Pookoko
Sigma Sagittarii Inc.
144
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Posted - 2016.03.23 12:50:38 -
[1] - Quote
While I don't agree with you, OP, but I can totally understand your viewpoint and experience. So I want to be constructive and offer you some perspectives which I hope could help you enjoy the game more.
1. Manufacturing/industry/science aspect of eve (include market trading here too if you like)
Getting into manufacturing business is billion times easier in eve than it is in real life! You can build anything, and there are so many tools to help you calculate and almost spoon feed you what you can make for profit. You may not compete with the big industrialists, but you can build & sell for profit with absolute minimal effort compared to risk & commitment you need for setting up a real life manufacturing line. The very fact that you can even do manufacturing for fun in eve shows that the game allows you to try something which is extremely hard to start IRL. You experience very basic concept level of logistics, budget calculations, sales tactics, overall project management and business development. I do these things for work IRL, and eve is very streamlined virtual play ground to try these things. It's like those tycoon games, but with more interesting player variables and long term progress in the universe.
Making your own spreadsheets, project plans, calculations and all that goes together with manufacturing for eve is like a mini game on its own. I do it not in a grinding way, "gees i have to calculate those mineral cost to make isk so I can survive", I do it in a way "look at all those cool things I can make and thousands of systems I can sell them in, look at the current pvp meta, alliance doctrines, in game political situations, upcoming patches, what clever trick can I think of to profit from this?"
There is no stress attached about making a million or billion or hundreds of billions, because after all it's just pixels. The process of looking, analysing and formulating strategy is the fun game part of it. Once you've done that the rest of it is just mouse clicks. Sometimes I spend a lot more time planning out of game than actually doing things in game. Even if I make only 1 million profit, if the process/planning/execution put into realising that 1 million profit was an interesting mini game/challenge, then it's all good.
2. I am a very long time player of Civilisation IV. I have been playing that game for like more than a decade. I spent countless hours, days, weeks and months playing that game. It is another 'sand box' type of strategy game, and you can 'win' in many ways, such as through military domination, cultural victory, technological advancement, even diplomatic victory, etc, etc. I consider myself a very good Civ IV player, but here is the catch - as soon as you take the game of Civilization into multi-player mode, you have to accept that it is a different game. It's still 'sand box', but real human players are not going to watch you advance your culture without war to achieve cultural victory, and they are NOT going to vote for you to win diplomatic victory.
People will rush you, they will sabotage, they will disrupt. Although I enjoy all styles of play in Civ IV, I understand and accept that against real human oppositions, I have to adapt my style to win.
Eve is a bit like that. If it was single player game and you were selling your goods to NPCs, then sure, you can play at your own pace, be lazy, slowly build empire, etc. But there are other players out there 24/7 to destroy you at all cost. You need to adapt, diversify, move around and protect yourself.
3. This does not mean you have to submit yourself to a more powerful overlord. Eve universe is huge, there are so many systems across null-low-high sec where you can find opportunities. It's the biggest tycoon/strategy/management game ever with other players as your opponents instead of AI. Just like in Civ IV vs. real human players, you cannot just hole up in your own comfort zone and do your own thing undisturbed. You have to expand, move, or at least defend (and don't forget you always have options to attack, but you don't have to if you don't want to). I became space rich without ever being under anyone's command but my own. Sometimes I had to move area, because my corp was too small to fight off the invaders, sometimes I had to change my trading strategies because someone with deeper pocket got into my market segment. I
But don't feel bullied. This is a game and challenges are what make games fun, especially in multiplayer games.
If you are not into shooting lasers and rockets in space ships, but enjoy the management/tycoon style of play in a sandbox setting, there's still plenty to enjoy in eve.
tl/dr: don't think too much about bigger entities in the game. You play the game for fun and the 'process' should be fun for you. If you have to endure or subject yourself to other people's terms and command you don't like, then obviously the game is not fun.
But if you see eve as a sandbox full of challenges and opportunities, with lots of small puzzles and mini games, and enjoy the process of solving issues and profiting from opportunities, then the game is immensely enjoyable.
Good luck!
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