Eve Online: Difference between revisions

EVE Online
EVE Online
	EVE Online box art.EVE Online box art.
Developer(s)	CCP Games
Publisher(s)	CCP Games
Engine	3D
Platform(s)	Windows
Release	2003
Genre(s)	MMORPG, Space simulation
Mode(s)	Multiplayer

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Revision as of 19:06, 16 October 2005

EVE Online is a persistent world multiplayer online game set in space. It was developed by CCP Games and published by Simon & Schuster Interactive in 2003 (Simon & Schuster Interactive no longer publishes the game and CCP now offers the game client for download from their website). Players are spaceship pilots in craft of varied style and purpose.

EVE Online is set in a far away galaxy, governed by a hyper capitalistic economy. Like most MMORPGs, the game is open-ended, and new players can behave as they choose. EVE's economic design encourages new players to seek wealth as a source of both status and utility.

Background

Quote from CCP's website, (Backstory)

"EVE - EXODUS

EVE takes place in a cluster of stars far from mankind’s original habitat, planet Earth. How far away, and whether or not that cradle of civilization still exists, is a mystery. Humans arrived through a natural wormhole and, gazing up upon an alien sky they had never seen, were completely unable to determine where this new world was located. From the New Eden solar system, where the gate of EVE once led to the old world, humans expanded in all directions at a furious pace, exploring and colonizing rapidly.

Then, unexpectedly and seemingly unprovoked, the EVE gate collapsed in an apocalyptic catastrophe of a scale never before witnessed by the human race, ruining the New Eden system in the process. Thousands of small colonies were left in complete isolation to fend for themselves, cut off from the old world. For millennia they endured, clinging to the brink of extinction, and only a handful managed to survive.

Of those that lasted, five were to rise up and become the major empires that, between them, hold the balance of power in the world of EVE. Today, they are known as the Amarr Empire, the Gallente Federation, the Caldari State, the Minmatar Republic, and the Jovian Empire. Additionally, the world is full of several small, independent factions and states.

For more than a century, the five empires have lived together in relative peace. They’ve continually strived to maintain this peace, as each faction realizes only too well the grave consequences of a massive inter-stellar war. Recent technological breakthroughs in FTL travel, and the ensuing increase in space travelers, have shaken, but not broken, the fragile peace... at least not yet."

There is a background movie included in the client which explains how Earth became overpopulated and eventually mankind expanded out amongst the stars building their own stargates. However the stargate travel had reached its limit when the forces of humanity turned on each other, a wormhole in space was found and designated, EVE, it led to a system of stars known as New Eden. Colonists ventured to the system and lived in relative peace until the wormhole collapsed, New Eden was cut off from the rest of mankind and most of its supply chain, and entered a dark age, until society rebuilt itself and re-emerged. There were three basic races, the Amarr, a deeply religious race which enslaved the Minmitar, a mostly tribal race, and the Gallente, a democratic Federation comprised of states, one of these states was the Caldari State which held a rebellion and split off from the Gallente Federation, forming their own independent State which is a highly Capitalistic society, making four (although the Caldari tie closely in to the Gallente) The Jovian Empire was not detailed in the movie.

Gameplay and billing

EVE Online is different from many other MMORPG games as the player's character does not gain experience points by actions or by completing tasks. Instead, the player "trains" skills by learning skill points (in a specific skill) over time. This allows all players, regardless of their time commitments, to advance their characters' skills at a roughly equal (but not fixed) rate. One drawback is that new players cannot catch up with older players; another is that the system is not entirely balanced between career paths. Early choices may have significant implications months or years later when a patch introduces new content that may (or may not) benefit players equally.

Players can choose a variety of tasks to complete in their time in the EVE universe, such as mining, fighting, running agent missions, hauling(transportation) and so forth. Players who devote more time or more thought into their endeavours can amass ISK — or InterStellar Kredits, the game's currency — at a considerably accelerated rate.

Another feature of EVE designed to level the playing field between players is the "security system". Every solar system in the EVE universe has a security status which ranges from 0.0 to 1.0. Systems with a rating of 0.0 are completely lawless, 0.1 to 0.4 have absolutely no protection from CONCORD but are covered by sentry guns (only at stargates and stations), 0.5 to 0.8 systems have moderate protection, and 0.9 and 1.0 systems are considered to be extremely secure. Any time a player commits an act of aggression in a system with a security rating at or above 0.5, CONCORD defense forces and/or stationary weapons platforms will immediately attack and destroy the aggressor (something known in EVE as "CONCORDOKEN"). Thus, less legitimate activities flourish in 0.4 and lower systems — which comprise most of the Universe — while new and/or less aggressive players play the game safe from PvP combat in 0.5 and above systems.

At the time of its release, EVE Online was known for its highly detailed graphics (at the very least, for an MMORPG). EVE is played entirely on one large server cluster named Tranquility, and is not broken into shards or instances like many other MMORPGs, apart from the open test server named Singularity. All the players (not testers) are on the same server cluster and therefore in the same game-world. Whenever the server is down for maintenance, server load is redistributed according to how much traffic each system received during the previous play period. Therefore, unpredictably large numbers of players in one system tend to cause lag, and large-scale events (such as fleet battles) can be made impossible. On Sunday, October 16th, 2005, EVE Online achieved a new record for the maximum number of simultaneous players logged into EVE Online with 16,162 concurrent players on the same server.

The servers have a scheduled daily downtime for maintenance between 11:00 and 12:00 GMT. EVE currently costs €15 / $15 a month (the European cost is higher as VAT is included). However, like other MMOGs, the cost can be reduced by paying for larger subscription intervals.

CCP purchased distribution rights back from Simon & Shuster in 2003, and now distributes the game client via free digital download (however, you still must pay a one time fee, currently $20, to register your account after completing the free 14-day trial available at MMORPG-Gamer.com,SciFi UK or MMORPG.com).

Expansions

Gemini was not actually an expansion but should be included. When EVE Online was released, the base was codenamed Gemini, version 1.00.0000.
Castor was the first major addition focused on refining current functions along with adding Tech Level 2. It also included conquerable space stations located in deep space.
Exodus was released on 24 November 2004 and added new content such as player owned stations, multi-level-scenarios, new environments (ice fields and gas clouds), a new alliance system, new ships, better handling of conflicts, new market functionality, user interface improvements, and an updated in-game web browser.
Cold War Edition, the newest expansion, has added larger structures and ships, new environments, more user interface changes and new agent functionality. Newly added "COSMOS" constellations contain new in-space agents with story-driven missions and unique rewards. The expansion also contains an extensive new tutorial sequence and a storyline background introduction.
Kali is the codename for the next major content expansion, and is slated to include many combat improvements.

Note: In this case, the word "expansions" is limited to major and official releases of new improvements to the game. CCP, the creators of EVE, update the game with new gameplay features and bugfixes once or twice every month. Therefore a lot of changes and additions are often made between "expansions". Since everyone is playing in the same universe (there is no sharding) all expansions/patches are free (mandatory) downloads.

Gameplay jargon

AB - Afterburner, commonly known as.
ISK - Inter Stellar Kredits, EVE Currency (also the ISO code for the currency of Iceland, where EVE is developed).
PC - Player Character, opposite to NPC
BS - Battleship class ship; large, expensive and slow, these versatile and powerful ships tend to be set up to deal with other battleships. This can make them vulnerable to smaller ships.
Frig - Frigate class ship; The cheapest class of ships which makes them a good(and often the only) choice for new players. Not be underestimated, they can give bigger ships a run for their money if used in large groups.
AF - Assault Frigates class ship; Tough and powerful, these Tech 2 frigates have similar offensive/defensive capabilities to standard cruisers, but are quite slow.
HAC - Heavy Assault Cruiser class ship; These Tech 2 cruisers are specially designed for tanking as well as good offensive capabilities.
Inty or Ceptor - Interceptor class ship; They are one of the more widely used elite frigates. More expensive than a normal frigate but their high speed and agility makes them difficult to destroy by larger ship classes.
Corp - Corporation. In EVE Corporations are like Guilds in other MMOGs
MWD - Microwarpdrive, a module that radically increases ship speed but with certain drawbacks.
POS Player owned starbase.
Rats - Player or NPC pirates. Also called NPCs to distinguish from player pirates.
Carebear - A player who avoids combat. Used as a pejorative, though less frequently than it once was, as it is now seen simply as aversion to danger, which can be considered a smart move depending on circumstances.
Jet Mining - Asteroid mining operations involving one or more miners jettisoning a non-secure cargo container for a hauler to bring to a nearby space station.
Indy - Industrial class ship; mainly cargo ships. Slow, weak, with only one weapon mount in many cases, these are only generally used with escorts.
Tank - Setting a ship up for maximum defense, usually both at expense of offense and versatility.
Gank - The opposite of a tank, setting up a ship solely to do as much damage as possible, no defense, no EC(C)M, just racks and racks of damage mods. This is most often confused by newer players to mean ganging up against a lone player, this confusion has made the meaning of this popular term become less clear over the time.
Tackle - To immobilize another ship through the use of various electronic warfare modules (webifiers, warp disruptors). A ship outfitted for this is a "Tackler".
Pod - 4 metre long capsule which contains the player's body, pods are designed to allow players to easily control ships without need for a crew and survive ship destruction. Pods are also equipped with a powerful brain-scanner that can instantly scan the brain. While this process also instantly kills the old body, it also allows the consciousness to survive by transferring it to a new clone in the case of a capsule breach.
Podding - Destroying another players capsule after having destroyed his ship. Since implants are destroyed and new clones can be expensive or cause experience loss if the clone isn't good enough, this can be a great way to deliver maximum damage to ones enemies.
PDU - Power Diagnostic Unit a module that increases shield and capacitor recharge rate along with bonuses to shield HP, powergrid and capacitor capacity.
RCU - Reactor Control Unit gives a bonus only to powergrid using CPU in return.
Stabs - Warp Core Stabilizers, each one of these nulls the effect of 1 'point' of Warp Scrambling effects. Also abbreviated as "WCS".
Implant - A fairly expensive device implanted into the brain to further enhance players attributes and skills. These are lost if you are "Podded".
CCP - Acronym for Crowd Control Productions, the developer of EVE Online.
Timesinks - Monotonous activities required for player advancement(i.e., mining).
Nerf - the losing of functionality or damage dealing capability of a weapon or gameplay mechanic. An example of this would be the recent missile nerf (changes).
Buff - When a weapon ship or other is made better. Ie, a ships speed is buffed and made faster. Oposite of Nerf.
RAT - a npc pirate(changes).

Awards

Criticism

Game content heavily favors the PVP experience. Possible monetary advancement in high-security space is not sufficient to prepare for PVP, and new players must therefore rely on a sponsor corporation entirely to participate in PVP.
The game's design forces corporations to maintain an extremely aggressive border defense in low security areas.
The game is essentially an abuse simulator, as people violating real life social norms like 'no killing' are not punished by the game system if they do it right, nor can they effectively be punished by the players.
The 'security' system is deeply flawed. In systems with the highest security, one is not safe if a corporation or an alliances has declared an official war on you.
Combat is dull. Combat in outer space with the lowest security rating of 0.0 is a matter of camping the gates from afar and destroying everyone who enters it while maintaining numerical superiority. If a force too big arrives to break the camp, the camping force can usually escape.
Because the game engine's "punishment" for death is the smaller the less developed a character is and the less expensive his ship and equipment are, most of the game's abuse is done by low level combat characters.
The character developement is incredibly slow. While it does require one merely two months to learn the skills required for a battleship, the time required to gather the money to actually buy one greatly outstrips that. On the other hand, to fly one of the more interesting ships like heavy assault cruisers or covert ops frigates, one can add a couple months on top of that easily.
Characters trying to be economically productive can be easily destroyed by players with dedicated PvP equipment, regardless of 'level'. Thus, grief-killing has almost no risk. Most economic actions by civilian characters are ultimately done in order to finance another character with a focus on PvP.
Economic gameplay is dull, as it usually revolves around klicking a few buttons and then watch the screen for another hour, sometimes clicking another button every couple minutes.
In short, the entire game revolves around grief killing, waiting and grinding. A truly bad example of MMORPG gameplay.

External links

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 Another feature of ''EVE'' designed to level the playing field between players is the "security system".  Every solar system in the ''EVE'' universe has a security status which ranges from 0.0 to 1.0.  Systems with a rating of 0.0 are completely lawless, 0.1 to 0.4 have absolutely no protection from CONCORD but are covered by sentry guns (only at stargates and stations), 0.5 to 0.8 systems have moderate protection, and 0.9 and 1.0 systems are considered to be extremely secure.  Any time a player commits an act of aggression in a system with a security rating at or above 0.5, CONCORD defense forces and/or stationary weapons platforms will immediately attack and destroy the aggressor (something known in EVE as "CONCORDOKEN").  Thus, less legitimate activities flourish in 0.4 and lower systems — which comprise most of the Universe — while new and/or less aggressive players play the game safe from [[Player versus player|PvP combat]] in 0.5 and above systems.
-At the time of its release, ''EVE Online'' was known for its highly detailed graphics (at the very least, for an [[MMORPG]]). ''EVE'' is played entirely on one large server cluster named Tranquility, and is not broken into [[shard|shards]] or [[instance_dungeon|instances]] like many other MMORPGs, apart from the open test server named Singularity. All the players (not testers) are on the same server cluster and therefore in the same game-world. Whenever the server is down for maintenance, server load is redistributed according to how much traffic each system received during the previous play period. Therefore, unpredictably large numbers of players in one system tend to cause lag, and large-scale events (such as fleet battles) can be made impossible. On Sunday, [[September 12|September 12th]], [[2005]], ''EVE Online'' achieved a new record for the maximum number of simultaneous players logged into ''EVE Online'' with 15,209 concurrent players on the same server.
+At the time of its release, ''EVE Online'' was known for its highly detailed graphics (at the very least, for an [[MMORPG]]). ''EVE'' is played entirely on one large server cluster named Tranquility, and is not broken into [[shard|shards]] or [[instance_dungeon|instances]] like many other MMORPGs, apart from the open test server named Singularity. All the players (not testers) are on the same server cluster and therefore in the same game-world. Whenever the server is down for maintenance, server load is redistributed according to how much traffic each system received during the previous play period. Therefore, unpredictably large numbers of players in one system tend to cause lag, and large-scale events (such as fleet battles) can be made impossible. On Sunday, [[October 16|October 16th]], [[2005]], ''EVE Online'' achieved a new record for the maximum number of simultaneous players logged into ''EVE Online'' with 16,162 concurrent players on the same server.
 The servers have a scheduled daily downtime for maintenance between 11:00 and 12:00 GMT. ''EVE'' currently costs ''€15 / $15 a month'' ([http://europa.eu.int/comm/taxation_customs/taxation/vat/traders/e-commerce/index_en.htm the European cost is higher as VAT is included]).  However, like other [[MMOG|MMOGs]], the cost can be reduced by paying for larger subscription intervals.