codeh4x0r has 7 chronicles

1. EVE Online
   

   Player Chronicle -- Posted on Mar 19 2008

   EVE Online
   
   Please note - this is LONG (even by my standards)!
   
   This game is so insanely massive, it's difficult to determine where to start. I want to go into a little detail on all of the aspects of EVE that I'm familliar with, but even just a little detail is going to be a huge undertaking. I guess I'll just start with an overview and then drill down into specifics. I'll try to break things up into sections to make things a bit more organized and logical. Some of the things I talk about may seem a little far-fetched, but almost everything makes sense in terms of the fictional setting. They make about as much sense as a human conjuring and throwing fire at any rate... I'll try to stay away from mentioning the fiction of the game, sticking to gameplay mechanics, but there will be some points where it will be necessary for something to make sense.
   
   Overview
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   The world of EVE is a futuristic sci-fi world completely set in space. While planets/moons/space stations do exist in the game, the player never really leaves their ship and live their lives in a coccoon-like pod which installs nicely into whatever ship the player happens to be piloting (although they do dock with stations, they still never leave the pod).
   
   Each "zone" is one solar system. A single solar system can contain a star (maybe two? I've never seen it though), any number of asteroid belts, planets (each with any number of moons), space stations, and jump gates to adjacent solar systems. All in all, there are well over 5,000 different systems in the game. I've personally seen maybe 60 of them, even only if passing through. With so many systems in the game, confusion would rapidly ensue if they weren't organized. The largest unit of organization is a region. A region of space is composed of several constallations which are, in turn, composed of several solar systems.
   
   Getting around in EVE isn't too terribly complicated. It's determining where you want to go that can get hairy. By normal means, even the fastest ship in the game would take years of real time to cross a single solar system. Fortunately for us, someone invented warp drive! The slowest ship in the game can warp from one end of a solar system to another in under two minutes. Almost all travel is done by warping to a jump gate, jumping to a new system (zoning), then warping to the next jump gate. It can get pretty tedius at times, and some ships enter warp faster than others.
   
   Each solar system is given a security rating. This determines how "safe" any given system is, and what laws apply to players attacking other players. The safest rating is 1.0 and each step down is .1 lower than the last, going to 0.0 which is lawless space (anything goes!). As you get into less secure space (lower rating value), the NPC pirates (rats) that you face will get stronger and the rewards will get better. If you move far enough into insecure space (0.1 - 0.4, or Lowsec) you can, and eventually will, be attacked by other players. If you move into 0.0 (Nosec, or lawless space), you will almost assuradly be attacked by other players. At its core, this game *is* PvP based, but if you stay in secure space (0.5+, or Highsec), then you're pretty much safe from other players, unless you are at war, but that's another topic.
   
   Characters
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   There are four races to choose from, and each race has three sub-types to choose from. As with most other games, gender is only an asthetic choice. The only "real" difference between the races are the starting attributes which are described in the next paragraph.
   
   Many games delve heavily into attributes and statistics. This one is no different. In fact, I'd argue that this game has more attributes and statistics than any other game made. Ever. Fortunately, this plethora of information doesn't really apply to your character itself. Not counting skills (which are something else entirely), there are a mere 5 attributes for a character: Memory, Intelligence, Perception, Willpower, and Charisma. Having a high score in Willpower will not make you a stronger fighter than someone with a high score in Charisma. What does happen is that you would learn skills based on Willpower faster than the Charisma based player, and vice-versa. Skills can cross-over into each others' categories, but as a general guideline:
   
   Memory: Science and Industry
   Intelligence: Electronics
   Willpower: Piloting
   Perception: Weapons
   Charisma: Schmoozing (don't underestimate schmoozing unless you plan on going into 0.0 space)
   
   As mentioned, an attribute's only task is to govern how long a skill takes to learn. How does one learn a skill in EVE? It's quite simple, really. Simply buy the skillbook from the market (these can get very expensive for high end skills), right click them, select Train Skill, then just wait! That's it. No grinding for XP. You don't even have to be logged in and your skill will continue to train. This is both nice and frustrating at times. In other MMOs I would have the option to grind like a madman if I felt I wanted to progress faster. In EVE, the only thing that will help me learn skills faster will be to increase my attributes. Fortunately there are both skills and implants which give bonuses to attributes.
   
   Each skill has both a rank and a level. When you train a skill, its level increases (to a maximum of 5 on all skills). A skill's rank is a time multiplier. A rank 2 skill will take exactly twice as long as a rank 1 skill, assuming that the same attributes govern both skills.
   
   On the whole, skills will determine a pilot's capabilities. What ships are available to pilot, what weapons can be used, almost everything is governed by skills. When you create your character, the choices you make determine what skills you start with, so it's good to have an idea in mind of what you want to do. Even if you don't like what you chose to start with, there's nothing to hold you to your starting choices. Any character may train any skill at any time provided they have the skillbook and the prerequisite skills are already known. Also, you can switch which skill is being trained at any time and you will *not* lose any progress. If you're 2 minutes from completing a skill and you switch to train something else, if/when you decide to resume training the first skill again, it will still complete in 2 minutes.
   
   Corporations
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   All of this information about your character, its attributes, and its skills is all well and good, but what good is an MMO unless you have 5-100 friends to play with at any given time? Enter the concept of a Corporation. Most people know them as guilds, but they are called corporations in EVE. EVE takes things to a new level though and makes them really feel like a corporation (as far as management is concerned) than just a glorified guild. Taxes, corporate assets, divisions, corporate offices in various stations across the galaxy... These things transcend most guild functionality I've encountered.
   
   On top of the corporation structure are Alliances. An alliance is a collection of corporations with a common purpose or goal. Honestly, though, I don't know much about alliances except that they hold soverignty over *large* sections of 0.0 space, claiming them (rightfully or not) as their own domain to do with as they see fit. Being 0.0 sectors, naturally they have the strongest rats and best goodies for themselves, so territory is constantly being fought over.
   
   That brings us to War. War is pretty self explanitory - one group of people tries to wipe out another group of people while not getting wiped out themselves. In terms of EVE, the "groups of people" we're talking about are corporations and alliances. Earlier I mentioned that in Highsec, players can't attack other players. This is the exception. If you are in a corporation that is at war with another corporation, the "authorities" (called CONCORD) will turn a blind eye as long as you keep the conflict between the parties involved. There are player corporations who's goal is explicitly to declare war and prey upon other player corporations, so be careful about which one you join.
   
   Ships
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   Ah, here we go. You can't have much of a space game without spaceships! Ships come in all shapes, sizes, flavors, and colors. Some have bonuses to this, and others have bonuses to that. Any player can pilot any ship provided they have one and have the required skills. Most people stick to piloting their race's ships, but there are plenty who cross over.
   
   Ships, in and of themselves, are pretty cool. What makes them better (and useful) is adding equipment, called modules, to them. Some modules are weapons, some modules boost shields or armor, some modules will salvage parts off of shipwrecks. They all do different things and you can pretty much fit whatever you want to your ship to make it do what you like assuming you know the proper skills. Naturally, some setups are better than others, but no setup is "wrong" if you do it intentionally and for a reason.
   
   Depending on the ship and equipped modules, ships can serve a variety of purposes. Most focus on combat with a strong following of people who prefer mining, though, in truth, mining is combat where your targets don't move or fight back. That's not all you're limited to, though. Even in combat, there are specialties: repair, drone support, radar jamming, propultion lockdown, and others. Moving away from combat, there's also transport and ships with either really big cargo holds or the ability to cloak and gather intel in enemy territory (among other uses).
   
   Items
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   There are literally thousands of different types of items in the game - ships, blueprints, equipment, trade goods, skills, and many others. A comprehensive listing of items is the job of a sophisticated database with a fancy user interface for searching and filtering. It wouldn't hurt to talk about a few base types though.
   
   You like combat? You're gonna need a weapon... But what kind? We've got Energy Turrets (lasers), Projectile Turrets (guns), Hybrid Turrets (cross between energy/projectile), Missiles, Rockets, and AoE Smartbombs (beware!). Indirect damage more your thing? How about some energy neutralizers (ships that have no energy can't fire), remote repair modules, or ECM (Electronic Counter Measure) modules? Getting blasted to bits? Try some extra shield or armor modifications.
   
   Whether or not you like combat, you're going to need some support modules. Ranging from afterburners, expanded cargobays, sensor boosters, or tractor beams, there's bound to be something to compliment whatever you're doing with whatever ship you're piloting.
   
   In addition to blasting bad guys or mining asteroids yourself, you can also employ drones to assist you. Drones are very small automated ships that pretty much do what you tell them to do. Some drones fight, some mine asteroids, some repair other ships, and many more functions. It's a common tactic for a mining vessel to employ light combat drones to fight off enemy ships while they are mining as they generally don't have weapons on the ship itself.
   
   Speaking of mining... it's the easiest and most reliable way to get ore. Normally, players only want ore so it can be reprocessed into minerals. Minerals make the whole economy go 'round. They are traded in heavily and are used by players for manufacturing just about everything. They are good for trading with also as their prices are fairly stable.
   
   Getting into the "less than legal" (according to CONCORD) side of things, there are also items that can boost your attributes (interestingly enough called "boosters") to make you learn faster for a limited time, or increase your skill at operating various ship systems. After the effects wear off, there is a "downer" period, but I'm not very sure what that entails - I try not to get CONCORD angry at me.
   
   Combat
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   For some strange silly reason, most people like combat to some extent. Personally, I really enjoy blowing up bad guys by the dozens. Unfortunately, the bad guys can get really big and powerful, so you'll need help. Fortunately, help can come in many forms depending on what skills your friends have trained. There are logistics vessels to repair armor and boost shields, electronic warfare ships to jam enemy radar and drain their capacitor energy, covert ops to sneak up cloaked and unleash hell, and let's not forget almost everyone's favorite - really big guns. For the most part, any ship can fill any role, but all ships have an innate bonus to something and it's usually better to exploit that bonus when possible.
   
   Destroying things is great! Sign me up! While you can just go around from astroid belt to asteroid belt hoping to find wandering pirate ships, it's not very efficient. A much surer way to find enemies is to accept missions. To do so, dock at a station and start a conversation with an agent there. If there are no agents there which you have access to, check different stations until you find one (there are better ways to find agents, but that's beond the scope of this overview). Once you've found your agent, (s)he will have an endless supply of tasks for you to perform. They can be combat, fed-ex (pick up and deliver), mining, or a mixture of any-or-all three, depending on the corporate division the agent works for.
   
   Market
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   Blowing things up isn't for everyone. That's good - everyone should be different. Instead of destruction, how about creation? In theory, creating items is easy: Feed a blueprint and some minerals into a manufacturing facility, then wait for your finished product to come out. The logistics of it can be a bit more complicated though. First, you need to get your blueprint. These can range from really cheap (for small ammo) to insanely expensive (for large battleships or starbase structures). Once you have your blueprint, it's yours forever. Unless, of course, your blueprint is just a copy and not the original. If you only have a copy, it wil be yours until the pre-determined number of production runs has expired. After you have your blueprint, then you need the minerals required. You can always buy the minerals, you could mine them yourself, or you could reprocess all the loot you've been getting from blowing things up. There's no shortage of minerals to be had.
   
   By far, the most popular method of obtaining minerals is mining. Again, in theory, mining is simple: Equip a ship with a mining laser (or several), start shooting asteroids, and take the ore back to a station for processing. Again, the logistics can become somewhat complicated. The best ore is, naturally, in lower security security space. From 0.5 - 0.8 you'll have to worry about NPC pirates coming to attack you. Some people put a weapon on their ship if they can, others employ drones to take the enemies down. There are some who hire a player to guard them so they can use mining drones to maximize their efficieny. However you want to run it, it'll probably work (no guarantee on efficiency though ). The biggest problem most miners come across is cargo capacity. In the higher level mining barges equipped with strip mining lasers, you can chew through a lot of rock very quickly. You'll almost spend as much time docking, dumping your cargo, and returning as you do actual mining. This can seriously affect your mineral output - especially if you're tooling up for a massive manufacturing run.
   
   Enter the industrial ship. These things are huge flying bricks with massive cargo holds. Sometimes they are employed by player corporations to haul ore from a mining operation back to a station so that the mining vessels can do their thing. Other times they are used in trading. Buy a large quantity of cheap minerals (or anything, really), move them to another system and sell them at a higher price. Rinse, lather, repeat. This isn't my thing, per se, but I've seen very large chunks of profit from clever pilots who know how to read the market.
   
   Summary
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   EVE is a truely massive game with a fairly steep learning curve. Fortunately, there is a pretty good tutorial system and most players are willing to help people when they have questions. Once you learn the mechanics of the game, however, it really isn't difficult at all. There are times when it can get frustrating, like when your ship gets destroyed, or when you're facing a skill with a training time of 20+ days, but you can't have the good without the bad. Really, there's something for just about everyone here unless you just don't like spaceships. Who doesn't like spaceships, though?
   
   If you've read this entire chronicle, then I salute you for your fortitude. Regardless, if you decide you want to try the game, there's a 14-day free trial available and when that expires you can continue right where you left off by purchasing the full version and subscribing. I hope to see some of you in space! Look me up under the name of Ekir Atari.
   
   CodeH4x0r

   
   

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codeh4x0r has 2 comment s on this chronicle.

1. codeh4x0r
   Posted On Mar 20 2008

   Well, I wouldn't consider this a "short" highlight. I did try to touch on everything.
   
   A new player receives a nice tutorial from the system to ease them into the universe nice and slow. I guess the point of this was to say that there's something for everyone.

2. BEN
   Posted On Mar 20 2008

   WOW. Congratulations on receiving the current award of Longest Video Game Reviewing Chronicle on GoG
   
   Besides a long/enjoyable read, I found this very interesting and I only wish I could experience this virtual universe, but just the short highlight you gave me scared me too much