Comments on: Eve, Embedded Jim & Human Interaction

By: C J Kinniburgh

C J Kinniburgh — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 04:48:02 +0000

I didn’t try out EVE (Is it EVE, Eve, or EvE? I’ve seen a lot of EvE’s in the comments here…) properly. I was not in the mood to communicate, I went through the tutorials, started reading some guides about how to spend my skill points, or whatever they are called in the game, and generally messed about in space. I didn’t speak to anyone. I tend to be an anti-social gamer after the hordes of kids on FPSs telling me how they are going to #@$* *%@! %*@ *%@!# *%@ me in the *%#@! *%@! *%#@! *%@! because I’m such a #@$! (%@ %*!$ *!$ bad *%@! player *!%@$#. I never really thought much of it, played my 14 days, and said goodbye. Never spoke to anyone. I think I missed the point. Considering grabbing another free trial. You may have convinced me. I know you didn’t mean to.

By: Kua

Kua — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 21:39:00 +0000

Just been logged in a couple of hours this evening – just chatting with old pals and soaking in the atmosphere, refamiliarising myself with the AI – and it feels so so good.

By: Swift Voyager

Swift Voyager — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 15:55:14 +0000

I’m with Alex. You should already know the most important part of playing Eve; how to deal with real people. The little technical details can be learned as you need them.

I would say that whether Eve is for you or not depends on what kind of person you are. From my experience, most Eve players are 30-50 year old males with technical backgrounds, families, and jobs. If you’re that kind of person, or if you enjoy hanging out with that kind of person, then I’d say Eve is for you.

I have around 30 long-term “friends” that I’ve met in Eve. They are all near my age and have roughly the same interests and experiences in life. I can log into Eve any day of the week and there will be serveral people I can talk to about nearly anything that interests me and they will share that interest. Trying to duplicate that in any non-virtual social situation would be nearly impossible. That’s what makes Eve so addictive for me. It’s not the game that’s addictive, it’s having someone that understands the things I like to talk about. We can talk about movies, books, news, work, family, bills, and much more, and we all have similar interests and experiences in those areas. Even my wife and kid get a vague glossy expression when I start talking about the science section of the newspaper at dinner. When I talk about that kind of stuff to my Eve friends, they will usually respond that they read it themselves and then be happy to talk about it further. Many of us went to the same colleges, took the same training classes, grew up with the same toys, etc.

If I only had that much in common with my wife…

By: Alex

Alex — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 08:30:36 +0000

Radiant. Yes, the learning curve is steep. But it´s just a matter of half an hour to get into the absolute basics of the game. Do the tutorials and hook up with some other guys. Don´t be afraid to try out things like shooting sentry guns or other stuff you find… you´ll learn quickly. ;) But behold, EVE is basicly not about shooting stuff up (not entirely). It´s about social interaction in all ascpects you can imagine. Almost everything is player driven, so interaction becomes PvP in just a matter of seconds, like being scammed over some dumb item in the market or being blown up at some border just because you didn´t know that there actually was a border. EVE has a very low threashold when it comes to frustration but there is a point when you get past it and at that point EVE becomes an addiction. I usually compare WoW to crack and Eve to very fine weed. Both gets you addicted in a way, but crack is certainly the evil stuff.

By: Calistas

Calistas — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 07:33:20 +0000

Everything the OP said is true! Well done. One of the biggest tips for getting in to EVE is to join friends who are in a busy, organised corp. Going in alone is extremely tough and a bit boring.

By: Scott B

Scott B — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 05:42:24 +0000

@Lilliput King- lookup sniggwaffe, they’re on the scrapheap challenge forums – they’re perpetually recruiting and they’re totally awesome. I don’t remember who said it, but this sums it up: “I like to think of sniggwaffe as awesome school, you do want to be awesome don’t you?”

By: Scott B

Scott B — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 05:08:09 +0000

I’m late to the punch here, but frankly I think you’re missing the point in the first few posts when you say “aim for 100k players”. The break-even point for an MMO is somewhere around 200k-250k players, which is pretty close to what EVE sustains at any given time. CCP’s genius is that they accept RMT and take a cut, they also allow you to transfer characters between accounts, for a fee. They’ve really done a remarkable job of making a lot of money with a relatively small player base.

By: Radiant

Radiant — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 04:55:36 +0000

Also you mentioned that you’d like to see more of this type of small scale or rather realistically scaled mmo as you see it as a success for ccp.
But would the size of the success for ccp be considered a success for EA or Ubi?

And how would players expectations of an EA or Ubi product match their experience; given the problems that ccp have with borked mechanics and server [lag] issues?

Not to mention the inability to scale the game past the core number of players that ccp seemed to have gathered.

I think ccp’s success with EVE is a unique and unfortunately one off experience.
But I’m 4am rambling.

By: Radiant

Radiant — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 03:58:17 +0000

A quick question about EVE.
It seems from everything I’ve read that starting from scratch with EVE is incredibly difficult without hooking into a major faction.
Is this the case? I’d love to take a lone ship and shoot up some shit without levelling up with ‘friends’ first.

By: Radiant

Radiant — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 03:54:50 +0000

Great articles.
There is so much to talk about when you get into the intricacies of a game and it’s community that’s been criminally over looked by other journalists.
It’s like they don’t even play games for more then the 2 hours it takes to review them.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:31:45 +0000

I’ve just entered this for the second time in order to write an article on it, and the scale once again is breathtaking. I disagree, partly, when you say it’s “probably not for you”.

EVE is like a remote island near Hawaii. It’s profoundly beautiful, those living there are well in tune with their environment. But spend more than two weeks in it in one go and you’ll most likely go insane. That’s why people holiday there. Taking a trial in EVE is something every gamer should do, because it’s the most atmospheric game ever made.

By: Saul

Saul — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 23:35:36 +0000

Eve is impressive, but I think Minimally-Multiplayer Online Games are the future. Think Left4Dead meets GTA.