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| | Publisher: CCP Games  Genre: Simulation | | | Min OS X: 10.4 CPU: Intel @ 1800 MHz Hard Disk: 6000 MB Graphics: 1024x768 @ 32-bit, 128 MB VRAM |
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EVE Online is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that is set in the far future. It is one of the top ten subscribed MMOs and is the only successful MMO set in space. However, is it entertaining enough to be worth its monthly subscription fees? To find out, you'd have to look at...Gameplay Before I begin, I need to address a common misconception I noticed among new players of EVE. EVE Online is an RPG, not a flight simulator or space shooter. All battles are done with dice rolls that are calculated off the statistics of your ship's equipment and your character's skills. As such, your skill as a pilot will not necessarily factor into how well you'll do in combat. However, there isn't a leveling system like in most other MMOs. All skill training can be started at any time so long as you have the prerequisite skills and can afford to buy the training manual.That aside, EVE Online plays like most other MMORPGs. You get missions (quests) from agents in various space stations (towns) scattered across the galaxy. They tell you to do things like take items from one station to another, kill a group of enemies, or get an item from a hostile location. You can also patrol asteroid fields in dangerous areas to kill pirates, mine ore and refine it, research blueprints for manufacturing, and produce items from their base ingredients. This is quite like the crafting and quest systems of other MMOs, but EVE does have a few elements that keep the game fresh. The most noticeable of these are the storyline missions. Every ten to twenty missions or so, an agent will send you a letter telling you about a special mission that only you can perform. These tend to be more difficult from the ordinary missions and are quite involved. For example, my first storyline mission sent me out to rescue twenty passengers from a damaged ship in a battlefield where two factions of pirates were fighting. In order to get to the battlefield, you have to avoid the large pirate patrols from both factions and go through the warpgates they are guarding until you find the final battlefield. Once you're there, you need to fight your way to the damaged ship and retrieve the passengers. I barely managed to get through the battlefield and had to make an emergency warp to a nearby space station the instant I had the passengers. It was a unique experience and broke up the standard missions beautifully. The second element is the way your character "levels." Due to the fact that you can get any ship in the game with the right skills and the right amount of money, you don't have to kill anything to become a powerful player. You can mine, trade, do peaceful missions, escort miners in the dangerous asteroid fields, and much more. This greatly decreases the monotonous grinding you find in most other MMOs and makes it quite easy to play casually and still be successful. The last element is the player-based economy. Players can research new items, pay other players to mine the materials required to make those items, set up a manufacturing base in a space station, and sell those items to other players at a profit. The sell and buy orders can be viewed from anywhere in the region they are made, and players can purchase all the items you need with just a few warps into the nearby systems. The economy makes the world much more interactive, and gives you a reason to join a corporation (guild) that doesn't involve large instances or PvP. There are a couple problems with EVE Online, though. First, EVE has a very steep learning curve for the first hour or so. If you don't follow the tutorial after you first log in, you'll usually be quite lost. However, the tutorial is quite detailed, so if you follow it to the end you should be able to navigate through EVE without difficulty. Second, due to the requirement that you spend a certain amount of time to train each skill level, you can easily end up stuck in lower-level missions and areas while you wait for your skills to catch up with your money. This is especially annoying when you want to upgrade to a stronger ship and buy everything you need, but you still need to wait a week or two for your skills to catch up. Thankfully, there's always something dangerous to do when you get too rich. You can go to a zero security system and hunt other players, you can search for better agents in lower security areas, and you can take missions that would most likely kill you. This can be quite entertaining and usually ends with a large bill for the replacement of your equipment. It is the easiest solution to a full wallet.
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