After resubbing to Final Fantasy 11 in September (and enjoying it immensely) now I did it with Eve-Online too.
About a week ago I followed some links, and apparently after years of terrible direction CCP has a new leader, a woman, and she’s doing lots of things right (apparently). The first is that they update the game every 6 weeks, with fast but ambitious expansions. The second is that they do not focus on elitist aspects, but seem to be improving the whole breadth of the game. For the December expansion there are cool things like a complete UI redesign, an improved graphic engine, new starmap and more. So cool stuff for everyone and more than fluff. They are also redesigning for the millionth time the noob experience.
So I got the idea that finally the game has a direction, instead of blowing budget and time in the vaporware of the last many years: walk in stations, White Wolf MMO, crap first person shooter, and so on. CCP has usually been pie in the sky mixed with failures at the basics.
I planned that when the December expansion would hit I’d give the game a chance, then probably be pissed as something, write some forum post with my complaints and be done for a few more years.
That’s a great video that makes it tempting for me to resub as well. Then I remember I already have a job. One that pays me. I don’t need a second one. :/
EVE is one of the few MMOs that has a real tangible reason to be part of a guild, other than a shared chat channel and some organization. But the one thing I really wish they had is multi-crewed ships. I feel like that’s a missed opportunity for group cooperative gameplay. If I were to redesign EVE from the ground up, solo pilots would fly the smaller craft while the capital ships required multiple crew. Just have 2-3 friends/guildies to play with? Then get a Corvette or a Frigate. Your mega-guild just build a mothership or a titan? Well, all hands on deck! Artemis Bridge Simulator meets MMO.
This has always been one of those games I’ve been torn about. I know if I took the time to actually get into it, I’d probably be really hooked, and that’s exactly the problem, it’s a weird loop…
It’s going to take too much time to actually get up to speed.
Once I do get up to speed, it’s probably going to eat up too much of my life.
For those 2 reasons I’ve never played it, even though I’ve been really close to pulling the trigger a couple of times. That video is what I miss about MMOs dating back to original EQ, doing something that actually requires coordination, and the payoff that comes with pulling it off.
Unfortunately, what they neglect to show is the thousands of hours of dull as dishwater tasks those players had to complete on either side of the cool space battles.
Proof I was there, 10 years ago (actually 11, but I lost the beta screenshots, I think).
(the screenshot is dated 9 years old, a few days ago, but you can see I was in a corporation for almost 11 months. I think I subscribed for the first time in late December 2004, after being in beta from August 2003 to around May 2004. Then the game launched, but it was so badly broken that I waited until the end of the year to actually give it a chance.)
Then it means an year an half passed before I gave it a chance. It’s plausible. I got the beta mail in late August, but beta was down. It came up around the middle of September but then went down again two weeks later, to not ever come up again in a decent state… It was offline while devs rewrote the game (the September beta had collision and a manual docking system. They never came back). Every time the beta came up it was more broken than the previous phase, and when the game launched it was in a terrible state.
I remember that the last thing I did was attacking someone in safe space. The game was so horribly laggy that I was able to warp away, and then my ship exploded just before the end of the warp because for the server it never actually happened.
Anyway, after a couple of hours with the new game I can say it hasn’t aged /at all/. The interface is improved and very sleek. Graphics are still top notch. If you told me that this was a brand new game coming out today I’d have no reason not to believe it, beside that a new game just can’t have this kind of depth.
The only “bad” and archaic thing is the whole animation system. The collision still isn’t in the game. Ships still spin wildly if they bump into something or they reach some waypoint. There’s still rubberbanding that is not due to “lag” but due to the fact the client and server only have a very vague idea of where the ship is. This is why “manual WASD control” in the test server is a borked feature: Eve Online can’t really simulate space flight AT ALL. It doesn’t keep track of things and game mechanics are not based on accurate positioning. They should rewrite this whole layer but it’s probably buried too deep into their tech. It’s really the only thing that keeps Eve from stepping on the next level.
Anyway, the game looks outstanding even before the UI and graphic overhaul land next month:
You could think it’s a painted image, but that’s a 3D model I can spin. There’s a full 3D ship browser right in the game, so you can look at all the pretty ships.
Man I remember my days in EVE, played back in 2004-06. Never got into the sovreigninty stuff, mostly was a mission runner/ corp suport guy. Basically I was always ready to help out and lend an extra gun to any corp mate that needed it. Mining, and need someone to keep off rats? I’ll be there in 5. Need a hauler for your ore? Give me 30. Tremendous memories, loved the game for what it was, and I always get that slight tingle to go back.
I just don’t have the time. My gaming time is too spotty and irregular (maybe 5 hours a week, uneven times) to commit to any corp type stuff. But damn if that vid doesn’t make me want to try.
