NeonSpyder"Das est NTLDR?"Join Date: 2003-07-03Member: 17913Members
I've never played WoW so my expertise on that subject is limited to hearsay and the like.
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't part of the definition of an MMO that it takes a lot of time and organization? While I suppose Everquest was a lot easier to jump in and out of because of a lack of group-based content... anytime you get people working together (like in the "Multiplayer" aspect of MMO) it invariably takes time to organize people across timezones and that sort of thing.
It seems to me like you want a singleplayer MMO... unless you can offer some kind of casual-play MMO that I've never heard of that doesn't require hours spent in group organization?
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't part of the definition of an MMO that it takes a lot of time and organization?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Correct me if I'm wrong, but an MMO is simply that: A Massively Multiplayer Online game. I don't see any reason for all the grinding (leveling, teching, whatever).
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It seems to me like you want a singleplayer MMO... unless you can offer some kind of casual-play MMO that I've never heard of that doesn't require hours spent in group organization?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> You're going to have to elaborate here. From what I can tell, there is no necessity to have a significant time investment to form a group in an MMO compared to, say, TF2. It may not be the most organized group in existence, but that shouldn't matter for just having some fun. And there are still things you can do as an individual in a massively multiplayer environment, right?
<!--quoteo(post=1700875:date=Feb 19 2009, 06:19 PM:name=NeonSpyder)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(NeonSpyder @ Feb 19 2009, 06:19 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1700875"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't part of the definition of an MMO that it takes a lot of time and organization? While I suppose Everquest was a lot easier to jump in and out of because of a lack of group-based content... anytime you get people working together (like in the "Multiplayer" aspect of MMO) it invariably takes time to organize people across timezones and that sort of thing.
It seems to me like you want a singleplayer MMO... unless you can offer some kind of casual-play MMO that I've never heard of that doesn't require hours spent in group organization?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
eww? I'm a prolific MMO player and I hate organisations. I keep hearing how you're supposed to become a guild puppet if you want to enjoy these games yet I seem to mystically have fun and do extremely well as a unique individual with no 'corporate' associations :p
Admittedly I haven't played eve.
The idea that MMOs are about Guilds or organising big bundles of people always annoyed the heck out of me; I want to play MMOs, not "Many Guilds Online" Games. Things like Guilds are divisive; to me they're the 'social instances' of MMOs; something that defies the point of the genre and designers lean on because they're either too brain-dead to try anything beyond the aging social structures that MMOs have crawled along with or it simply didn't even occur to them in the first place because they're so used to the status quo.
I want MMOs to have a society, not a ragtag bunch of masons :p
Real life Societies work in the same way, just less codified. And you can join as many guilds (read: clubs, social circles, sports teams etc.) as you can spare the time and energy for.
yeah, guilds are just ways to break people up into manageable bite sizes. You can't possibly hope to know every single person on a 10,000 person MMO server, but you can befriend everyone in a particular guild...
Honestly, I haven't had any super awesome experiences with guilds, but I find them wayyyy better than pugging dungeons with people I haven't played with before and who are possibly (if not probably) awful players who will make the group a complete chore <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />
Goddammit, you people never learn. Now the next couple of posts are going to be about how Gem very well can befriend everyone and doesn't need guilds. Thanks for that, DiscoZombie.
QuaunautThe longest seven days in history...Join Date: 2003-03-21Member: 14759Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow
edited February 2009
<!--quoteo(post=1700763:date=Feb 18 2009, 07:02 AM:name=lolfighter)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(lolfighter @ Feb 18 2009, 07:02 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1700763"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I believe I've made my case (not that I even wanted to, but NeonSpyder threw down the gauntlet, so I had to lay down the smaq). There's no fun to be had off the bat, and any argument to the contrary has indeed gone along the lines of "once you fly a cruiser/once you get to 0.0 space" as predicted. The defense rests.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Okay, here's one:
Tackling.
Granted, this is 0.0, but getting into a 0.0 corp isn't hard.
Why is tackling fun? I'm a part of Goonswarm, and think this image sums it up:
Its that simple. Also: If it doesn't work(its on a p/w'd wiki), here's what it says:
My ship costs less than your ammunition My modules were all picked off of rats I don't even think my weapons are loaded
AND I'M ABOUT TO RUIN YOUR LIFE
Welcome to the Fleet
Basically, you take one of the cheapest ships, and can nearly completely disable cruisers, battlecruisers, battleships, Dreadnaughts- sometimes it takes more than one tackler, but you can. And EVERY real group needs a tackler. You can be tackling in the amount of time it takes to gather the parts and find a group. Sure, its not as quick as "I'm tackling the moment I launch up my first time", but its pretty fast, and is an absolute blast. There are some in GS that still tackle after years and have the ability to fly what they want- they just like the idea of you being in the middle of the enemy fleet, and being a huge thorn in their side.
Its not a game for everyone(in its current, or future incarnation- future patches are actually setting it back in this affair, as currently when you get started, you have about 850,000 skill points assigned for you depending on how you made your character...and they're making it so you start with 50,000, but go at double the rate of learning until you hit 1.6m), but its the kind of game that once you find a good group of folks to be with in it, once you find a home, its absolutely brilliant.
<!--quoteo(post=1700869:date=Feb 19 2009, 09:26 AM:name=NeonSpyder)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(NeonSpyder @ Feb 19 2009, 09:26 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1700869"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yeah, and it's worth the price, to ahh, what 300,000 subscribers or so? Sure it's not WoW with it's eleventy billion subs, but there simply aren't eleventy billion people out there who like the cutthroat nature of EVE and prefer their games to coddle them and serve fun in bite-size portions.
I (and 300,000 others) are quite happy with the sandbox-make-your-own-fun nature of EVE and we wouldn't want it to change to force fun on us when we can make it ourselves, all we usually ask for is new toys to play with every expansion to make better sandcastles and design better stabbing-knives. While no one argues that WoW is a bad business model, but to many people it's not what they want in an MMO. And for the record, EVE has experienced constant playerbase growth since it's original release in h, 2002 I think.
Constant growth -> more money!
iirc, the CCP devs have repeatedly stated that their primary goal is to make a great game and their secondary objective is to make money and get more subs, presumably so they have more money to make a better game. Of course, that's just what they *say*, I have no doubt that they ultimately want money, I'm just happy that the way they've been trying to get it happens to be catering to the niche player who like the stabby-stabby PVP with internet spaceships.
Meh, now I'm rambling.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
For the record: I don't think making a truly deep, hardcore game, and making tons of cash, are mutually exclusive. I just don't think CCP ever gave a damn about initial user experiences.
For one, the UI is...okay. But okay is about it. It makes some of the most complicated affairs horribly difficult (WHY MUST I BE IN SPACE TO CONFIGURE MY OVERVIEW?!? AND WHY CAN I NOT SEE IF A STATION HAS A DAMAGED MEDBAY WHEN I AM NEAR ENOUGH TO CONTACT IT?! WHERES THE ###### INTERNET?! )
For two, some things are just a hassle. You're telling me I can't send a ###### e-mail to the station owner where I have a ###### Battleship is that if he goes and sells my Battleship for me, he can keep 10% of the money, just because I'm not near the ###### station?
Or, howabout the gigantic hassle one has to go through to plan out their future? Someone should be able to easily see a Dreadnaught, say, "I want to pilot that.", and be able to see what steps it takes in learning to get there.
Or, how about a more robust contract system that allows for more freelancing by players, to a point where the contract system could be a player-run quest system, with a centralized BBS format to it?
All of these things could make the newbie experience TONS better without sacrificing even a little of the complexity that makes it good. I just think they're a bit dead-set into their idea of the game, and no one wants to sit them down and say, "Okay, *this* is how you get people to like your game."
NeonSpyder"Das est NTLDR?"Join Date: 2003-07-03Member: 17913Members
<!--quoteo(post=1700877:date=Feb 19 2009, 01:30 PM:name=SkulkBait)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SkulkBait @ Feb 19 2009, 01:30 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1700877"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->From what I can tell, there is no necessity to have a significant time investment to form a group in an MMO compared to, say, TF2. It may not be the most organized group in existence, but that shouldn't matter for just having some fun. And there are still things you can do as an individual in a massively multiplayer environment, right?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, right. It's quite possible to form a corp in EVE that doesn't really do anything except have a chat channel, or you could just form a chat channel and away you go and forget the whole corp business, but the game is designed to encourage group behaviour with most of the rules involving either corporations, alliances and the like. A good example of this would be War Declarations (Corps and Alliances only), Player Owned Station or Outpost Ownership (Corporation and in an important political and logistical sense alliances as well).
There's also corporate to corporate relationship standings (so you can recognize friends from enemies) as well as corp to alliance, alliance to corp and alliance to alliance standings to make it easier for joe-smchoe corp member to know that blues = won't shoot me and reds = will shoot me.
Yes you can go solo, I gave an example of exploration in one of my previous posts to that effect, but if a small group or corporation of people work on exploration together they can really make a better job of it. One guy to scout out the exploration sites and keep an eye on the unfriendlies in a system while his friends do the exploration combat site, then one of them or another guy shows up in a hauler to move the phat loot out to safety, all while the first player keeps an eye on security to make sure his mates don't get ganked.
<!--quoteo(post=1700882:date=Feb 19 2009, 01:55 PM:name=Geminosity)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Geminosity @ Feb 19 2009, 01:55 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1700882"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->eww? I'm a prolific MMO player and I hate organisations. I keep hearing how you're supposed to become a guild puppet if you want to enjoy these games yet I seem to mystically have fun and do extremely well as a unique individual with no 'corporate' associations <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
Admittedly I haven't played eve.
The idea that MMOs are about Guilds or organising big bundles of people always annoyed the heck out of me; I want to play MMOs, not "Many Guilds Online" Games. Things like Guilds are divisive; to me they're the 'social instances' of MMOs; something that defies the point of the genre and designers lean on because they're either too brain-dead to try anything beyond the aging social structures that MMOs have crawled along with or it simply didn't even occur to them in the first place because they're so used to the status quo.
I want MMOs to have a society, not a ragtag bunch of masons <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's kind of Ironic Gem that you want MMO's to have society when EVE is likely the most realistic simulation of politics and one universe where everybody knows current events, the who's who of alliances and alliance leaders, etc. A great example of this would be the most recent event where a Band of Brothers alliance director defected and essentially disbanded the alliance. Just about every single person in EVE knows what alliance Band of Brothers is because it's the same universe and everybody now knows that the space that BoB had is up for grabs. That's a huge socio-political event. The one thing that I might say that EVE does not have is culture, but socially, politically and definitely economically the game is top notch.
EVE isn't the sort of environment where you can easily chat with randoms inside the game, it doesn't accommodate it very well. Admittedly you could always strike up a conversation in a system-wide comm channel but most people tend to stick to either private chats, corp chats, alliance chats or chat channels they've made for a specific group or topic (a website or a profession, like salvaging). But the uniqueness of the one-server-one-universe system allows everyone to be on the same page when it comes to the big picture at least, and when dealing with inter-corp and inter-alliance issues it becomes a very small world for a minute, that is until you and your corp join a new alliance or attempt to get friendly with another corp and maybe start your own little alliance, then you play politics!
(continued and with a tie in to discozombie's post)
<!--quoteo(post=1700894:date=Feb 19 2009, 05:35 PM:name=DiscoZombie)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DiscoZombie @ Feb 19 2009, 05:35 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1700894"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->yeah, guilds are just ways to break people up into manageable bite sizes. You can't possibly hope to know every single person on a 10,000 person MMO server, but you can befriend everyone in a particular guild...
Honestly, I haven't had any super awesome experiences with guilds, but I find them wayyyy better than pugging dungeons with people I haven't played with before and who are possibly (if not probably) awful players who will make the group a complete chore <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Some of the best moments in EVE that I have had are either the times when all of my CORP MATES get on Ventrilo when we go on a mining operation, some of us are using mining barges to vaporize asteroids, some of us are using haulers to cart away the minerals to safety, most of us have our eyes on the local chat monitor to check for hostiles showing up, and ALL of us are having a damn good time on ventrilo with the assistance of alcohol, memes and in-jokes that only the other people in our corporation would get. We succumb to the tedium of mining madness and indulge in socializing on voice chat. I've never laughed as hard as I have on Vent with the guys in my corp. You don't get that with randoms... in a corporation you get to know your corpmates and become friends, share jokes, good times, bad times, it's a very social and almost familial experience to be honest.
I agree with everything you say until you reach my quotetext and then I don't know what you're talking about.
The contract system's a hell of a lot better then the escrow system that was there before, so let's be happy with what we have for now <3?
As to looking at a ship and trying to get the skills to fly it... you know there is a tab that shows the skills you need to fly the ship right? And it even shows you which ones you have trained already? You just have to do a quick market search and bam! Skills. It's really really not something that needs to be complained about or fixed, it's fine the way it is.
The overview thing I agree it's kind of tame, but I disagree with you about being able to modify it while docked in station, the way they've got the station interface they can't fit the space overview in there anywhere, unless they made a wrapper of the space UI in the game options somewhere but... ah, I don't mind it.
I don't know what you're talking about when you mention battleships and medbays... you can look at the services a station has to offer by doing a show info on it and clicking the services tab, should say medbay if it has one... pretty easy to do. I simply don't know what you're talking about battleships though. (Take your medicine)
Its that simple. Also: If it doesn't work(its on a p/w'd wiki), here's what it says:
My ship costs less than your ammunition My modules were all picked off of rats I don't even think my weapons are loaded
AND I'M ABOUT TO RUIN YOUR LIFE<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
420 accidentally warp hictors to enemy titans errday
<!--quoteo(post=1700945:date=Feb 20 2009, 07:25 AM:name=NeonSpyder)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(NeonSpyder @ Feb 20 2009, 07:25 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1700945"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The overview thing I agree it's kind of tame, but I disagree with you about being able to modify it while docked in station, the way they've got the station interface they can't fit the space overview in there anywhere, unless they made a wrapper of the space UI in the game options somewhere but... ah, I don't mind it.
I don't know what you're talking about when you mention battleships and medbays... you can look at the services a station has to offer by doing a show info on it and clicking the services tab, should say medbay if it has one... pretty easy to do. I simply don't know what you're talking about battleships though. (Take your medicine)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
They show the damn Fleet UI in stations, add a button to show the overview too or something. And he's talking about conquerable stations/outposts where a) you might not be able to dock unless you are blue to the owners, so if you lose the station or something you can't get in to sell off assets b) station services can be disabled, so it might have a medbay but it won't work until it is repped.
<!--quoteo(post=1700945:date=Feb 20 2009, 12:25 PM:name=NeonSpyder)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(NeonSpyder @ Feb 20 2009, 12:25 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1700945"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It's kind of Ironic Gem that you want MMO's to have society when EVE is likely the most realistic simulation of politics and one universe where everybody knows current events, the who's who of alliances and alliance leaders, etc. A great example of this would be the most recent event where a Band of Brothers alliance director defected and essentially disbanded the alliance. Just about every single person in EVE knows what alliance Band of Brothers is because it's the same universe and everybody now knows that the space that BoB had is up for grabs. That's a huge socio-political event. The one thing that I might say that EVE does not have is culture, but socially, politically and definitely economically the game is top notch.
EVE isn't the sort of environment where you can easily chat with randoms inside the game, it doesn't accommodate it very well. Admittedly you could always strike up a conversation in a system-wide comm channel but most people tend to stick to either private chats, corp chats, alliance chats or chat channels they've made for a specific group or topic (a website or a profession, like salvaging). But the uniqueness of the one-server-one-universe system allows everyone to be on the same page when it comes to the big picture at least, and when dealing with inter-corp and inter-alliance issues it becomes a very small world for a minute, that is until you and your corp join a new alliance or attempt to get friendly with another corp and maybe start your own little alliance, then you play politics!
Some of the best moments in EVE that I have had are either the times when all of my CORP MATES get on Ventrilo when we go on a mining operation, some of us are using mining barges to vaporize asteroids, some of us are using haulers to cart away the minerals to safety, most of us have our eyes on the local chat monitor to check for hostiles showing up, and ALL of us are having a damn good time on ventrilo with the assistance of alcohol, memes and in-jokes that only the other people in our corporation would get. We succumb to the tedium of mining madness and indulge in socializing on voice chat. I've never laughed as hard as I have on Vent with the guys in my corp. You don't get that with randoms... in a corporation you get to know your corpmates and become friends, share jokes, good times, bad times, it's a very social and almost familial experience to be honest.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's not ironic at all; in real life most people couldn't tell you the names of the executives/senators/ministers/whatever in charge of their country :3
I hate to explain this so often but inherently I don't have anything against 'guilds' themselves; they're inevitable. Not everyone can stand on their own and for those that applies to they tend to clump around more powerful personalities or just group together in the absence of any such individuals.
It's when you tie the game itself down to these mason-wannabes with guild-only benefits or even a 'guild system' that you end up with divisive nonsense guilds lead to. Let people call themselves silly names and wear the same hats if they like, just stop building games that say "this is the correct path" and centering everything around this pap.
A tangeant on VOIP: the roleplay killer. Maybe I'm just unique but I play MMOs to play with characters. There's something dissapointing about hearing people's real voices to me. That Klingon in star trek online will be harder to take seriously thanks to the player's thick welsh accent, the gentleman villian in his top hat and curled moustache doesn't quite sound right with a thick southern american accent and the huge, hulking barbarian covered in rippling muscles with the sweet, melodic girl's voice or their dainty elf companion with the golden hair, little clothing and the voice of 30 year old male truck driver is just wrong on so many levels. I don't play games to get to know people, I play to have fun. If I wanted to know someone I'd go chat to them in real-life or something, or in some more dedicated non-avatar chat system :p As ironic as it sounds; when VOIP comes in, the player gets in the way of the character XD I don't care who you really are, I want to talk to your orc :p
I've never understood the 'randoms' thing either. Don't you guys talk to people? I chat away to folk for a good while before I usually go on any kind of adventure and the groups that result tend to be great :3 The only bad groups I've put up with have been those few where either I let someone silly in out of pity (which I always regret in the end) or those ocassions where I'm with a friend who's impatient and I let them bang the party together.
Sure, you can't know everyone in a game, like Disco says but: a) that's half the fun. It's like complaining you won't use all the items in a game (of which there's probably more than there are players); exploring those you find is part of the adventure! b) You're even less likely to know everybody if the game encourages slinking off to silly little private channels and guilds :p
The games that have given me the most fun over the years have been those with no guild system. In ragnarok online and PSO before they introduced guilds in some form or other the community was fantastic! So friendly and everybody talked. A friend of mine came onto Ragnarok without telling me in the hopes of surprising me... problem for him, as he realised after appearing in the world, was that he didn't have a scooby where I was. So what does he do? He asks the first stranger he sees of course :p Wthout batting an eyelid the stranger says "oh sure! I know where she is." and kindly gives him directions to morroc. My silly friend goes off to find me with this new info but gets lost on the way and asks another stranger if they know where I am. Again, surprisingly, the stranger knows exactly who he's asking for and gives directions to Morroc. Skip forward about 10 minutes and he turns up in Morroc while I'm chatting away to a crowd and he tells me he'd asked 3 different people in total and not only had they all known immediately it was me he was looking for but where I was :o Now THAT's a good community :3
In PSO I also got a fully lobby to do the conga and have a battle royale over me :D
Sure, I can crowbar social fun out of almost any online game but even I can't make up for the unfettered joy of an open community, undivided by private channels, guilds or the like.
<!--quoteo(post=1700957:date=Feb 20 2009, 08:59 AM:name=lolfighter)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(lolfighter @ Feb 20 2009, 08:59 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1700957"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Seems to me like a lot of the game hinges on being a member of the right corp before you even start playing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Eve, like all games, come with a certain amount of infantile pride about dumb crap. Some people think that there is a right way to play eve, that their are corps you have to join and skills you have to train or you will never catch up to the leaders. They are big stupid heads who like to feel good about the way they play the game. just like the people a few forums up whining about how games today need more "skill based movement".
If any one tells you the only way to play is to roll achura, and then train up learning for 3 months, then train for other things, all while angling to join Alliance number 15# in corp number 12. That you have to fly a falcon/vagabond/ecm dominix. this is essentially the same as the kid who was always telling you that your toy truck wasn't big enough when you were little. It's imposing a structure where there isn't one.
And now a less violence non goons eve picture. <img src="http://workers.podded.us/images/loes_sml.png" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Man, is it bad that I knew exactly how this thread would progress past the first page? Skulkbait: No amount of talking about EvE is ever going to let you know what it's like. Give the free trial a run then see what you think. If you don't like it, no money lost. But maybe, just maybe, you'll see why so many people are enamoured with it. Gem: The vast majority of people who play games online are not good at them. In games that require team-play (most mmo's) this means the other players are a potential liability. So instead of taking a gamble by playing with random people, players form into groups with other like minded and similar skilled players. This is the effective purpose of guilds. It's not about the guild itself, it's about the players in the guild. Does this make sense?
Can we actually talk about EvE now and stop debating game mechanics like every other game thread?
<!--quoteo(post=1700982:date=Feb 20 2009, 06:17 PM:name=Xyth)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Xyth @ Feb 20 2009, 06:17 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1700982"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Man, is it bad that I knew exactly how this thread would progress past the first page?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Yeah, I know what you mean.
<!--quoteo(post=1700982:date=Feb 20 2009, 06:17 PM:name=Xyth)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Xyth @ Feb 20 2009, 06:17 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1700982"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Gem: The vast majority of people who play games online are not good at them. In games that require team-play (most mmo's) this means the other players are a potential liability. So instead of taking a gamble by playing with random people, players form into groups with other like minded and similar skilled players. This is the effective purpose of guilds. It's not about the guild itself, it's about the players in the guild. Does this make sense?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Wait, what? So after that previous lament, you then go on to ENSURE that the thread will proceed along predictable paths?! Goddammit man!
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Give the free trial a run then see what you think.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Even the people here who like the game don't seem to think the free trial period lets you get into the game far enough to find the fun. That said, I abhor the concept of a subscription fee and will avoid the trial on the off chance I actually end up liking the damn thing. My interest in EVE as far as this thread goes is more... academic. Partially its about grind: I don't get why people put up with it and I especially don't get why it seems to be a required component of any MMO (and why its seeping into non-MMOs like TF2! but thats another thread).
QuaunautThe longest seven days in history...Join Date: 2003-03-21Member: 14759Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow
edited February 2009
<!--quoteo(post=1700945:date=Feb 20 2009, 04:25 AM:name=NeonSpyder)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(NeonSpyder @ Feb 20 2009, 04:25 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1700945"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The contract system's a hell of a lot better then the escrow system that was there before, so let's be happy with what we have for now <3?
As to looking at a ship and trying to get the skills to fly it... you know there is a tab that shows the skills you need to fly the ship right? And it even shows you which ones you have trained already? You just have to do a quick market search and bam! Skills. It's really really not something that needs to be complained about or fixed, it's fine the way it is.
The overview thing I agree it's kind of tame, but I disagree with you about being able to modify it while docked in station, the way they've got the station interface they can't fit the space overview in there anywhere, unless they made a wrapper of the space UI in the game options somewhere but... ah, I don't mind it.
I don't know what you're talking about when you mention battleships and medbays... you can look at the services a station has to offer by doing a show info on it and clicking the services tab, should say medbay if it has one... pretty easy to do. I simply don't know what you're talking about battleships though. (Take your medicine)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Point #1: Thats really horrible reasoning from the land of bad reasoning
Point #2: Yes, it shows what it requires, but does it show what those skills require? What is needed to get up to this point? No. Not by a ###### longshot.
On that same note, why not educate people on what kind of modules are most common for their starter frigate(i.e., tackling stuffs)
For the last two, briktal covered it for me. Its not a matter of fitting it in for all the time- just make it a part of the UI that I can bring up when I feel like it. And yes, I can see if it has a med station, but does that mean its not blown to hell? Not in the least. Just so I could podjump over to delve, I had to go 19 jumps where I tried 11 stations along the way with all of them having damaged medbays. It was pretty ###### horribad.
NeonSpyder"Das est NTLDR?"Join Date: 2003-07-03Member: 17913Members
<!--quoteo(post=1700965:date=Feb 20 2009, 09:37 AM:name=Geminosity)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Geminosity @ Feb 20 2009, 09:37 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1700965"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I hate to explain this so often but inherently I don't have anything against 'guilds' themselves; they're inevitable. Not everyone can stand on their own and for those that applies to they tend to clump around more powerful personalities or just group together in the absence of any such individuals.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't disagree but I feel there is more to say on the subject as I will elaborate on later.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It's when you tie the game itself down to these mason-wannabes with guild-only benefits or even a 'guild system' that you end up with divisive nonsense guilds lead to. Let people call themselves silly names and wear the same hats if they like, just stop building games that say "this is the correct path" and centering everything around this pap.
A tangeant on VOIP: the roleplay killer. Maybe I'm just unique but I play MMOs to play with characters. There's something dissapointing about hearing people's real voices to me.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
First off I have to mention that one of the principle strengths and attractions of EVE to others and myself personally is the political system and the very fact that people wear different hats. You surely can't argue that it's fundamental human instinct to seek out and form groups of like minded individuals? Well EVE certainly exploits this trait by encouraging but by no means requiring people to join corporations simply because you can do more as a group then you can individually, and I don't mean that through game mechanics alone. ONE person could form a corporation or alliance and do all the things that game-mechanics wise need a corp or alliance to do, such as to build a Player Owned Station or an Outpost.
<u>However</u>, no ONE person in EVE could possibly afford the base cost, time investment or logistics and upkeep to build and operate an Outpost (Last I checked they cost 60 Billion Isk). While an individual could set up a POS or two if they had the cash, the logistics and time involved would make it difficult for them to set up a string of Player Owned Stations (500M a pop) and fuel them and handle all the logistics themselves, leaving no time to do anything else most likely. A group or a corp however shares the responsibility and those interested in POS's can spend time tinkering with it, but with many hands comes quicker work and the most difficult tasks for one person (Mining and Hauling at the same time for example) become much much easier to handle.
That's just the industrial benefit, I shouldn't even have to mention that one person in a Battleship that cost them 1 Billion isk in base ship cost and some of the best modules could probably be destroyed by two ships in 150m battleships, provided the people flying those two ships had an idea what they were doing. Yay Teamwork!
And to your comment about VOIP being the roleplay killer? I'm not really going to argue the point, I would agree that an orc talking with a south-east Texan accent would be disconcerting however since everyone in EVE is human, and add to that the fact that generally speaking you *are* your character. When you get on VOIP and start discussing with your corpmates the recent uncertainty in the Tritanium market, that's you the player and the character discussing the game as you as a player would and for that matter much how your character would as well. The only 'roleplaying' that goes on in EVE are the people who take the backstory and run with it, Amarrian slavers or Minmatar freedom fighters who send war declarations in-game to Ammarian corporations and make up some fluff about why.
Since you fly a spaceship most of the time and your avatar is limited to a 2d static picture, the only place where playing into a role really comes into it is when you type something into the game. Of course, more often then not the line between character-speak and player-speak is so freaking blurry nobody even thinks about it. If two guys start talking in local about two other ships having a shoot-out in front of the station, they're not really talking oocly now are they?
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I've never understood the 'randoms' thing either. Don't you guys talk to people? I chat away to folk for a good while before I usually go on any kind of adventure and the groups that result tend to be great :3 The only bad groups I've put up with have been those few where either I let someone silly in out of pity (which I always regret in the end) or those ocassions where I'm with a friend who's impatient and I let them bang the party together.
A friend of mine came onto Ragnarok without telling me in the hopes of surprising me... problem for him, as he realised after appearing in the world, was that he didn't have a scooby where I was. So what does he do? He asks the first stranger he sees of course <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I keep my eye on Local and any chatter in there, sometimes joining into the system-wide comm channel when something interesting is happening but for the most part I only communicate with the 20 or so members of my corporation all of whom I know by game name and rl name, or when we were in an alliance I would jump into alliance chatter every now and again but it's not the same ... er, intimate setting as corp chat is.
The nice thing about being in a corp and an alliance is you can be pretty damn sure the people you fly with know how to pilot their ships, if they are your corpmates it's because you talk to them every other day about fittings or ships, local events or whatever, you get to know them and how/what they fly and you fly with them so often you can begin to know what they'll do in a situation. Sometimes for really large alliances going on an operation alliance-wide feels a bit like an unknown as you jump from a dozen people in your corp to a hundred people in an alliance fleet, then it becomes a little nameless.
Something like your example wouldn't really work in EVE because there's roughly 40,000 people online at any given moment across about... uuuh, how many systems do they have now? At least a thousand solar system I guess. Since corpmates tend to operate only within the same local area (for safety, security and assistance), asking in any system other then that one your friend would be in would result in pretty much no responses. You Gem are an exception because you are very memorable in MMOs like that, and EVE has it's celebrities too. While they might not be able to tell you exactly where one of the EVE celebrities are, they would know who you're talking about, like Lofty or Chribba.
<!--quoteo(post=1700986:date=Feb 20 2009, 12:38 PM:name=SkulkBait)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SkulkBait @ Feb 20 2009, 12:38 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1700986"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Even the people here who like the game don't seem to think the free trial period lets you get into the game far enough to find the fun. That said, I abhor the concept of a subscription fee and will avoid the trial on the off chance I actually end up liking the damn thing. My interest in EVE as far as this thread goes is more... academic. Partially its about grind: I don't get why people put up with it and I especially don't get why it seems to be a required component of any MMO (and why its seeping into non-MMOs like TF2! but thats another thread).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There's a point in EVE where you don't have to grind, and I don't mean there's an 'end-game' of some sort with a level cap or whatever, I just mean there's a point when your finances and ship collection allow you to pretty much indefinitely do whatever the hell you want without worrying about losing much cash for the fun, like if you fly a Tech 1 ship and insure it you're going to lose a few million isk out of a half-billion isk float, but if the ship doesn't blow up you can probably sell the loot off of the other player that you and your corpmates killed.
These things never bothered me or any of my corpmates so I don't know why your panties are in such a twist about admittedly minor things.
<!--quoteo(post=0:date=:name=lolfighter)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(lolfighter)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Seems to me like a lot of the game hinges on being a member of the right corp before you even start playing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes.
What, I wasn't clear? I meant YES!
The game is so freaking complex and always has been, it has a learning CLIFF not a learning curve and the easiest and best way around that is for the people who've been there for a year already to tell you all the important little things that come up as you go along, the value of insurance, the best way to hunt down NPC pirates... these things and a lot of other ones like it are simply too much information for the game to impart on you when most people are still scratching their heads over the basic stuff.
With a corporation full of knowledgeable people who are happy to help you out, when a person comes across something and they ask in corp chat "What does this do? or why do I want this? or "What's the best way to do such and such?" there's people you know online to explain it out and even show or tell you how or what to do. Which is NOT to say that there is only one way to do anything like what Confused had mentioned. There might be ideal ways to do certain things in the best possible way, but in order to do everything well there's no set method or build, some people like to train their skills to level 5 to get that extra 5% and other people like to be able to train another two skills to level 4 each to get more flexibility, both are valid arguments and up to personal preference like the game itself.
Anybody here that still plays. Do they have a corp I could join in with?
I have two accounts, a main and a miner. I usually grab my dad's labtop and mine on that one and the main is obviously on my pc. Miner has a barge if I recall correctly and both accounts have some sort of hauler too.
If anybody that wants to play or is currently playing but is having a bad experience, send me an eve mail me or send me a message and I will do my best to help you. If you need a corp, pm me and I will direct you to the recruitment channel. In game name is RuptureX
I've been thinking about whats been said here and now I'm curious: What is piracy like in EVE? I assume there are active space pirates out there, are they the terror of the black sea? Or are they virtually useless due to heavy corporate control?
NeonSpyder"Das est NTLDR?"Join Date: 2003-07-03Member: 17913Members
<!--quoteo(post=1701060:date=Feb 20 2009, 08:07 PM:name=SkulkBait)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SkulkBait @ Feb 20 2009, 08:07 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1701060"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I've been thinking about whats been said here and now I'm curious: What is piracy like in EVE? I assume there are active space pirates out there, are they the terror of the black sea? Or are they virtually useless due to heavy corporate control?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well pirates in EVE generally form corps of their own but that doesn't mean they always do things with their corpmates and on the flip side of that coin there are plenty and I do mean PLENTY of solo or pair pirates. The real trouble with piracy is the lack of victims!
Most pirates by necessity have to operate out of low security systems 0.4 to 0.1 or zero sec systems due to their Security Status which prevents them from going into 0.5-1.0 'secure' systems. But most everybody figures it out after the first time that they are blown up when going into lowsec that lowsec is for pirates and nobody else. There is SOME incentive to go into lowsec such as marginally better npc rats in the belts, slightly better asteroids and so forth, the real benefit to lowsec is the Exploration content... the asteroid belts or archeological sites that need to be scan probed down, those are much better then the stuff you find in highsec.
Anyway I'm on a tangent, the question was what is piracy like.
Player Pirates (as opposed to npc pirates) are definitely a scourge to most players. The "Carebear" demographic of player that enjoys being coddled in empire (secure) space and likes to run missions against easy npc pirates, those guys are absolutely balls-to-the-wall <b>Terrified</b> of lowsec and all the nasty pirates.
Since anybody in lowsec could theoretically shoot you and get away with it, everybody has the potential to be a pirate, but the more you shoot people in lowsec the lower your sec status gets which eventually restricts you to staying in lowsec or 0.0 sec space, and at that point most people go "Okay, I guess I'll be a professional pirate instead of a hobbyist pirate." These are the guys that prowl around lowsec with one eye on the local comms and the other on their system wide scanner, these are the guys in Tech 2 ships fit to the brim with top of the line rape-you-up-the-bum technology. These guys make it their purpose in life to kill you if they can find you.
What's really nasty is when they get together in groups...
So yeah, Pirates are nasty. Pirates in the same sense of the word don't really exist in 0.0 sec space though because in 0.0 everybody is trying to kill everybody unless you're specifically a friend of their alliance or corporation - you have Blue (positive) standings -.
Admittedly some 0.0 alliances like ah... CVA I think? (Curatores Veritatis Alliance) They don't shoot anybody unless you're specifically designated as a Red (negative standings) enemy... so those guys are kind of nice, them and ISS when it was still around. (Interstellar Starbase Syndicate) Or Big Blue.
Solo piracy is definitely not dead, but it's not quite as prevalent as it used to be, but it's definitely still there.
To acknowledge Neon's eloquent yet lengthy posts and to save LF further despair I'll quit my arguing here. Having not played most of my issues are MMO related rather than EVE related and while the counter points are interesting and aid my understanding of the other side better I seriously doubt either camp is likely to convert the other :3
One of these days I'll use that eve trial key sitting in my inbox, but probably only once the 'walking about' addon thingy is in :p
I don't think anyone has ever made piracy sound so boring. Piracy corps? Seriously? That description makes it seem so... uncreative. Tell me, is this a product of your nature, or of the game's spreadsheet-nerditry I've heard so much about?
Eve calls it a corporation. In most FPS games, it's a clan. In MMORPGs, it's a guild. In Planetside, it's an outfit. And I think they call it a linkshell in Final Fantasy XI.
Really, what you should think of it as is "pirate crew." Piracy was never a solo endeavour. Could you imagine a salty sea dog sailing his tiny sloop around the Caribbean attempting to flag down the spanish silver fleet? No. Somebody mentioned "tackling" ships earlier, and from what I understand they're generally no combat behemoths. They make sure you don't run away while their mateys tear you a new one. Without a tackling ship, the quarry will simply hit their warp drives or whatever and blow you a long, doppler-shifted raspberry as they make their escape. And without any mateys to take the quarry down, the tackling ship will eventually have to give up or be destroyed or something. I don't know what happens if a tackling ship has nobody around to help them, but I doubt a tackling ship is the ultimate duelist.
So pirates need to work together as they always have. It's only natural that they would form corporations. "Corporation" may not exactly be a word that reeks of swashbuckler, but the problem's not bigger than that.
You make it sound as though any kind of teamwork requires the use of corporation game mechanic. Is that the case? It also sounds as though destruction of the enemy is the only goal of piracy. Wheres the extortion? The ransom?
<!--quoteo(post=1701138:date=Feb 22 2009, 01:48 PM:name=SkulkBait)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SkulkBait @ Feb 22 2009, 01:48 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1701138"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You make it sound as though any kind of teamwork requires the use of corporation game mechanic. Is that the case? It also sounds as though destruction of the enemy is the only goal of piracy. Wheres the extortion? The ransom?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Some more basic uses for a tackler:
After the desired pirate victim's ship has been destroyed and/or rendered fully disabled, no warp mainly. Here comes the ransom part. Ransom them for their ship and/or money or whatever in their cargo.
Since big ships have a harder time locking and targetting onto smaller objects. IE: frigates and escape pods. The tackler is a smaller ship, usually a frigate. If the desired method is to blow up the ship and leave them in their escape pod, you can end their life and cost them another recloning fee + ship.
What a tackler would do is target the pod -best time- (since small ships lock onto everything quick, signature radius) and disable the warp drives. Now at this point, the victim is at the pure will of their captures. Open up a chat window with them and then discuss. Don't lolligag though or they'd be calling for help.
I've thought about doing a corporation and calling it R-types haha. The interceptors remind me of it.
ShockehIf a packet drops on the web and nobody's near to see it...Join Date: 2002-11-19Member: 9336NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation
I'd be interested in a 'New' Corp comprised on UWE people. (Hell, UWE Incorporated sounds fairly decent) I have the Client installed, but I didn't reactivate my account because I wanted to see what interest there was.
What I wouldn't be interested in would be being stuck with an existing one, as you just end up another cog in the machine.
<!--quoteo(post=1701138:date=Feb 22 2009, 01:48 PM:name=SkulkBait)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SkulkBait @ Feb 22 2009, 01:48 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1701138"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You make it sound as though any kind of teamwork requires the use of corporation game mechanic. Is that the case? It also sounds as though destruction of the enemy is the only goal of piracy. Wheres the extortion? The ransom?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Depends on the pirate. I preferred ransoming people just because it kept my sec-status up and was more entertaining. Some people just like getting the kills and looting the other persons ship. And you can easily team-up with random people if that's what you are interested in, however it can be hard to find people who will trust you easily since, as mentioned before, EvE is a cutthroat game. Trusting people is generally not a good idea.
<!--quoteo(post=1701140:date=Feb 22 2009, 02:22 PM:name=Shockwave)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Shockwave @ Feb 22 2009, 02:22 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1701140"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'd be interested in a 'New' Corp comprised on UWE people. (Hell, UWE Incorporated sounds fairly decent) I have the Client installed, but I didn't reactivate my account because I wanted to see what interest there was.
What I wouldn't be interested in would be being stuck with an existing one, as you just end up another cog in the machine.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I concur. My account is inactive but if we want to get some kind of UWE/NSOT corp together I'd be down for that for awhile atleast. Anybody here who was interested in a trial could join up with us as well.
Comments
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't part of the definition of an MMO that it takes a lot of time and organization? While I suppose Everquest was a lot easier to jump in and out of because of a lack of group-based content... anytime you get people working together (like in the "Multiplayer" aspect of MMO) it invariably takes time to organize people across timezones and that sort of thing.
It seems to me like you want a singleplayer MMO... unless you can offer some kind of casual-play MMO that I've never heard of that doesn't require hours spent in group organization?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but an MMO is simply that: A Massively Multiplayer Online game. I don't see any reason for all the grinding (leveling, teching, whatever).
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It seems to me like you want a singleplayer MMO... unless you can offer some kind of casual-play MMO that I've never heard of that doesn't require hours spent in group organization?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You're going to have to elaborate here. From what I can tell, there is no necessity to have a significant time investment to form a group in an MMO compared to, say, TF2. It may not be the most organized group in existence, but that shouldn't matter for just having some fun. And there are still things you can do as an individual in a massively multiplayer environment, right?
It seems to me like you want a singleplayer MMO... unless you can offer some kind of casual-play MMO that I've never heard of that doesn't require hours spent in group organization?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
eww? I'm a prolific MMO player and I hate organisations. I keep hearing how you're supposed to become a guild puppet if you want to enjoy these games yet I seem to mystically have fun and do extremely well as a unique individual with no 'corporate' associations :p
Admittedly I haven't played eve.
The idea that MMOs are about Guilds or organising big bundles of people always annoyed the heck out of me; I want to play MMOs, not "Many Guilds Online" Games. Things like Guilds are divisive; to me they're the 'social instances' of MMOs; something that defies the point of the genre and designers lean on because they're either too brain-dead to try anything beyond the aging social structures that MMOs have crawled along with or it simply didn't even occur to them in the first place because they're so used to the status quo.
I want MMOs to have a society, not a ragtag bunch of masons :p
Honestly, I haven't had any super awesome experiences with guilds, but I find them wayyyy better than pugging dungeons with people I haven't played with before and who are possibly (if not probably) awful players who will make the group a complete chore <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />
Okay, here's one:
Tackling.
Granted, this is 0.0, but getting into a 0.0 corp isn't hard.
Why is tackling fun? I'm a part of Goonswarm, and think this image sums it up:
<img src="http://wiki.goonfleet.com/images/Dinc-noammo-ruinyourlife.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Its that simple. Also: If it doesn't work(its on a p/w'd wiki), here's what it says:
My ship costs less than your ammunition
My modules were all picked off of rats
I don't even think my weapons are loaded
AND I'M ABOUT TO RUIN YOUR LIFE
Welcome to the Fleet
Basically, you take one of the cheapest ships, and can nearly completely disable cruisers, battlecruisers, battleships, Dreadnaughts- sometimes it takes more than one tackler, but you can. And EVERY real group needs a tackler. You can be tackling in the amount of time it takes to gather the parts and find a group. Sure, its not as quick as "I'm tackling the moment I launch up my first time", but its pretty fast, and is an absolute blast. There are some in GS that still tackle after years and have the ability to fly what they want- they just like the idea of you being in the middle of the enemy fleet, and being a huge thorn in their side.
Its not a game for everyone(in its current, or future incarnation- future patches are actually setting it back in this affair, as currently when you get started, you have about 850,000 skill points assigned for you depending on how you made your character...and they're making it so you start with 50,000, but go at double the rate of learning until you hit 1.6m), but its the kind of game that once you find a good group of folks to be with in it, once you find a home, its absolutely brilliant.
<!--quoteo(post=1700869:date=Feb 19 2009, 09:26 AM:name=NeonSpyder)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(NeonSpyder @ Feb 19 2009, 09:26 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1700869"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yeah, and it's worth the price, to ahh, what 300,000 subscribers or so? Sure it's not WoW with it's eleventy billion subs, but there simply aren't eleventy billion people out there who like the cutthroat nature of EVE and prefer their games to coddle them and serve fun in bite-size portions.
I (and 300,000 others) are quite happy with the sandbox-make-your-own-fun nature of EVE and we wouldn't want it to change to force fun on us when we can make it ourselves, all we usually ask for is new toys to play with every expansion to make better sandcastles and design better stabbing-knives.
While no one argues that WoW is a bad business model, but to many people it's not what they want in an MMO. And for the record, EVE has experienced constant playerbase growth since it's original release in h, 2002 I think.
Constant growth -> more money!
iirc, the CCP devs have repeatedly stated that their primary goal is to make a great game and their secondary objective is to make money and get more subs, presumably so they have more money to make a better game. Of course, that's just what they *say*, I have no doubt that they ultimately want money, I'm just happy that the way they've been trying to get it happens to be catering to the niche player who like the stabby-stabby PVP with internet spaceships.
Meh, now I'm rambling.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
For the record: I don't think making a truly deep, hardcore game, and making tons of cash, are mutually exclusive. I just don't think CCP ever gave a damn about initial user experiences.
For one, the UI is...okay. But okay is about it. It makes some of the most complicated affairs horribly difficult (WHY MUST I BE IN SPACE TO CONFIGURE MY OVERVIEW?!? AND WHY CAN I NOT SEE IF A STATION HAS A DAMAGED MEDBAY WHEN I AM NEAR ENOUGH TO CONTACT IT?! WHERES THE ###### INTERNET?! )
For two, some things are just a hassle. You're telling me I can't send a ###### e-mail to the station owner where I have a ###### Battleship is that if he goes and sells my Battleship for me, he can keep 10% of the money, just because I'm not near the ###### station?
Or, howabout the gigantic hassle one has to go through to plan out their future? Someone should be able to easily see a Dreadnaught, say, "I want to pilot that.", and be able to see what steps it takes in learning to get there.
Or, how about a more robust contract system that allows for more freelancing by players, to a point where the contract system could be a player-run quest system, with a centralized BBS format to it?
All of these things could make the newbie experience TONS better without sacrificing even a little of the complexity that makes it good. I just think they're a bit dead-set into their idea of the game, and no one wants to sit them down and say, "Okay, *this* is how you get people to like your game."
Yes, right. It's quite possible to form a corp in EVE that doesn't really do anything except have a chat channel, or you could just form a chat channel and away you go and forget the whole corp business, but the game is designed to encourage group behaviour with most of the rules involving either corporations, alliances and the like. A good example of this would be War Declarations (Corps and Alliances only), Player Owned Station or Outpost Ownership (Corporation and in an important political and logistical sense alliances as well).
There's also corporate to corporate relationship standings (so you can recognize friends from enemies) as well as corp to alliance, alliance to corp and alliance to alliance standings to make it easier for joe-smchoe corp member to know that blues = won't shoot me and reds = will shoot me.
Yes you can go solo, I gave an example of exploration in one of my previous posts to that effect, but if a small group or corporation of people work on exploration together they can really make a better job of it. One guy to scout out the exploration sites and keep an eye on the unfriendlies in a system while his friends do the exploration combat site, then one of them or another guy shows up in a hauler to move the phat loot out to safety, all while the first player keeps an eye on security to make sure his mates don't get ganked.
<!--quoteo(post=1700882:date=Feb 19 2009, 01:55 PM:name=Geminosity)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Geminosity @ Feb 19 2009, 01:55 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1700882"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->eww? I'm a prolific MMO player and I hate organisations. I keep hearing how you're supposed to become a guild puppet if you want to enjoy these games yet I seem to mystically have fun and do extremely well as a unique individual with no 'corporate' associations <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
Admittedly I haven't played eve.
The idea that MMOs are about Guilds or organising big bundles of people always annoyed the heck out of me; I want to play MMOs, not "Many Guilds Online" Games. Things like Guilds are divisive; to me they're the 'social instances' of MMOs; something that defies the point of the genre and designers lean on because they're either too brain-dead to try anything beyond the aging social structures that MMOs have crawled along with or it simply didn't even occur to them in the first place because they're so used to the status quo.
I want MMOs to have a society, not a ragtag bunch of masons <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's kind of Ironic Gem that you want MMO's to have society when EVE is likely the most realistic simulation of politics and one universe where everybody knows current events, the who's who of alliances and alliance leaders, etc. A great example of this would be the most recent event where a Band of Brothers alliance director defected and essentially disbanded the alliance. Just about every single person in EVE knows what alliance Band of Brothers is because it's the same universe and everybody now knows that the space that BoB had is up for grabs. That's a huge socio-political event. The one thing that I might say that EVE does not have is culture, but socially, politically and definitely economically the game is top notch.
EVE isn't the sort of environment where you can easily chat with randoms inside the game, it doesn't accommodate it very well. Admittedly you could always strike up a conversation in a system-wide comm channel but most people tend to stick to either private chats, corp chats, alliance chats or chat channels they've made for a specific group or topic (a website or a profession, like salvaging). But the uniqueness of the one-server-one-universe system allows everyone to be on the same page when it comes to the big picture at least, and when dealing with inter-corp and inter-alliance issues it becomes a very small world for a minute, that is until you and your corp join a new alliance or attempt to get friendly with another corp and maybe start your own little alliance, then you play politics!
(continued and with a tie in to discozombie's post)
<!--quoteo(post=1700894:date=Feb 19 2009, 05:35 PM:name=DiscoZombie)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DiscoZombie @ Feb 19 2009, 05:35 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1700894"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->yeah, guilds are just ways to break people up into manageable bite sizes. You can't possibly hope to know every single person on a 10,000 person MMO server, but you can befriend everyone in a particular guild...
Honestly, I haven't had any super awesome experiences with guilds, but I find them wayyyy better than pugging dungeons with people I haven't played with before and who are possibly (if not probably) awful players who will make the group a complete chore <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Some of the best moments in EVE that I have had are either the times when all of my CORP MATES get on Ventrilo when we go on a mining operation, some of us are using mining barges to vaporize asteroids, some of us are using haulers to cart away the minerals to safety, most of us have our eyes on the local chat monitor to check for hostiles showing up, and ALL of us are having a damn good time on ventrilo with the assistance of alcohol, memes and in-jokes that only the other people in our corporation would get. We succumb to the tedium of mining madness and indulge in socializing on voice chat. I've never laughed as hard as I have on Vent with the guys in my corp. You don't get that with randoms... in a corporation you get to know your corpmates and become friends, share jokes, good times, bad times, it's a very social and almost familial experience to be honest.
<!--quoteo(post=0:date=:name=Quaunaut)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Quaunaut)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Stuff<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I agree with everything you say until you reach my quotetext and then I don't know what you're talking about.
The contract system's a hell of a lot better then the escrow system that was there before, so let's be happy with what we have for now <3?
As to looking at a ship and trying to get the skills to fly it... you know there is a tab that shows the skills you need to fly the ship right? And it even shows you which ones you have trained already? You just have to do a quick market search and bam! Skills. It's really really not something that needs to be complained about or fixed, it's fine the way it is.
The overview thing I agree it's kind of tame, but I disagree with you about being able to modify it while docked in station, the way they've got the station interface they can't fit the space overview in there anywhere, unless they made a wrapper of the space UI in the game options somewhere but... ah, I don't mind it.
I don't know what you're talking about when you mention battleships and medbays... you can look at the services a station has to offer by doing a show info on it and clicking the services tab, should say medbay if it has one... pretty easy to do. I simply don't know what you're talking about battleships though. (Take your medicine)
--
Rawrr, attack of the tl;dr!
tl;dr version:
"You all suck and are wrong, EVE is great!"
Tackling.
Granted, this is 0.0, but getting into a 0.0 corp isn't hard.
Why is tackling fun? I'm a part of Goonswarm, and think this image sums it up:
<img src="http://wiki.goonfleet.com/images/Dinc-noammo-ruinyourlife.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Its that simple. Also: If it doesn't work(its on a p/w'd wiki), here's what it says:
My ship costs less than your ammunition
My modules were all picked off of rats
I don't even think my weapons are loaded
AND I'M ABOUT TO RUIN YOUR LIFE<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
420 accidentally warp hictors to enemy titans errday
<!--quoteo(post=1700945:date=Feb 20 2009, 07:25 AM:name=NeonSpyder)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(NeonSpyder @ Feb 20 2009, 07:25 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1700945"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The overview thing I agree it's kind of tame, but I disagree with you about being able to modify it while docked in station, the way they've got the station interface they can't fit the space overview in there anywhere, unless they made a wrapper of the space UI in the game options somewhere but... ah, I don't mind it.
I don't know what you're talking about when you mention battleships and medbays... you can look at the services a station has to offer by doing a show info on it and clicking the services tab, should say medbay if it has one... pretty easy to do. I simply don't know what you're talking about battleships though. (Take your medicine)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
They show the damn Fleet UI in stations, add a button to show the overview too or something. And he's talking about conquerable stations/outposts where a) you might not be able to dock unless you are blue to the owners, so if you lose the station or something you can't get in to sell off assets b) station services can be disabled, so it might have a medbay but it won't work until it is repped.
EVE isn't the sort of environment where you can easily chat with randoms inside the game, it doesn't accommodate it very well. Admittedly you could always strike up a conversation in a system-wide comm channel but most people tend to stick to either private chats, corp chats, alliance chats or chat channels they've made for a specific group or topic (a website or a profession, like salvaging). But the uniqueness of the one-server-one-universe system allows everyone to be on the same page when it comes to the big picture at least, and when dealing with inter-corp and inter-alliance issues it becomes a very small world for a minute, that is until you and your corp join a new alliance or attempt to get friendly with another corp and maybe start your own little alliance, then you play politics!
Some of the best moments in EVE that I have had are either the times when all of my CORP MATES get on Ventrilo when we go on a mining operation, some of us are using mining barges to vaporize asteroids, some of us are using haulers to cart away the minerals to safety, most of us have our eyes on the local chat monitor to check for hostiles showing up, and ALL of us are having a damn good time on ventrilo with the assistance of alcohol, memes and in-jokes that only the other people in our corporation would get. We succumb to the tedium of mining madness and indulge in socializing on voice chat. I've never laughed as hard as I have on Vent with the guys in my corp. You don't get that with randoms... in a corporation you get to know your corpmates and become friends, share jokes, good times, bad times, it's a very social and almost familial experience to be honest.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's not ironic at all; in real life most people couldn't tell you the names of the executives/senators/ministers/whatever in charge of their country :3
I hate to explain this so often but inherently I don't have anything against 'guilds' themselves; they're inevitable. Not everyone can stand on their own and for those that applies to they tend to clump around more powerful personalities or just group together in the absence of any such individuals.
It's when you tie the game itself down to these mason-wannabes with guild-only benefits or even a 'guild system' that you end up with divisive nonsense guilds lead to. Let people call themselves silly names and wear the same hats if they like, just stop building games that say "this is the correct path" and centering everything around this pap.
A tangeant on VOIP: the roleplay killer. Maybe I'm just unique but I play MMOs to play with characters. There's something dissapointing about hearing people's real voices to me. That Klingon in star trek online will be harder to take seriously thanks to the player's thick welsh accent, the gentleman villian in his top hat and curled moustache doesn't quite sound right with a thick southern american accent and the huge, hulking barbarian covered in rippling muscles with the sweet, melodic girl's voice or their dainty elf companion with the golden hair, little clothing and the voice of 30 year old male truck driver is just wrong on so many levels. I don't play games to get to know people, I play to have fun. If I wanted to know someone I'd go chat to them in real-life or something, or in some more dedicated non-avatar chat system :p
As ironic as it sounds; when VOIP comes in, the player gets in the way of the character XD
I don't care who you really are, I want to talk to your orc :p
I've never understood the 'randoms' thing either. Don't you guys talk to people? I chat away to folk for a good while before I usually go on any kind of adventure and the groups that result tend to be great :3
The only bad groups I've put up with have been those few where either I let someone silly in out of pity (which I always regret in the end) or those ocassions where I'm with a friend who's impatient and I let them bang the party together.
Sure, you can't know everyone in a game, like Disco says but:
a) that's half the fun. It's like complaining you won't use all the items in a game (of which there's probably more than there are players); exploring those you find is part of the adventure!
b) You're even less likely to know everybody if the game encourages slinking off to silly little private channels and guilds :p
The games that have given me the most fun over the years have been those with no guild system. In ragnarok online and PSO before they introduced guilds in some form or other the community was fantastic! So friendly and everybody talked.
A friend of mine came onto Ragnarok without telling me in the hopes of surprising me... problem for him, as he realised after appearing in the world, was that he didn't have a scooby where I was. So what does he do? He asks the first stranger he sees of course :p
Wthout batting an eyelid the stranger says "oh sure! I know where she is." and kindly gives him directions to morroc.
My silly friend goes off to find me with this new info but gets lost on the way and asks another stranger if they know where I am. Again, surprisingly, the stranger knows exactly who he's asking for and gives directions to Morroc.
Skip forward about 10 minutes and he turns up in Morroc while I'm chatting away to a crowd and he tells me he'd asked 3 different people in total and not only had they all known immediately it was me he was looking for but where I was :o
Now THAT's a good community :3
In PSO I also got a fully lobby to do the conga and have a battle royale over me :D
Sure, I can crowbar social fun out of almost any online game but even I can't make up for the unfettered joy of an open community, undivided by private channels, guilds or the like.
Eve, like all games, come with a certain amount of infantile pride about dumb crap. Some people think that there is a right way to play eve, that their are corps you have to join and skills you have to train or you will never catch up to the leaders. They are big stupid heads who like to feel good about the way they play the game. just like the people a few forums up whining about how games today need more "skill based movement".
If any one tells you the only way to play is to roll achura, and then train up learning for 3 months, then train for other things, all while angling to join Alliance number 15# in corp number 12. That you have to fly a falcon/vagabond/ecm dominix. this is essentially the same as the kid who was always telling you that your toy truck wasn't big enough when you were little. It's imposing a structure where there isn't one.
And now a less violence non goons eve picture.
<img src="http://workers.podded.us/images/loes_sml.png" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Skulkbait: No amount of talking about EvE is ever going to let you know what it's like. Give the free trial a run then see what you think. If you don't like it, no money lost. But maybe, just maybe, you'll see why so many people are enamoured with it.
Gem: The vast majority of people who play games online are not good at them. In games that require team-play (most mmo's) this means the other players are a potential liability. So instead of taking a gamble by playing with random people, players form into groups with other like minded and similar skilled players. This is the effective purpose of guilds. It's not about the guild itself, it's about the players in the guild. Does this make sense?
Can we actually talk about EvE now and stop debating game mechanics like every other game thread?
Yeah, I know what you mean.
<!--quoteo(post=1700982:date=Feb 20 2009, 06:17 PM:name=Xyth)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Xyth @ Feb 20 2009, 06:17 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1700982"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Gem: The vast majority of people who play games online are not good at them. In games that require team-play (most mmo's) this means the other players are a potential liability. So instead of taking a gamble by playing with random people, players form into groups with other like minded and similar skilled players. This is the effective purpose of guilds. It's not about the guild itself, it's about the players in the guild. Does this make sense?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Wait, what? So after that previous lament, you then go on to ENSURE that the thread will proceed along predictable paths?! Goddammit man!
Even the people here who like the game don't seem to think the free trial period lets you get into the game far enough to find the fun. That said, I abhor the concept of a subscription fee and will avoid the trial on the off chance I actually end up liking the damn thing. My interest in EVE as far as this thread goes is more... academic. Partially its about grind: I don't get why people put up with it and I especially don't get why it seems to be a required component of any MMO (and why its seeping into non-MMOs like TF2! but thats another thread).
As to looking at a ship and trying to get the skills to fly it... you know there is a tab that shows the skills you need to fly the ship right? And it even shows you which ones you have trained already? You just have to do a quick market search and bam! Skills. It's really really not something that needs to be complained about or fixed, it's fine the way it is.
The overview thing I agree it's kind of tame, but I disagree with you about being able to modify it while docked in station, the way they've got the station interface they can't fit the space overview in there anywhere, unless they made a wrapper of the space UI in the game options somewhere but... ah, I don't mind it.
I don't know what you're talking about when you mention battleships and medbays... you can look at the services a station has to offer by doing a show info on it and clicking the services tab, should say medbay if it has one... pretty easy to do. I simply don't know what you're talking about battleships though. (Take your medicine)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Point #1: Thats really horrible reasoning from the land of bad reasoning
Point #2: Yes, it shows what it requires, but does it show what those skills require? What is needed to get up to this point? No. Not by a ###### longshot.
On that same note, why not educate people on what kind of modules are most common for their starter frigate(i.e., tackling stuffs)
For the last two, briktal covered it for me. Its not a matter of fitting it in for all the time- just make it a part of the UI that I can bring up when I feel like it. And yes, I can see if it has a med station, but does that mean its not blown to hell? Not in the least. Just so I could podjump over to delve, I had to go 19 jumps where I tried 11 stations along the way with all of them having damaged medbays. It was pretty ###### horribad.
As to Xyth and his hate of game mechanics:
###### YEAH BOB IS DEAD
+cookie on that picture haha.
I think my pilot is fit to run interceptors and I believe my character is capable of flying any ship besides a carrier+ in sizes.
Only thing for me when I resub is to get myself resituated and relearn the UI and I'm good to go..oh yeah, finding a corp too.
I don't disagree but I feel there is more to say on the subject as I will elaborate on later.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It's when you tie the game itself down to these mason-wannabes with guild-only benefits or even a 'guild system' that you end up with divisive nonsense guilds lead to. Let people call themselves silly names and wear the same hats if they like, just stop building games that say "this is the correct path" and centering everything around this pap.
A tangeant on VOIP: the roleplay killer. Maybe I'm just unique but I play MMOs to play with characters. There's something dissapointing about hearing people's real voices to me.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
First off I have to mention that one of the principle strengths and attractions of EVE to others and myself personally is the political system and the very fact that people wear different hats. You surely can't argue that it's fundamental human instinct to seek out and form groups of like minded individuals? Well EVE certainly exploits this trait by encouraging but by no means requiring people to join corporations simply because you can do more as a group then you can individually, and I don't mean that through game mechanics alone. ONE person could form a corporation or alliance and do all the things that game-mechanics wise need a corp or alliance to do, such as to build a Player Owned Station or an Outpost.
<u>However</u>, no ONE person in EVE could possibly afford the base cost, time investment or logistics and upkeep to build and operate an Outpost (Last I checked they cost 60 Billion Isk). While an individual could set up a POS or two if they had the cash, the logistics and time involved would make it difficult for them to set up a string of Player Owned Stations (500M a pop) and fuel them and handle all the logistics themselves, leaving no time to do anything else most likely. A group or a corp however shares the responsibility and those interested in POS's can spend time tinkering with it, but with many hands comes quicker work and the most difficult tasks for one person (Mining and Hauling at the same time for example) become much much easier to handle.
That's just the industrial benefit, I shouldn't even have to mention that one person in a Battleship that cost them 1 Billion isk in base ship cost and some of the best modules could probably be destroyed by two ships in 150m battleships, provided the people flying those two ships had an idea what they were doing. Yay Teamwork!
And to your comment about VOIP being the roleplay killer? I'm not really going to argue the point, I would agree that an orc talking with a south-east Texan accent would be disconcerting however since everyone in EVE is human, and add to that the fact that generally speaking you *are* your character. When you get on VOIP and start discussing with your corpmates the recent uncertainty in the Tritanium market, that's you the player and the character discussing the game as you as a player would and for that matter much how your character would as well. The only 'roleplaying' that goes on in EVE are the people who take the backstory and run with it, Amarrian slavers or Minmatar freedom fighters who send war declarations in-game to Ammarian corporations and make up some fluff about why.
Since you fly a spaceship most of the time and your avatar is limited to a 2d static picture, the only place where playing into a role really comes into it is when you type something into the game. Of course, more often then not the line between character-speak and player-speak is so freaking blurry nobody even thinks about it. If two guys start talking in local about two other ships having a shoot-out in front of the station, they're not really talking oocly now are they?
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I've never understood the 'randoms' thing either. Don't you guys talk to people? I chat away to folk for a good while before I usually go on any kind of adventure and the groups that result tend to be great :3
The only bad groups I've put up with have been those few where either I let someone silly in out of pity (which I always regret in the end) or those ocassions where I'm with a friend who's impatient and I let them bang the party together.
A friend of mine came onto Ragnarok without telling me in the hopes of surprising me... problem for him, as he realised after appearing in the world, was that he didn't have a scooby where I was. So what does he do? He asks the first stranger he sees of course <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I keep my eye on Local and any chatter in there, sometimes joining into the system-wide comm channel when something interesting is happening but for the most part I only communicate with the 20 or so members of my corporation all of whom I know by game name and rl name, or when we were in an alliance I would jump into alliance chatter every now and again but it's not the same ... er, intimate setting as corp chat is.
The nice thing about being in a corp and an alliance is you can be pretty damn sure the people you fly with know how to pilot their ships, if they are your corpmates it's because you talk to them every other day about fittings or ships, local events or whatever, you get to know them and how/what they fly and you fly with them so often you can begin to know what they'll do in a situation. Sometimes for really large alliances going on an operation alliance-wide feels a bit like an unknown as you jump from a dozen people in your corp to a hundred people in an alliance fleet, then it becomes a little nameless.
Something like your example wouldn't really work in EVE because there's roughly 40,000 people online at any given moment across about... uuuh, how many systems do they have now? At least a thousand solar system I guess. Since corpmates tend to operate only within the same local area (for safety, security and assistance), asking in any system other then that one your friend would be in would result in pretty much no responses. You Gem are an exception because you are very memorable in MMOs like that, and EVE has it's celebrities too. While they might not be able to tell you exactly where one of the EVE celebrities are, they would know who you're talking about, like Lofty or Chribba.
<!--quoteo(post=1700986:date=Feb 20 2009, 12:38 PM:name=SkulkBait)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SkulkBait @ Feb 20 2009, 12:38 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1700986"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Even the people here who like the game don't seem to think the free trial period lets you get into the game far enough to find the fun. That said, I abhor the concept of a subscription fee and will avoid the trial on the off chance I actually end up liking the damn thing. My interest in EVE as far as this thread goes is more... academic. Partially its about grind: I don't get why people put up with it and I especially don't get why it seems to be a required component of any MMO (and why its seeping into non-MMOs like TF2! but thats another thread).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There's a point in EVE where you don't have to grind, and I don't mean there's an 'end-game' of some sort with a level cap or whatever, I just mean there's a point when your finances and ship collection allow you to pretty much indefinitely do whatever the hell you want without worrying about losing much cash for the fun, like if you fly a Tech 1 ship and insure it you're going to lose a few million isk out of a half-billion isk float, but if the ship doesn't blow up you can probably sell the loot off of the other player that you and your corpmates killed.
<!--quoteo(post=0:date=:name=Quaunaut)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Quaunaut)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Stuff<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
These things never bothered me or any of my corpmates so I don't know why your panties are in such a twist about admittedly minor things.
<!--quoteo(post=0:date=:name=lolfighter)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(lolfighter)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Seems to me like a lot of the game hinges on being a member of the right corp before you even start playing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes.
What, I wasn't clear? I meant YES!
The game is so freaking complex and always has been, it has a learning CLIFF not a learning curve and the easiest and best way around that is for the people who've been there for a year already to tell you all the important little things that come up as you go along, the value of insurance, the best way to hunt down NPC pirates... these things and a lot of other ones like it are simply too much information for the game to impart on you when most people are still scratching their heads over the basic stuff.
With a corporation full of knowledgeable people who are happy to help you out, when a person comes across something and they ask in corp chat "What does this do? or why do I want this? or "What's the best way to do such and such?" there's people you know online to explain it out and even show or tell you how or what to do. Which is NOT to say that there is only one way to do anything like what Confused had mentioned. There might be ideal ways to do certain things in the best possible way, but in order to do everything well there's no set method or build, some people like to train their skills to level 5 to get that extra 5% and other people like to be able to train another two skills to level 4 each to get more flexibility, both are valid arguments and up to personal preference like the game itself.
---
tl;dr version:
Yes, no, yes, yes, no, maybe.
Anybody here that still plays. Do they have a corp I could join in with?
I have two accounts, a main and a miner. I usually grab my dad's labtop and mine on that one and the main is obviously on my pc. Miner has a barge if I recall correctly and both accounts have some sort of hauler too.
Well pirates in EVE generally form corps of their own but that doesn't mean they always do things with their corpmates and on the flip side of that coin there are plenty and I do mean PLENTY of solo or pair pirates. The real trouble with piracy is the lack of victims!
Most pirates by necessity have to operate out of low security systems 0.4 to 0.1 or zero sec systems due to their Security Status which prevents them from going into 0.5-1.0 'secure' systems. But most everybody figures it out after the first time that they are blown up when going into lowsec that lowsec is for pirates and nobody else. There is SOME incentive to go into lowsec such as marginally better npc rats in the belts, slightly better asteroids and so forth, the real benefit to lowsec is the Exploration content... the asteroid belts or archeological sites that need to be scan probed down, those are much better then the stuff you find in highsec.
Anyway I'm on a tangent, the question was what is piracy like.
Player Pirates (as opposed to npc pirates) are definitely a scourge to most players. The "Carebear" demographic of player that enjoys being coddled in empire (secure) space and likes to run missions against easy npc pirates, those guys are absolutely balls-to-the-wall <b>Terrified</b> of lowsec and all the nasty pirates.
Since anybody in lowsec could theoretically shoot you and get away with it, everybody has the potential to be a pirate, but the more you shoot people in lowsec the lower your sec status gets which eventually restricts you to staying in lowsec or 0.0 sec space, and at that point most people go "Okay, I guess I'll be a professional pirate instead of a hobbyist pirate." These are the guys that prowl around lowsec with one eye on the local comms and the other on their system wide scanner, these are the guys in Tech 2 ships fit to the brim with top of the line rape-you-up-the-bum technology. These guys make it their purpose in life to kill you if they can find you.
What's really nasty is when they get together in groups...
So yeah, Pirates are nasty. Pirates in the same sense of the word don't really exist in 0.0 sec space though because in 0.0 everybody is trying to kill everybody unless you're specifically a friend of their alliance or corporation - you have Blue (positive) standings -.
Admittedly some 0.0 alliances like ah... CVA I think? (Curatores Veritatis Alliance) They don't shoot anybody unless you're specifically designated as a Red (negative standings) enemy... so those guys are kind of nice, them and ISS when it was still around. (Interstellar Starbase Syndicate) Or Big Blue.
Solo piracy is definitely not dead, but it's not quite as prevalent as it used to be, but it's definitely still there.
One of these days I'll use that eve trial key sitting in my inbox, but probably only once the 'walking about' addon thingy is in :p
Really, what you should think of it as is "pirate crew." Piracy was never a solo endeavour. Could you imagine a salty sea dog sailing his tiny sloop around the Caribbean attempting to flag down the spanish silver fleet? No.
Somebody mentioned "tackling" ships earlier, and from what I understand they're generally no combat behemoths. They make sure you don't run away while their mateys tear you a new one. Without a tackling ship, the quarry will simply hit their warp drives or whatever and blow you a long, doppler-shifted raspberry as they make their escape. And without any mateys to take the quarry down, the tackling ship will eventually have to give up or be destroyed or something. I don't know what happens if a tackling ship has nobody around to help them, but I doubt a tackling ship is the ultimate duelist.
So pirates need to work together as they always have. It's only natural that they would form corporations. "Corporation" may not exactly be a word that reeks of swashbuckler, but the problem's not bigger than that.
Some more basic uses for a tackler:
After the desired pirate victim's ship has been destroyed and/or rendered fully disabled, no warp mainly. Here comes the ransom part. Ransom them for their ship and/or money or whatever in their cargo.
Since big ships have a harder time locking and targetting onto smaller objects. IE: frigates and escape pods.
The tackler is a smaller ship, usually a frigate. If the desired method is to blow up the ship and leave them in their escape pod, you can end their life and cost them another recloning fee + ship.
What a tackler would do is target the pod -best time- (since small ships lock onto everything quick, signature radius) and disable the warp drives. Now at this point, the victim is at the pure will of their captures. Open up a chat window with them and then discuss. Don't lolligag though or they'd be calling for help.
I've thought about doing a corporation and calling it R-types haha. The interceptors remind me of it.
What I wouldn't be interested in would be being stuck with an existing one, as you just end up another cog in the machine.
Depends on the pirate. I preferred ransoming people just because it kept my sec-status up and was more entertaining. Some people just like getting the kills and looting the other persons ship.
And you can easily team-up with random people if that's what you are interested in, however it can be hard to find people who will trust you easily since, as mentioned before, EvE is a cutthroat game. Trusting people is generally not a good idea.
<!--quoteo(post=1701140:date=Feb 22 2009, 02:22 PM:name=Shockwave)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Shockwave @ Feb 22 2009, 02:22 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1701140"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'd be interested in a 'New' Corp comprised on UWE people. (Hell, UWE Incorporated sounds fairly decent) I have the Client installed, but I didn't reactivate my account because I wanted to see what interest there was.
What I wouldn't be interested in would be being stuck with an existing one, as you just end up another cog in the machine.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I concur. My account is inactive but if we want to get some kind of UWE/NSOT corp together I'd be down for that for awhile atleast. Anybody here who was interested in a trial could join up with us as well.