We Fly Spitfires – MMORPG Blog

In space no one can hear you betray.

I read an interesting article over at the Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah today about how one of the alliances in EVE Online, the Ushra’Khan, had been disbanded just a few days ago after being infiltrated by one of their enemies over the course of a year. Although I’ve never been able to engage in that stratosphere of gameplay in EVE (yet) I still love reading about these stories and try to follow the goings-on throughout New Eden as much as possible. To me, this constant struggle between corporations and alliances for dominance is a real attraction of its sandbox design. It’s not necessarily about PvP either but rather more the idea that individuals can actually shape the virtual universe around them and that their actions have impact and consequences. CCP call it the butterfly effect, I call it darn cool.

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I enjoy reading about newcomer’s experiences to EVE Online as it’s like watching a mouse trying to negotiate a maze in some crazy science experiment (my Physics classes at school were fun). With the game being so much more difficult to comprehend and master than most MMOs (I’ve been playing for a while now and still have absolutely no clue what I’m doing), it provides a lot more entertaining stories and thought provoking articles than other games, at least for me anyway. Give me the intelligent librarian over the bimbo any day.

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I’ve been having a spot of bother making money in EVE Online and was hoping to get some tips from veterans to help me out. Although I was subscribed to the game for a while last year and recently resubscribed a couple of weeks ago, I still consider myself a big old EVE nooby noob. It’s not a game I’m currently pumping huge hours into as I just don’t have the time right now but I do enjoy dabbling around with it on my weekends and slowly sowing the seeds of my galactic empire /strokes moustache maniacally.

Although I know it can be lucrative, I’m not a big fan of mining or general commodities trading so they’ve not been options I’ve explored much. I far prefer to blast things into tiny bits of space shrapnel which is why I’ve been mainly focusing on running missions and salvaging with my Cormorant. However, the cash is pretty poor. For each T1 mission I’m maybe getting around 100-500k ISK and that seems pretty low (I remember getting more from selling salvaged items last year). I’m assuming T2+ missions will give me more money so right now I’m trying to get enough cash together to buy and fit a Gallente Cruiser. Now I could just keep grinding away until I get enough cash but surely there must be an easier way?

Tipa and a few others suggested ninja salvaging as a tactic when I asked on Twitter and it’s sorely tempting although it would require me temporarily halting skill development on my main and skilling up and equipping an alt. As I was wisely advised, it’s apparently not a good idea to ninja salvage with any character you want to maintain a reasonable reputation for.

So if anyone has any words of wisdom or sagely advice about earning a buck or profiteering then I’d love to hear them. I don’t need to become a mega-zillionaire, just having a reasonable cash flow to kick start me into PvP and some more serious combat would be nice.

Of course, I could just buy PLEX and sell them for a small fortune to get me going but somehow that doesn’t seem as fulfilling to me as earning the cash myself in-game.

-Gordon

P.S. Is there a Gevlon blog equivalent for EVE Online? Preferably without the right wing craziness

After being away for several months, I resubscribed to EVE Online yesterday to a glorious feeling. It’s hard to describe but after cutting down all of my subscriptions to only include World of Warcraft, hitting the reactivate button on the account website was akin to cracking open an icy cold beer, smoking a cigarette after a long day of work or driving through the Red Light District of Amsterdam and knowing that it’s OK to look. Especially after playing WoW, EVE feels like a proper game for adults with no holds barred.

I'm loving EVE on a widescreen monitor

Two things struck me immediately after logging in again though. Firstly, that I’d completely forgotten how to play the bloody game and secondly that I have no clue what I want to do in it.

Unlike most of the MMORPGs I play, EVE’s UI takes no prisoners and I’m finding I have to relearn it all again. It’s the interface equivalent of Clint Eastwood: tough and complicated, old school yet exciting, and with a deep intelligence and melancholy behind it all. I spent the first 30 minutes just figuring out what the heck every button does again, where my items and ships are stored, what I’m doing and how to do it. I still haven’t even begun to get my head around all of my skills again and what ones I should be learning. But I’m not in a rush this time round because EVE isn’t going anywhere and neither am I.

The second strange concept was figuring out exactly I want to do with my time. After mainly playing WoW and other themepark MMOs a lot recently it’s a real shock to the system to be faced with the prospect of both nothing and everything to do. I’m not being prodded in the direction of leveling upwards or being forced to follow linear quest lines which take me through progressive areas, instead I’m just left to my own devices to do whatever the hell I want. It’s both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time.

My original goals from July last year still stand and I think they’re a good place to pick up again. Working up the skills and ISK to buy the ships I desire until eventually hitting my prize, the Megathron, will keep me going for now. Short term goals are always a good thing and have given me an immediate sense of purpose. Long term ones are a little harder to come up with though. I still want to take over the entire Universe but (obviously) that’s going to take a little planning and a reasonable investment of time. It’s still on my to do list but I reckon I need to plan out my steps a carefully. Rome wasn’t build in a day after all so I can’t except the world of EVE to bend to my will overnight. That will take a few weeks at least.

I probably won’t be pumping hardcore hours into EVE (he says now) and my approach is to take it a slowly and just enjoy it. I want to catch up on my skills and goals, do a little mining and some missions to build up my capital, and get thoroughly stuck into PvP. I have a blood thirsty reputation to acquire, after all.

The first course of action is getting myself into a Corporation. Anyone got any recommendations? I’m a Caldari called Mantooth Jones, feel free to look me up.

The BBC News website had an article about EVE Online today. Apparently CCP employ an economic analyst to monitor the in-game economy and the daily transactions (all 1.2 million of them), watching the ebb and flow of commodities and looking for trends and possible cheating. It’s sounds like the perfect world for economists, one in which every minor detail is recorded perfectly, data mining heaven for the right sort of geek.

The EVE UI: Slightly less painful than being punched in the face

This particular geek with the lucky job (I mean that sincerely – stats are sexy) happens to be Dr Eyjolfur Gudmundsson and apparently he reckons the real world (y’know, the Physical Realm) could learn a lot from EVE Online. And if by that he means greed, backstabbing, dirty politics and corruption, then I hate to break it to him but it’s a lesson we’ve already learnt.

Of course he doesn’t though. He means that Planet Earth and it’s fragile banking system could benefit from the level of transparency available when analysing a game like EVE. Gudmundsson says “people do make the good choices when they have the right information” and that the lack of information is why we’re all in the mucky money mess we’re in now. I couldn’t agree more.

And on another note, this is exactly why EVE is outstanding and the perfect example of how it’s more of a “virtual world” than a video game. It offers a living, breathing, flowing economy, the likes of we we don’t see in most MMORPGs. It’s heck of a lot of fun, but it’s also the closest thing we have to actually escaping into another Matrix-like dimension. Plus it’s just bloody fascinating. The game has it’s own in-house statistician for crying out loud!

EVE Online’s February newsletter revealed that the game was voted the best MMO community of 2009 by Ten Ton Hammer. I wasn’t surprised at all by this and I’m not going to dispute the award but I did think it would be interesting to look at it in more depth and comment on some of their, um, comments.

EVE Online... it does make for lovely screenshots

Ten Ton Hammer’s justification for determining that EVE has the best MMORPG community is based on a few things: the fact that all players exist on a single server, that the developers work closely and communicate with the players, and that it’s just plain “hard to play EVE without becoming a part of the larger community”. The author must have been tight on time or watching the word count because all of these points are pretty flimsy and lacking in depth.

Although factors like the single server and Council of Stellar Management (CSM) help, they aren’t the be-all and end-all of community from my perspective. I don’t think size matters (/giggle) and to me it makes no difference is a server encompasses 2,000 players or 200,000 players, quantity doesn’t impact quality of community. Likewise, if we judged community by forum interaction or number of fan sites and blogs, World of Warcraft would come out in leading position and well all know that would be utter rubbish.

So do I think the award is wrong? No, actually, absolutely not. I only played EVE for a couple of months but I did get a sense of something vast and exciting out there, a large player base bonded together either through comradery or backstabbing hatred. Some people banded together to help newbies, some to defend their empires, some to become rich beyond their dreams and some to just wreck havoc and bring anarchy to the Universe. And those are the thing that I look for in community: communication between players, willingness to help (or destroy, as the case may be – anything that involves interaction), a sense of kinship and fraternity, a real bond with my fellow gamers, and the ability to share in the fantasy of escapism with others.

All of those things are hard to quantify and sum up as a singular aspect though. I see it as the warm, fuzzy feeling you get in your nether regions when someone helps you out for no reason or actively engages in a conversation with you for more than just buff requests. It’s that special little feeling that makes you feel part of something bigger than yourself. Everquest had it, Everquest 2 has it, World of Warcraft doesn’t have it (or at least it’s very well hidden) and I believe that EVE Online has it too.

So, as I said, I’m not surprised by the award nor am I disputing it. In fact, I think it’s very apt. However, I did want to explore a little more behind the reasoning for it. So what do you think – does EVE Online have the best MMORPG community?

EVE Online - Zephyr

Just as I was thinking about EVE Online today and considering going back to it, I received a nice email from CCP offering me 5 days free plus a gift if I resubscribed before 6th January. I also happen to have a 9 day holiday coming up next week… sounds like a perfect combination to me. Isn’t it nice when a plan comes together?

The free gift being offered (which I think even existing players are getting?) is the Zephyr starship. Apparently it’s good at exploration and wormhole travel. Having never been through a wormhole before (either in EVE or in real life), I have absolutely no idea what that means. But it is pretty.

It’s funny how such a simple thing can tempt players back, but then I suppose it’s an old tactic, Blizzard, for instance, using pets for everything from celebrating yearly anniversaries to encouraging account migration. Guess I’m just a sucker for a free, shiny toy cause I love that sort of stuff.

Now I just need a free trial for Age of Conan so I can test it out on my new PC without having to pay for it. Wouldn’t be nice if MMOs offered a generic “try-before-you-buy” option for anyone who’s been away for more than a couple of months? I’ve resubscribed to games on a whim and then never played them so many times before it’s not funny.