1. Your character advances even when you aren’t logged on.
I think the way EVE skills work are great. It takes a certain amount of time to learn a particular skill. The time is determined by the attributes your character has, which is based on how you made your character. Once you set the skill to train, that time counts down whether you are logged in or not. You can increase your attributes by training in learning skills as well which will lower your training times in the long run. The only downside is that you can’t queue your skills, you have to log in to change your skills. That isn’t that bad though, CCP(the company that created EVE) wants people to play and enjoy the game, not just pay a monthly fee for people to gain skill points. There is a great tool as well for planning out your skills called EVEMON, which will actively monitor your training progress and remind you of a skill completion even if you are not logged in.
2. The universe in EVE is freaking huge.
EVE Online may not have as many players as World of Warcraft, it may not even have as many players as what are logged into World of Warcraft at any given moment. But at least with EVE you don’t have to worry about trying to figure out what server your friends are on. There is only 1 server. Ok, so there are multiple servers, but they are transparent to the player. There are over 5000 star systems in the EVE universe. If you want to hide from someone, it isn’t that hard. At the same time though, all you have to do to meet up with your friends is agree upon a certain star system to meet up in. You also don’t have to visit the same place twice if you don’t want to. I forgot to mention how beautiful the graphics are as well. Each system has it’s own unique look to it, and when you really start exploring you can find some amazing looking systems. One of the things that has always bugged me about MMOs though is traveling. With EVE you can set autopilot to warp from one place to another. It does take a bit of time, but you can do other things while warping. I suggest you monitor your progress though, because pirates can pull you out of warp and attack you. This brings me to my next point.
3. Combat – Battles have never looked so pretty.
The combat system in EVE Online is amazingly in depth. So in depth that many people will naturally shy away from the game because it isn’t really for the casual gamer. With most games, when it comes to combat, there is usually one or two effective strategies for whatever class you play. In EVE each ship has a purpose, and then you can custom fit it for a specific mission be it electronic warfare, interdiction(pulling people out of warp), drone support where you have a bunch of small AI fighters that fight for you, or head on combat. Narrowing it down further to the head on combat, first you have to design your defenses. There are 3 levels of hitpoints that ships have, shield, armor and structure. One of those 3 will be your “tank.” That will be the portion of your hitpoints that can take the heaviest beating from either having a massive amount of hitpoints, resistances to the various types of damage, fast regeneration of those hitpoints, or a balance of all of those. Then you have to plan on what kind of damage you want to dish out. When working on that you have to try and guess what types of damage the person you are fighting will be the most weak to. Different weapons also have different ranges and utilize different types of ammo. With bigger weapons it can also be harder to hit smaller, more agile ships. All this combined with an almost unlimited number of skill combinations make for a very intricate combat system. The visuals for combat are also quite amazing. The explosions in game are spectacular. When you see someone getting hit by a missile it is pretty impressive, and when a ship blows up the explosion is even larger. There is a video called Day of Darkness, which shows some great combat.
4. The community and company make the game…literally.
Yes I know I only said 3 reasons, but this could be the most important one. First, because the game can be so involved the average age of the players are much higher than a typical MMO. Last I heard, the average age for players of EVE Online is 27. From what I have seen, this makes for a much more mature community. I haven’t seen any flame wars on the forums and everyone is very willing to offer tips and help. There is a player made group in game called EVE University, whose soul purpose is just to help out new players to understand the game and play it better. CCP as a company is also very attentive to it’s players. They are always taking suggestions, and if the suggestion is feasible they will try to work it in. Some of the things they just implemented are bombs for stealth bombers, larger areas that in game corporations can take control over, and a heat system giving players the ability to overpower systems for a short amount of time. The company is also creating an oversight committee of players to visit their headquarters in Iceland once per year to make sure that no one at CCP is helping anyone in game to cheat and that everything is balanced.
*This post was written as part of Blog Project Three
