EVE Online?

[Moirae]

And that makes it probably one of the better MMOs out there. If you can get into it, of course.

Yeah, i have 14 days so I'm going to give it more of a shot.

I do have to say that I LOVE the avatar creation. Its by far the best avatar creation I've seen. I love how you can grab portions of the characters body and move it so that it looks the way you want it to look. I really hope they use this in the WoD MMO.

[Gravekeeper]

It's what you make of it.

Last week, the wormhole we claimed had a random exit into someone else's. We found their defences weak and we giggled like children as we scarpered with a fair chunk of their fleet. Full of fury, the owners returned in big warships, ready to hunt us down, but we'd scarpered back as soon as we saw them and celebrated the aftermath of the heist.

You're demonstrating its exact flaw though. The game doesn't give you anything to do or any real direction ( In fact the tutorial missions downright delude you as to the actual usefulness of a lot of things and much of the stuff in the tutorials that I was looking forward too turned out to not be part of the game at all or considered useless by the bulk of players ). Its 100% sandbox, so the fun is only there if you make it and get lucky, but the barrier to entry ( and penalty for failure ) of that particular brand of fun is very very steep. You can't really just hop on and goober around for some quick fun. Because there's nothing to do by yourself ( There are missions and things, but those are incredibly monotonous/repetative once you've seen all 5 or 6 variations ), or even with just a couple friends and finding things to do often requires ridiculous amounts of travel time.

Basically you need to join a large corp or be the kind of person that is entertained by being a total asshole to everyone. There's no inbetween. Which is problem number 1. Problem 2 is the entire vibe of the game is "TRUST NO ONE EVER" and the game is intentionally designed to allow as many methods of other people fucking you over as possible. So its rather difficult to form social connections as you'll inevitably be blown out of the sky by someone backstabbing you. Flushing weeks worth of your work down the drain in the process.

Nevermind the people that like to exploit newbie naiveness ( can flipping being a prime example ) just so they can blow an Tech 1 Frigate out of the sky with their Tengu. Hell, I remember one guy in a tech 2 recon that just sat cloaked in asteroid fields for hours in the newbie areas trying to trick newbs into flagging. He blew a friend of mine out of the sky who I had just introduced to the game and who had just gotten his first real mining ship up and running. Needless to say he didn't keep playing for much longer.

The only people I knew in EVE were people I know outside of EVE first. Other CSers, and friends of mine I managed to convince to play it with me. I never expanded that social circle because when I tried I got backstabbed or screwed over, but joining a corp almost always meant taking on the risk of someone else's PvP war.

Thus EVE's problem: Barrier to entry. Both on its difficulty curve and its social circles. It doesn't really have a spectrum or gradual curve. Its all or nothing. Which is a shame, as the game has some interesting ideas, metrics and possibilities. But the developers insistence on keeping it so unforgiving keeps a lot of people away me thinks.

[Moirae]

Ok well, I can't play this game. Not because of PvP (which I don't like but will find livable if I can do something else too), but because of the font size. I can't read ANYTHING. And I have it set to the lowest resolution possible. Which is something I shouldn't have to do.

I need to be able to increase the font size to something readable for me. The problem is that my car accident in 2004 (the one I've talked about on here alot) has caused an eye wobble that makes its difficult to focus. No, you can't see it if you're looking at me, but I find it incredibly noticeable when trying to read small font sizes. Actually, its quite aggravating. I used to love to read but now find it much more difficult. Usually I'm fine with computer screens because I can increase the size of the fonts to something my eyes can deal with, but the only place you can change the size of the font in this game is in the chat, even when you select the larger font size in the game menu (selecting any other size changes nothing).

I really want to like this game, and there are certain things I am enjoying about it. But I can't play it because of that small thing thats actually a big thing for me.

[kpzra]

I found it handy to have clones in several systems if I wanted to explore. It saves time in the long run, I did trips that took hours. I'd keep spare mining ships and a spare freighter in a system that had ore I needed regularly since we'd made ships/toprs/missiles/...

[Gravekeeper]

Ok well, I can't play this game. Not because of PvP (which I don't like but will find livable if I can do something else too), but because of the font size. I can't read ANYTHING. And I have it set to the lowest resolution possible. Which is something I shouldn't have to do.

Ah yes, that too. It would give me a headache after a while. There's no way to really increase it without ruining the GUI ( per the developers ). Because the GUI uses text buttons.

I found it handy to have clones in several systems if I wanted to explore. It saves time in the long run, I did trips that took hours. I'd keep spare mining ships and a spare freighter in a system that had ore I needed regularly since we'd made ships/toprs/missiles/...

This isn't handy for a new player though as your best implants and thus best training speed will be on your main clone. Swapping to another clone means slowing your training speed, and you need training speed out of the gate. Or you'll end up spending even more time sitting around waiting for skills to finish before you can do something new. Which is already a problem as is.

[kpzra]

Yeah, Alice was at the point when I stopped playing that most of her training is a month+ per skill. I forgot about implants, I had the same in them all since we made them.

[Rapscallion]

Thus EVE's problem: Barrier to entry. Both on its difficulty curve and its social circles. It doesn't really have a spectrum or gradual curve. Its all or nothing. Which is a shame, as the game has some interesting ideas, metrics and possibilities. But the developers insistence on keeping it so unforgiving keeps a lot of people away me thinks.

I think I fell on my feet in that case as there were a group of four of us who know each other as mates and we joined with someone else who we know in his corp, and it's a very friendly place. Doesn't stop us taking or receiving licks, mind. We also throw people out who act like that jerk who smacked your friend when mining. A very active 'no piracy' rule.

In a way, they're keeping it very lifelike with a safety net, but even safe space is only less dangerous. I have to agree that a better safe system for new players would encourage more people to stay, but it's aimed at a different demographic I guess. It would change the playerbase. Whether that's for the better or not is another matter.

Ok well, I can't play this game. Not because of PvP (which I don't like but will find livable if I can do something else too), but because of the font size. I can't read ANYTHING. And I have it set to the lowest resolution possible. Which is something I shouldn't have to do.

Damn, sorry to hear about that.

Rapscallion

[Moirae]

Me too Rapscallion. It actually looks like a fascinating game now that they've done some changes. The problem is that I had a massive headache last night after playing it from trying to read the text. An hour off the game and my head was perfectly fine again, so I'm pretty sure that was the problem.

There are thats that I hope they bring over from Eve to the WoD though. Like character creation, and being able to go anywhere you want. I LOVE the style of the game, its incredibly beautiful, and the idea of being able to mine and stuff was quite fun.

But if the text is that small, I won't be able to play it. Actually, that would be the one thing about the WoD that would seriously tick me off. If the only reason I couldn't play it is because you can't change the text size.

[Kaylyn]

I just randomly had a GM contact me, welcoming me to EVE and asking me a few questions about what I'd tried out in game and any problems I might have had. I've never had a GM contact me in any game before. Surprised me, thought maybe I was about to be scammed, but wasn't asked anything personal. I assume yellow text means a real GM, then.

[Rapscallion]

I think they have CCP in front of their names? Good to know they're taking that level of interest.

Rapscallion

[Kaylyn]

He didn't have CCP in front of his name. Just GM something-or-other. His chat text was yellow whereas most are white, unless you can change your text color in game. I was wary and waiting for suspicious questions just in case, but he just asked about my game experience and then sent me an EVEmail about new pilot info. So I guess it was on the up-and-up.

[Gravekeeper]

He didn't have CCP in front of his name. Just GM something-or-other. His chat text was yellow whereas most are white, unless you can change your text color in game.

There's 1-2 who monitor the newbie chat channel ( which you join automatically at first ). They're not full on GMs me thinks, more like PR ambassadors. They have the text you speak of. CCP have really been trying to ease the trauma of the new player experience as they don't have a ton of sub growth I imagine. So they have 1-2 people on during prime time that try and help as much as they can.

In a way, they're keeping it very lifelike with a safety net, but even safe space is only less dangerous. I have to agree that a better safe system for new players would encourage more people to stay, but it's aimed at a different demographic I guess. It would change the playerbase. Whether that's for the better or not is another matter.

Yeah, that was essentially the problem. There's no actual safe places once you leave the newb CORP. Its not even losing a ship either, its the being podded and losing your implants that is the problem. If death was just your ship, I'd fly disposably and maybe risk it. But my implants are worth far far too much to risk, and training time too important at first to risk the implants.

I've lost ships to server lag, so I hold no illusions that I'd be able to warp out in my pod reliable. -.-

[AccountingDrone]

Whew. That game requires alot more thinking and learning than any other MMO I've played in years. Its a much better game than it was even a year ago. At least I have an avatar now.

Ah yes, that too. It would give me a headache after a while. There's no way to really increase it without ruining the GUI ( per the developers ). Because the GUI uses text buttons.




This isn't handy for a new player though as your best implants and thus best training speed will be on your main clone. Swapping to another clone means slowing your training speed, and you need training speed out of the gate. Or you'll end up spending even more time sitting around waiting for skills to finish before you can do something new. Which is already a problem as is.

They are supposedly changing the font to make it easier to read, but I noticed they didn't change font size. Though you might consider contacting CCP and mentioning that you have vision issues, and to make an accessibility version where you could change the font size a lot. They may consider it.

Ill get to cloning and implants in a bit =)

Yeah, Alice was at the point when I stopped playing that most of her training is a month+ per skill. I forgot about implants, I had the same in them all since we made them.

I think I fell on my feet in that case as there were a group of four of us who know each other as mates and we joined with someone else who we know in his corp, and it's a very friendly place. Doesn't stop us taking or receiving licks, mind. We also throw people out who act like that jerk who smacked your friend when mining. A very active 'no piracy' rule.

In a way, they're keeping it very lifelike with a safety net, but even safe space is only less dangerous. I have to agree that a better safe system for new players would encourage more people to stay, but it's aimed at a different demographic I guess. It would change the playerbase. Whether that's for the better or not is another matter.

Rapscallion

I originally started playing because I had a friend who played, and then I found out that there was a group from a different message board that were going to start playing, so we all started up and got into a corp together, and that was about 3 years ago. Now there are none of my group still active, though I have wended my way into an excellent corp, and have contacts in a number of other corps in the form of people I have mentored in mining and indy skills over the past couple years. I make it a habit to try and help newbies I find lost in asteroid fields struggling to get started mining. I have spent probably something on the order of 5 or 6 billion ISK on books and assorted mining ships that got passed out to trainees. [we provided books and ships, and they mined ore for the corp, though the ISK was in general generated by my personal mining ops.]

Yeah, that was essentially the problem. There's no actual safe places once you leave the newb CORP. Its not even losing a ship either, its the being podded and losing your implants that is the problem. If death was just your ship, I'd fly disposably and maybe risk it. But my implants are worth far far too much to risk, and training time too important at first to risk the implants.

I've lost ships to server lag, so I hold no illusions that I'd be able to warp out in my pod reliable. -.-

Even in the newbie corp it isn't actually safe - part of my game-peeve is that if you take the game as an analog of the real world, thievery and murder is illegal. So then by that can flipping is thievery, and illegal but the Concord does nothing except declare that you can shoot the person flipping your can - by rights Concord should show up and blast the person stealing your can but they don't. And it should be illegal for you to shoot the person stealing from your jet can as that is murder. It would be illegal for you to just roll up and shoot someone, Concord comes and blows you out of the sky. It doesn't make sense.

As to implants, and the cost of living ... I have had a full set of Snake implants in and been blown out of the sky by a player. That is more ISK than many pilots make in half a year in high sec, thems the breaks of living in null. It is all electrons, and i can earn more =) Sure it may be annoying to train without implants, but exploring is a blast, and if you think it is worth slowing down training to have fun exploring, then do it! [and I am to where most anything I need to train is a month or more, and none of my toons has implants actually. I have a mining command clone that has a full set optimized for mining, and she lives in Clarelam, hi sec...]

[Moirae]

lol. That so fits.

About the font, don't worry, I've already emailed them.

[Kaylyn]

LOL @ the graph. As it implies Pirates of the Burning Seas is a popular MMO. :P