I must say, Eve Online rocks. Sure, there’s plenty of flaws and a lot of CCP hating out there, but Eve addresses a lot of things that give me general low-grade heartburn in other MMOs.
First and vastly foremost is that Eve is “single-shard.” That means (for those who don’t obsessively follow this shit) that everyone playing Eve is in the same world/universe/server/litterbox. No “what server are you on?” like WoW and almost every other MMO game out there.
This matters. When my embryonic form started playing online games back in the MUD/MOO days, the whole point was that you had the possibility of interacting with anyone else online. This was the draw. What the fuck is the point if you’re randomly cordoned off with just a few of the people online?
I’ve played plenty of other MMOs, DAoC, SWG, CoH/V, EQ2, WoW (too much time in WoW) and they all left me feeling empty and a large part of that feeling was the excessive “shard-ing” of the games.
Both Cryptic and Blizzard (as well as others) seem to at least acknowledge this problem. Cryptic’s “instancing” in CoH/V, Champions Online, etc. is a big step forward in dealing with this issue - at least you can easily flip to the “instance” your friends are in and chat with everyone online. Blizzard’s solutions also include “global” chatting and grouping together multiple “shards” in some areas (Battlegroups for PvP areas and now 5-man dungeons).
Here’s the deal: when we want to escape into virtual fantasy lands, we want to see and interact with everyone else there. It’s not really a virtual mastabatory escape otherwise. Everyone lives together in one world in Second Life, and I think that is one of the reasons it’s lasted for so long.
None of the virtual realities in books like Neruomancer or Snow Crash are “sharded” and no rational person would devise such a scheme who didn’t have technical and financial limitations pounded into their head.
CCP has proven quite well with Eve that this can be done. Everyone else needs to follow suit.
Other things that are awesome about Eve and keep me playing:
- Spaceships - elves and dwarfs and goblins are great but fucking massive spaceships with big-ass guns rock
- SPACE SHIPS! - tons of people whine that there’s no full-body avatars in Eve and CCP always promises they’re working on it - fuck that - the spaceship is the thing - that’s the point, love it or go fight kobolds with magic missiles
- Economics - Eve is as much a economy simulation as it is a space simulation (possibly more) - this is a good thing and CCP takes it seriously and leads into my next point …
- Real consequences - everything in Eve has real risks and rewards, there’s no pussyfooting around with the players; you do stupid things and your shit gets fucked up. This enhances Eve’s “life sandbox” value. If you don’t like this, go play fucking Farmville
- Politics - tailspinning off the above, much of Eve is about politics and negotiation. Like life. Can you be successful in your career without some politicking and negotiation? Got any place to practice that shit where all you can lose is virtual money and virtual spaceships? Don’t want to deal with that kind of thing in a game? Go play fucking Farmville
- Did I mention the SPACESHIPS? Spaceships are fucking cool
Eve probably isn’t for everyone, but CCP seems to be making a fine business out of it so it must appeal to a fair amount of shaven apes.
If most MMOs have left you with a feeling that something intangible is missing, then I urge you to give Eve a try. Sure its got a steeper learning curve than many MMOs, but in reality it is not as steep as people make it out to be. You can spend tons of time in Eve in “carebear” mode without much risk while you’re learning the ropes. CCP isn’t stupid and they’ve done tons of work to make the game accessible without dulling too much of the hardcore stuff.
Give it a try. Eve Online
