As most should know EVE is going on steam

This means its getting a lot more popular and a lot more people are going to be interested to know exactly what EVE truly is. So i, a super hero by night a student by day, will take on this daunting task and provide the nice dtoiders with a review of my very own!

EVE ONLINE... BITCHES




General Intro

EVE Online is a Massively Multi player Online game (MMO) and is set in a time incredibly far in the future, or just in some other place. Something bad happen, shit hit the fan, now you are in a world full of crazy bastards. The basis of the game is that you are encased in your pod (an egg shaped entity) and control your ship/cargo/everything from it.

Pretty much you fly around in a ship and interact with the npcs/people/inanimate objects around you via the modules attached to your ship

Class System, or lack thereof

Shocking, there is no class based system. However, there is a super imposed system (as in there are paths that you are recommended to take to end up being what you want to be). Thes e imposed paths are not concrete though. You can do, and be anything you want. You can be everything if you really want, you just need to invest the time into it.

I'll separate the main groups just for clarification

Miner

Excels at extracting and reprocessing minerals found in asteroids. Boring to most, but is a very vital part in the economy of EVE. Without miners there would be no material in which the builders can build shit with.

Builders

These guys are usually either friends of miners, or miners as well. Using the minerals extracting from mining they use blueprints to make ships and modules to sell on the market

PVPer

Player vs Player, self-explanatory. These guys live to fight, however PVPers in EVE fight only the worth ones, they look for people that will give them a challenge. They buy the ships made by the builders, and some even protect the miners as they mine in dangerous areas.

Pirate/Griefer

These guys are the same as the seaworthy ones. They will attack and kill anything. These guys hunt miners and weak ships mostly. The difference between a pirate and a griefer is a Pirate will attempt to ransom your ship (give me 15 million or I'll blow you up) whereas a griefer asks no questions and just blows you up. Seemingly the scum of the universe, these guys play an incredibly important role, they create DEMAND. Without pirates blowing up your mining barges, whats the point of making more? Without pirates attacking miners, whats the point of protecting them?

Politicians

Yup, I know what you are thinking (i have mind powers too). Surprisingly enough EVE is INCREDIBLY (with caps) political. There are treaties, there are wars, there are Non-aggression agreements, there are protection rites, there's even mercenary contracts. All of this has no ingame application, there is no "mercenary contract" button. These guys are the heads of corporations, and the people who lead the alliances. EVE is by far the most social MMO i have ever seen.

Mission whores

These guys are the questers. In EVE there are NPCs called agents, these agents provide you with waypoints, warp gates, and other means of transportation to places where there are alot of NPC baddies. You are given an objective and when you complete it you are rewarded. Not all missions are attack and destroy, there are some agents that give building missions, some give mining missions, others give transport mission. Mission whores just like to whore the agent system, and are usually stinking rich.

Final words

Even though EVE may seem to have several distinct paths, you can always go down another one, or have them cross. There are no limits on what you can train, there are only prerequisites. As long as you fill those you can train anything you want and be anything you want. Some people may be a PVPer on weekends, and a miner during the week. If you want to do it, you can.





Leveling/Skilling

Theres no 'leveling' per se in EVE, but there are levels of skills. IE: if you have the skill 'Gunnery' you can level it up (max of level 5) by investing time into it.

TO GET BETTER, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO GRIND.. AT ALL!!

That's right. Instead of experience bars and levels, EVE uses a skill point system. You set a skill up for training, lets use 'Gunnery' again, and you can do whatever you want while its training. From level 0 to 1 it may take 5 minutes, but from 1 to 2 itll take 15 minutes. Eventually from 4 to max level of 5 itll take somewhere around 4 to 5 days. First reaction is, that sucks, but it doesn't. This part is exceptionally good for casual players, you may have to pay close attention for a little bit, but if you plan on going out later that night just set an 8 hour skill and have fun as your character GETS BETTER.

Pros/Cons of Time based skilling
Pros
-casual players are not left behind
-whether you play well or not, you will be just as skilled up as someone who started at the same time as you
-its a huge change from grindwhoring games like WOW

Cons
-putting in more time does not make you skill faster
-getting something really shiny can take weeks

My opinion on it

AWESOME IDEA. Ever wanted to take a break from an MMO and decided not to because you'll fall behind. I just took a month off EVE while waiting for an important skill to train. This also filters out the noob effect. If you see someone with a good ship, they will no doubt be at least decent at using it. This means the biggest ship in the game (if broken down and sold on those gold sites, it would literally bring in around $10 000 USD) won't go to someone who can't play the game. This also makes me value the time i put into this game alot more.

My Final thoughts

EVE is definitely worth a try. However I will ask you to heed this warning; EVE can be exciting for the first month, but you will not be able to do as much as you want in that first month. I was lucky and was pirating my 2nd week of EVE (in a bad ship), you may not be the same.

My Verdict is:

9.5/10 Do the trial, and play a month afterwards (its $5 off too).

If this review was good, theres alot more i can say about EVE. I've been playing for a year and know a shitload about this game, i do not know all however. If you guys want it, I'll put up a part two explaining the security system, the pvp system, and the ship system. I will also answer questions too.

One intriguing thing i found out was, out of all of the people i know who play this game, whether it be ingame or in RL, i am the youngest at 17. Most of the youngsters get scared off by the complexity.

* the pictures provided are both from character i no longer use, and are before the pretty patch