EVE Online

Game: EVE Online
Developer: CCP Games
Platform: PC
Release Year: 2003
Stephen's Rating: 4/10

EVE Online is a highly complicated space-based MMO.

Basic Plot

The story is set 21,000 years in the future. When Earth's resources became depleted humankind began colonising the rest of the Milky Way. It was during this period a wormhole was discovered (name EVE) which led to an entirely new universe named "New Eden". Many people traveled to New Eden in search of resources, but then EVE collapsed stranding those who had gone through in New Eden. Now the lost colonies have remained in New Eden and as time has passed have no memories of their Terran history.

Gameplay

Players are divided into "races":

• The Amarr; a militant theocratic society.
• The Minmatar Republic; former slaves of The Amarr.
• The Gallente Federation; economic and trade based with a liberal slant.
• The Caldari; economic and trade based corpratocracy.

Each race has an extensive backstory and unique traits in terms of the technology available.

Inside a space station.

The game involves owning a ship (or ships) and flying around completing tasks. This can be hands on such as engaging in combat or mining an asteroid, but also often involves talking to or trading at a space station. There is very little "direct" contact with other players. You can chat to them easily enough, but you very rarely engage with another ship in space.

The universe is huge. There are over 5000 star systems to visit and 2500 randomly accessible universes using wormholes.

Skills are obtained over time passively. This requires waiting real world time which can be frustrating if you intend on "catching up" to players who've been playing for 9 years.

The economy is largely player run. NPC characters sell some parts and also plans for new ships and ship systems. Players gather and create most of the components required to build these. This ends up being like a vastly larger and more complex version of the trade house in World of Warcraft.

I'm not going to go into more detail because I don't understand myself but some of the other features include corporations and alliances, and different classes of ship.

Flying your space ship around.

Positives

There is a kind of beauty about the universe the game is set in. Roaming empty space in a little ship is kind of relaxing and peaceful if you just forget the rest of the game for a second.

The planned game Dust 514 is a first person shooter which links into the EVE Online universe. Players from EVE will be able to hire mercenaries in Dust to complete missions for them. I LOVE this idea and think it has huge potential. It will change the way games are developed in the future. I've often thought this would be excellent for a game like StarCraft. Have hero units which are controlled by someone who is playing a first person shooter.

Negatives

The game is way too complex and asks too much of the player to be accessible by the general public. Video games need to take advantage of the fact that the computer can calculate a lot for us, otherwise there is no justification for being a video game; it may as well be a board game or a series of spreadsheets which need maintaining. Overall, it didn't offer me enough for me to want to play for more than two days.

One guy I met in game sent me this image to explain the game...

I can see that this is the perfect game for some people, just not for me. I'm not going to knock the game too much, it is pretty unique and has some really good features.

Memorable Moments

I remember some guy contacted me and asked to join his corporation. I pretty much said "This is too complex for me, I'm not interested" but he was very insistent and I could tell he took the game very seriously.