Last night I was in class and had a discussion with a classmate who is a dedicated World of Warcraft player. Since we were both MMO players in general we often shared tidbits about how things are going in our sides of the MMO worlds. All was fun and good until we started talking about the play style of both games and how good they are in relation to each other. He was even trying to convince me to try WoW for once. I'll take him up on the offer and try the free trial myself just to see first hand how it compares to Eve Online.

Anyways, apparently this guy finds it stupid that there is no leveling system in Eve and that there are only skill books to train up. He also found it completely lame that if you leave your ship unattended in space someone else (who has the skills to pilot it) can hop into it and jack it from right under your nose. He also didn't like the idea that in Eve Online, our culture is basically the equivalent of a Momma Bird kicking the Baby Bird off the nest to see if it flies. Adapt or Die.

When talking about his game, it seems that whatever ride you have (he calls them "mounts") simply disappears into thin air as soon as dismount from it anywhere in the realms. And apparently each realm has their own separate economy that are so isolated that often times WoW players don't bother with transferring assets between realms due to a heavy tax burden or too many restrictions. At the very least, he said that WoW's economy is about as good and healthy as the Eve economy (I almost chuckled).

To counter his point about the economies of both games, I showed him an article posted on Forbes.com that was posted in December of 2012 saying that Eve Online so far has the best economy there is in the MMO market. But then he dismissed the article as "completely false" by looking at how many subscribers are in WoW (about 2 million or so) compared to Eve (500,000+) saying that WoW is better just because it has more subscribers.

It seems to me this guy is closed minded.

I was under the impression that the only reason Eve Online has so few numbers in terms of subscribers in relation to WoW is because the vast majority of MMO players are just too soft or weak minded to handle Eve Online's cut-throat culture. Many newcomers to Eve tend to leave because they are shocked at how violent the universe is over here. You can be scammed out of your hard-earned ISK, suicide ganked in a supposedly safe area of space, suffer at the hands of a monopoly or an oligopoly, get caught in low-sec and ransomed for no reason, and anyone can slap a bounty on you just for making a bad post on the forums, etc. In other words, people die nobody cries. That was the impression I had as to the reason for this.

Yet somehow Eve Online is thriving. Not through subscription numbers but through the community, the economy, and vast flexibility that it offers.

But I guess I should start reserving my opinion on WoW until I try it out for myself for once. This guy is kind enough to offer me help with going through many things in the game and I like to try it out. If I don't like it, I'll be back to Eve before you know it. Even if I do like it, I might not dedicate myself to WoW as much as I do with Eve considering how much I have gotten use to the Eve culture.