Another WoW'er interested in coming to EVE

I tried EVE 4 years ago for about 2 days, didn't feel like learning the more complicated nature of the game, and defaulted to WOW due to its new player appeal. So ya I'm bored and frustrated as well with WOW, and have been hearing whispers of EVE talk for a while now. I like what I hear, but just want some opinion from people that have converted from WOW, or anyone for that matter.

PVP
I enjoy pvp. I of course enjoyed arenas and the gank appeal of boxing in open pvp in WOW. I have read what you guys have posted about the dangers and allure of EVE pvp, and I like the sound of it. I'm sick of the "cater to crybaby noobs / everybody wins" attitude of WOW pvp.

For those who enjoy pvp, how as EVE held up compared to WOW or any similar mmo? I have dreams of running a Gank squad like anyone else. Are there ways to do this anywhere... and make any sort of profit? I also love the idea of losing real materials if you fail, instead of just a repair bill.

RL Cash Market
The process of buying / selling game time for ingame credits has been touched on. How easy is this for boxers? Any benefit for multiple accounts? Is it realistic to think I could set up a mining/ "playing the ah" operation down the road and be able to fund my subscription fees? Is there any way to take credits back out of the game for RL cash? or is it a 1way street? I know Souca mentioned a combination of training skills on dormant accounts, and something about making enough to cover subscription costs... is this what you can do?

Lasting Appeal
What do you guys do once you have these maxed out, "best in slot" mining Rigs. Just earn mad Isk? Sell for more ships/weapons? Start an army? What is the final Goal I can expect to work towards(and does it tie in to my PVP goals)?
Are you guys running a boxer "Guild" or Corp at all? or is everyone just spread out playing alone.

What is the expected playtime investment before I can effectively "achieve" any of this. Do i have to grind for 10 months before I am a noticable/established player?

I love the idea of playing less RL hours, training while offline, running a gank fleet around the universe, and not paying RL cash for gametime. As much info about those issues or anything else you think I would enjoy and would sway me to come play with you guys is GREATLY appreciated. Any additional comments for a newb like me would be greatly appreciated as well.


Thanks!
Asonimie

MOST IMPORTANT PART: You must find yourself a player corporation that you enjoy, without that eve is simply not worth playing (like most MMOs).

Another hint: as mentioned in some other posts the cheapest way to get started is to get someone to refer you. This will give you a 21 day trial. Then convince them to give you ~300m isk to buy a PLEX card (30d ingame GTC type deal) on the market (30 days game time). This really won't be a loss for them, since when you activate the PLEX they will get 30 days free with the refer a buddy (may have to petition a GM if it doesn't get credited, sometimes it bugs). Now you have a fully functional account with 51 days to play and no one has spent a dime.

Background: I've played eve on and off since release, my top char has nearly 100m sp with several alts above 80. I've participated in most aspects of the game: alliance warfare, empire wars, mission running, mining, station spinning (where most of my time was spent).

PVP: while it is possible to run a multiboxed gank squad the logistics of it are somewhat frustrating. All targeting is done with the mouse on each client - no real way to assist (unless you solely use drones, then you are stuck static camping). With mouse broadcasting and fielding similar ships with similar sensor strengths you might be able to get around this - however any target disruption done by the enemy will greatly hurt you here. In practice with large ships (and large buffers so you have time to react) you can field 3, possibly 4 accounts before your ability to pilot becomes greatly diminished. Soloing has become less and less viable over the years - it is just too easy for most people to escape from a solo pvper - recently CCP have undone some of the changes that make it easier to get away, solo is still pretty frustrating though.


When you are first starting out in EVE that is really the best and most fun time to pvp. Your skills will be lacking compared to nearly everyone else you are fighting but setups will be dirt cheap, clones dirt cheap and very little consequence to dying other than a bruised ego. As of late there has been a resurgence of 'bad' players fielding expensive setups and losing them in humorous ways - if you could find one of these people and loot them it would go a long way toward sustaining your pvp adventures (and possibly paying for your accounts depending on how dumb they are) for months to come.

RL cash market: you can 'buy' ISK legally by buying GTCs and selling them to players through CCP sanctioned means. To act strictly within the EULA this would be a one way trip only, as CCP no longer allows 'reselling' of GTC codes. 'Ghost training' on inactive accounts was grossly nerfed a few months ago, now your training will lapse 3 days after your account expires. If you have the patience and some seed money playing the market is a very viable way to make ISK - I never had the patience for it though. A month of game time costs around 300m ISK. Mining with a nicely trained character (with current prices) you can make 10m/hr in high security space. Mission running at a higher level can pull between 10(common values 10-30) to 50-60m/hr. If I get a good run of missions dual accounting I can pull 100m/hr - probably somewhat misleading though as I'll cherry pick only the high paying missions and logoff if I don't have any luck getting them.

Lasting Appeal: As a bitter jaded vet I still keep my accounts going for some reason, although I don't log in very much anymore. I find myself less and less willing to pvp on my high sp 'epeen' alts as to not lose training time (by jumping out of +5 implants) - If I do pvp it's generally on a 45m alt these days.
The great appeal of eve is that you don't need to play to advance your character (other than generating currency to buy ships with - many corps will pay for ship hulls though, especially at a lower level).

I'm sure some people will disagree with my take on EVE, but let me say again. BITTER JADED VET, I know lots of people who love eve (although not too many that played from 03-05 or so) and lots of people who love to hate it. This is just my take on it. If you want any more info from me feel free to ask.

edit: bitter vet footnote, my oldest char turned 6 years old today.

PVP - Not my thing, no real experience here.

RL Market - As Stoat said, you can pay money in but cant (legally) get money back out. If you become successful through some means you could theoretically pay for your account(s). This is not likely if youre primary focus is going to be pvp.

Lasting Appeal - Ive played on and off since 06. The game has lasting appeal in that the end game is more open. The pvp ethic resounds through all aspects (whether youre competing over roids with other miners, competing over sales on the market, stealing rigs from peoples missions, or youre active in PVP). One thing I find neat about the game is that there isnt a silly mechanic like "bind on pickup" like in WoW. If I want to hide in a belt and mine for 5 years and then all of the sudden I want to buy a tricked out battleship with my hard earned money, I can do it (and fly it, assuming I have the appropriate skills). This applies to ships, and items too. Most items have "officer" and "pirate" versions which are better in some way. Some of these have exorbitant prices. This is like me going into the AH and buying T8 set pieces in WoW, etc. I find that appealing.

One word on the whole real time training. If youre the type of person who likes to blitz a game its a downer because you cant really move faster than other people (beyond messing with your attributes)... If youre the type of person who likes to take things easy, or just isnt on all the time, its an awesome system because youre guys are always ticking away. Its kind of addictive actually. Stupid game.

Anyways.

Just some thoughts.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 'asonimie',index.php?page=Thread&postID=200584#pos t200584

I tried EVE 4 years ago for about 2 days, didn't feel like learning the more complicated nature of the game, and defaulted to WOW due to its new player appeal. So ya I'm bored and frustrated as well with WOW, and have been hearing whispers of EVE talk for a while now. I like what I hear, but just want some opinion from people that have converted from WOW, or anyone for that matter.

PVP
I enjoy pvp. I of course enjoyed arenas and the gank appeal of boxing in open pvp in WOW. I have read what you guys have posted about the dangers and allure of EVE pvp, and I like the sound of it. I'm sick of the "cater to crybaby noobs / everybody wins" attitude of WOW pvp.

For those who enjoy pvp, how as EVE held up compared to WOW or any similar mmo? I have dreams of running a Gank squad like anyone else. Are there ways to do this anywhere... and make any sort of profit? I also love the idea of losing real materials if you fail, instead of just a repair bill.

RL Cash Market
The process of buying / selling game time for ingame credits has been touched on. How easy is this for boxers? Any benefit for multiple accounts? Is it realistic to think I could set up a mining/ "playing the ah" operation down the road and be able to fund my subscription fees? Is there any way to take credits back out of the game for RL cash? or is it a 1way street? I know Souca mentioned a combination of training skills on dormant accounts, and something about making enough to cover subscription costs... is this what you can do?

Lasting Appeal
What do you guys do once you have these maxed out, "best in slot" mining Rigs. Just earn mad Isk? Sell for more ships/weapons? Start an army? What is the final Goal I can expect to work towards(and does it tie in to my PVP goals)?
Are you guys running a boxer "Guild" or Corp at all? or is everyone just spread out playing alone.

What is the expected playtime investment before I can effectively "achieve" any of this. Do i have to grind for 10 months before I am a noticable/established player?

I love the idea of playing less RL hours, training while offline, running a gank fleet around the universe, and not paying RL cash for gametime. As much info about those issues or anything else you think I would enjoy and would sway me to come play with you guys is GREATLY appreciated. Any additional comments for a newb like me would be greatly appreciated as well.


Thanks!
Asonimie

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PVP is nothing like it is in WoW, after being a pirate for some time now and being in countless fights (both outnumbered, fair, and overkill) I still get that adrenaline rush. The key to making pvp fun is to fly with people you enjoy hanging out on voice comms with, because there can be some serious lulls in pvp. There is nothing more frustrating than being outnumbered and not being able to get the enemy to commit to a fight, and it happens pretty often.

On lasting appeal, eve is what you make it. Find people you enjoy flying with, and if it starts to get dull take a break.

Boxing in Eve has some benefits, which you've probably read. (Mining&Hauling solo, missions, etc) Largely I didn't find the game fun solo and that is why I ended up quitting, twice. I played the summer of '03 when it was released and tried again in early '05.

Well thank you so much for the responses so far, very informative! Couple more questions raised now however: Do most of you guys play with regular single players? Are you all on different servers/realms? Anyone interested in "flying" with another boxer for pvp / mining monopoly? Is this a viable idea? I love the idea of teaming up with another boxer if possible to get started, so speak up if you're up for helping me get started as Stoat outlined.

@Stoat: Thanks for the long response, but in the end I'm not sure what you meant, is your final summary negative or positive overall? Do you guys consider EVE to be a decaying / declining game? Is it worth trying to invest in the game at this point?

@Mining: Is it possible to log in, set miners to auto mine with some auto-defensive drones or whatever, and go watch a movie while they collect? Or does it require constant attention like in WOW.

@Corps; If boxers arent playing together, Any recommendations for corporations/groups I should seek out? I heard names of a pvp corporation on these forums but cant remember who it was. Someone to help me get started working towards mining rigs would be cool too.

Thanks again guys!

There's only 1 server with between 18k-50k accounts online at any given time. Eve is growing but some people feel the devs are pushing it in the wrong direction in order to facilitate growth (others feel CCP are just using it as a testbed for new technology for their new emovampire MMO - haven't heard much about it lately though). It's definitely not too late to get in on the action though, and like I said you can pretty much play for 2 months without it costing you a dime so there's no reason not to try it out.

Most of my friends that used to play eve have since moved on - I try to entice them back with offers of paying for their accounts/ships/implants but I am seldom taken up on the offer. It really is a make your own fun type of game though, with the right corp it can be tons of fun. The problem is of course that many of the 'fun' corps with strong leadership/fleet commanders will not take a brand new player. That's not to say there aren't corporations that will take new players, there are tons of them, it's just that the quality can be a bit spotty. Eve University can be a good training tool, although their pvp training seems to go along the lines of 'bring a ton of people... still die horribly'.

You can automine to the extent that your cargohold fills up. In most mining ships this happens fairly rapidly (inside of 1 0 minutes) you will then either need to haul the ore to a station or jettison it into a jetcan (which other players can and do steal) then pick it up later with a hauler (the jetcan will hold significantly more ore than your mining ship).

You may also consider another career possibility... scamming for ingame items/currency is completely legal and encouraged. The recent influx of new blood into the game has produced some facepalm worthy scams that have worked netting large hauls.

As far as multiboxers in eve, I would say most people that I know that still do play have at least 3-4 accounts - it really is a game that rewards you for having many characters that are capable of doing various things. The increase in GTC prices coupled with the nerf to inactive account training probably has reduced the incentive to multiaccount somewhat, personally I went from 7 to 3.

Yep one server, but space is vaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaast. Seems like most people have a "neighborhood" or Region they hang out in for the most part, you could play your whole eve life in one spot and not see the thousands of other people out there.

I like the one server thing. I think it fosters a more intimate community.

There are macrominers but its illegal (though there are still tons of them). The more you train your mining skillls, the more youll have to manage your inventory (because you fill up more quickly).

The people I play with... id say its 50 / 50 that have multiple accounts, most common is 2.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 'asonimie',index.php?page=Thread&postID=200584#pos t200584

PVP
For those who enjoy pvp, how as EVE held up compared to WOW or any similar mmo? I have dreams of running a Gank squad like anyone else. Are there ways to do this anywhere... and make any sort of profit? I also love the idea of losing real materials if you fail, instead of just a repair bill.

RL Cash Market
Is it realistic to think I could set up a mining/ "playing the ah" operation down the road and be able to fund my subscription fees?

Lasting Appeal
What do you guys do once you have these maxed out, "best in slot" mining Rigs. Just earn mad Isk? Sell for more ships/weapons? Start an army? What is the final Goal I can expect to work towards(and does it tie in to my PVP goals)?

Are you guys running a boxer "Guild" or Corp at all? or is everyone just spread out playing alone.

What is the expected playtime investment before I can effectively "achieve" any of this. Do i have to grind for 10 months before I am a noticable/established player?

I love the idea of playing less RL hours, training while offline, running a gank fleet around the universe, and not paying RL cash for gametime.

---

My view on EVE PVP is that it's horribly biased towards veteran players. The basic problem is that one on one you will not be able to defeat a smart player who started the game before you. By 'smart' I mean someone who is trained and setup for PVP, took advice on ship builds, and didn't waste time messing about. It's easy to gank people who are not PVPers or who play dumb regardless of play time but you'll never beat another PVPer with more game time. Gang and fleet combat is a different matter though, I have no experience of that.

One of the appeals of EVE is that there's no way to 'max out' your character - I read that to get all skills to level 5 would take 50+ _years_!! So the way forward is to specialise into a ship that you like.

In my opinion it will take you three months before you get the hang of what you want to do and how to do it, and then another 6 months to get to the early stages of your choice. Some careers are easier - being an interceptor pilot can be done in about 2-3 months and that will get you into a PVP corp, getting to mine in an exhumer takes a similar amount of time.

I find EVE to be an expensive game, it costs more than WoW per month and you either need to spend money to buy ISK or do a lot of grinding to fund your game. It _is_ possible to be self funding but I think that that would use up a lot of your time.

Souca and I were contemplating an alliance (which is a group of corporations, kind of like a superguild) but I need to train up an alt with alliance management skills before we can do that. AFAIK most multiboxers either have their own corp or are invloived in another one.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 'stoat',index.php?page=Thread&postID=200664#post20 0664

Eve is growing but some people feel the devs are pushing it in the wrong direction in order to facilitate growth

You can automine to the extent that your cargohold fills up. In most mining ships this happens fairly rapidly (inside of 1 0 minutes) you will then either need to haul the ore to a station or jettison it into a jetcan (which other players can and do steal) then pick it up later with a hauler (the jetcan will hold significantly more ore than your mining ship).

The increase in GTC prices coupled with the nerf to inactive account training probably has reduced the incentive to multiaccount somewhat, personally I went from 7 to 3.

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To me it feels liek they're pushing it in the right direction, EVE has been completely PVP biased for years, and it's taking an awful long time for the devs to realise that if they make it more accesible to other playstyles it will be a beter game and make more money.

Multiboxers do excel at mining, a decent mining op takes 4-5 ships/players/accounts - you need 2-3 miners and a hauler at minimum plus optionally a specialised ship like an Orca or Rorqual to optimise the mining.

I had 16 or so accounts at one time but I'm taking characters from those accounts (once they finished training for a specific ship) and adding them to my main accounts.The nerfing of ghost training has really thrown a spanner in my plan though.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 'Redbeard',index.php?page=Thread&postID=200676#pos t200676

I like the one server thing. I think it fosters a more intimate community.

There are macrominers but its illegal (though there are still tons of them).

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Intimiate as in bloody...

Macromining is an issue and it seems the devs don't care about it. It's _too_ easy to macro mine in EVE so there are a ton of them out there - they do make good targets for piracy though as they never fight back.

Phew, epic reply, hope I helped you out. There are good things and bad things about EVE so you'll have to try it out to get an idea.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 'RobinGBrown',index.php?page=Thread&postID=200750# post200750

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 'asonimie',index.php?page=Thread&postID=200584#pos t200584

PVP
For those who enjoy pvp, how as EVE held up compared to WOW or any similar mmo? I have dreams of running a Gank squad like anyone else. Are there ways to do this anywhere... and make any sort of profit? I also love the idea of losing real materials if you fail, instead of just a repair bill.

RL Cash Market
Is it realistic to think I could set up a mining/ "playing the ah" operation down the road and be able to fund my subscription fees?

Lasting Appeal
What do you guys do once you have these maxed out, "best in slot" mining Rigs. Just earn mad Isk? Sell for more ships/weapons? Start an army? What is the final Goal I can expect to work towards(and does it tie in to my PVP goals)?

Are you guys running a boxer "Guild" or Corp at all? or is everyone just spread out playing alone.

What is the expected playtime investment before I can effectively "achieve" any of this. Do i have to grind for 10 months before I am a noticable/established player?

I love the idea of playing less RL hours, training while offline, running a gank fleet around the universe, and not paying RL cash for gametime.

---

My view on EVE PVP is that it's horribly biased towards veteran players. The basic problem is that one on one you will not be able to defeat a smart player who started the game before you. By 'smart' I mean someone who is trained and setup for PVP, took advice on ship builds, and didn't waste time messing about. It's easy to gank people who are not PVPers or who play dumb regardless of play time but you'll never beat another PVPer with more game time. Gang and fleet combat is a different matter though, I have no experience of that.

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Robin makes some good points but I wanted to comment on this one. What he describes above, he calls a "problem". I dont think its a problem at all. Its biased for older players for two reasons.

1) They have more skill points than you.
2) They (probably) have more money than you.

I dont see either as a "problem" really.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Eve is a broad game not a deep game (well its more broad than deep). Back in the day when i was single boxing WoW, i took a break and went to play Eve. My WoW guildmates were crazy into PVP so i told them, lets go play a real pvp game. After reading about how skills worked, one of the guys commented. "It sounds awesome but I cant play, since I didnt get in in the beginning. Ill never catch up to those guys." In one sense, hes right, hell never has any many SP as people playing from the beginning. However, there are only so many skill points you can apply towards 1 ship / module. Additionally, the game suffers from harsh diminishing returns. Going from 4-5 on some skills is like a 2-5% bump. Sure, its a bump, but generally its not a deal breaker.

At any rate. Old people have an advantage. And they should. (Just as somebody in T8 or whatever has an advantage over somebody who just turned 80).

I wanted to add my 2 isk as it where to this as well, I totally want to thank Blizzard into turning the entire MMO experience into a giant carebear fest and the MMO's that have copied this idiotic MMO design template, player experience in most games is ment to be harsh and revolves around a small core group of diehards, when a game calls for hero's its the players decked out in the best gear you can aquire, with the most hours spent playing the game..its not wanna be weekend warriors getting together with 2 or 4 other people and creating a PUG. I started off in Final Fantasy online as my first MMO and boy let me tell you that was harsh, each death ment loss of XP...that might require hours of grinding in a group to get back so that I could put my armor back on that fell off as I deleveled. Some of the best crafted gear in the game required years of playing to even beable to make it, you had to raise your crafting skills up to such a high level it would require years just grinding the money to beable to buy the components to build some of that stuff. There wasn't such a thing as grinding the game 24/7 for a week straight and hitting max level, there were no solo adventures, everything was forced grouping..and if you were some noob who got into a group and 10minutes later said "i gotta go eat dinner" you were instantly kicked and likely blacklisted and that was spread around on the server that you were a dumbass.

Eve is very much like what the classic MMO's of old used to be, they don't dumb things down, they dont babysit the noobies and they definitely dont care about fairness. First players in the game that can dedicated time and effort reap the rewards, simple as that. IF you were playing the game from day One yes you definitely have a much greater chance at having acquired more equipment/ships and wealth, however as quoted below

Quote:

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At any rate. Old people have an advantage. And they should. (Just as somebody in T8 or whatever has an advantage over somebody who just turned 80).

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Why should some noob to the game expect that they would ever be an equal to someone who's played this game since it's been out ? that's just like asking for free gold as soon as you log onto a new game, why would people that have had to do it all the hard way just willingly hand you over something that they had to truely struggle hard for. Eve isn't a friendly place, space is cold and lonely, ships that might take months to save up for can be destroyed in the blink of an eye.

But once again, there does come a point in all eve players careers where properly invested skills will top out..there is only so many skills for each required ship that will truely make a difference in combat. A 100million SP eve account vs a 75million SP account likely are not that truely different, just the last 25million where spent perhaps on another aspect the player was looking into going with that character..perhaps they discovered the joys of mining after a life spent pvping. So any new players wanting to come over to eve reading my rant..just take it for what it's worth. I dont consider it to be impossible to catch up to these super gods in this game, but I also dont expect I ever was entitled to catch up either, I haven't put my time in long enough yet.

ps. ignore my horrible spelling this was typed very on the fly from work

It's a difference in experience and attitude that makes me think EVE has a 'problem'. It makes me a carebear I suppose.

The thing about WoW is that if you want to you can hammer away at it and get to be good (or even top rated) within a few months, whereas EVE has a constant rate of improvement for all players so the only thing that matters is how long you've been playing. It's not impossible to catch up as Redbeard points out but it will take you a long time!

It's down to an ethos, I want games to be fair for all players so that everyone can enjoy them, but a lot of MMOs have a design that allows a limited subset to have fun at the expense of others.

I come from a pen and paper RPG background and when you're sitting around a table with 4-5 friends it's important that everyone gets to enjoy the game, when one player dominates the game the others suffer. It's one of the major causes of gaming groups breaking up. The way to prevent it is called Most Game Fun, meaning that you take a path where you maximise the activites that are fun for all the players at once and hinder activites that emphasise one player at the expense of others.

This principle isn't applied much to MMOs, probably because the developers/designers came from other backgrounds and never had to experience the MGF solution. In my opinion one of the reasons WoW is so succesful is because it uses a Most Game Fun approach. Whereas the slew of recent 'WoW-killers' (Age of Conan, Warhammer) didn't, and 'failed' because of that. I can't help but think that if a new MMO came out that used an MGF principle it would suceed where so many others have failed, and I can't help but think that if EVE applied that principle then they would have a much wider audience, many more players, and make more money. MMOs that make money are good for the players, more money means more content to play.

EVE seems to be as far away from MGF as it is possible to get and thats the reason why I gave it up last time, and probably will again. I love a good sci-fi game but I just wish the developers would make the non PVP aspects more fun and well rounded. I can think of dozens of things that would make it a 'better' game without killing the PVP.

Oh well, if wishes were horses we'd all ride.

p.s. Saw Star Tek last night! woo hoo!

(How was Star Trek? I am not a huge Star Trek fan but the trailer looked badass)

I am totally with you on them making PVE better. Im a long time miner, my guy has maxed mining skills, etc etc. And its really kind of a broken system. Im getting my people into PVE because its better money but really, the mission system is kind of boring. But its where the moneys ati.

Im just concerned about them messing with the harsh reality of eve too much. I honestly think the landscape is what keeps a lot of people interested. I see it as a "carve out your fun as best you can" type of game vs WoW which is a "here is where youll have fun" type of game. Once ive completed the activity in WoW, my fun is done. If i create a way to have fun in Eve, its a bit longer lasting for me.

Anyways, I agree with a lot of your points. A lot of my friends have asked me about Eve and I just kind of say... come give it a try if you dare... prepare to have your arse handed to you lol.

Game on!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 'Alptraum',index.php?page=Thread&postID=200837#pos t200837

Why should some noob to the game expect that they would ever be an equal to someone who's played this game since it's been out ?

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Which would you like, the "because it's a game and not rocket science" version, or the "because if it's strict seniority then that's bloody stupid design and also means no one new should start playing it ever" version?

While your argument appears to have superficial emotional merit (i.e. it sounds commonsensical)...if you think about it, that's really not a very good idea in practice. Actually, it could be a really bad one. Fortunately, EVE doesn't work quite like you describe...but there is a heavy seniority bias, and a heavy time cost to reach any given threshold.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 'Alptraum',index.php?page=Thread&postID=200837#pos t200837

Why should some noob to the game expect that they would ever be an equal to someone who's played this game since it's been out ?

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There's also the thing that a new but really skilled player would also be beaten by an unskilled player who had played longer.

I've always thought it should be talent and dedication that make you good - not how much time/money you've invested in something.

I'm pretty crap at most things though... perhaps I should stick with EVE....

p.s. Star Trek is excellent! Go see it. I'd rate the latest movie as _possibly_ the best Star Trek movie ever - right up there with Wrath of Khan. I can't wait for people to see it so I can discuss things without spoiling it for them. Suffice it to say that the casting is absolutely perfect, the acting is excellent, production standards are brilliant, and even the story is pretty well done - plus some great other stuff that you _have_ to watch it to see.

In an attempt to be critically and hostilely neutral, I'd like to comment ;)

Eve is a game, and games should be fun. Not everyone has the same concept of fun, but some people find being "the best" to be fun. This leads to some people having to be less than the best, at least in the eyes of the best. Wait, scratch that, this isn't where I wanted to go.

There are two extremes of dealing with the date you started when they relate to games. On one extreme is a simple game where you get a number based on when you start playing. The lowest number wins. The other extreme is a game where a winner is randomly selected from the pool of players. These examples aren't air tight, but I tried to cover extremes with out bringing other variables like skill, intelligence, desire to win, amount of time you play each day.

Eve, like Wow, has a bias toward older characters. Initially I would have said Eve had a larger bias, but now I'm not sure that such a statement is wholly truthful. In a pure numbers scenario you'd likely measure a character age in Wow by level/gear and Skill Points in Eve. Both of these measurements have their upper bounds based on real time since the character was created, but these are the extremes.

I think that Eve from numbers perspective appears to be significantly more biased than WoW, I mean how can feel competitive with a player that has 57 mil SP? But where are all those points? Is that person an industrialist, an empire level alliance CEO? A capital ship pilot? The thing is, if they aren't doing what you want to be doing, those points are meaningless. If he doesn't have Cloaking I and I do, I'm a better cloaker than he is. Eve has so many avenues of play that the uber players are distributed across a larger skill base. I've heard estimates that to learn all the skills in the game would take anywhere from a decade to half a century. How long does it take to get an epic geared 80 in every class on both factions?

This of course sidesteps the simple question of should a player who has played longer be granted bonuses or an advantage at all. Also, should there be a shelf at which point you've played long enough and any additional playtime no longer provides a significant advantage. Wow and other MMOs do this with level caps. There is a point to which you can get and then you are just as good as everyone else at that point. Once again this simplifies things like raid progression and all other things besides time out of the equation.

As someone who left wow because I had little to do besides get yet another character to 80, I'm in the camp that thinks time invested should provide a benefit. An intersting antecdote to this is that I have a character in Eve that is almost 6 years old. He currently has 4.7 mil SP. For perspective, I have a character that is less than 6 weeks old and has 3 mil SP. I could have been one of the gods of Eve with my first character, but I stopped playing and never even considered paying a subscription to just train. Despite this extreme example of reversal, having been on of the early players and effectively being a new player I don't feel the balance is too far off. I've got more to do than just get another 80. I've also helped kill 3 year old pilots in a character with only 2.3 mil SP.

Okay, this isn't exactly what I set out to write, but thats what happens when you have lunch and a few beers in the middle of a post.

- Souca -

Well said Souca, well said.