Why EVE Online just..works.

I've been playing EVE for a little over 2 years. It is the only game I have consistently played during this time (I have a Guild Wars account, played World of Warcraft for a while, Star Wars is cool...Aion wasn't really.). I started wondering why I like EVE so much. Why it appeals to me, and why it could appeal to you.

First on the list are the spaceships. There are other space based game's, like Star Trek, out there. This isn't to say that EVE does ships in the most effective manner possible, but the delivery of the spaceship experience is what is important. The most important part of the spaceships is the design. Devlopers know that you can't just make ships that look like every Star Wars/Trek franchise. They have to be totally unique to aspire to that personal experience.

What you see here are two simple instances of space ship combat. The top image is the bottom part of a ship known as the Harbinger. Bottom image is the Armegeddon (quite a few of them). Cool right? That's nothing. These are personal mission running screenshots. Sure, the design of the ships is cool, flying around doin spaceshipey type shooting stuff. Feast your eyes, potential eggers, on a shot from EVE's website...

Oh my. High Definition glory. Screenshots like this make me happy. Do you know why? Because you're seeing a huge fleet of simply massive ships. Notice the scale, also. You have Battleship class on the right side, then you have Titan class ships on the left. Suffice to say (and probably needless...), those Titan class ships are huge. They dwarf Battleships like a Blue Whale dwarfs a Swordfish. It's almost inspiring really, to see these ships arrayed in such a manner. I'll let you know why in a few moments. Sticking with design for the moment though: The Amarrian Titan in that picture does indeed resemble a giant buttplug. No worries, everyone is aware of this. Probably the reason it's the biggest Amarrian ship by leaps and bounds. Who would want to fly around a ship that reminds everyone of a tampon? I would, dammit. Tampon my ship up, because a Titan on the field means business. Anyway, every ship (of a different name, obviously) in that fleet looks different. Sure, they have common traits, but only ships of similar races. The point remains, you can't pick out a ship in that fleet and say: "Oh, yeah...I've seen that in [insert game here]."

The second item that makes EVE so unique is the until recently avatar-less play style. EVE has had races in EVE, and you could pick your face and features etc...but avatars as a first person were non-existent. We didn't (read: don't) need them, because according to in game canon our mode of transportation/fighting/whatever was all ship based. That, and we're called eggers or pod pilots or Capsuleers for a reason. We, for a lack of better words, didn't need bodies. Our bodies are our ships. This is changing of course, both with the expansion titled Incarna. This expansion allowed us to operate in our human bodies. It's largely useless, simply because everything can be done either in a body or just as easily in a ship. Of course, CCP is slated to add functionality to the Incarna expansion. This is especially true with the upcoming release of Dust 514. Interaction etc. Again, in a sense of irony, the video's show interaction more importantly coming from that dreadnought class ship than from the cat talking to the squad leader...but whatever. I'm excited for D514, since I'm a fan of first-person shooters in general. Back to the point, EVE is still a largely avatar-less game. We pilots don't need them. One could call our ships our avatar, but since you can go from ship to ship...I don't consider this a valid definition. An avatar is something you create and attach too as...well..you. This wasn't possible until recently. Therefore, EVE has been (and always will be) built around ships and defeats the purpose of avatars. I like that.

My final point in what has become a wall of text, is roles within EVE. In traditional MMO's, you create your avatar and at that same time you also choose your role. This role defines the game for you. Unless you create a new avatar, you'll be stuck in the limited roles that your character is designed to play. In World of Warcraft, a druid can tank, heal and dps. It's a jack-of-all-trades type class. A priest on the other hand, can only heal/shield and dps. A Paladin is like the druid, but a Warlock is not. They can only dps. So, if you're lucky enough to choose a hybrid class like the Paladin or Druid, you have some options. Unfortunately, being a hybrid class means you are not exceptional at any one thing. Whereas a Hunter, Rogue, Warlock, Mage, can all do exceptional dps. Then again, they can only fill one roll. I'm rambling, and I'm sure you see my point. No matter how you slice the pie (and this is true for most, if not all, MMO's) you have to make sacrifices. Not so, in EVE. Read on.

In EVE there are no defined roles in what you CAN do, but what you are capable of doing at that time. In essence, one can fly a "healing" ship, say a Guardian...and just as easily fly a Drake; a heavy tanking ship. The only sacrifice is time. No switching characters, leveling new characters or having to mess with those abominations called alts. One can be a fast and pestering frigate and then switch to a heavy dpsing Battlecruiser. It is advantageous to have alts of course. One of the most famous characters in the game named Chribba has more than 10 alts. None of which he pays for. Why? Because he wants to mine in all 4 racial Titans at a time. In this case two, but you can see my point.

It's a choice, and in Chribba's case he can't mine in two Titans at once, so he made two alts to fly them. So you choose what you want to do, and move from there. The race selection is irrelevant if only for looks. So right now, for example I'm training for freighters. Doesn't take long since I'm already along in training...but I am a combat pilot for Amarrian ships through and through. The fact (assuming I can afford it) that I can haul just as easily fly my industrial command ship known as an Orca (supports smaller mining ships etc.) as I can a freighter to a battleship is just awesome. Further, it's not that I can just get these ships into space, it's that I can fly every role I train for effectively. I'm not diminished in any way. I have an industry alt, because I want to be able to mine with the alt and use my main character's Orca ability. Woot!

This became somewhat of a long post...but it hopefully communicates that EVE is certainly worth a try, and will be enjoyed by those who enjoy spaceships. It's designed with the player in mind, and I only scratched the surface. For example, every single part of those ships that were in every screenshot (save the second one, those are NPC's) were built entirely by players, and sold on the market or in their own Alliance/corp construction stations. My mind is mildly blown when I look at that third screenshot with all those ships, and to think that they all were built by players. Every one. That's alot of dough.

Get into EVE Online, get past that learning curve, and rule a universe.