Another WoW'er interested in coming to EVE

[Alptraum]

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

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).

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

[RobinGBrown]

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!

[Redbeard]

(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!

[algol]

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 ?

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.

[RobinGBrown]

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 ?

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.

[Souca]

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 -

[Redbeard]

Well said Souca, well said.