Borrowing most of this info from the Penny Arcade forums Eve thread. My thoughts on the game are at the bottom.
What is EVE Online?
[
Concept]
EVE Online is a MMORPG in space. You are represented by your space ship and a pilot portrait.
[
The Player]
Characters are based on individual skills, and skill training is time based. You set a skill to be trained and in a certain amount of seconds, minutes, hours, days, whatever, then the skill will level up. You may only have one skill training at any given time. Skill training still continues when you are logged off. Therefore, there is no need to grind monsters for experience to reach some level cap. Effectively, there is no cap to a character because it would take many many years to train them all. It is, however, also relatively easy for newer players to catch up to the veterans because each ship can only use so many of your total skills at once (maxed out skills in Amarrian Battleships won't help you much when you're in a Gallente Frigate, after all), and there is a cap on how high a skill can be trained.
Further, the time to train a skill increases for each level -- training level 1 Frigates takes half an hour, while training from level 4 to level 5 might take a week -- while the benefits remain the same. So a new player can train a skill through level 4 relatively quickly and recieve 80% of the benefits that a maxed out veteran is recieving from that same skill. This means you that new players can focus on very particular skills and become productive players nearly from the start, while veterans have often mastered a handful of areas and are proficient in several more.
EVE is a sandbox with the opportunity for the player to do anything they would like. There are no professions that are set in stone, so if you'd like to mine one day and then kill some people who are mining the next day, then so be it. Professions are labels that are acknowledged by the player and not the game. Many people ask how they can become a pirate or bounty hunter, but in reality of the game, the player is whatever the player believes they are.
[
PVP]
There are few restrictions on PvP which means non-consensual combat is encouraged, although there are ways to be safe, as well. If your spaceship is destroyed, then it is gone. You would have to buy another spaceship; however this also applies to other players that you kill (it is possible to buy insurance to recover some cost if your ship is destroyed). There are regions of space like high security Empire space that are relatively safe -- peacekeeping officers will pursue and destroy any player firing on another ship -- and regions of space like 0.0 security space that are no-holds-barred battlefields. However, nowhere is ever COMPLETELY safe.
[
Economy]
So with spaceships blowing up left and right, EVE has a player driven economy and market. It can be profitable to acquire minerals and make ships or ship modules (equipment) using blueprints, and sell to the market. Or you can just mine for minerals and sell those to players who manufacture that are too lazy to mine for themselves. There are many different ways to get money.
[
The World]
The world of EVE is on a single server, which means every subscriber is playing with every other subscriber. Currently, Eve often has between 15,000 - 30,000 players playing simultaneously. If you're (in)famous in the server, you're (in)famous throughout the entire game.
The map of the world is also player driven, with regions of space that are conquerable by player alliances.
(Updated: 12/10/06. This is a map created by a player, Joshua Foiritain, of regions that alliances control. The latest map is
here.)
The Path to Kali
Kali, the codename for EVE's next large three part expansion, has already begun to see release. Kali will be separated into three stages.
Kali 1: (Revelations, released November 2006) Focus on the enhancement of game play and current systems.
- Contracts as an improvement of current Escrow and Courier system.
- Seamless map, zooming from the perspective of the ship, to solar system, to the universe.
- Combat Organization, a reorganization of the gang system into fleets, squadrons, and wings.
- Exploration in solar systems to key points also with the help of improved scanning and probing.
- Invention as a supplement to R&D (research and development) and manufacturing, but not as a replacement.
- Improve resources and benefits of 0.0 regions of space
- Salvaging of ship wrecks to gain extra materials for creating rigs that improve space ships.
- 8 new space ships (4 Battlecruisers, 4 Battleships) and 8 new 0.0 regions of space.
Kali 2: (Coming early 2007 probably) Focus on enhancing warfare.
- Factional Warfare, having the NPC empires of space fight against each other. Used to ease new players into alliance warfare.
- Improved starbase warfare, station warfare, constellation sovereignty, upgradable outposts, corporation and alliance improvements
Kali 3: (Mid 2007?) Focus on enhancing graphics.
- New ship models.
- New textures.
Sweet god, those are pretty ass screenshots... but does the game look that nice in motion?
You bet your ass.
Pretty much the penultimate EVE Online trailer is available here:
EVE Never Fades
The short trailer for the most recent expansion is here:
EVE Online: Revelations
By the way: all footage, with the exception of the painting at the start of EVE Never Fades, is from the game client. All models, all lighting, everything. All of those shots are 100% possible in-game. And the graphics are set for an upgrade in the third stage of Kali.
So I'd like to play... What do I do?
Free fourteen day trials are available at eve-online.com. No emailing other members necessary, no credit card necessary.
Creating a new character may be a little overwhelming at first. Attributes are important only for decreasing the amount of time a particular skill trains. A plan many like is to average all attributes besides Charisma, because Charisma is semi-useless. This will create a balanced character that doesn't take too long to train anything.
There are 4 races to choose from.
Any character can train to fly any ship of any race.
Do the tutorial. It's long, but well worth the effort. The game is complex and overwhelming, the tutorial helps to teach a lot of the game mechanics.
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Madtown's comments:
Love this game. I've played WoW and SWG and got bored of both before getting incredibly deep into them. Most MMOs make the level grind your goal, and if you get to the end of that line then you're grinding for rare lootz. Eve's time-based training means that you cannot power-level at all.
What does this mean? It means the game is probably the most casual-player friendly MMO out there. If you can only play a few hours a week, you're not going to get left behind -- you can set skills to train while you're gone (although since you can only set one skill at a time, you'll have to either set long skills or do quick sign-ins to update -- since there are plenty of long skills available early, this isn't a problem).
It also means that in order for newer players to be effective, they need to focus and plan out their training a bit. If you want to be a PVPer, you'll want to plan out what type of weapons you want to use instead of dabbling in several. If you want to be a PVEer, same thing, but you'll want to focus on weapons/equipment skills that work best for PVE. If you want to be a miner, you'll want to focus on those skills plus training to fly a hauler. You can earn decent money very early if you figure out what you want to do.
And if you have no idea, then you can always create a new character after playing a few days, or just be a jack-of-all-trades kind of player.
Every MMO has some type of grind to it. In Eve, the grind is often to earn money to buy ships and equipment. Unlike many MMOs, dying in Eve has a very serious cost -- you lose your ship. If it's a new boat you just spent half your money on, this can be frustrating, but it also forces you to learn how to either become a better fighter, or to find ways to survive when attacked by better players.
The game has a sharp learning curve. The tutorial is essential. It's also important to have a few experienced players to talk to or a corporation (guild) to join, to help point you in a direction once the tutorial is done. The game is incredibly open-ended; for many people, the first question after the tutorial is "so NOW what do I do?" The game doesn't lead you by the hand very much.
However, that open-endedness is what creates some of the most interesting stuff. The players drive Eve. Since alliances (groups of corporations/guilds that are officially allied) can take over swaths of 0.0 security space out on the fringes (see map above), politics and war are serious player-driven activities. There's only so much of that 0.0 space, and that's where the most lucrative resources lie.
Final comments:
PROS
- The game is extremely pretty for being a few years old, without sucking a ton of computer power.
- It's very casual-friendly in terms of time required to enjoy the game, although the complex game design does come with a sharp learning curve.
- Losing a fight has a legitimate cost associated with it, as opposed to simple repair fees.
- There are tons of directions you can decide to go in.
- The design of 0.0 space means there's an impressive complexity to player politics, diplomacy, and war.
- It's one of the only sci-fi MMOs I know of, besides SWG (which sucks real bad).
- All players exist in the same world, so you'll never end up on a different server from a friend who joins Eve later.
- They just redesigned the player creation. It's now easier and new players start with more skill points than previously.
- Free 2 week trial.
CONS
- The sharp learning curve and the lack of hand-holding to direct you what to do once you're out in the world means you really need an experienced player to consult or a corporation to join.
- Along the same lines, the world is HUGE, and travel can be both slow and dangerous. Very few (if any) players are drifters in this game. You tend to find a base system to work out of and stay fairly close. This will either be high-sec Empire space or whatever low/zero sec space your corporation works in. Since Empire space sucks, this is another reason to find a corporation.
- You can't power-level. This is a pro to me, but a negative to some people.
- You can't avoid combat entirely unless you stay in the highest security space like a ninny. This is a pro to me, but a negative to some people.
I just recently joined a Penny Arcade industrial corp. Their only major rule is no pirates allowed, so unless you want to be a pirate you're more than welcome to join up.
Anyone else already in this game, or anyone thinking about joining up, gimme a holla.