Eve Online Review
I've been playing eve off and on for three years. I thought I'd give somewhat of a more in-depth view on the other side of eve since most people who have reviewed it here seem to be new people and don't have much experience with people or the game in general. Oh and this is a little long, but it deals with a lot of things I think people should be aware of. So if you're thinking about buying eve, please read this.
First of all, let me stress that this game really is not for everyone. Also forget the "rating" this isn't really a game for kids and you'll see why if you read on.
Now, if you could have me sum up eve in just a few words here's what I would say. Eve is unforgiving. It's harsh, it's cruel and it's full of people that will stab you in the back, steal everything you have and literally leave you with nothing left if they can. I kid you not, you can literally lose EVERYTHING you have if you're not careful.
There's many ways this could happen. In eve most new players have no idea what they're getting into. This game practically encourages pirating, killing other players, stealing, cheating, lying, everything of the sort to get YOUR way. It, for the most part, is not a friendly game.
There's a lot to explain so let me start off with this... You have a spaceship right? Lets say someone comes by and just blows your ship up. What happens? Well in most games if you die you respawn. Maybe you're a ghost and have to find your corpse, maybe you just poof... come back to life. In eve if your ship is blown up, that's it. It's gone. It's space rubble. When your ship does blow up, you eject into a "capsule" it's your little escape pod. You can use that to fly to a station, get in a new ship. But your capsule can (And eventually WILL) be blown up. Then you really will be dead, you have clones so if you do die you start up as a new clone, in a station, but I'll talk more about that later because there's a few important things about that.
Also, you can buy insurance for ships so when your spaceship does blow up you at least get some money (called ISK in game) back. But you're not just losing your ship, you're losing everything that was in and on that ship too. All your turrets, your ammo, rigs (made to enhance certain aspects of the ship. Usually VERY expensive and will either cost more than the ship or just a heck of a lot), etc. and everything you had on it can easily total more than the whole ship you purchased or will almost always definitely be more than you get from insurance.
So if you die, you're losing money, a lot of money usually. When you get up to flying battleships you'll usually be losing 200 - 300~ million isk if it gets blown up. So if you're not careful and if you die a lot you can easily end up running out of money.
I know because this happened to me once when I first started playing eve. This one guy kept killing me over and over and over again. That's all he would do and I literally lost everything I had. I had no ships, I had no money. So do not be under the false illusion that you're safe or ok. The only way you're safe in eve is if you're in a station. That's it. If you're out in space then anything can happen.
Now... You might say that it's really unfair and whatever, and it is. I've seen a lot of new players come in, have fun and all of a sudden one guy comes and ruins the entire game for them and they never play it again. That's how eve is.
You might say but "what about security?"! Well, let me tell you this. It doesn't matter. Security levels dictate how much a given system has in security. Think, space police. Now do not be under the illusion that concord (the space police) is there for your protection. What they are there for is consequence. Security goes from 1.0 to 0.0. 1.0 having the highest security, 0.0 having none. If you're in a high security system (Just called hi-sec) and someone comes along and start attacking you concord isn't meant to come in and protect you, they're mainly there to be like.. Ok, he attacked you, he's going to get blown up. Simply because it takes concord sometime to get to you and by the time they get to you, you're probably already going to be dead.
Most people, I don't want to say exploit this, but they use it to their advantage. For instace, it's not very hard to go and pick on new players or people who are mining and what a lot of people do is buy cheap ships that they don't care if it blows up and try to kill you. If they kill you, great, if they don't kill you and get blown up.. That's fine too, it didn't cost much AND they get insurance when their ship blows up. And depending on the ship (Different ships have different insurances) if you blow them up they might actually get MORE money than they put into it in the first place so you're just helping them by protecting yourself. This happens a lot, and I mean that whole heart-idly. There's events like "Hulkmageddon" you can google it, look up youtube videos of it, people go around purposely killing people that are mining. They just get in some cheap ship and kill mining ships (Which have little to no defenses).
Also, if you're not careful and you're going to a certain area.. You might go into low sec, or null sec (0.0), and you'll just simply die. People love it when a newbie comes into low or null sec because it's just a free kill. So you need to make sure you know where you going, the route you're taking and although hi sec isn't safe, it's safer.
Also a quick note, I mentioned earlier that when you're in your capsule you can get killed (Called getting "podded" in the game). Your clone has a certain amount of skill points it can hold. If lets say, you've been playing for a while and you have 5 million skill points but you never upgraded your clone and it only holds 1 million skill points, if you die... You're going to lose a large portion of your skillpoints. I've never had it happen to me personally so I can't tell you the exact numbers, but as Paul said in a comment to this review, "When you get podded you will lose 20% of the difference between your clone's skill points and your skill points from your highest-trained (by rank and SP) skills. So, you would lose a huge chunk, but not to the point where you're starting new." So, that's good to know. Although you'll still be losing some skill points. It's just good to know and be aware of that :)
Oh and there are people that make their living in the game by stealing. If you have a corporation, trust no one. People have literally lost everything because they trusted some person. I even knew of this one person who went into a corp, became a director (Think like a vice president or something close to that), got a vote to remove the owner of the corp, became the ceo, kicked everyone out of the corp, stole everything, and took over the corp. Believe me, this isn't rare either. You can look on youtube and see people who steal things ALL the time from other people and then LAUGH about it. But that's eve.
Also, many players trick new players into stealing from them. If you're in space and you see a cargo container... DO NOT TAKE ANYTHING FROM IT. If you take something from it, you're stealing from that player and that player can kill you WITHOUT any interference from concord. Once again he can kill you without punishment, he can kill you without taking any penalty. People will trick new players in many ways. Naming cargo containers in space with YOUR name to make you think it's your cargo container in hopes you take it so they can kill you. But it can also be a lot of fun.
I remember one time I was playing as my alt and I was in a place where a lot of new players were at and outside the station there was a cargo container named "Free ammo!". It was obvious who set up the trap, because there was a wolf (An assault frigate, it's a t2 ship) sitting off the station. He only stuck out like a sore thumb. Anyways so I flew towards it and watched and laughed as he sped towards me. Then I would just warp off. I would wait a minute or two. I bookmarked the spot so I could come right back to the can.. I warped back to it and he was away once again... He came speeding back at me and I left. I did this for quite a few minutes, on and off... He eventually quit. But it's little things like that that can make eve really special :)
So I hope that might give you a better idea of some of the things in eve that many people seem to leave out.
Now, there's a lot you can do in eve, you can start a corporation (ie. guild), you can have your own station, you can mine from moons and get tons of resources and make ridiculous amounts of money. You can now build refineries on planets and gather resources on them. Someone in my corp said, "It's carebear gone crazy" and that couldn't be more true. You can fly huge ships and partake in amazingly epic battles with hundreds of ships. Just a few days ago I went in with a large fleet and ran into a system where there was an avatar, a leviathan (They are titans, the biggest ships in the game), and hundreds of people... It was an awesome fight :)
But this all takes time.
Eve isn't like a normal game, you don't really have a "level". You can't just get to level 80 and woo now you can do everything. This game is based off of skills and skillpoints. Each skill can be leveled up 5 times. Each level of a skill takes a certain amount of time. Training a skill to level 1 might take you 15 minutes, level 2 might take you an hour, level 3 might take you 8 hours, level 4 might take you a whole day, level 5 might take you a week. Some level 5 skills literally take over a month to train. Why do you need that? Certain ships need certain skills. To fly a carrier for instance, you're going to need that racial battleship at level 5, as well as advanced spaceship command 5. Those each take about 30days (Depending on your attributes). T2 and other higher class ships also require a lot of level 5 skills.
Skills in eve keep training even when you're not playing, so if you log off your skill keeps training. If you want to fly a titan (biggest ship in the game) for a new player it would take them about an entire year to get all the skills just to learn how to fly it. Now you have to purchase these skills which would be probably around 5 billion isk. Then you have to buy (Or build) the ship, and fittings.
Eve is a game that takes time and it's definitely not for everyone.
If you're thinking about buying this game, there is a free trial. I can give you a 21 day trial or you can get a 14 day trial from the eve online website. I would highly recommended you do the trial, see how it is and what you think before you buy it.
Also speaking about money.. Eve does require a monthly fee. It's . However, you can buy game time with ISK. Each "plex" is around 250million isk and adds 30 days of game time. So if you have lots of isk you can buy plex's and not have to pay for eve's monthly fee. So theoretically, after a while you can eventually never have to pay for eve again. Also, on the flip side.. if you need ISK you can sell plex's. Which are and sell for, as I mentioned earlier around 250million isk.
Although the price of a plex changes with the economy, during the summer months it usually rises to 300 - 400mil. During the off seasons it can get down to the average 250mil~. How long would it take for you to play till you can buy your own plexs with isk? Well.. That all depends on you and what you do.
If you're mining in hi-sec you're usually going to be making a max of 10 - 15mil an hour. Running missions is usually always more profitable. If you're mining to manufacture items, it just depends on what you're making, how much youre making and the economy. There's some people that just sit in stations, they never undock. They just play the market, buy low, sell high and train their skills and I know some guys who make ridiculous amounts of money doing that. I know people that make enough money to buy their plex's just after a few months, but it just depends.
The best way to make ISK (imo) is to find a corp/alliance in 0.0 and npc's in that space are the best. There's npc's that are 1, 5, 7+ million EACH. There's anomalies that spawn too, which just hold tons of those expensive rats (npc's) and people just run those 24/7. Which I personally do. There's also much more expensive ore in 0.0 but ratting makes MUCH more isk than mining. Mining in 0.0 I would make around 100 - 200mil a day. But ratting... I would make that in just two or so hours with a few friends to help :)
Also there's people that scam in eve. They put up contracts for a couple hundred mil. They put a lot of junk in the contract hoping that the person who buys it doesn't pay attention and realize that the ship they think they're getting a good deal on.. Isn't even there. So they'll spend 200mil and realize.. They just got 10mil worth of junk.
Also to note, when you start eve and have a subscription it doesn't just end when the subscription ends. If you do NOT cancel the subscription it will renew EVEN IF YOU DON'T TELL IT TO. Once again, it WILL automatically RENEW at the end of the subscription if you do NOT cancel it.
Keep that in mind.
Also, eve has free expansions. Whenever CCP comes out with something new for eve, it's free. You don't need to buy some expansion, it's free. Dominion was just released last year which was a major overhaul of practically everything in the game and how it looks. They updated all the visuals and it looks fantastic. They also just released Tyrannis in May. Which lets you scan planets, build on planets and mine them. As well as updating other parts of the game but that was the main aspect of it. Late this year they should be introducing walking in stations. Eve is always growing, it might be slow, but each time they add something it's always amazing and they put a lot of work into the game and it really shows.
Anyways, I know this was long and I apologize, but there's so much to eve I can't even scratch the surface. I hope this helps, thank you for reading.
Also feel free to contact me if you would like any more info. I'm always glad to help. Whether it's by giving you a 21 day trial or by helping you set up your character and figure out what YOU want to do and help you use your time effectively. But eve.. Once you get going can be horribly addicting. I cannot stress this enough.
I personally know a guy who has 12 accounts. I only have 2, but that's all I feel like I need right now. But pvp is so much fun and it's so addicting. Honestly there's nothing like it in another game out there right now. I used to play wow, I had 70 mages, hunters, warriors. Honestly you can't even compare the two. After playing eve.. Wow is just too boring and simple and there's no excitement in pvp. You don't have to risk losing your ship that you just paid 700million isk for that also has another billion isk in fittings. It can be that type of on your edge excitement. Where your armor is running low, his is running low.. You're both into structure and BAM! He dies! (Or you...) It's just so fun!!! The first few times you lose a ship, it's normal for it to be a big deal however.. it gets better and after a few months you'll be losing ships that are hundreds of millions of isk and (hopefully) you just enjoy it. It's a game after all.
I also make eve videos on youtube, which you can see in my profile on amazon.
I hope this helps, remember to feel free to contact me. I'm always happy to help! :)
Eve Online Feature
- Free expansions ensure an ever-changing, exciting online destination.
- Limitless character, ship, and play style options give every player the chance to live out their own epic adventure.
- Award-winning player-vs-player, ship-to-ship combat rewards tactics and strategy rather than level and equipment.
- Dynamic Player-Driven Economy
Eve Online Overview
Join 220,000 other space pirates and galactic tycoons in the most exciting and uniquely massively multiplayer game ever created. Infinite Possibilities for customization and exploration await. Transport your imagination to EVE Online and experience the next generation of online interaction and entertainment
*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Aug 18, 2010 23:29:04
