EVE Search - Feedback from a trial user

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Covax Paine	Posted - 2005.12.29 02:15:00 - [1] I've been playing with a trial account for the past couple weeks and i've put together a list of what's keeping me from continuing the game. I appologize if it's to negative and i don't want to start a flame war, but I thought you might appreciate some feedback on your game. Also please excuse the comparison to WoW as I know many of the players see it as a "newb" or "kiddy" game but, while the depth of the game may not compare, many other aspects do. Also i'm neither a newb to mmo's nor a kiddy. I'm 27 and i started with everquest. I may decide to try it out for another month but here is what I wrote when someone brought up eve over on evilavatar.com: I've been weening myself of WoW for the past couple of weeks. Like ****** addicts i've replaced one with another though. Eve-Online has become my methadon and i gotta say it fits the part well. It's not as good as what i'm trying to kick yet just as if not more time consuming. Before i start i would like to say that i've enjoyed the game, but certain aspects of me leave me wondering if I really want to pay $15 a month for it. The concept is amazing, the depth daunting and the graphics breathtaking. This is all from the perspective of a trial user so i'm not an authority by any stretch of the imagination. However, being that I work for a company that uses a trial to get people to try our service it seems to me that i'm the person the developers should be listening to. My main complaints about it: 1) Blatant time sinks. If you don't like the stupid time sinks in WoW like running or flying from place to place then forget about Eve. To go anywhere you have to warp from stargate to stargate and sort of hopscotch around and it take time. Now there is an auto pilot that does this for you so if you have something else to do (like look in their "auction house") then it's ok, but once the novelty of the eye candy wears off it gets a little tedios. Also you don't have XP like most games instead if you want to train an ability it simply takes x amount of time (whether you are logged in or not). This sounds great until you get to the 3rd level of any skill and it takes, for example, 1 day 16 hours and 15 minutes to train it. Heck i have one talent that would take me 14 days to train. Talk about blatant time sinks! 2) The interface. Man! Talk about a poorly thought out UI. The simplest of tasks take multiple clicks and obscure menus. I have yet to find a simple way to take an item from a my "base" inventory and put it into my ship inventory. You can post a link to an item in chat windows but only if it's in your inventory, not if it's in the "auction house". Looting items is a pain (god i miss shift+right click). Their transaction log is deceptive as well. It lists some debits & credits but not all. Get money from a mission or another player? For the life of me i can't find a record of it. Someone has to literaly send me an in game email to let me know they gave me money. dumb! There should at least be a record of the transaction in the gasp transaction log gasp if not an automatic email sent to me notifying me of the transfer. Also the icons are dumb and similar, i have to hover over them to figure out what is what everytime. 3) The content ala quests/missions. BORING! First you have to figure out how not to get courier quests which involve going from point a to point b via autopilot and 20 minutes of twidling your thumbs. Then once you figure out that "commander" and "security" agents are the ones to talk to for the fun quests things start to look up. Then you complete 3 quests for one of them before they actually start to repeat the same quests. WTF? I've even gotten the same mission from 2 different people. Talk about a lack of content. It's early in the game you say? All the more reason to have extensive content, keep new players interested.
Covax Paine	Posted - 2005.12.29 02:15:00 - [2] I've been playing with a trial account for the past couple weeks and i've put together a list of what's keeping me from continuing the game. I appologize if it's to negative and i don't want to start a flame war, but I thought you might appreciate some feedback on your game. Also please excuse the comparison to WoW as I know many of the players see it as a "newb" or "kiddy" game but, while the depth of the game may not compare, many other aspects do. Also i'm neither a newb to mmo's nor a kiddy. I'm 27 and i started with everquest. I may decide to try it out for another month but here is what I wrote when someone brought up eve over on evilavatar.com: I've been weening myself of WoW for the past couple of weeks. Like ****** addicts i've replaced one with another though. Eve-Online has become my methadon and i gotta say it fits the part well. It's not as good as what i'm trying to kick yet just as if not more time consuming. Before i start i would like to say that i've enjoyed the game, but certain aspects of me leave me wondering if I really want to pay $15 a month for it. The concept is amazing, the depth daunting and the graphics breathtaking. This is all from the perspective of a trial user so i'm not an authority by any stretch of the imagination. However, being that I work for a company that uses a trial to get people to try our service it seems to me that i'm the person the developers should be listening to. My main complaints about it: 1) Blatant time sinks. If you don't like the stupid time sinks in WoW like running or flying from place to place then forget about Eve. To go anywhere you have to warp from stargate to stargate and sort of hopscotch around and it take time. Now there is an auto pilot that does this for you so if you have something else to do (like look in their "auction house") then it's ok, but once the novelty of the eye candy wears off it gets a little tedios. Also you don't have XP like most games instead if you want to train an ability it simply takes x amount of time (whether you are logged in or not). This sounds great until you get to the 3rd level of any skill and it takes, for example, 1 day 16 hours and 15 minutes to train it. Heck i have one talent that would take me 14 days to train. Talk about blatant time sinks! 2) The interface. Man! Talk about a poorly thought out UI. The simplest of tasks take multiple clicks and obscure menus. I have yet to find a simple way to take an item from a my "base" inventory and put it into my ship inventory. You can post a link to an item in chat windows but only if it's in your inventory, not if it's in the "auction house". Looting items is a pain (god i miss shift+right click). Their transaction log is deceptive as well. It lists some debits & credits but not all. Get money from a mission or another player? For the life of me i can't find a record of it. Someone has to literaly send me an in game email to let me know they gave me money. dumb! There should at least be a record of the transaction in the gasp transaction log gasp if not an automatic email sent to me notifying me of the transfer. Also the icons are dumb and similar, i have to hover over them to figure out what is what everytime. 3) The content ala quests/missions. BORING! First you have to figure out how not to get courier quests which involve going from point a to point b via autopilot and 20 minutes of twidling your thumbs. Then once you figure out that "commander" and "security" agents are the ones to talk to for the fun quests things start to look up. Then you complete 3 quests for one of them before they actually start to repeat the same quests. WTF? I've even gotten the same mission from 2 different people. Talk about a lack of content. It's early in the game you say? All the more reason to have extensive content, keep new players interested.
Covax Paine	Posted - 2005.12.29 02:16:00 - [3] 4) Finally there is the steep learning curve. Now I'm a former Tribes 2 junky so I'm all for a steep learning curve, but this game has a steep learning curve simply because things are laid out in a non-intuitive fashion with a lack of information. For example, I'm still not sure how to figure out the damage that a specific weapon does. There is one field for the "damage multiplier" and another for the "rate of fire". I'm guessing that divide one by the other to get the overal dps but i could be wrong. Would it be that hard for them to simply give you the DPS along with the other things? Some of the item descriptions are laughable like "This stabalizes your warp core". Oh gee, that clears everything up. Fortunately the community is great and it's easy to ask questions but again we come back to the fact that you can't link an item unless it's in your inventory so asking about item a vs item b is an ardous task to say the least. Oh, and you know that handy little checkbox in the AH that says "only show items i can use" or some such, yeah, not in eve. Leaving you to sort through the equipment for all kinds of ships & "professions" that you will NEVER use. 5) ok, one more. death. Remember EQ were dying sucked? Well imagine if when you died you lost all your equipment. Yup thats right. If you die then your ship, weapons and inventory are gone. In PvE your "escape pod" survives and you can warp back to a space station but PvP is a totally different story. I'm not sure exactly how bad it is but from what i've heard it REALLY sucks. Now you can buy an insurance policy for the ship, but often times the weapons & inventory are worth far more than the ship. More realistic you say? Yeah well it still sucks and makes your first death a true tragedy. I almost quit but for some very generous random guys giving me a buncha credits to buy a new ship & equipment. Ok, done ranting, time to play some Eve-Online before my trial is up ;-)
Covax Paine	Posted - 2005.12.29 02:16:00 - [4] 4) Finally there is the steep learning curve. Now I'm a former Tribes 2 junky so I'm all for a steep learning curve, but this game has a steep learning curve simply because things are laid out in a non-intuitive fashion with a lack of information. For example, I'm still not sure how to figure out the damage that a specific weapon does. There is one field for the "damage multiplier" and another for the "rate of fire". I'm guessing that divide one by the other to get the overal dps but i could be wrong. Would it be that hard for them to simply give you the DPS along with the other things? Some of the item descriptions are laughable like "This stabalizes your warp core". Oh gee, that clears everything up. Fortunately the community is great and it's easy to ask questions but again we come back to the fact that you can't link an item unless it's in your inventory so asking about item a vs item b is an ardous task to say the least. Oh, and you know that handy little checkbox in the AH that says "only show items i can use" or some such, yeah, not in eve. Leaving you to sort through the equipment for all kinds of ships & "professions" that you will NEVER use. 5) ok, one more. death. Remember EQ were dying sucked? Well imagine if when you died you lost all your equipment. Yup thats right. If you die then your ship, weapons and inventory are gone. In PvE your "escape pod" survives and you can warp back to a space station but PvP is a totally different story. I'm not sure exactly how bad it is but from what i've heard it REALLY sucks. Now you can buy an insurance policy for the ship, but often times the weapons & inventory are worth far more than the ship. More realistic you say? Yeah well it still sucks and makes your first death a true tragedy. I almost quit but for some very generous random guys giving me a buncha credits to buy a new ship & equipment. Ok, done ranting, time to play some Eve-Online before my trial is up ;-)
Sharayar AlHami	Posted - 2005.12.29 02:17:00 - [5] hmm, not sure if it matters but Covax was the first character i started and abandonded after the tutorial, this is the character i use now.
Sharayar AlHami Amarr Imperial Academy	Posted - 2005.12.29 02:17:00 - [6] hmm, not sure if it matters but Covax was the first character i started and abandonded after the tutorial, this is the character i use now.
Vox Virilis	Posted - 2005.12.29 06:35:00 - [7] Hey! someone else that played Tribes 2!!! That rocks. I started playing this game on a trial account, and I agree with all of your "rants". I think it basically boils down to wieghing the good w/ the bad. Yes, it's utterly boring to make that 17 jump trip. Yes, the UI is daunting, and generally non-user friendly.... However, there are several things about the game that cause me to continue to play it. first and foremost, is the playerbase. the fact that there is so much player involvement makes it a truly engaging experience. During those long jump trips, I just turn on a big channel like the "help" channel and listen and give pointers, sometimes ppl ask questions I don't know the answer to, someone else answers it, and I learned somethin too. Also, The average maturity level of players in this game is another reason why I'd never sign up for WoW. As an adult, surely you can appreciate not having to deal w/ 10 year olds who are putting off doing there math homework - improper fractions. The shear open-endedness of the game. There is no "level 60" that people are ever so constantly workin towards. its all open to go however you choose. As for the UI, to it's credit, It takes a while to learn, but when you do, its quite effecient. I don't know about you but I'm not one that likes things to be "dumbed down" for me. I run windows 2000, because I cant stand the colorful, rounded corners of the useless menus and nice round buttons in XP, I mean seriously, when you look at windows XP it looks safe to be in the hands of children under the age of 3. Overall, this is a good post, and the issues you bring to light are valid. and btw, it's too bad Tribes Vengance turned out to be such a failure... "My backpack's got jet's. I'm Boba the Fett. I bounty hunt for Jabba Hutt, to finance my Vette. -wikiwikiwa!"
Vox Virilis Minmatar Brutor tribe	Posted - 2005.12.29 06:35:00 - [8] Hey! someone else that played Tribes 2!!! That rocks. I started playing this game on a trial account, and I agree with all of your "rants". I think it basically boils down to wieghing the good w/ the bad. Yes, it's utterly boring to make that 17 jump trip. Yes, the UI is daunting, and generally non-user friendly.... However, there are several things about the game that cause me to continue to play it. first and foremost, is the playerbase. the fact that there is so much player involvement makes it a truly engaging experience. During those long jump trips, I just turn on a big channel like the "help" channel and listen and give pointers, sometimes ppl ask questions I don't know the answer to, someone else answers it, and I learned somethin too. Also, The average maturity level of players in this game is another reason why I'd never sign up for WoW. As an adult, surely you can appreciate not having to deal w/ 10 year olds who are putting off doing there math homework - improper fractions. The shear open-endedness of the game. There is no "level 60" that people are ever so constantly workin towards. its all open to go however you choose. As for the UI, to it's credit, It takes a while to learn, but when you do, its quite effecient. I don't know about you but I'm not one that likes things to be "dumbed down" for me. I run windows 2000, because I cant stand the colorful, rounded corners of the useless menus and nice round buttons in XP, I mean seriously, when you look at windows XP it looks safe to be in the hands of children under the age of 3. Overall, this is a good post, and the issues you bring to light are valid. and btw, it's too bad Tribes Vengance turned out to be such a failure... "My backpack's got jet's. I'm Boba the Fett. I bounty hunt for Jabba Hutt, to finance my Vette. -wikiwikiwa!"
Max Gluteus	Posted - 2005.12.29 07:07:00 - [9] 1. Most of PvP takes place during travelling or warping from system to system. It is a part of the game design. With the introduction of jump clones (basically this is equivalent to having a limited number of portals that you can set up) it became somewhat easier to travel. Skill training is a somewhat original concept for MMOGs. Yet in essence it is not really different from other MMOGs: you are still forced to play the game for a certain duration before you can get better at it. Except in this game this duration is relatively well defined. You can accelerate it by using implants or training the learning skills. Still, 30 days to learn a skill is not fun. But, this is never the less a blatant attempt by game designers to make content last-I agree with you on this one. Oh, and you still need to collect a large amount of cash to be able to afford all the new toys (and new skills) that these skills allow you to use. 2. Steep learning curve and user unfriendly interface are the main reasons why after almost 3 years there are still only about 70k subscribers. The interface actually becomes quite friendly and useful after you get used to it. 3. The NPC or PvE content in this game is truly lacking comparing to other MMOGs. This is balanced by a PvP system that is arguably superior to other MMOGs and by ability to easily create player driven content and events. They added more missions and dungeons, so it is much better now but still, you got more than 5000 systems and only a few NPC types to kill. As for the death penalty-it isn't as bad as it looks early on. True, it is severe and you can lose all equipment (which is very good for the game economy). But the equipment is generic and can be replaced. You just have to be very careful and know what to use and when-that is something players have to learn. This game has one big plus-you get to hang out with a relatively mature crowd of players from all over the world. The game isn't dominated by any one single culture. You can be flying with and fighting real nations here
Max Gluteus	Posted - 2005.12.29 07:07:00 - [10] 1. Most of PvP takes place during travelling or warping from system to system. It is a part of the game design. With the introduction of jump clones (basically this is equivalent to having a limited number of portals that you can set up) it became somewhat easier to travel. Skill training is a somewhat original concept for MMOGs. Yet in essence it is not really different from other MMOGs: you are still forced to play the game for a certain duration before you can get better at it. Except in this game this duration is relatively well defined. You can accelerate it by using implants or training the learning skills. Still, 30 days to learn a skill is not fun. But, this is never the less a blatant attempt by game designers to make content last-I agree with you on this one. Oh, and you still need to collect a large amount of cash to be able to afford all the new toys (and new skills) that these skills allow you to use. 2. Steep learning curve and user unfriendly interface are the main reasons why after almost 3 years there are still only about 70k subscribers. The interface actually becomes quite friendly and useful after you get used to it. 3. The NPC or PvE content in this game is truly lacking comparing to other MMOGs. This is balanced by a PvP system that is arguably superior to other MMOGs and by ability to easily create player driven content and events. They added more missions and dungeons, so it is much better now but still, you got more than 5000 systems and only a few NPC types to kill. As for the death penalty-it isn't as bad as it looks early on. True, it is severe and you can lose all equipment (which is very good for the game economy). But the equipment is generic and can be replaced. You just have to be very careful and know what to use and when-that is something players have to learn. This game has one big plus-you get to hang out with a relatively mature crowd of players from all over the world. The game isn't dominated by any one single culture. You can be flying with and fighting real nations here

Rudolf Miller	Posted - 2005.12.29 09:00:00 - [11] Good post. The time sink is really starting to bother me. When I can only play an hour or two a night (I'm 42 have two sons under three and a more than full time job), having to spend half of my time travelling is getting old. The good thing, travelling in high sec I can cook supper or do laundry while waiting to complete my travels. I think the wall clock time based trainning acts as a great equalizer between hard core and recreational gamers. The interface is actually better than it was; but there is always room for improvement. Content for the frigate/destroyer crowd certainly could stand some improvement. I don't know much about the level 3 and 4 agent missions. The answer to question 4, once in space right-click the weapon on the ship control panel and show info. Because there are so many things that can impact this info (ammo, ship bonus, skills ..), that is how I do it.
Rudolf Miller	Posted - 2005.12.29 09:00:00 - [12] Good post. The time sink is really starting to bother me. When I can only play an hour or two a night (I'm 42 have two sons under three and a more than full time job), having to spend half of my time travelling is getting old. The good thing, travelling in high sec I can cook supper or do laundry while waiting to complete my travels. I think the wall clock time based trainning acts as a great equalizer between hard core and recreational gamers. The interface is actually better than it was; but there is always room for improvement. Content for the frigate/destroyer crowd certainly could stand some improvement. I don't know much about the level 3 and 4 agent missions. The answer to question 4, once in space right-click the weapon on the ship control panel and show info. Because there are so many things that can impact this info (ammo, ship bonus, skills ..), that is how I do it.
Commoner	Posted - 2005.12.29 09:37:00 - [13] Nicely thought out post. I agree with you on the interface. The sheer lack of sharcuts to do everyday tasks is one area where EVE has room for a massive improvement overhaul.
Ralitge boyter	Posted - 2005.12.29 09:37:00 - [14] Funny, when I started reading this I though oh man an other one of these whining posts. Yet now that I have read it I have to say I agree with most of it. Things have imporved but there is certainly room for improvment. The travel well yes and no... I used to be able to cross the whole eve universe in about 15 minutes (back when we still had highways) now eve ahs become EVE and travel takes real time. This is good and bad at the same time, you should not need to travel about a lot in most cases so who cares about the fact that so much time is taken up by travel. Then again when you do want to go out and explore the time it takes to go from A to B is pretty borring pretty soon. The UI well it's a lot better than it was . Then again there is a lot of things that could be improved about the hidden menu's and options that you have to search for (just wait till you try and manage a corporation ) The mission system is getting very old very fast the lack of content I agree with completly at this point nearly 3 years in the game this is shamefull. Getting the same mission over and over and over again is just plain borring. The death part is not so bad actualy, you do not loose it all and most things are easily replaced. The guns and stuff you loose sure but if you wouldn't why would you even care about death other thn the iritation factor of being send back to a station you just left. The fact that the type of damage done by a certain weapon is not clear is something that should be solved by having a second tutorial, one that explains players that have been messing about for a week or so how to find out about those things and why yo would care about it in the first place. But that is something CCP will figure out at some point (a few years from now) As for an option to easily see what you can and can not use that would be a really great thing to have but it would also put a huge strain on the system as this requires the system to take into account all your skills and all the modules that you might be looking at and to workout if you can or cannot use these. It might be that something like that comes in after the cluster upgrade but before that there is no chance of such a tremendous strain being put on the system. Then the skill training time, well that is what makes EVE such a great game. It take time for all of us. I have been a very frequent player for some months but due to changes in my social life (yes a woman is involved ), and moving to an other country I was forced to spend a lot less time on EVE than I used to. So all I had to do was login from time to time change some skill and log out again. I never lost any time compaired to my friends back home who are still playing nearly every day. So to be honnest even though it does take yo a long time to get to a certain point in the game you know exactly when you will get there and how long it will take to get to the next point, this makes for a much more intresting game then for instance Ultima Online where you would have to kill 1000's of ebil rats until you got a few extra points so you would be able to move on to killing ebil toads and after months of doing the same you would finaly make it all the way to killing a troll if you where lucky. (now that is what I call a time sink EVE's system does not force you to do anything yet you can still progress) All in all a very good post and to be honnest all but the dead and training time once very thru. Now you just have to hope a dev actualy reads this. ------------------------------------------- Should you disagree with me, well I guess that is because I disagree with you. If you have a problem with that please feel free not to tell me.
Ralitge boyter Minmatar	Posted - 2005.12.29 09:37:00 - [15] Funny, when I started reading this I though oh man an other one of these whining posts. Yet now that I have read it I have to say I agree with most of it. Things have imporved but there is certainly room for improvment. The travel well yes and no... I used to be able to cross the whole eve universe in about 15 minutes (back when we still had highways) now eve ahs become EVE and travel takes real time. This is good and bad at the same time, you should not need to travel about a lot in most cases so who cares about the fact that so much time is taken up by travel. Then again when you do want to go out and explore the time it takes to go from A to B is pretty borring pretty soon. The UI well it's a lot better than it was . Then again there is a lot of things that could be improved about the hidden menu's and options that you have to search for (just wait till you try and manage a corporation ) The mission system is getting very old very fast the lack of content I agree with completly at this point nearly 3 years in the game this is shamefull. Getting the same mission over and over and over again is just plain borring. The death part is not so bad actualy, you do not loose it all and most things are easily replaced. The guns and stuff you loose sure but if you wouldn't why would you even care about death other thn the iritation factor of being send back to a station you just left. The fact that the type of damage done by a certain weapon is not clear is something that should be solved by having a second tutorial, one that explains players that have been messing about for a week or so how to find out about those things and why yo would care about it in the first place. But that is something CCP will figure out at some point (a few years from now) As for an option to easily see what you can and can not use that would be a really great thing to have but it would also put a huge strain on the system as this requires the system to take into account all your skills and all the modules that you might be looking at and to workout if you can or cannot use these. It might be that something like that comes in after the cluster upgrade but before that there is no chance of such a tremendous strain being put on the system. Then the skill training time, well that is what makes EVE such a great game. It take time for all of us. I have been a very frequent player for some months but due to changes in my social life (yes a woman is involved ), and moving to an other country I was forced to spend a lot less time on EVE than I used to. So all I had to do was login from time to time change some skill and log out again. I never lost any time compaired to my friends back home who are still playing nearly every day. So to be honnest even though it does take yo a long time to get to a certain point in the game you know exactly when you will get there and how long it will take to get to the next point, this makes for a much more intresting game then for instance Ultima Online where you would have to kill 1000's of ebil rats until you got a few extra points so you would be able to move on to killing ebil toads and after months of doing the same you would finaly make it all the way to killing a troll if you where lucky. (now that is what I call a time sink EVE's system does not force you to do anything yet you can still progress) All in all a very good post and to be honnest all but the dead and training time once very thru. Now you just have to hope a dev actualy reads this. ------------------------------------------- Should you disagree with me, well I guess that is because I disagree with you. If you have a problem with that please feel free not to tell me.
Commoner Caldari Emergent Chaos The Core Collective	Posted - 2005.12.29 09:37:00 - [16] Nicely thought out post. I agree with you on the interface. The sheer lack of sharcuts to do everyday tasks is one area where EVE has room for a massive improvement overhaul.
Leandro Salazar	Posted - 2005.12.29 12:10:00 - [17] Some of the points are regrettably very valid, but some others show that you have not looked deep enough (bringing more proof to the learning curve and UI issues though). The for example the wallet DOES show all transactions, including escrows and donations. But it is located not in the transactions but in the journal. The transaction log is just a compressed version of the journal for market stuff and bounties/rewards.
Leandro Salazar Aeon Industries Confederation of Independent Corporations	Posted - 2005.12.29 12:10:00 - [18] Some of the points are regrettably very valid, but some others show that you have not looked deep enough (bringing more proof to the learning curve and UI issues though). The for example the wallet DOES show all transactions, including escrows and donations. But it is located not in the transactions but in the journal. The transaction log is just a compressed version of the journal for market stuff and bounties/rewards. --------- ZOMG my sig was concordokkened! Link removed due to bad language on remote site. -wystler
Fooball	Posted - 2005.12.29 14:05:00 - [19] Edited by: Fooball on 29/12/2005 14:06:17 1) The time sinks are there to make sure you specialize. You can't do all alone everything. It forces TEAMPLAY. Which is very good. Eve is all about teamplay. It also curbs selling of many items (because trained skills is what matters) for real money and other ill side effects. 2) Transaction is something where you give and receive something. Player donation has only the other way, it's not a transaction at all. It's on the journal. They are pretty consistently thought out actually. The interface works pretty well in it's beautiness and simplicity. It's good for casual playing. The icons all look pretty consistent and represent what will happen. 3) You did only the absolutely beginner missions. You didn't do any of the PVP stuff either. Those are there just to get you familiar with the controls and such. The later missions can be really challenging and require a lot more. 4) Most likely you will be using all of the types of items later - not in those versions though. You didn't see yet the real stuff. The attributes tab is what tells you for sure what the gizmo does. Eve is not a stupid Arcade game. You got to read those and be very calculative when building your ship etc. It's very sweet 5) The PVP doesn't quite suck. If you are an older player you can earn worth couple ships with fittings a day. It's fun blasting. If you don't insist using the finest and the rarest weapons and modifications. And it's good reward for the winners too that you drop all the stuff.
Fooball Caldari	Posted - 2005.12.29 14:05:00 - [20] Edited by: Fooball on 29/12/2005 14:06:17 1) The time sinks are there to make sure you specialize. You can't do all alone everything. It forces TEAMPLAY. Which is very good. Eve is all about teamplay. It also curbs selling of many items (because trained skills is what matters) for real money and other ill side effects. 2) Transaction is something where you give and receive something. Player donation has only the other way, it's not a transaction at all. It's on the journal. They are pretty consistently thought out actually. The interface works pretty well in it's beautiness and simplicity. It's good for casual playing. The icons all look pretty consistent and represent what will happen. 3) You did only the absolutely beginner missions. You didn't do any of the PVP stuff either. Those are there just to get you familiar with the controls and such. The later missions can be really challenging and require a lot more. 4) Most likely you will be using all of the types of items later - not in those versions though. You didn't see yet the real stuff. The attributes tab is what tells you for sure what the gizmo does. Eve is not a stupid Arcade game. You got to read those and be very calculative when building your ship etc. It's very sweet 5) The PVP doesn't quite suck. If you are an older player you can earn worth couple ships with fittings a day. It's fun blasting. If you don't insist using the finest and the rarest weapons and modifications. And it's good reward for the winners too that you drop all the stuff.

Hygelac	Posted - 2005.12.29 15:26:00 - [21] Edited by: Hygelac on 29/12/2005 15:27:21 Some interesting comments there, I would like to address them with my thoughts and opinions on a point by point basis. As a bit of background, I came from Dark Ages of Camelot before I started playing Eve and I've been playing this game for 2 years now (Jan 5th is my birthday I think :D). 1.0 - Distance You can really feel the vastness of space in Eve. If I want to move my base of operations from the North to the South, it's a major logistical operation involving plenty of Jumps and Hauler trips. I like this as it adds a dash of realism to Eve. There are methods of speeding up some of the journeying but the actual journeying is a mission in itself. There are corporations who specialize in hauling goods through dangerous space for money, it also means that logistics need to be carefully considered. This years stargate changes increased a lot of the travel times between different regions in area but this encouraged pirating quite a bit, which adds a nice element to trading. You haven't lived until you've tried to haul a Mammoth full of Zydrine through Egghelende :D The movements create depth and keeps the effort vs reward balance in check. you think a lot harder about travelling 20j for a 300 ISK per unit discount on items! 1.1 - Skill Training Times The absence of XP based training is the biggest pull in Eve over every other MMO (in my opinion). I adore the fact that I can still train whilst offline, this means that I can still advance at a similar speed to 16 year old kids who spend their summer holidays grinding away. I've got a job to try and keep down after all! Dark Ages was ruined by all the powerlevelling kids who did nothing but grind away day after day. Eve still rewards you for the time you put in, and you can optimize some of your training by increasing your learning skills and using implants. The other benefit of the Eve skill system is that it forces specialization at the higher levels. It's a simple matter for people to learn to fly the ships of any race but once you start looking into Tech2 ships you're going to have to start dedicating yourself to a goal. If you think 14 days is bad, try training Battleship lvl5 or Advanced Spaceship Command 5 :D and I dread to think about the time it would take to train Capital Ships lvl5. But that's because I want to fly those ships, many others have chosen not to and have been training other skills such as Drones or Missile or Command. Final big benefit is burnout. You know that stage where you've played a MMO for a long time and are getting a bit sick of it and need a break. Just stick on a long training skill and go chill out for a while. You can relax in the knowledge that when you come back you're still in the same position you was, if not better. 2.0 - Interface I agree with you on a lot of these points here. Every major patch they add a lot more content and the UI to support those functions and it could benefit from an in depth analysis. Older players like me generally don't notice the problems in the UI but whenever I try to do something new with a corporation or a job with the new manufacturing UI, I find myself a bit flummoxed. Luckily as you say the Playerbase and the Rookie Help channel. 3.0 - Agent/Mission Whoring In some respects I agree. Courier missions are terribly boring and after a while the missions will start to cycle around. I find that the corp I'm in will effect the fun I have whilst doing these missions. I could be running reports around for an ever demanding agent, whilst talking about the applications of lace panties in modern gender warfare in corp chat and have a blast ;) The Social aspect helps make up for the travelling aspect.
Hygelac Body Count Inc. Mercenary Coalition	Posted - 2005.12.29 15:26:00 - [22] Edited by: Hygelac on 29/12/2005 15:27:21 Some interesting comments there, I would like to address them with my thoughts and opinions on a point by point basis. As a bit of background, I came from Dark Ages of Camelot before I started playing Eve and I've been playing this game for 2 years now (Jan 5th is my birthday I think :D). 1.0 - Distance You can really feel the vastness of space in Eve. If I want to move my base of operations from the North to the South, it's a major logistical operation involving plenty of Jumps and Hauler trips. I like this as it adds a dash of realism to Eve. There are methods of speeding up some of the journeying but the actual journeying is a mission in itself. There are corporations who specialize in hauling goods through dangerous space for money, it also means that logistics need to be carefully considered. This years stargate changes increased a lot of the travel times between different regions in area but this encouraged pirating quite a bit, which adds a nice element to trading. You haven't lived until you've tried to haul a Mammoth full of Zydrine through Egghelende :D The movements create depth and keeps the effort vs reward balance in check. you think a lot harder about travelling 20j for a 300 ISK per unit discount on items! 1.1 - Skill Training Times The absence of XP based training is the biggest pull in Eve over every other MMO (in my opinion). I adore the fact that I can still train whilst offline, this means that I can still advance at a similar speed to 16 year old kids who spend their summer holidays grinding away. I've got a job to try and keep down after all! Dark Ages was ruined by all the powerlevelling kids who did nothing but grind away day after day. Eve still rewards you for the time you put in, and you can optimize some of your training by increasing your learning skills and using implants. The other benefit of the Eve skill system is that it forces specialization at the higher levels. It's a simple matter for people to learn to fly the ships of any race but once you start looking into Tech2 ships you're going to have to start dedicating yourself to a goal. If you think 14 days is bad, try training Battleship lvl5 or Advanced Spaceship Command 5 :D and I dread to think about the time it would take to train Capital Ships lvl5. But that's because I want to fly those ships, many others have chosen not to and have been training other skills such as Drones or Missile or Command. Final big benefit is burnout. You know that stage where you've played a MMO for a long time and are getting a bit sick of it and need a break. Just stick on a long training skill and go chill out for a while. You can relax in the knowledge that when you come back you're still in the same position you was, if not better. 2.0 - Interface I agree with you on a lot of these points here. Every major patch they add a lot more content and the UI to support those functions and it could benefit from an in depth analysis. Older players like me generally don't notice the problems in the UI but whenever I try to do something new with a corporation or a job with the new manufacturing UI, I find myself a bit flummoxed. Luckily as you say the Playerbase and the Rookie Help channel. 3.0 - Agent/Mission Whoring In some respects I agree. Courier missions are terribly boring and after a while the missions will start to cycle around. I find that the corp I'm in will effect the fun I have whilst doing these missions. I could be running reports around for an ever demanding agent, whilst talking about the applications of lace panties in modern gender warfare in corp chat and have a blast ;) The Social aspect helps make up for the travelling aspect. --- Veni Vidi Castratavi Illegitimos
Hygelac	Posted - 2005.12.29 15:27:00 - [23] Edited by: Hygelac on 29/12/2005 15:27:45 Additionally as you keep running agent missions and start going up to higher level agents, you'll find the missions becoming more challenging. Lvl4 missions are very difficult and almost impossible without a group of you doing them. Each new content patch adds a LOT of new missions. There are story line missions, agent offers and lots of depth to the mission whoring which wasn't a part of the game when I started playing, Deadspace missions and Rogue drones are possibly the best addition to Agent whoring in recent times. There are people who do nothing but agent *** personally I can only keep it up for a couple of weeks before I want to do something else, but that's the beauty of Eve, when I get bored doing one thing, I can do another. 4.0 - Learning Curve Yeah it's pretty steep and when I first started out I made a lot of mistakes. Recently the in-game tutorials were greatly overhauled. I even went through them out of interest and learned a couple of things which I had never known. I don't think there's anyway to get around this though, Eve is the most complex game I've ever played and even know there are areas of research and manufacture that I simply don't understand. But that's why I have friends and corp mates. Just a note on the DPS, you have to work it out yourself I'm afraid, this is because the ammo you choose to load has an effect on the guns performance. In addition to your range to the target, relative velocities and the resistances to the type of damage you're doing!! It's complicated but knowing how to get the best damage out of your guns is one of those abilities that the more specialist PVPers develop and has lots of posts devoted to it. 4.1 - Item Descriptions Totally agree. Sometimes you can't even work out what a mod actually does without trying it. I don't mean this in a patronizing way but I think the item descriptions would really benefit from overhaul by a native English speaker (sorry guys). 5.0 - Death** This, along with the training, is one of my favourite things about Eve. When you die it hurts! And it hurts bad sometimes. But "Why is this a good thing" you say? Adrenaline, when you're not sure if you're going to survive and you know you are going to loose all those sweet mods, the heart is pounding and the blood is pumping. If you survive you're on top of the world, if you loose your wanting to scream and break things. The tech 1 side of things are not so bad, you can insure your ships for 100% of the value which will cushion the blow a little and a lot of the T1 mods can be picked up from NPCing quite happily. This is the only game I've felt this feeling and I wouldn't trade it in for a safer environment. I've warped to gates only to find 10 enemies on the other side and felt fear, knowing that I was going to loose my ship and not wanting to. On the flip side I've assembled gangs of friends and hunted those same pilots down to exact revenge, and watched them burn with satisfaction. The highs and lows are great. When I take out an enemy, I know I've hurt him and that feels good, just as it feels bad to be on the receiving end. When you get podded, you loose any implants in that body and if you dont have a clone to cover all of your skill points then you'll lose some training from a lvl5 skill, it's a real pain but nothing you can't put up with. And of course, you leave your corpse in space for the bad guys to collect ;)
Hygelac Body Count Inc. Mercenary Coalition	Posted - 2005.12.29 15:27:00 - [24] Edited by: Hygelac on 29/12/2005 15:27:45 Additionally as you keep running agent missions and start going up to higher level agents, you'll find the missions becoming more challenging. Lvl4 missions are very difficult and almost impossible without a group of you doing them. Each new content patch adds a LOT of new missions. There are story line missions, agent offers and lots of depth to the mission whoring which wasn't a part of the game when I started playing, Deadspace missions and Rogue drones are possibly the best addition to Agent whoring in recent times. There are people who do nothing but agent *** personally I can only keep it up for a couple of weeks before I want to do something else, but that's the beauty of Eve, when I get bored doing one thing, I can do another. 4.0 - Learning Curve Yeah it's pretty steep and when I first started out I made a lot of mistakes. Recently the in-game tutorials were greatly overhauled. I even went through them out of interest and learned a couple of things which I had never known. I don't think there's anyway to get around this though, Eve is the most complex game I've ever played and even know there are areas of research and manufacture that I simply don't understand. But that's why I have friends and corp mates. Just a note on the DPS, you have to work it out yourself I'm afraid, this is because the ammo you choose to load has an effect on the guns performance. In addition to your range to the target, relative velocities and the resistances to the type of damage you're doing!! It's complicated but knowing how to get the best damage out of your guns is one of those abilities that the more specialist PVPers develop and has lots of posts devoted to it. 4.1 - Item Descriptions Totally agree. Sometimes you can't even work out what a mod actually does without trying it. I don't mean this in a patronizing way but I think the item descriptions would really benefit from overhaul by a native English speaker (sorry guys). 5.0 - Death** This, along with the training, is one of my favourite things about Eve. When you die it hurts! And it hurts bad sometimes. But "Why is this a good thing" you say? Adrenaline, when you're not sure if you're going to survive and you know you are going to loose all those sweet mods, the heart is pounding and the blood is pumping. If you survive you're on top of the world, if you loose your wanting to scream and break things. The tech 1 side of things are not so bad, you can insure your ships for 100% of the value which will cushion the blow a little and a lot of the T1 mods can be picked up from NPCing quite happily. This is the only game I've felt this feeling and I wouldn't trade it in for a safer environment. I've warped to gates only to find 10 enemies on the other side and felt fear, knowing that I was going to loose my ship and not wanting to. On the flip side I've assembled gangs of friends and hunted those same pilots down to exact revenge, and watched them burn with satisfaction. The highs and lows are great. When I take out an enemy, I know I've hurt him and that feels good, just as it feels bad to be on the receiving end. When you get podded, you loose any implants in that body and if you dont have a clone to cover all of your skill points then you'll lose some training from a lvl5 skill, it's a real pain but nothing you can't put up with. And of course, you leave your corpse in space for the bad guys to collect ;) --- Veni Vidi Castratavi Illegitimos
Hygelac	Posted - 2005.12.29 15:28:00 - [25] Recommendations It is interesting seeing things from the point of view of a new player and thanks for taking the time to post all this up, I'd never really thought much about the interface and how confusing it must be for new players to get used to. I've got a couple of recommendations for you you to hopefully improve on your Eve experience: Join a Corp! You never forget your first corp, in many ways they are mother/father/mentor all rolled into one. Make sure you find a good one who'll help you achieve your games and learn the things you need to learn. The most enjoyable aspect of Eve is the people, I've sometimes logged on and done nothing but spend hours chatting to friends/corpmates and joke around. Everything you do becomes more fun, hell even mining is more interesting with a couple of you shooting the breeze ;) Just make sure you join a good corp who are geared to help new players out. Eve University is a good starting point, but if you spend some time in the recruitment channel then you'll find something you like. Good luck in Eve!
Hygelac Body Count Inc. Mercenary Coalition	Posted - 2005.12.29 15:28:00 - [26] Recommendations It is interesting seeing things from the point of view of a new player and thanks for taking the time to post all this up, I'd never really thought much about the interface and how confusing it must be for new players to get used to. I've got a couple of recommendations for you you to hopefully improve on your Eve experience: Join a Corp! You never forget your first corp, in many ways they are mother/father/mentor all rolled into one. Make sure you find a good one who'll help you achieve your games and learn the things you need to learn. The most enjoyable aspect of Eve is the people, I've sometimes logged on and done nothing but spend hours chatting to friends/corpmates and joke around. Everything you do becomes more fun, hell even mining is more interesting with a couple of you shooting the breeze ;) Just make sure you join a good corp who are geared to help new players out. Eve University is a good starting point, but if you spend some time in the recruitment channel then you'll find something you like. Good luck in Eve! --- Veni Vidi Castratavi Illegitimos
Fooball	Posted - 2005.12.29 16:22:00 - [27] Woot Hygelac! Word!
Fooball Caldari	Posted - 2005.12.29 16:22:00 - [28] Woot Hygelac! Word!
Sharayar AlHami	Posted - 2005.12.29 22:15:00 - [29] I guess it's a testament to the great community when I get so much positive feedback with such a negative post. I really appreciate the advice and perspective that you have offered me. Hygelac, I would like to especially thank you for such a well thought out response. I think I could credit this very thread with my decision to try out Eve for the next month at least. I understand that I've been skeptical if not critical of some of the core aspects of the game and those things will never change. Nor should they necessarily. I just wonder if, perhaps, there isn't a better way to ease people into it with a focus on people shifting from another MMO to the wonderful world of eve. I do not wish to simply complain and leave, but instead offer some ideas about how to make the game better. 1) Wikipedia. One thing that most people seem to agree on is that the descriptions for items, skills and other things are found terribly lacking. What do you guys think about a wiki type approach that will allow the actual players to update some of the content? It would, of course, have to be heavily moderated, but moderation is far easier than having to write the content in the first place. It would also give people something else to do while they are hopping around or mining. What do you think? 2) Color coded item links. I've heard people say that they don't allow you to link items not in your inventory because it would increase piracy. Someone could lure someone out with an item they don't even possess. Seems to me this could be fixed simply by giving items linked from outside your inventory a different color. 3) Early content. I've heard a lot of "well when you get to the higher level missions they get really fun/challenging .....". That's great, but it doesn't do much to retain trial users. It seems to me that the game could really benefit from an abundance of early game content to give newbs something to cut their teeth on while they begin to explore the depth of the eve universe.
Sharayar AlHami Amarr Imperial Academy	Posted - 2005.12.29 22:15:00 - [30] I guess it's a testament to the great community when I get so much positive feedback with such a negative post. I really appreciate the advice and perspective that you have offered me. Hygelac, I would like to especially thank you for such a well thought out response. I think I could credit this very thread with my decision to try out Eve for the next month at least. I understand that I've been skeptical if not critical of some of the core aspects of the game and those things will never change. Nor should they necessarily. I just wonder if, perhaps, there isn't a better way to ease people into it with a focus on people shifting from another MMO to the wonderful world of eve. I do not wish to simply complain and leave, but instead offer some ideas about how to make the game better. 1) Wikipedia. One thing that most people seem to agree on is that the descriptions for items, skills and other things are found terribly lacking. What do you guys think about a wiki type approach that will allow the actual players to update some of the content? It would, of course, have to be heavily moderated, but moderation is far easier than having to write the content in the first place. It would also give people something else to do while they are hopping around or mining. What do you think? 2) Color coded item links. I've heard people say that they don't allow you to link items not in your inventory because it would increase piracy. Someone could lure someone out with an item they don't even possess. Seems to me this could be fixed simply by giving items linked from outside your inventory a different color. 3) Early content. I've heard a lot of "well when you get to the higher level missions they get really fun/challenging .....". That's great, but it doesn't do much to retain trial users. It seems to me that the game could really benefit from an abundance of early game content to give newbs something to cut their teeth on while they begin to explore the depth of the eve universe.



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