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First Impressions
Akousmata
Member Posts: 72
Just downloaded the free trial and started walking myself through some of the basic training missions. I wasn't sure about how the character progression played out and what skills were actually worth taking, so I just took skills that sounded interesting to me. Anyway, the first day I played, I was really amazed by the shear size of the game.
The ability to jump AU's away from my currect position in just a few seconds was cool, and the graphics were okay. The combat was really disorienting in many ways, but it seemed like something that one would need to get used to.
Not sure if I'm just retarded or what, but the first day everything seemed to be working fine, then the next day I went on a mission to get an encrypted message from a saboteur that had stolen it. I followed the in-game directions, destroyed the saboteur's ship, approached it and put the message into my cargo hold. I warped back to the Patos school and tried to deliver the message, and all of a sudden it wasn't in my cargo hold anymore. I checked my journal and it said that I still hadn't picked it up in the first place. Went back to the saboteur's ship and he was still hanging there in space, when I opened his cargo hold.... nothing. So now the mission is at a standstill and I can't do anything about it 'til my timer is up.
I know this might sound stupid, but I couldn't even figure out where the logout/main menu of the game was, and had to force quit just to exit. With all the stuff happening on the screen this should be the most obvious thing on there, and to me it simply wasn't. Flame on if you think I'm a dumbass (cause I certainly felt like one) but from a noob's perspective, I shouldn't have to sit and analyze every element of my user interface just to find the logout option.
Anyways,
Some positive things about EVE Online, I thought the gameplay mechanics were pretty cool and innovative and I'd definitely be interested in getting quite a bit farther in the game. Moving around between star clusters, spacestations, other galaxies, etc., was fairly easy. As long as you confronted ships equal to your own capabilities, the combat turned out to be fairly exciting.
Given just the introductory missions, I can see how this game can get grindy. There's not much direct control over anything really. If you want to orbit something, right click it and select orbit. If you want to dock something, right click it and select dock. If you want to attack a pirate, right click it and select approach/orbit/fire using F1 button. If you want to mine something right click it and select approach fire using F2 button. If you want to travel somewhere, find it on your overview, right click and select approach. VERY repetitive. I found the NPC interaction almost more entertaining than playing the game itself. I should have spent more time on the website looking at the player guide to really understand the in's and out's of the game and to have more fun at it.
Overall, I think it's a great game, very elaborate and in depth with a lot of areas for personal growth, the only drawback to it is that it's not very friendly to newcomers. Even with the in-game tutorial, it seemed like I was struggling to accomplish things as minute as hauling a document back to the Patos school.
Comments
Yep Eve is a great sandbox game problem is because of this and the 4 years its been growing in content means it can be hard for newbies to learn to play. My advice it to percevere and find a good corp to join.
"Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god."
-- Jean Rostand
From my first impressions of this game it seemed just like all the rest of the grinding mmorpgs: double click a monster it dies; do this 1000 times you level up; do it again. The concept of the intergalactic warfare seemed interesting but, since I have played enough grinding games to have my fill and also know whether I want to waste my time on it or not pretty much from the beginning and the graphics were not that great, I did not play long enough to get into the depth of the game.
Well since there are no "levels" in the game and what you do in game does not directly affect your skills, I'm not sure what you're talking about. The skills go up over time on their own. You simple tell it what to improve. The reason you go out and kill things is so that you can salvage them and then go buy new ships and equipment. Of course if you don't like this grind you can always avoid combat missions. There's plenty of money to be made in transporting and mining. True both are grinds but calling this game the same as all the other MMO's in quite unfair. It has depth and character to it that many other MMO's lack.
Not sure what happened with your mission, but like almost all over games out there the ESC key does wonders. Here a link that should be very helpful. http://www.eve-online.com/faq/faq_browser.asp
The EVE website has a wealth of information.
hey guy (topic starter) I had the ESC problem. my buddy just called me saying he couldnt complete the tutorial cause it tells ya to find the pirates but there isnt any lol. while talking to him on the phone I realized this game might be too much for him. hes used to class based single player games where his powers are dictated to him and levels come fast and quick. he's used to being lead by the hand kinda
one good thing my buddy played Crackdown and oblivion but those are skill based titles where u get stronger naturally just doing what you do versus EVE takes research and planning apprently.
at least u made it out of the tutorial now from there we all ahve to figure out how to make money doing what we like cause the skills train offline / online
How long did it take to download the free trial? This sounds very interesting. I'm getting tired of the 'High Fantasty' repetition.
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I've found EVE much less of a grind than any other games I've played. brainchild covered the skills aspect, and as for money, I just created a trade alt which I may play 30 minutes a week and it brings in enough money to cover my needs. I really don't have much of a need for money in the first place, really. I've got a good ship reimbursement policy from my corp and alliance for when I lose ships and I don't buy new ships all that often.
Of course, you'll make a lot more money if you do grind / mission / mine, but I certainly don't feel it's required.
As others have said, the biggest thing in EVE is finding the right corp to join. It might be a few months before you have enough skill points before you can get in most corps, but once you find the right one the game gets MUCH more entertaining.
It's only 600MB's~. It took about 16 minutes on my broadband. And yes, it is VERY interesting. Fantasy is getting old and we need more Sci-Fi fans.
To the OP-
The graphics are from 2002. It was voted best graphics back then and there is a graphics overhaul in the next content patch. I love space more than anything in the world so people like me fall in love with EVE.
Your missions was bugged. It happens in some of the starter missions ever since the last patch. You just create a petition and it's high priority so they fix the problem from 30seconds - 5minutes. Took them 15 seconds for my first petition.
The main menu is accessible through escape. There is so much information to be displayed on the screen (largely due to the complexity of the cosmos) so they had to cut down as much as possible. Esc works wonders. Keyboard > mouse anyways.
As far as your positive remarks go, the adventuring is just a side dish in this game. The market, player interaction and corporations are what make this so extraordinary. A person on a free trial has very hard time seeing this so that's why this game hasn't broken the 1 million sub mark (imo).
I can agree with you slightly about the controls. WASD is something I have come accustomed to and this game doesn't have it. It ends up working out and trust me, within a few days the game should feel just fine and the controls really work out quite fine. WASD wouldn't have worked with this games combat system.
Another thing, a lot of people (including myself) seem to hate on the combat system. I ended up quitting after my 14-day trial largely due to it being so "boring". Give or take a few weeks, you realize that the combat isn't bad afterall. In WoW you control your movement and then cast spells/do abilities. In EVE, you control your velocity, direction and capacitor. You control whom to lock onto and whom to use your devices on. You have to micromanage all of your equipment and watch all around you, and if you have drones, you have to manage those too. It's pretty much just like an RTS, and a new player isn't able to see how great it is because of the fact that you start with a frigate (very low CPU, power & slots) and are unable to really rig out your ship nor afford it.
Trust me when I say that this game is incredible.
I downloaded the game last night. I was impressed. I was glad to read the combat gets a little more entertaining, since I was a little underwhelmed with it at the start.
I'm still in 'how does this work' mode, but it definitely had me pumped last night.
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