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I've wanted to try out EVE Online for a while now. Never found the time, and it seems to be a bit of a time sink. Since I have no idea if I'm actually going to

I've wanted to try out EVE Online for a while now. Never found the time, and it seems to be a bit of a time sink. Since I have no idea if I'm actually going to enjoy it or not, it never took priority. These kinds of news make me want to find the time. Good job!

Dzugaru 3mo ago
Depends on the way you play can be a time sink, or session-like game. It is extremely deep and complex to learn from scratch though. I've made some of the best friends playing it when I had time, friendship formed out of high stakes in this game (you regularly lose hours of grind or real money if you pay for the game - in seconds) and respect you have for each other skill.
weberer 3mo ago
It is definitely a social game. You're not going to have a good time if you try to play it solo. At least that was the case when I played it 10+ years ago. No clue if they changed it significantly since then.
- Cthulhu_ 3mo ago
  It hasn't, at best since then they've added more ship personalization options in the form of ship skins, and some gamification via events, daily login campaigns, and now seasonal-like content where they promote different activities. The current one started yesterday, you can track down and / or follow NPC haulers (or something like that; the event does not appear in sov null. I moved there a month ago after it seemed like that's where all the fun stuff happens)
colkassad 3mo ago
I bought the game when it first came out (2003? Boxed, from Target) and played with an online friend for a while. We mostly mined and we didn't really have a corporation, it was just the two of us. There wasn't much else to do at the time. At one point I fell asleep at my keyboard during a mining op. Gave up soon after. In 2015 a coworker talked me into trying it again. We joined a small corporation, swore fealty to a larger corp (Brave? Band of Brothers?) and moved to low-security space. We got involved in massive 3000+ ship battles, some of which made the news. These are not as fun as you would think. However, the most fun I had was joining 100+ ship bomber fleets that would warp in on unsuspecting mining operations and destroying billions of ISK (in game currency) worth of ships. We'd use Mumble for voice chat, which allows for a hierarchy of chat rooms, so that we could hear the fleet commander giving orders but he couldn't hear us. It was super organized and our fleet commander was really skilled. In the end I couldn't keep up with the time commitments. For the fun stuff, you had to be online at a certain time and there was a lot of prep involved (buying the proper ships which changed all the time, getting your ships to the right station, etc). I still consider it some of the best multiplayer experiences I've ever had though. Nothing beats warping in and seeing those huge mining ships and then hearing the fleet commander start issuing targeting orders. It would raise the hair on my arms.
- wavemode 3mo ago
  What is it about the giant battles that was not fun?
  - jpfromlondon 3mo ago
    time dilation
  - dxdm 3mo ago
    I was never part of one, but in case nobody with more experience chimes in: I'm assuming the large battles involve a lot of sitting around, pressing the occasional button to change to the next designated target, while stuck in massive game-time dilation: https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Time_dilation https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Time_dilation
  - cbm-vic-20 3mo ago
    To expand on "time dilation": an EVE Online star system is served by a single compute node in their server farm at a time. Most systems are empty most of the the time, but some locations in the universe have much more player activity. Eve can dynamically move systems between server nodes, depending on player activity. Once the number grows into the thousands in a single system, the server CPU resources can't keep up. In the past (prior to 2011), this would make the game randomly unresponsive, or cause dropped connections. Time Dilation is the in-game solution for this: the simulation is throttled so the game runs slower for everybody, but doesn't kick people off. Last time I checked, time dilation could go as low as 10% normal time- meaning you can only fire at 10% normal rate, move 10% as fast, etc. It feels like your ship is flying through molasses- it's not fun, but is also more fair for all players. Alliances that know there will be a big fight can fill out a form with Eve Online to "schedule" the fight so that star system can be migrated to a larger server before the fight.
  - singron 3mo ago
    The system the fight is in experiences time-dilation, where everything slows down to 10% speed or even less. However, a few effects create a positive feedback loop that makes the problem worse. All the surrounding systems still run at full speed. You can travel large distances and still arrive soon enough to matter in the fight. You can also die, respawn in another system, rejoin the fight, and barely miss anything. The positions in the fight therefore move even slower than time-dilation since ships on both sides are replaced so quickly. Large groups have a massive advantage over small groups, so alliances are very large and join various alliances-of-alliances. The playerbase is often organized into only 2-3 major coalitions. At some points in history, nearly all the alliances have joined the same coalition, which leads to a strange pax-Romana called the "blue donut" (referring to all the ownable outer-systems being "blue" or allied with each other). Also, nearly every player in a large fight just follows simple orders. Orbit A and shoot B. There are just a few people calling the shots. Fights sometimes end just because people are bored, need to sleep, or go to work.
mhitza 3mo ago
It's a time sink, where much of the gameplay happens outside the game, or with tools outside the game, and at mid-high level it seems that social engineering your "friends" is the only true 7d-chess tactic. I'd really like to see a new game in this genre that does things better and leaves room for more ways of play. I've followed along this game more than the ~6 month I've played it (and EVE Echoes for a year) and all I can say is that playing as an explorer can be fun. Though so much time wasted scanning solar systems. I would be logging; on travel through wormholes that connect different solar systems, mapped out within a third-party site for the corporation I was part of, particularly to mark shortcuts to the major trade hubs. And in all this time I found only two Ghost Sites[0] (my favorite PvE mission type for exploration), which are hard trials for an explorer that test your situational awareness, maneuvering, puzzle solving skills, and strategy to make the most out of them. If I would have come across more often, I would probably be hooked on the game for longer. [0] https://www.eveonline.com/eve-academy/careers/explorer/ghost-sites https://www.eveonline.com/eve-academy/careers/explorer/ghost...
trashb 3mo ago
The new player experience is quite nice now a days. The PvE campaigns has also been improved over the last few years. To go deep into it I feel like social gameplay is required but there are plenty of opportunities to consume Eve Online in short bursts. Even when connected with a Corp or other player organizations like Red vs Blue. I found there is also a lot of mechanics that can be enjoyed solo or with light socialization. To anyone considering it: I would encourage you to jump in with a free account and try it out! and fly safe!
MrMember 3mo ago
I spent a lot of time playing Eve and it's without a doubt the greatest MMO I've ever played but I would never play it again. It will happily eat up as much time as you want to give it. I wouldn't be happy if I wasn't playing it for 8+ hours a day and I can't do that anymore.

Dzugaru 3mo ago

Depends on the way you play can be a time sink, or session-like game. It is extremely deep and complex to learn from scratch though. I've made some of the best friends playing it when I had time, friendship formed out of high stakes in this game (you regularly lose hours of grind or real money if you pay for the game - in seconds) and respect you have for each other skill.

weberer 3mo ago

It is definitely a social game. You're not going to have a good time if you try to play it solo. At least that was the case when I played it 10+ years ago. No clue if they changed it significantly since then.

Cthulhu_ 3mo ago
It hasn't, at best since then they've added more ship personalization options in the form of ship skins, and some gamification via events, daily login campaigns, and now seasonal-like content where they promote different activities. The current one started yesterday, you can track down and / or follow NPC haulers (or something like that; the event does not appear in sov null. I moved there a month ago after it seemed like that's where all the fun stuff happens)

colkassad 3mo ago

I bought the game when it first came out (2003? Boxed, from Target) and played with an online friend for a while. We mostly mined and we didn't really have a corporation, it was just the two of us. There wasn't much else to do at the time. At one point I fell asleep at my keyboard during a mining op. Gave up soon after. In 2015 a coworker talked me into trying it again. We joined a small corporation, swore fealty to a larger corp (Brave? Band of Brothers?) and moved to low-security space. We got involved in massive 3000+ ship battles, some of which made the news. These are not as fun as you would think. However, the most fun I had was joining 100+ ship bomber fleets that would warp in on unsuspecting mining operations and destroying billions of ISK (in game currency) worth of ships. We'd use Mumble for voice chat, which allows for a hierarchy of chat rooms, so that we could hear the fleet commander giving orders but he couldn't hear us. It was super organized and our fleet commander was really skilled. In the end I couldn't keep up with the time commitments. For the fun stuff, you had to be online at a certain time and there was a lot of prep involved (buying the proper ships which changed all the time, getting your ships to the right station, etc). I still consider it some of the best multiplayer experiences I've ever had though. Nothing beats warping in and seeing those huge mining ships and then hearing the fleet commander start issuing targeting orders. It would raise the hair on my arms.

wavemode 3mo ago
What is it about the giant battles that was not fun?
- jpfromlondon 3mo ago
  time dilation
- dxdm 3mo ago
  I was never part of one, but in case nobody with more experience chimes in: I'm assuming the large battles involve a lot of sitting around, pressing the occasional button to change to the next designated target, while stuck in massive game-time dilation: https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Time_dilation https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Time_dilation
- cbm-vic-20 3mo ago
  To expand on "time dilation": an EVE Online star system is served by a single compute node in their server farm at a time. Most systems are empty most of the the time, but some locations in the universe have much more player activity. Eve can dynamically move systems between server nodes, depending on player activity. Once the number grows into the thousands in a single system, the server CPU resources can't keep up. In the past (prior to 2011), this would make the game randomly unresponsive, or cause dropped connections. Time Dilation is the in-game solution for this: the simulation is throttled so the game runs slower for everybody, but doesn't kick people off. Last time I checked, time dilation could go as low as 10% normal time- meaning you can only fire at 10% normal rate, move 10% as fast, etc. It feels like your ship is flying through molasses- it's not fun, but is also more fair for all players. Alliances that know there will be a big fight can fill out a form with Eve Online to "schedule" the fight so that star system can be migrated to a larger server before the fight.
- singron 3mo ago
  The system the fight is in experiences time-dilation, where everything slows down to 10% speed or even less. However, a few effects create a positive feedback loop that makes the problem worse. All the surrounding systems still run at full speed. You can travel large distances and still arrive soon enough to matter in the fight. You can also die, respawn in another system, rejoin the fight, and barely miss anything. The positions in the fight therefore move even slower than time-dilation since ships on both sides are replaced so quickly. Large groups have a massive advantage over small groups, so alliances are very large and join various alliances-of-alliances. The playerbase is often organized into only 2-3 major coalitions. At some points in history, nearly all the alliances have joined the same coalition, which leads to a strange pax-Romana called the "blue donut" (referring to all the ownable outer-systems being "blue" or allied with each other). Also, nearly every player in a large fight just follows simple orders. Orbit A and shoot B. There are just a few people calling the shots. Fights sometimes end just because people are bored, need to sleep, or go to work.

mhitza 3mo ago

It's a time sink, where much of the gameplay happens outside the game, or with tools outside the game, and at mid-high level it seems that social engineering your "friends" is the only true 7d-chess tactic. I'd really like to see a new game in this genre that does things better and leaves room for more ways of play. I've followed along this game more than the ~6 month I've played it (and EVE Echoes for a year) and all I can say is that playing as an explorer can be fun. Though so much time wasted scanning solar systems. I would be logging; on travel through wormholes that connect different solar systems, mapped out within a third-party site for the corporation I was part of, particularly to mark shortcuts to the major trade hubs. And in all this time I found only two Ghost Sites[0] (my favorite PvE mission type for exploration), which are hard trials for an explorer that test your situational awareness, maneuvering, puzzle solving skills, and strategy to make the most out of them. If I would have come across more often, I would probably be hooked on the game for longer. [0] https://www.eveonline.com/eve-academy/careers/explorer/ghost-sites https://www.eveonline.com/eve-academy/careers/explorer/ghost...

trashb 3mo ago

The new player experience is quite nice now a days. The PvE campaigns has also been improved over the last few years. To go deep into it I feel like social gameplay is required but there are plenty of opportunities to consume Eve Online in short bursts. Even when connected with a Corp or other player organizations like Red vs Blue. I found there is also a lot of mechanics that can be enjoyed solo or with light socialization. To anyone considering it: I would encourage you to jump in with a free account and try it out! and fly safe!

MrMember 3mo ago

I spent a lot of time playing Eve and it's without a doubt the greatest MMO I've ever played but I would never play it again. It will happily eat up as much time as you want to give it. I wouldn't be happy if I wasn't playing it for 8+ hours a day and I can't do that anymore.