EVEnt horizon

Oh wow, now I've done it, I surrendered myself to EVE Online.

The funeral bells for my already dying spare time, finally I meet the legendary MMO that avoids all the godawful "kill hundred dire rats after you're done with these thousands of dire wolves" and "hey it's this exactly same old generic fantasy theme all over again" traps and delivers something even I get excited about. And if you know me, you know that I'm not that good in coming into full terms with MMO's. I've tried many, since the idea of a huge shared world is still very intriquing to me, but it's one month tops that I can keep that interest alive when the game usually does its best trying to bury any innovative ideas and just fit into some already invented simple mold. Could be longer than a month in rare cases, but then it's all about the friends there, not the game itself. I'm very excited to see what happens with EVE.




I mean, I just spent another evening mining asteroids and enjoyed every minute of it; they weren't lvl1 dire asteroids and they didn't attack me! Then there's the actually working economy that's hugely dependant on the players (not NPCs with infinite pockets ), everything feels like it's actually immersible for the player. I spent time browsing the Market to find a good system to sell my ore, travelled there to sell my goods, refined some of them and: PROFIT. Of course, this is way more profitable in a group.

Sure, I'm not talking about some 100% realistic space simulation, but it's not just "magic", it's based on the real world and science.



An example: you accidentally or just out of plain curiosity jump in a solar system too far from authorities, maybe even as far as the 0.0 space, the no mans land with no NPC police at all, only the player controlled mega corporations' own laws. You happen to get ambushed by some pirates with pumped up PVP ships -- your ship gets shot to pieces, gets looted, they even blow up your escape pod. Those bastards.
Better start hoping that you did remember to take that more expensive insurance to cover your lost ship and that you updated your clone back in your home system so the skills you learned are still in your newly activated vatgrown brain as well, as you set course for revenge. The insurace covers only your ship, all the stuff in the wreckage is lost in the hands of the outlaws. It might sound harsh at first, but it only teaches you to stop doing stupid shit and in the end you are only smarter and having more fun.



Also, the fact that there are no levels per se, is such a huge plus that I could kiss them just for not being there, the important factors are your learned skills and your wealth. And you set up these 24h learning queues that progress even when you're offline, another nice trick to avoid unnecessary grinding and to make the next day's login a even more pleasant one; "hey, I learned a bunch of neat stuff during the night". And no different servers or shards, only one big world!

EVE, even though it's a bit too early to tell, I might be in love with you.

(Hey guys, there's a free 14 day trial available if you're man enough. You can catch me online by the name Anenae, a Minmatar miner/something.)

Also, the classic. Not entirely true though, just keep in mind that there's less hand holding and a bit more stuff to learn in the beginning than in an average MMO, and the game isn't gonna tell you that "you're a [FIGHTER] so you must [FIGHT] with your [WEAPON]".

Hmm, I think I have to create an alt Amarr at some point even though they are religious fanatics. Just because of the name :D.