We Fly Spitfires – MMORPG Blog

Last weekend I watched The Man Who Would Be King over at a friend’s house. In case you’re not familiar with it, it’s a film set in the time when Britain still ruled India about two ex-soldier scoundrels who decide to venture into Kafiristan, seeking gold and glory and the opportunity to make themselves kings. It’s a damn fine film, highly recommended – and I’m not just saying that because it stars The King of Scotland, Sir Sean Connery.

The Man Who Would Be King

During the film, we starting discussing how great the British Colonial era was (y’know, so long as you were rich and white) and how there seemed to be more opportunity for adventure than there is now. Although The Man Who Would Be King is fictional, the book it’s based on was inspired by real life events and people. I can’t quite imagine anything like that happening today and there’s something about the freedom of the past that appeals to the (latent) adventurer in me. If only we were able to still able to undertake such amazing adventures and hi-jinks today…

And thus, an idea was born.

My friend and I will plan to save up enough money to be able to quite our jobs and live comfortably for at least three months. Once said funds are accrued, we will resign from our work and hand notice in on our apartments, finding a completely new, small apartment with a high-speed Internet connection that we can both live in together. We will shun all contact with the outside world and abstain from both drink and women. We will then purchase and create two completely new accounts in EVE Online and create the characters ‘Daniel Dravet’ (me) and ‘Peachey Carnehan’ (him).

Our objective? To become Kings of EVE Online.

We would start small, befriend some naive players, join a corporation each and slowly work our ways up the ranks, eventually gaining the attention of our leaders. Then, once we are loyal lieutenants,we would offer to lead the armies into wars against their enemies, slowly destroying our opponents and building the trust and respect of our comrades. Eventually we would strike, like cobras from the mist, and subvert our leaders to gain control of our corporations and join them together into one gigantic sovereignty, spanning the entire galaxy. We will be the rulers of all that we survey.

Obviously the plan’s not 100% perfect but I think it’s pretty foolproof. Now, I just need to tell my wife…

I’m feeling that urge again. Not the type of urge that a man gets when he’s near a beautiful woman but more of the type of urge a man gets to smoke a beautiful cigar. The urge is back. And EVE is my cigar.

Dominion comes out tomorrow, EVE Online’s 12th free expansion and the trailer looks pretty darn sweet. I admit that the expansion doesn’t mean much to me (I’m by no means a hardcore EVE player) but there’s something about EVE – and the way it’s marketed – that constantly attracts me like a moth to the flame. I guess the only thing stopping me from jumping right in and re-subbing is my knowledge that it would require a serious commitment in order to achieve anything meaningful. Sometimes a guy just doesn’t want to be tied down.

On Friday, whilst out having a great booze up with my work colleagues, someone asked me what computer game I would take with me if I were to be stranded on a desert island. Apart from the obvious flaws to the question and the issues with playing an Internet based game on a desert island, my answer was EVE Online. I was also tempted to say Everquest but oddly enough never to say World of Warcraft. I knew that if I was stranded somewhere, I mean really stuck in some imaginary room with a reasonable PC, an Internet connect, unlimited supply of food and a ton of time to kill, I’d want something vast and immersive to fully engross myself in. WoW doesn’t fit that bill but EVE does.

I think deep down we all want to be to somebody. Maye an adventurer, leader, scoundrel or pirate (etc etc) and that’s why we like escapism and entertainment in all of it’s different forms of media. It’s also why MMORPGs appeal so much. Not only do we get the opportunity to play one of these roles (hence, role-playing) but we get to do it surrounded by thousands of other people who can marvel at our achievements and join us in our aspirations. EVE Online appeals very well to this itch inside of me and sells itself very well, constantly tickling my mind with the thought that maybe, with enough time and hard work, I could be someone special in it’s world.

So, what do y’all think? Should I return to EVE Online? I hear the planets are getting a makeover.

I’m having a bit of a dilemma at the moment because my EVE Online monthly subscription just renewed a few days ago and yet I haven’t logged in for a week or so. I’m still very fond of EVE but I’ve been incredibly busy with moving apartment recently and checking out other MMORPGs so it’s kinda fallen to the wayside.

Currently I’m subscribed to three MMOs – World of Warcraft, Aion and, of course, EVE Online. Is that too many? My personal limit usually sits around two as, quite frankly, I just don’t have the time to play any more than that (even one is a stretch sometimes). This of course is the perfect example of one of the major flaws with subscription based games. There tends to be a threshold for the acceptable numbers of hours playtime per month to justify the fee. Of course that threshold varies per person but ultimately we need to feel like we’re getting value for money.

My big problem is that I keep thinking “I still like the game, I will probably log in and play it a lot sometime soon”. This thought is what kept me paying a subscription to SOE for EQ2 for about three months, long after I really stopped playing it. Maybe I just have more money than sense.

I know there’s a big movement now towards micro-transactions and pay-to-play although I doubt we’ll ever really see the latter take off in the West. What I’d definitely like to see though is some sort of restricted subscription. Maybe something like you can pay reduced fee but only get to play the game for X number of hours a week or in-between certain times of the day. A lot of other services like mobile phones, broadband connections, TV packages and gym memberships offer this already so maybe it’s not too much of a stretch for MMORPG companies to swallow.

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I received a strange email from CCP today. Apparently they are now offering reduced prices for purchasing a second account on EVE Online and they seem to be actively targeting the dual-boxing market. The offer ends on 17th October and is called the “Power of 2″.

Seize The Power Of 2!

For those of you don’t know, dual-boxing is the term used for playing two (or more) MMORPG accounts at the same time either by running multiple instances of the game on your PC or by having a second computer nearby. I’ve met a fair few dual-boxers during my years and even read stories about people crazy enough to play five or six accounts at once but I’ve never seen it actually marketed to players before with an incentive.

CCP’s email uses terms like “having that extra account at your disposal is sometimes indispensable” and quotes the uses and benefits of having a second account as being “extra firepower on missions”, “extra hauler for miners” and “a tag along salvager”. There’s also no doubt that they aren’t just talking about recruiting your friends because they actually state “new alt accounts”.

I have no idea as to whether or not dual-boxing is common in EVE but I can see it’s uses. I don’t know if there’s a /follow command like in many MMOs but I could certainly see the appeal of running a spare salvager or cargo hauler behind your main. I don’t know if I can recommend dual-boxing because it seems like total neural overload to me but I have to give credit for CCP for obviously trying to attract players into giving them some more revenue and monthly subscriptions.

Something that I am tempted by is purchasing an alt account purely for roleplaying purposes. I could create a new character called “Dorothy Jones” and roleplayer her as the wife of my main character, “Mantooth Jones”. I could create an entire back-story about how they met and fell in love and fly them both around together, engaging in roleplay spousal fights and bickering. Eventually I could purchase a couple more alt accounts, create some “children” and end up with the first ever EVE Online virtual Sims family.

Hmm, maybe not.

An interesting article over on IGN PC reveals some more information about the upcoming EVE Online expansion, Dominion. Apparently it’s going to overhaul the sovereignty mechanic, re-balance ship power and, oddly enough, introduce a Facebook style social network for player’s characters. That’s like just like totally like crazy, dude.

Who's Got The Biggest Ship?

I haven’t engage in any territorial warfare (yet) but CCP have said that they want to simplify the way space is claimed. I have no idea how it’s currently done or how it will change so it’s all totally over my head. Something that’s sure to cause a stir though is the decision to nerf Titans – apparently their doomsday weapon is going to change from area effect damage to single target. Now I’ve never even seen a Titan before (I’m putting it up there in my “things to do before I die” category) but it sounds like a pretty large change to me. Other ships are also going to get rebalanced to keep up CCP’s motto of no one ship being being the best. They are also introducing a new bomber type fighter, a fighter especially designed to take out capital ships.

Dominion will also see the introduction of a new feature called COSMOS, CPP’s equivilent to Facebook for your EVE characters and corporations. Sounds bizarre I know, but the more I think about it, the more I can understand the motivations behind it. COSMOS offers essentially what you’d expect from any usual social networking site – a mini blog, status updates, friends list, email, pictures etc – and is likely designed with the idea to make it easier to facilitate communication between characters and corporations. I guess organising a war just got a whole lot easier.

Some other news which also sounds exciting is the decision that CCP eventually want to offer more and more interaction between online services outside of the game and your character inside. Expect the API functionality to eventually be scaled to allow you to actively train skills and buy items from the marketplace meaning you don’t need to log into the game to do it. I’m looking forward to that iPhone app for sure.

Overall some pretty sweet offerings even if they likely won’t effect me directly seeing as I’m still a newbie newb. Still, can’t complain at a free expansion. CPP are quickly becoming one of my favourite developers.

Oh and unfortunately we won’t be seeing the ability to get out of our ships and walk around space stations á la Earth & Beyond any time soon. It’s ok, I suspect my pilot has a bad case of muscular degeneration anyway.

I’ve got two confessions to make. One, I love EVE Online. Two, I barely play EVE Online.

I think I’m in love with the idea of EVE Online more than the actual day-to-day gameplay. This isn’t to say that I don’t like the gameplay mechanics, it’s just that they really aren’t as thrilling as the forces of nature that drive the game. The politics, the backstabbing, the huge intergalactic wars and they stories they tell. These are the things that inspire my love of EVE and what make me want to play it.

I think all MMORPGs are a little like this. Does anyone actually enjoy pressing a couple of buttons on a keyboard or moving a mouse around? I don’t think so, it’s not exactly thrilling stuff. I actually think the attraction of MMOs is not the gameplay, but the incentives of mental hubris they allow us to desire. If everyone was equal in World of Warcraft, would everyone play?

I don’t mind the fact that I don’t get to play EVE a lot. Sure, I play a few hours every week but that’s a drop in the pond compared to the gazillion of hours I pumped into Everquest and Everquest 2. But that’s OK. See, you don’t need to play EVE Online to love it. You can read about it, watch it, study it… it’s, quite literally, another world just waiting to be observed by MMO anthropologists.

To prove my point, here’s a series of great articles from Rock, Paper, Shotgun about life in EVE Online:

• The Five Year Spree, Part 1: Nova
• The Five Year Spree, Part 2: Rise & Fall
• The Five Year Spree, Part 3: Fountain
• The Five Year Spree, Part 4: The End

Or better yet, watch this:

Now if that doesn’t make you want to love EVE yet not play it, I don’t know what will.

I was considering not bothering writing this article because, quite frankly (and sorry if this ruins the conclusion of the post for anyone), all of the EVE Online iPhone apps I’ve found are absolutely, utterly terrible.

As every regular reading knows, I love my iPhone. I mean, I really love it. Not just in the way a man loves a fine cigar, but completely in the way that a man loves a fine woman. So throw in my borderline obsession with MMORPGs and you’ve got a person who scavenges the App Store daily looking for MMO apps to play around with at every spare moment. So suffice to say I was pretty chuffed (British word, meaning ‘happy’) when I discovered not one, not two, but three iPhone apps for EVE.

EVE Tracker

It doesn’t work. Yep, that’s right, it doesn’t. Even. Work. I cannot for the life of me get it to accept my API key. I’ve tried creating new keys, manually typing them in, copying and pasting, and even using the built in web site parser tool (which doesn’t work either). It’s a complete dud. Very frustrating because I’ve spent the last three weeks trying to get it working.

iClone

It doesn’t work. Starting to sense a theme here? When I click on the button to add my API key, it crashes out. That’s even less impressive than EVE Tracker which at least let me enter my API key before refusing it. What is it with these apps?

Capsuleer

Capsuleer Screenshot

Yay, it works! It’s already beaten the other two apps by simply functioning correctly! So what amazing things does this app allow me to do? Well… it lets me see my pilot stats. OK. It shows me what skill I’m currently training. Uh-huh. It shows me what skills I already have and know I have. Right. It shows me ‘headlines’. Great… Don’t get me wrong, these are quite handy things to have, I suppose, but the app didn’t exactly me blow me away in terms of functionality. I was at least expecting to be able to view any and every skill (not just the ones I have) and perhaps even view certificates and create training plans. Such a shame. At least it’s free. That’s a bonus right?

Maybe I’ve just been spoilt with the World of Warcraft Mobile Armory but I can’t help but feel very disappointed with these EVE Online apps. I know they’re free and made by amateurs but still, I was expecting so much more. Maybe that’s my fault. I’ll just stick with EVEMon for now and perhaps, if I ever get enough spare time, contemplate making my own.