Friday, December 3, 2010

v40.8: December 3 - Eve Online

Howdy folks,

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It is finally Friday!  Despite the fact I've been working from home since my son was born back on November 23rd, I was still looking forward to this day.  Tonight we plan on decorating our fake Christmas tree.  Typically, my wife has our place all decorated and ready for Christmas as soon as December 1 hits, but this year she hasn't been able to get up and move around much as she recovers from the c-section.  That won't stop her from getting the tree up and decorated though.  Or I should say, it won't stop her making me get the tree up.

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Tonight I plan on playing some Eve Online with friends.  Eve has been reborn for me lately and I've really been enjoying myself.

What is Eve Online?

Basically, Eve Online is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (or MMORPG) where thousands of people play simultaneously in an ever changing world.  The concept of MMORPGs is not new but the folks who developed Eve have done it a little bit differently than most of the other games out there.  Here are a few key points that make this game interesting for me:

  1. It is in space.  The background story is interesting and basically there are 4 races of humans who have been scattered all over the universe and fighting for their own piece of space.

  2. The entire game takes place on a single server.  Where WoW has multiple servers (hundreds) which are just copies of the same world, Eve only has one server where everyone plays.  That means if you play Eve, you can contact me and we have the ability to meet up in-game.  WoW doesn't have this.  In fact, if you meet someone who plays WoW there is a very good chance they play on a different server/faction than you and therefore, you cannot communicate or connect with them unless one of you pays for a transfer or one of you recreates a character on that server/faction.

  3. Player run economy.  Economy in games can be very tricky and Eve does this beautifully.  People can make ships, weapons, etc. and sell them on the market.  People can view this market and choose to buy items or set themselves "looking to buy" a particular item for a particular price.  Basically, the players decide how the economy works and a single player can drastically change things if they wish.

  4. Space travel.  I'm a huge fan of sci-fi and space related shows (Battlestar, Star Trek, etc.) so this game just fits the bill all the way around.  Also, the ability to travel at warp speed, sub light and regular thrusters makes the game interesting.  Players have the ability to "jump" between solar systems and the size of this world is unmeasurable.  I've been playing this game for a few years (off and on) and I haven't seen 1% of the universe.

  5. Strategy vs. Twitching.  Twitching is a term used to describe a type of play style.  For example, most people who play first person shooters would be considered twitchers since it is the person who can react the fastest and the most accurately who wins the fight.  People who are relatively slow at reacting will be quickly slaughtered in games like those.  Eve does have a certain bit of "twitch" to it, but the majority of the game is strategy based.  You need to carefully plan your fights ensuring you have the right kinds of ammo on you and the right devices turned online for particular fights.  Space flight isn't very "fast".  Yes there are some ships that are faster than others, but the overall fights are not very fast paced.  You need to target an enemy and then decide whether you want to fire all armaments at them or target multiple enemies and spread things out a bit.  I won't go into all the different scenarios but there are a lot.

  6. Corporations.  Corporations could be likened to guilds in other games but at the same time they are nothing like guilds.  Corporations are exactly what you would expect from the name, they are companies.  Recently a few friends and I decided to start our own Corp. and they decided to make me the CEO (big mistake lol).  I've been going through all the different options available to a CEO and I must admit, it is a bit overwhelming.  You can set people as directors, sell shares and there have even been situations in other Corps where CEOs have been "dethroned" because enough people with shares have voted the CEO out.  What you do with your Corp depends on you.  People have setup corporations to do just about anything.  There is a corp out there that is dedicated to running a Lottery, people send them money for tickets and every week (or bi-weekly) they do a draw and the winner(s) get in-game currency.  Some of these corporations are quite huge and very well organized; more organized than most of the corporations out there in the real world today.


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Eve Online is also a beautifully artistic game.  The graphic artists have done a great job building all the various solar systems and regions.  I'm very impressed with the game graphically and if you look up any official videos for Eve they pride themselves in the fact their videos are all shot in-game and are not done in CGI.

Well folks, that is about all I have for today.  Hopefully I'll have something interesting to write about tomorrow after gaming tonight.  Until next time.

Cheers,

Alan

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