Woa!

[Nightlord]

Granted, it's been out a while... but I've just "discovered" it.

The game is Eve Online. If you're tired of the boring same ole', same ole'... this just might be the game for you.

There are SO many complexities to the game, I can't even begin to list them. Imagine everything you've read or seen on TV and in books about commanding a ship in space and it's probably in the game. You have to not only learn the various systems in your ship, but how to balance them as well: Navigation, Weapons, Tracking, slots for outfitting your ship with various components and balancing your slots, CPU ability and available power.

Then there's your character, itself. Your character is handled in a Matrix sort of way. You're basically plugged in to your ship. To learn skills, you simply request the skill and it's downloaded to your brain. This takes REAL TIME. It's not your average hack-n-slash to improve type of game. If it will take 1 hour to download the skill... it will take 1 hour. The nice thing about this is that when you log off, the clock is still ticking. So if a skill takes 8 hours to learn, you start it before you go to work and it will be done when you get home. In this regard, there's no twinking in the game. Sure, someone could give you a nice ship or a lot of money... but you can't control a ship unless your skill is high enough to do so. Again, this takes real time.

Crafting in the game is also interesting. You want to make money? Work towards getting a ship with a bigger cargo hold. To go mining... you have to go hunting astreroids in space to mine from.

Even if you have absolutely no intention of getting into the game, EVERYONE should download the free trial to check out the character generator and the 3D Space Map you learn how to use in the tutorial. VERY awesome. As you choose different background career options, you're granted levels in specific skills. IE: If you choose a War College as where you went to school, your piloting and weapon skills get an increase.

The best part? The Free Trial does NOT require a credit card. No money, no information sent. And no, I do NOT work for the company. I was just really, really impressed.

EVE ONLINE FREE TRIAL

[OtherworldBob]

I played this one for a short while - lots of fun.

To get the most out of it, try and find a player run 'corp' to join. If you find a good one, they'll give you some free stuff (ships, weapons etc) in return for joining the corp on mining sprees, and just floating around killing any person unfortunate enough to wonder into your area of space.

Or if you feel like being evil, go around killing people by yourself, and they can exact their revenge by taking a bounty out on you.

The online costs are about £30 for 100days. If space based MMORPG are your thing, you should enjoy it.

[N1K]

I'll give it a shot

I watched the trailer and I was thrilled, I'm gona try to play it for free for the next two weeks. But 20$ for a month sounds a bit expensive to me..

[DigeratiPrime]

if you are looking for a Free mmorpg go to http://www.onrpg.com/.

I dont play these games, though ive though about it, so i cant reccomend any.

[Zartach]

I have been playing this game for a long time now, and i love it. I like Eve casue its so huge, theres a thousand ways to do things, the many choices you have keep it interesting. There are many people who have been playing it for years, and i still regret that i did not step in at launch

The learning curve is high in eve though, it is a game that you will have to need paitience for, there is as you said no way to influence your advancement by powerleveling as in many other games. Still, when training the skill's you will need paitience, the first month you will progress slowly, there are however skills who influence the speed of the skilltraining.

The good thing about the way skillprogressing is set up in Eve is that within a couple of weeks, and sometimes even sooner depending on your starting attributes you can allready compete with many players in the game. Be it combat, manufacturing or trading, because people travel in many diffrent ships and switch types often you will see many veterans in friggate sized ships who might never trained thatskill above the 4th chapter. A rank you can attain with the correct choices in the character selection screen.

I have always advised people to create at least one temporairy char to test if you like the way it is going to be, do not choose for science based attributes if you plan on a combaty type character. Do however balance them out a bit, because sooner or later you will need every attribute and the lower they are the longer the skilltraining takes.

It would also be a good idea to look at the forum, you can read it even while not having an account. Check the 'EVE New Citizens Q&A' and 'Skills' Fora to plan your chanacter before creating one. Oh and ignore the Alliance threads and Crime fora, thay are a pain for the eyes mostly as there is a lot to gain and a lot to loose in the politic world within eve.

Politic within eve is not only of the Player run Corporations (clans) but there are also large Alliances who lay claim to lawless space. Some are just there for the riches but there are those who actually are trying to build an empire.

There is a player build map out wich shows the area's the alliances lay claim to and wich wars are fought between them, Alliance Map this map is by no means always up to date but it does show that many player run alliances lay claim to the area's on the rim. The center is occupied by the NPC Empires, and allthough there is no way to escape from the pvp in Eve Empire has a harsh policeforce called Concord wich will destroy anyone who would go about and shoot innocent people.

As i said there is no way you can escape from pvp, and many people have always been nerveous about pvp based games but within Eve it is not a common sight that fights occur within secure space. Every system has a security rating with tops at 1.0 and ends in 0.0 wich is lawless, anyone shooting people in 1.0 to 0.1 will get a security standing hit. Any character begins his career a 0.0 and that rating tops at 5.0 and can go down to -10. The police will also destroy anyone who pirates in 1.0 down to 0.5 these systems are most secure. From 0.4 to 0.1 tehre is still some protection at the stations and warpgates but no police will show up to defend the inhabbitants.

Any pirate will in the end be unable to even enter secure space, and anyone who has a -10 security rating can be shot on sight by everyone, if he happens to be cheecky and enter 0.5 and up the police will hunt him down and take his ship out.

Also, the death of your ship does not mean you died as well, within Eve every Podpilot is within an escape capsule called a Pod. This pod obviously can save you when your ship dies as you cna just fly away in the escape capsule. When the pod is hsot however your character dies, luckely it is just a game and as in many other games this does not mean the end for your character. Every player pilot is as it were pluged in into the pod, cyber implants in the pilots brain are connected to the pod and it is via these implants that you cn actually steer the ship.

These implants also make sure that when your character dies his brain is scanned and the data is send to a clonestation, where any podpilot can buy a clone. Do mind the buying of a clone as with the long skilltraining buying a bad clone ( one that does not retain the skillpoints your char has) will result in lost training, as like a memmory gap. So when you have for example 100.000 skillpoints buying a 60.000 point skillpoint clone will result in a loss of training. Usualy this is 5% of the last trained, longest time consuming skill, witch is no biggie if thats like 1 hour of training.

But there are skills that take months to complete and withoud them you cannot fly the ships or use the modules that requires the skill.

Now as you see i can go on and on and on about eve as it has so many things to talk about but i'll make a short stop here, like the Original poster said try it out see if you like it and for some teasing here is some links to some nice movies wich some players made.

The Exodus Chronicle

The Fallen Lady

Eve Never Fades (Small)

Eve Never Fades (Large)

Eve Online Official Website

PS sorry for the long post

[gadget]

I've been playing this game for nearly 3 years now - must get some sleep soon.

If you jump in give me a shout ingame or leave an eve mail- Lyle Waters -