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Something New from Something Old on Game and Player
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Something New from Something Old

Zach Hines  //  February 12, 2008


There's more to MMO roleplaying than Warcraft. A lot more.

S

ometimes it takes looking to the older and more experienced to find something new. This is definitely proving to be the case for me and my new MMORPG of choice, EVE Online. EVE Online, developed by Iceland's CCP, has been around since 2003 and is still an immensely popular MMO with a dedicated following.

I find it funny to write this article given the fact that in the past months our editors have published articles about their new adventures in World of Warcraft. I am, however, coming from a completely different angle. Whereas they are just beginning their time with World of Warcraft, I have for the most part come to the end of my time with it. I have been playing World of Warcraft now for a combined two years between my accounts, and honestly have grown tired of it. While I do plan on playing again once the next expansion comes out, there were aspects of the game that were starting to inhibit me from enjoying it as I once did. Essentially, once you've reached level 70 and if you are not actively raiding or running instances — there really isn't much to do. I did enjoy raiding and instances from the times I was able to run them, but it wasn't often. They are very time consuming and I just couldn't commit the time to them so my interest started to wane. Don't get me wrong, it's a great and fun game, but at the moment I do not have the time to invest in the endgame.



Enough vehicles in a lane,
and you still get gridlock.
So now I'm playing EVE. I know it seems weird to say the main reason I stopped playing one MMO is due to the time required to reap a benefit, and then go ahead and start another. For now, though, EVE is not requiring a great deal of my time. There are many aspects about EVE that I am finding very enjoyable. The first is its setting. EVE is a sci-fi MMO set entirely in the expanse of space. The game does a wonderful job of creating the feel of galactic immensity. Don't be fooled — no MMO game comes even close to offering a game world nearly as large as EVE's. There are places within the game that, to travel to them using warp speed and jump gates are easily two hours' travel. This might seem a tad excessive to a lot of people, but I find it helps to further impress upon the player the scope of the game.

You start EVE with a lowly frigate class ship that is assigned to you based on what race, class, and profession you chose — much like any other MMO. The ship designs maintain similar elements within a particular race, but are profoundly different in form and function when one race is compared to another. The ships are beautiful, and with the recent graphical expansion of Trinity, the game looks better than it ever has. As you progress through the game and learn new skills (which are the barometer for your character's progression, not levels), you'll move on from frigates, to cruisers, all the way up to carriers and perhaps even the elusive Titan class. Ship size scales up exponentially in EVE and to be in an area with a tiny ship and to have a much larger ship near you can be a very unnerving experience. I can't really convey the size of some of the available ships in EVE, but a YouTube video of EVE, especially involving a Titan class ship, should. I don't care how twinked your rogue is, or how much purple your mage is rocking, if a Titan class ship is in your area — run!




Join forces for power —
for survival.
As I said before, skills are the backbone to EVE. Rather than leveling up in the conventional sense, in EVE you learn many, many skills over the course of time spent in the game. Based on how you set up your character in the beginning of the game, certain skills may already be available to you at a fairly high level, such as Starship Command, Drone Control, Hybrid Turret Skill, Mining, and so on. If there is a particular skill you want to learn and it isn't already in your skill tree, you can buy a primer of it from the game market. Skills are learned passively in EVE in that you pick a particular skill you would like to learn and it has a timer that runs in the background telling you how long it takes to learn the skill. For example, I'm at the point in the game where I can start using Cruiser class ships. In order to do this I had to learn Caldari (my chosen race) Frigate to Level 4 (with the fourth level taking four days to learn), then proceed to learn Caldari Cruiser to Level 2 (about another 10 hours). That may seem long, but there are skills that take as long as a month. Everything in EVE follows epic proportions.

The game is played similarly to any other MMO. You can spend your time completing missions for NPCs, mining ore, courier runs — just to name a few activities. The great thing is that all mission types can be more skillfully completed with the right kind of ship. If you are simply accepting missions, a ship tuned for combat is your best bet. If you are mining for ore, a ship with fast mining lasers and large cargo hold is the way to go. And if you are competing courier assignments, a fast ship with electronic warfare fittings will keep you alive. The nice thing about all this is that you can have as many ships in EVE as you can afford to buy and fit. Furthermore, all of your assets can be spread out among multiple starports within the game's universe. So if you need to keep a combat shipped docked in hostile space, while keeping your mining vessel safely docked somewhere else, you can.



The breathtaking mosaic you see
is an interstellar corporate war.
Finally, as your progress through the game you can favorably apply to become a part of a corporation which is an alliance of players into what can amount to a fleet of hundreds of ships. In EVE, there are sections of space which are entirely player controlled where NPC authorities do not roam. In these sections of space, player-run corporations hold sway with pockets of space won through conquest. If one corporation conquers another's space, they can destroy any stations in the area and proceed to put up their own, effectively expanding their territory. This corporation-to-corporation battle could be considered the endgame of EVE, but it's much more accessible to the average player. Almost all ships have a use in the struggle for territory, and you could be up to speed and involved in a major incursion the moment you join a corporation. A good comparison to how this aspect of the game functions is to do some research on the myriad of battles and fronts that were fought on during World War II. Many nations fought each other on many different fronts all over Europe and Asia. On this point, EVE is best described as WWII in space.

So if you are in the market for a MMORPG, but feel as though World of Warcraft is your only option (since they still get the majority of press coverage concerning MMOs), give EVE a try. It has a fourteen-day free trial, with many different payment options thereafter. If you are already a fan of MMOs, then I would still suggest EVE as a breath of fresh air in that it plays like no other MMO out there. Space is indeed the final frontier. So go where no man has gone before, and blow something up!





Articles by Zach Hines

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