Let me start out by saying that this post is about EVE Online. I might touch on other games but what I really want to talk about is EVE.
So Wrath of the Lich King was released a couple of months ago and even though I had all but quit WoW I had to give it a try. I would be lying if I didn’t say that I was mightily impressed by the latest Blizzard offering. They have really rethought what makes the grind compelling and frankly even though I zipped through the first two zones as fast as I could, I never felt like I was grinding. I was experiencing a storyline.
What they didn’t fix was the end game. Fix might not be the right word. I’m not foolish enough to say that the end game of WoW is broken but it simply isn’t suitable for my lifestyle. I get to sit down in front of the computer each night at about 8pm. Depending on my other duties I am able to play video games for some or all of that time but I need to get up and take care of the baby if he wakes up. No guild is going to put up with a player going AFK for a few minutes every hour in a raid. (Sadly, on his bad nights, the kid wakes up that often.) So that leaves PvP which I find boring as hell in WoW. So there is no viable end game that I can participate in. When I realized this I canceled my account.
So what was there to do? Well I had dabbled in EVE several months ago and many things about the game appealed to me. At the time, Aiden hadn’t been born yet and I was still raiding so in the end I canceled EVE and just played WoW. Now that WoW is out of the way I have reupped my account for EVE and man have I been having a good time.
It’s just a brilliant game. I should warn you that much of what appeals to me might not appeal to you. The economy is player driven and VERY complex. CCP, the producer of EVE, recently hired a real world economist to help them manage and balance the economy. There are hundreds of ships available for you to fly, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. Some have industrial purposes such as mining and hauling while others are gargantuan capital vessels intended for besieging space stations.
What really makes EVE stand out is that as a player you can do pretty much anything you want. That means you can be a miner, a hauler, a mission runner, a pirate, a business mogul, etc. The limits are far reaching and I think that there really is something here for everyone. The only fault – and I hate using the word fault – is that there is a steep learning curve for this game. Getting your head around everything would take months or dedicated play. The upside is that you are forced to choose something to focus on and get good at.
I haven’t really scratched the surface on what a great game this is but suffice it to say that I think ANYONE can enjoy this game if they tried it. If you are tired of fantasy based MMOs and want something a little more sci-fi, I recommend you give this one a try.
I’ll be posting more over the next few days about my experiences in the game so keep an eye out.