EVE Online

[eot]

  On 1/28/2013 at 1:20 PM, brkl said:

How can you make a space game and have people look at a tiny ship from a distance instead of placing people in the cockpit.

Same reason why you make XCOM even though there are squad based shooters, or why you make Football Manager when there's FIFA. Not that I wouldn't like to fly around a small ship in first person some day, but it's not what the game is about. It makes for a boring game to watch on youtube but it still interesting to play. There are some good videos though, like this one

[brkl]

My experience is not from Youtube, it's from trying it and being disappointed by how dull and removed it is. I don't see how your XCOM comparison is apt. It's not that, it's WoW in space.

[eot]

My point was that the direct interaction with the game isn't what's interesting about it. In EVE's case it's the context (social, political, monetary, strategical) that makes it interesting. When you start the game you unfortunately don't have any of that.

[youmeyou]

I can't imagine a game with a steeper learning curver than EVE, where the two main guilds own and take a cut from every minable planet in the universe.

It's so fascinating that this can even be a thing. Reminds me of high level Day Z players turning the game into a meta game for post-apocalyptic society. This is like that but for how politics might play out in space, which is why its so very interesting to read about.

[Dewar]

  On 1/29/2013 at 2:23 PM, brkl said:

My experience is not from Youtube, it's from trying it and being disappointed by how dull and removed it is. I don't see how your XCOM comparison is apt. It's not that, it's WoW in space.

I'd compare it to FTL rather than XCOM myself. But FTL, being a single player experience designed to throw a lot of situations at you quickly and be over in a couple of hours, is a lot more action packed than EVE.Both game designs have their place. Sometimes I don't want to deal with the twitch gameplay of actually flying a ship. I'd love a game like X3 that extracts the flying itself out of the game and lets you adventure around without having to worry about percise joystick controls. Keep in mind, that I loved X-Wing and like those types of games too, there's just room for both.

[brkl]

Oh, I don't need precise controls. I just need to be placed in the cockpit, where I can experience marvel of space shielded only by some bits of metal and glass. You wouldn't have to change a whole lot to appeal to me. It would actually be great to opetate an autopilot only ship and witness it manouver in planetary orbits with Newtonian physics. But I need to be inside the ship, see the cockpit, witness approaching dots morph into the immense terrors that gas giants are, see from inside as the autopilot synchronises rotation with a space station and docks with it. There are simple delights assosiated with space games that even the original Elite managed to pull off. It just seems like such a missed opportunity

[Dewar]

Interesting, I enjoy the external views in EVE to internal ones for things like that, it reminds me of Star Trek: TNG.

[Squid Division]

The Killstar and I recently resubbed to EVE, any Thumbs still play?

[Scrobbs]

I msg'd you last night as you popped up on steam playing eve.

 

Been toying with a re-sub.

[Scrobbs]

It is not very much like WoW, beyond the MMO moniker I don't think. The permanent loss of gear for one thing makes it far more heart racing. There aren't many games that make you sweat and shake so much after a PvP engagement - more so if you happen to have a full set of snake implants.

 

As for the cockpit business, the ships don't have a 'cockpit' in any real sense. The lore goes that you are in your 'egg' that is buried deep within the ship, and it interfaces directly with your brain, so there are no windows to look out of etc.

[BenLuke]

[Merus]

Yeah, it really is nothing like WoW - the structure of the game is very different, and a great deal of your ability is constrained by how much you can afford to lose. It's entirely possible to join a big corp as soon as you finish the tutorial, have them send you some startup capital, get out into their territory and join the 'real' game. Player advancement is explicitly a function of time, and it runs even when offline.

 

Like DayZ, though, the appropriate mindset to approach other players is 'other bastards out to ruin your day' so even though I understand where the fun is, it's ruined by all those bastards out to ruin my day.

[BenLuke]

It's certainly born out of a lot the same network limitation that affected WoW and every MMO up until very recently, but other then that yeah  they're very different even on a basic navigation/combat level. Which makes parts of the game that are similar to WoW like the gear-elitism in the Incursions (Raids, basically.) communities all the more weird.
 
Also, the fun is being the bastards out to ruin people's days, preferably with other like-minded bastards. 

[YoThatLimp]

  On 2/24/2013 at 7:37 PM, Scrobbs said:

I msg'd you last night as you popped up on steam playing eve.

 

Been toying with a re-sub.

 

I have such an itch to re-sub up every 4 months or so.I have never was too deep, but as a newb I saved up and I built my first real mining barge and lost it in the same day in high sec to pirates. Broke my god damned heart. 

[Copy Paper]

Alright, time for a big Eve Online rant.

 

I had an incredible summer being apart of the TEST vs. CFC war. I flew ewar, interdictors, and small ships into thousand plus space pilot battles. In classic Eve fashion, the summer war as far as I could tell hinged on the defection of a logistics guy hauling a bunch of needed ships and supplies for the alliance, not on some major battle, but others may remember it differently.

 

I was in a corp that encouraged PvP and small gang hunting, and I experienced SO MANY incredible elements of that game that most players never get to see. There are player built space highways, stations, logistics companies, services that are basically run by people for other alliance members. Fighting a war has more to do with diplomacy and opportunism than alliance strength. Even watching how people lure in ships or run caravans was fascinating, like watching a huge Arma operation. Eve allows for so much player created content.

 

Before I joined that corp and was a part of the war, I also saw what the game is like for most players... Awful missions, sterile hisec areas, and very little dynamic gameplay. I know they've improved it some, but the early game for Eve is terrible. Frankly, most players wind up playing a terrible version of the game.

 

I do not have the time to go back to Eve Online, and I don't anticipate wanting to throw that many hours at a game like that ever again. I also do not want to feel obligated to log on for some event. THAT SAID---- If you want to play Eve Online, join a corp, attached to a big alliance, in the middle of some conflict, war, or exciting event. The game has so much depth but the vast majority of it is centered around player corporations and alliances. If you hang around and fly hisec missions, or mine in hisec, you are not experiencing the awesome game that is there, you are seeing a pale sad version of it. This is my opinion, I'm biased because I had an awesome time in null, but it really is true. If you want to try eve, volunteer to fly a little scout ship for a big alliance and get flung into huge battles. It's worth it.

 

That's all I've got

[eot]

Great video from Monday's fight:

[Reyturner]

Happy Annual Something Interesting Happened in EVE Day!

See y'all next year

[BenLuke]

Another pretty video.

[Copy Paper]

preeeeetttyyyy. We always pitied titan pilots (so much risk, and you mostly just transport people around) so I'm happy they got it out of their system.

[Sno]

Over at GB, Klepek's done a pretty great write up on the whole thing.

[BenLuke]

The cool thing I've discovered about actually playing Eve instead of just reading about is the smaller stories that lack the epic scale of a massive titan battle but are often just as interesting

 

So, I'm a member of the GiantBomb.com community corp, Kite Co. Space Trucking, which lives in Syndicate, a nullsec region with all the mechanics of normal zero security space apart from the SOV ("Sovereignty") territory control system., which means the stations are controlled by NPC factions and anyone can dock in them, and "owning" a system is a matter of actively living in your space and driving off everyone else, instead of bespoke game mechanics. 

 

At the time I joined early last summer we were still living in highsec but soon began laying plans for getting set up in null. The pocket of systems we were scoping put was home to a relatively inactive German-speaking alliance, who we offered "blue" (friendly) status before we started moving in. They declined but we moved in anyway, which set off small timezone guerrilla war h they'd gank someone of us in the US afternoon before most of us were on, and we'd dunk them as more people started logging in  during US prime time. The Germans usually destroyed more of our ships then we kill of theirs, but since they typically flew more expensive ships we were killing the isk war.

 

This stalemate remained the status quo for several weeks, until Kite Co joined Brave Collective, the alliance of Brave Newbies Inc., a super relaxed and fun-oriented new player focused group founded as a result of this post on the Eve subreddit, who we felt were generally a good fit for our culture and play style. With their help we bashed all of their POSes (Player Owned Structures, essentially a space station with a forcefield orbiting a moon which are used for manufacturing, mining resources and as a place to hide form hostiles.) into reinforced, which is a grace period for the structure's owner to organize a defense, then when they became vulnerable again brought in an even larger fleet to burn it all to the ground:

 

 

 

Since then we've pretty much driven "ze Germans" off completely, leaving us with a nice safe little corner to make money off and the rest of the Syndicate region to roam for pvp action. If any thumb that's also a Giant Bomb duder is interested in trying Eve you should totally join up with Kite Co.

 

/rant

 

Eve is a crazy game, guys!

[Dewar]

The occasional Kite Co. talk has me interested in coming back into EVE again. Last I played I was mostly a carebear with some wormholing experience here and there.

[BenLuke]

Eve is all about the people you play it with, having friends to talk with is vital if you want to have fun playing, even/especially when you're off doing your own thing somewhere. Kite Co's a cool group of people to hang out with, assuming you can build up a tolerance to the constant anime and Dark Souls conversations.

[BenLuke]

http://themittani.com/news/breaking-super-capital-fight-daras
 

  Quote

"PL LIED 
SUPERS DIED 
GOON CRIED
GRR"

- Blawrf McTaggart, 2014