Reassessing EVE. Or, Our EVE Experiment (mendax.eve?).

Our take on EVE Online has fluctuated worse than a woman’s pregnancy mood. Let us summarize:

When we were first exposed to EVE through a friend, we didn’t think much of it. Giving it some more thought, however, we loved the idea of a graphical Trade Wars MMO. EVE even brought back memories of what we hoped Starshield could turn into (sans the quantum weather bit), and by the time our fascination with World of Warcraft (WoW) was coming into steep decline, EVE jumped back on our radar as the game to play. Then we actually played EVE, and after our trial period ended, we left EVE behind with great regret that the interface was clumsy, and that the game’s complexity brought about a learning curve simply too steep for us to want to climb.

Somehow, literally years later, EVE came back on our radar thanks in part to the hijinks of GoonSwarm. The recent incident we speak of, talked about in blogs aplenty, faithfully describes the scenarios prevalent in EVE’s online world. The incident in question can be found described much better elsewhere, but in short, the GoonSwarm alliance used key social engineering to topple a rival alliance, effectively altering the very political topography of a rather massive area of space.

This is where EVE differs from other MMOGs: corporations (guilds) actually matter, and alliances between corporations are even more meaningful. Since EVE includes a very significant portion of space that is PvP-friendly, the capability to hold areas of that space is as game-defining as land-grabs are defining in the real world. This is why mankind has fought over land for millenia: wealth.

Imagine if WoW guilds were able to control zones, preventing other players from entering without a healthy battle. Now imagine if the most powerful guilds managed to control certain zones exclusively, to the point where they’ve held onto them for years. To bring things even further into perspective, imagine if the control of these zones allowed this guild to monopolize a raid dungeon and get awesome gear from it for years. Now imagine that a rival guild, using connivery, managed to disassemble the guild from within. Sure, WoW has routine guild drama with guild leaders pulling a fast /gquit, but we’re talking about something far more earth-shattering. When this made-up guild finally dissolves, imagine that all its assets, from the guild bank and elsewhere, is now up-for-grabs by outsiders, if not destroyed outright. It’s almost like losing years worth of epic gear overnight.

EVE further differentiates itself from other MMOGs in its no-holds-barred attitude towards player interactions. In EVE, swindling, guile, and espionage are all valid tactics, whereas these subjects are matters of contention, or even reasons for banning, in other MMOGs. It’s because of these gameplay aspects, in addition to EVE’s sandbox-style gameplay, that has made EVE an ever-growing title with a new retail box hitting store shelves next month (the game was almost exclusively sold online since its release years ago). Alongside the retail box release comes a “new player experience”, which is aimed at scaling down the learning curve for new players by giving them more tutorials and not throwing them from the nest the moment a character is created. And, all this comes alongside EVE’s latest expansion (there are two per year, and are free to subscribers).

While some of our friends are returning to WoW after a hiatus, we instead gave EVE a second look, and figured that the new player experience could be the deciding factor in bringing us back to an MMOG. Why EVE? Aside from our love of piracy, espionage, and an economics system that makes transactions in other MMOGs look like something from a 1980s-style MUD, EVE also happens to offer casual gameplay despite its PvP leanings. On top of that, EVE isn’t “twitch”-based like other PvP titles, offering a formula for success that no other MMOG has yet offered. And, it has OS X and Linux clients, which makes those of who have abandoned the Windows platform quite happy.

When all is said and done, EVE is still a grizzly of a game whose complexity makes us a bit scared, since we’re theorycrafters at heart. How to juggle the game’s complexity with a desire to stay casually vested in a game that includes veterans with years of experience among its player-base? Well, we haven’t entirely figured that out yet, but that’s why we’re making an effort at cataloguing our trek back into EVE Online. We won’t say that we’ll definitely stick with EVE this time around (heck, we even almost quite just three days after subscribing), but we’re determined to give the game a go until after we’ve explored the new player experience. And, in the meantime, we’ll have a chance to train some of the game’s skills, which can only help us down the road, right? So, stay tuned to our future EVE musings.

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