mature audience shines in my opinion is the business, corporation management, and industrial areas of the game, I have met a lot of incredibly intelligent, well spoken and helpful people through industrial corporations, possiby because good social connections are handy when building an industrial/business empire in game.

In terms of how it plays, I feel it is a very strategic game with spurts of tactical thinking when making decisions, strategy can come into effect massively when say you have a large industrial process going on, or trying to relocate a base of operations to maximise profit etc.

Then you have your long term goals, how to make money, what path to go down for skills, who do you ally yourself with, whether to trust people with your assets, the list is endless.
 
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VaderDSL said:
Been playing for over 4 years now, long term characters can never get too far ahead, and in EVE your skillpoints aren't as important as say levels are in WoW.

In Eve you buy skill books, actually they're more like the data nodes in Johnny Mnemonic. These skill books use two of your characters five attributes to determine how fast you learn or upload the information into your brain. The higher the primary and secondary attribute the faster you learn a skill, you continue to learn the skills when you are logged off.

Each skill has a rank, the higher the rank, which is a multiplier, the longer to learn, in RP terms I guess the more complex skills, like how to fly a carrier has more information for you to absorb so it takes longer, compared to say fitting a big metal plate to your ship which would be relatively simple and as such has a lower rank and is easier to learn. Ultimately there are a maximum of 5 levels, which you could say are chapters or tiers of the skillbooks, in game terms each level usually only represents a few percentage, depending on the skill in question, however modules and ships as they increase in complexity, the requirements of the skills increase as well.

Now a lot of people think that they will never catch up, and granted you'll never catch up in total skillpoints, but skillpoints don't have quite the same effect in Eve as say levels do in WoW. As you can only ever be at level 5 in a skill, you can easily catch up to pilots in a short space of time if you specialise, say for example you spend a month or so saving up and learning to fly an interceptor and end up with over 1 million skill points and have a good rounded base in the skill set for the interceptors, if you went up against me in 1v1, I have 60 million skillpoints you would most likely win.

This is because I rarely fly interceptors and have little experience flying them, whereas being specialised you will know your ship better than I know mine, ultimately i may be able to run away, but in all likelyhood I will die to you :) The main advantage verterans have is they are trained in a multitude of areas as once you have a ship/skill tree trained for to level 4/5 you can move on to other ships and areas.

Interceptors, frigates are all very much in demand in things like faction warfare and for large corporations looking to increase their ranks and offering financial assistance, advice and materials for their newer members. ANd ultimately in game experience will always count for a lot more than raw skillpoints, I regularly see old characters that have been sold being flown by new pilots with no real experience dieing to small groups of new players :) That's the beauty of it.

And yes the new expansion is going to improve the new player experience a lot more! I may actually be tempted to start a new character and join in with faction warfare for my pvp desires. The boxset will also give you a code to improve standings to a faction so you can jump straight into war, I guess you could count that as conscription from the major empires.
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Thanks for that, its a very detailed and helpful post :D

I guess my only problem now is which Race and Bloodline to pick, does anyone else find the character creation part confusing? I watched a short video on YouTube about it and the amount of options is unreal, how do I know if I'm picking the right things for the right skills or is it better explained when you actually do it and not just watch it on a video as I wouldn't want to under-skill my pilot and cripple him later in game :confused:

M,
 
Yeah the character creation has been due an overhaul for a long time, the new expansion will be removing all the bloodline, school choices simplifying the creation so you basically pick a race and that's it, then you can actually decide yourself what skills you want, and for the first 1.2?million skillpoints all learning time is doubled.

As a basic rule of thumb the following races are :

Amarr - use lasers primarily and missiles and drones as secondary weapon systems, they favour large armour plated ships and are generally quite slow, but are currently a very effective pvp combat race, their ships pack a punch, can take a beating but are limited in solo work generally. They function best with support. Their main weakness is having capacitor (the energy source that powers all guns/modules/warp engine) hungry weapons.

Minmatar - former slaves of the Amarr, they utilise speed as one of their defenses, they also use autocannon weapons (fast firing, short range medium damage weapons) or artillery, which are slow, heavy hitting turrets, their ships are versatile, you get them in shield tanking flavours or armour tanking flavours and have an advantage in having guns with no dependency on energy/capacitor. They have reasonable shields and armour, but generally aren't as tough as some other races, but good luck catching some of their ships.

Caldari - most people choose Caldari, I certainly did all those years ago as theyr ships and society looked very militaristic and the thought of big awesome shield tanked star trek like fleets was cool :) Caldari utilise extremely capacitor hungry shield defenses, but also use medium ranged railguns, these are fairly slow firing, mediocre damaging weapons, but on some ships the bonus is not to damage, but to range. Some caldari ships are geared to extremely long ranged firing, some of the longest ranges in their relative classes. They also utilise missiles a lot too, these systems vary from fast firing, low damage rocket to slow firing, heavy hitting torpedos, they dont use capacitor but are quite situational, the Caldari ships are considered the more popular for running missions where you undertake contracts to complete objectives against computer controlled enemies, offering you money as reward for completing the objectives.

Gallente - These are the democratic race, they value freedom of speech greatly, their ships are based around armour tanking, their hulls aren't as well protected for the most part as their Amarr counterparts, but some ships can fit large armour protection. They generally use blaster weapons, these are high damage, very short range, reasonably fast firing weapons, and on certain ships are some of the most devastating weapons. They also use drones which are autonomous guns with engines strapped to them, they are deployed and are ordered to engage enemies, they are small, relatively unprotected but are very versatile and can do good amounts of damage in larger numbers.
 
Thanks for all the Replies guys, I've started to download the Demo through steam and I've created and account just to test things out until next week when the boxed set is released,

Is there anything I should know about or watch out for or are the starting areas fairly safe to give me time to get to grips with things?

M,
 
Dano said:
I really hope you mean halved.
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Yeah :) it's late I should have said learning speed is doubled :D

The starting areas should be very safe, but not 100% :) if you are in the starting area, don't open/take items from white cargo containers/wrecks. People use this to trick people into stealing, upon which they are allowed by the police to take affirmative action and usually ends up with them killing your ship, it isn't common now and classed as an exploit to grief newer players in 1.0 start areas, but it is a good rule to learn from an early time :)

Another thing that is important is security rating of the different systems, they are :


  • 0.0
  • 0.1
  • 0.2
  • 0.3
  • 0.4
  • 0.5
  • 0.6
  • 0.7
  • 0.8
  • 0.9
  • 1.0
1.0 to 0.5 are areas of space under the protection of the cluster wide Concord police force, in these security rated systems if someone attacks you without provocation the police will intervene, they will stop, disable and destroy the ship that attacked you, or kill your ship if you actively engage in hostile action against another person.

There are situations where the police will leave you alone to dish out your own justice, or allow someone to do it to you. The above situation with the wreck/cargo container is one example. Other examples include being at war with another corporation or empire. In Eve the Amarr are at war with the Minmatar, and the Caldari are at War with the Gallente. If you join up with a faction to actively help in the war then once you have signed up you become legitimate targets for the corresponding empire. Be aware going into the enemies territory will cause their faction navy ships to hunt you down and try and kill you, and they are quite powerful

The security rated system 0.4 down to 0.1 are referred to as low security space, in these areas there are usually pirates, as in these areas althohgh still claimed by the large empires, they are not policed, if you go through a stargate into a 0.4 or lower system you are no longer safe, if someone wants to kill you, they will do so without repurcussions from the police. The only deterrent are sentry guns around the stations and gates, these will fire upon enemies who engage in hostilities against you, but unlike concord, these are generally not much of a threat to pirates who basically want to destroy your ship and steal your items.

Finally 0.0 is a vast swathe of space/solar systems in Eve where control is derived mainly from players, they build the infrastructure, they are the law if they claim areas and generally what they want to to do they do, there is no computer controlled protection, it is all player driven, most of the massive battles happen in 0.0 where competing superpowers battles for control of solar systems with lucrative resources, or strategict strongholds.
 
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I really tried to like it, but without having friends playing at the same level/stage as me I found it hard to get in to. Addictive but anded up being sooooooooooooo boring :(
 
Zefan said:
I really tried to like it, but without having friends playing at the same level/stage as me I found it hard to get in to. Addictive but anded up being sooooooooooooo boring :(
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This is my main worry, especially since the games community will be so far ahead of me, at least i can hope the boxed set will bring new and old players back to the early parts of the game which should make things better, I just hope loads of the more experienced players don't take advantage of us n00bs as easy cannon fodder who are still trying to work out how to make our ships go forward while they devastate us due to their extensive knowledge and experience lol :P

M,
 
Meritor said:
This is my main worry, especially since the games community will be so far ahead of me, at least i can hope the boxed set will bring new and old players back to the early parts of the game which should make things better, I just hope loads of the more experienced players don't take advantage of us n00bs as easy cannon fodder who are still trying to work out how to make our ships go forward while they devastate us due to their extensive knowledge and experience lol :P

M,
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You can only attack other players randomly in certain areas, you won't be straying into them much without knowing it :p

It's not to do with the fact that they're not in the same areas - in fact I saw loads around - it's more that they're off doing entirely different things. I get the most out of MMOs when my real life mates are playing at the same time, so I feel compelled to keep up with them progression wise. Lame I know, but that's how I work :p
 
There are new people joining all the time :) some of my more fun times were in the OcUK corporation helping people and being helped myself in understanding the game.
 
Is it worth reading through the "Official EVE Thread" or would i just be better getting stuck in myslef?

Anyone like The Chronicles of Riddick Movie?? - Sorry dont know why I asked that but thats what the clips of EVE on YouTube make me think of lol!!!

M,
 
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