Hmm this brings back memories. I was in exactly the opposite position as you are OP. You see EvE was my first MMO back in 2004, unlike most on this site i don't have bragging rights dating back to meridian 79 or some other game, not because im too young for those but simply because they never appealed to me ... in all honesty i thought they where a scam, asking a monthly fee to play a game?! Ontop of what im already pay for internet?! Remember you actually paid by the minute back then and couldn't use your phone while doing so ... so yeah i thought they where a elaborate scam by AOL or somesuch to raise my internet bill through the roof.
But i digress, back to start. So EvE was my first MMO, the lure of a dark and gritty scifi universe was pretty strong back then, and EvE hooked me like nothing else. Of course nothing in the game was weird to me, i had nothing to compare it too after all. Time based leveling? Guess MMOs do it that way. Ships and items lost on death? Makes perfect sense because there is no save option in an MMO. One server for everyone? Well that was obviously the difference between an MMO and a multiplayer game like Unreal Tournament.
Now fast forward 1 year into the future and im getting massive peer pressure for the "new" WoW. I could never get my friends into eve simply because it was english only. So i gave in and got WoW, i wanted to play with my friends and i was sure if i got them hooked on WoW i could later turn them to a proper MMO(i.e. one with spaceships, there is just no way elves and chubby little ... what the HELL ... can compete with fricking lasers on a badass spaceship).
Ok. Lets talk culture shock. Can you imagine what WoW was like for someone coming from EvE and only knowing warcraft 1 and 2? Ok i played some Unreal tournament and counterstrike, but still, that didn't remotely prepare me. It was so ...senseless. Why could NPCs die, yet i could not? Was there some religious aspect i missed? And why do i keep killing people for no reason whatsoever apart from the color of their target circle? Why can't i use that big twohanded hammer of mine on that midget running circles around me? Why does the dagger i have found do more damage than a twohanded hammer? Why does the armor NPCs wear not protect them? Why do my friends like this? Basicly i was sure AOL was somehow involved again ...
Because that game ... it was unrealistic. Sure you might say fantasy or scifi is inherently unrealistic, but its a plausible unrealism. WoW though wasn't just unrealistic because it played in a fantasy world, it deeply offended me because because it was and abstraction of an fantasy world made in a way to fit a certain kind of game design. Things like being unable to loot player corpses, full immortality for players and their items and PvP flags etc greatly offended me, oh i could see their purpose from a game design pov, but i didn't want a game, i wanted a World.
Suffice to say i got over my initial dislike and enjoyed WoW for a year or two for what it was, but to this day the whole process of acquiring experience by killing things or repeatedly using skills offends me. Its too much of an obvious gamemechanic, and no suspension of disbelief makes it sensible.
EvE's training on the other hand made sense for me from day one. It takes time to learn to fly a new ship, just like it takes time to learn driving stick. Also your not reading books, that would be way messy considering your floating in what amounts to goo. You do however have your brain directly connected to a computer via spinal cords, so i think it is safe to say your char is running simulations learning how to use new weapons or perfecting the use of things he already knows. Maybe your even getting the info directly implanted into that part of the brain that lets me drive a car without having to actively think about actions like shifting gears or using the clutch ... well anything is possible if you have cables leading into your brain i guess.
Eve always was realistic to me, so much so i didn't even notice that i had started roleplaying. It is world closed into itself, no parallel universes(multiple servers) or instances. If i read about something happening in EvE, i knew it was happening in the EvE that i played. And if i had to wait 2 weeks for a skill to finish ... yeah i wasn't happy. Infact most of the time i already lost interest in whatever i trained for by the time i finished level 5, but i digress ...
I guess what im trying to say is that its about perspective. In the beginning the training in eve was just "normal" for me as it was the only MMO i knew. And later it became a part of the "realism" i valued so highly about eve. Progression has to be painful to be meaningful, and there is no more painful preogression than in EvE.
Though how can you enjoy it? How can this system that annoys you become something you value instead? The answer for me is relaxiation, and dedication. If your dedicated to the game, because you love the genre for example, its not a question of if you get a skill or ship, but a question of when. Since your activity does neither hasten nor delay that point in time, you can let go of the pressure of progression. Yes its slow, but if you come home after a hard day, be it from work or school, its very nice to fire up the game and just hang out with your corp, chatting a bit and doing other things around the house while still progressing. The time i spent playing eve, it was often a different kind of time that i spent in other games like WoW.
So yeah, the slow training times are part of EvEs pacing. A very important part of it even, as much an asset as they are an annoyance. They are a big part of the reason you can play EvE the way that YOU want. Why should you have to kill a million pirates, if you don't want too? Maybe today i go and kill a couple dozen pirates ... then again maybe i trade some stuff in jita ... or i watch that new episode of Sons of Anarchy while posting spoilers in corp chat for those that didn't see it yet or don't care. Its my choice, and i don't have to feel guilty for either(apart from the last maybe ) and nor am i missing out on anything.
In the end you need to see leveling systems, wether they are character levels or item levels(and thus item treatmill), for what they are. A carrot on a stick, meant to appeal to some leftover instincts of us that a psychologist could probably write a mountain of papers on. They are things that make us do timesinks that we wouldn't do if there wasn't a reward associated with it. I.e. they are a way to make us do things that we don't enjoy for themselves and only do because of a "reward". Thats called a job. In eve you have the chance to break that rythm. You do things for themselves, because you enjoy them. Wether it be PvP, Mining, PvE or just spending your free time with people you like. And when you do stuff you don't like, like PvP, Mining or PvE ... you usually do it for the sake of those people that you like, which takes alot of the sting from it.
So just forget about the whole skill system. Look at the game. Do you like the graphics? Have you met nice people? Are there activities that get your blood pumping or give you that nice fuzzy chilled out feeling? You can start trying almost everything in the game even with low SP, ask yourself wether there are activities that you enjoy, which would get even better if you spent more SP in them and then do it. Don't just play the game for progressings sake. Trust me, finally training Battleship 5 is nice but not 4 weeks worth of nice. It won't make you enjoy the game more, it won't make running missions turn from boring into awesome.
Eve does have its carrots, the skills however are not part of it. Or atleast not as big a part as they are in games like WoW. The best way i can say it is probably that they are not equivalent to WoWs levels. It appears so on first look, but they really have a different purpose/meaning. They are not central to the game, they are important, but you don't do what you do for their sake, infact its the other way around your skills help you to do what you (like) to do better.
Asking for skill improvement based on use/kills is like reversing cause and effect:
I posted some info about EVE a while back on the EVE-O forums. It was someone asking about if they could play this game casually and I put a bit of info in on it.
Games like WoW, Rift and the like... They're kind of like "cramming for college exams".
If someone has blocks of time to invest, they are "easy". If they don't, nor have additional chunks of time they can guarantee as available to "keep advancing" -- they won't be able to keep up with their friends nor will their gear retain sufficient value to be of use in "higher end content". A HAC from 3 years ago is still a good ship to use but the same can't be said about equipment in those other games.
If your goal is to be more a soloist type that flips between various groups as you play, then this game probablly won't fit anywhere near as well as one of the "carrot on a stick" games. (not an insult, I have played them and it is chasing a short-term catch style carrot that then moves, making all your stuff "junk" while also requiring revamps of skill-trees to meet this set of tweaks.)
In this game, there is no carrot to chase. It's something you get as you play. You can't race to it. You can't make it come to you faster. You will reach it if you stick to a chosen path that you pick - the bitch is knowing how to pick a path with so many options available.
EVE is a very social friendly game in this respect. If you get in with a "good fit" group for your style of play, you'll probably stay. If not, you'll probably leave. This social side is what keeps and costs the game the bulk of its players.
The downside to this is that EVE is also one of the most brutal environments for new players and "trust me" often translates pretty closely to "F*** You".
Scams, gankers, griefers of all sorts run through this game so trying to find a good group to hang with can be a challenge for many - that and how the hell do you determine if a group would be a good fit until after you know a bit about them?
tl;dr - if it's progressing at a set pace, this is a great game. You won't fall behind others even if life gets in your way but if it is "cram for exams" style of play you are after, with constant advancement notices, this game will flat out suck.
Comments
Hmm this brings back memories. I was in exactly the opposite position as you are OP. You see EvE was my first MMO back in 2004, unlike most on this site i don't have bragging rights dating back to meridian 79 or some other game, not because im too young for those but simply because they never appealed to me ... in all honesty i thought they where a scam, asking a monthly fee to play a game?! Ontop of what im already pay for internet?! Remember you actually paid by the minute back then and couldn't use your phone while doing so ... so yeah i thought they where a elaborate scam by AOL or somesuch to raise my internet bill through the roof.
But i digress, back to start. So EvE was my first MMO, the lure of a dark and gritty scifi universe was pretty strong back then, and EvE hooked me like nothing else. Of course nothing in the game was weird to me, i had nothing to compare it too after all. Time based leveling? Guess MMOs do it that way. Ships and items lost on death? Makes perfect sense because there is no save option in an MMO. One server for everyone? Well that was obviously the difference between an MMO and a multiplayer game like Unreal Tournament.
Now fast forward 1 year into the future and im getting massive peer pressure for the "new" WoW. I could never get my friends into eve simply because it was english only. So i gave in and got WoW, i wanted to play with my friends and i was sure if i got them hooked on WoW i could later turn them to a proper MMO(i.e. one with spaceships, there is just no way elves and chubby little ... what the HELL ... can compete with fricking lasers on a badass spaceship).
Ok. Lets talk culture shock. Can you imagine what WoW was like for someone coming from EvE and only knowing warcraft 1 and 2? Ok i played some Unreal tournament and counterstrike, but still, that didn't remotely prepare me. It was so ...senseless. Why could NPCs die, yet i could not? Was there some religious aspect i missed? And why do i keep killing people for no reason whatsoever apart from the color of their target circle? Why can't i use that big twohanded hammer of mine on that midget running circles around me? Why does the dagger i have found do more damage than a twohanded hammer? Why does the armor NPCs wear not protect them? Why do my friends like this? Basicly i was sure AOL was somehow involved again ...
Because that game ... it was unrealistic. Sure you might say fantasy or scifi is inherently unrealistic, but its a plausible unrealism. WoW though wasn't just unrealistic because it played in a fantasy world, it deeply offended me because because it was and abstraction of an fantasy world made in a way to fit a certain kind of game design. Things like being unable to loot player corpses, full immortality for players and their items and PvP flags etc greatly offended me, oh i could see their purpose from a game design pov, but i didn't want a game, i wanted a World.
Suffice to say i got over my initial dislike and enjoyed WoW for a year or two for what it was, but to this day the whole process of acquiring experience by killing things or repeatedly using skills offends me. Its too much of an obvious gamemechanic, and no suspension of disbelief makes it sensible.
EvE's training on the other hand made sense for me from day one. It takes time to learn to fly a new ship, just like it takes time to learn driving stick. Also your not reading books, that would be way messy considering your floating in what amounts to goo. You do however have your brain directly connected to a computer via spinal cords, so i think it is safe to say your char is running simulations learning how to use new weapons or perfecting the use of things he already knows. Maybe your even getting the info directly implanted into that part of the brain that lets me drive a car without having to actively think about actions like shifting gears or using the clutch ... well anything is possible if you have cables leading into your brain i guess.
Eve always was realistic to me, so much so i didn't even notice that i had started roleplaying. It is world closed into itself, no parallel universes(multiple servers) or instances. If i read about something happening in EvE, i knew it was happening in the EvE that i played. And if i had to wait 2 weeks for a skill to finish ... yeah i wasn't happy. Infact most of the time i already lost interest in whatever i trained for by the time i finished level 5, but i digress ...
I guess what im trying to say is that its about perspective. In the beginning the training in eve was just "normal" for me as it was the only MMO i knew. And later it became a part of the "realism" i valued so highly about eve. Progression has to be painful to be meaningful, and there is no more painful preogression than in EvE.
Though how can you enjoy it? How can this system that annoys you become something you value instead? The answer for me is relaxiation, and dedication. If your dedicated to the game, because you love the genre for example, its not a question of if you get a skill or ship, but a question of when. Since your activity does neither hasten nor delay that point in time, you can let go of the pressure of progression. Yes its slow, but if you come home after a hard day, be it from work or school, its very nice to fire up the game and just hang out with your corp, chatting a bit and doing other things around the house while still progressing. The time i spent playing eve, it was often a different kind of time that i spent in other games like WoW.
So yeah, the slow training times are part of EvEs pacing. A very important part of it even, as much an asset as they are an annoyance. They are a big part of the reason you can play EvE the way that YOU want. Why should you have to kill a million pirates, if you don't want too? Maybe today i go and kill a couple dozen pirates ... then again maybe i trade some stuff in jita ... or i watch that new episode of Sons of Anarchy while posting spoilers in corp chat for those that didn't see it yet or don't care. Its my choice, and i don't have to feel guilty for either(apart from the last maybe
) and nor am i missing out on anything.
In the end you need to see leveling systems, wether they are character levels or item levels(and thus item treatmill), for what they are. A carrot on a stick, meant to appeal to some leftover instincts of us that a psychologist could probably write a mountain of papers on. They are things that make us do timesinks that we wouldn't do if there wasn't a reward associated with it. I.e. they are a way to make us do things that we don't enjoy for themselves and only do because of a "reward". Thats called a job. In eve you have the chance to break that rythm. You do things for themselves, because you enjoy them. Wether it be PvP, Mining, PvE or just spending your free time with people you like. And when you do stuff you don't like, like PvP, Mining or PvE ... you usually do it for the sake of those people that you like, which takes alot of the sting from it.
So just forget about the whole skill system. Look at the game. Do you like the graphics? Have you met nice people? Are there activities that get your blood pumping or give you that nice fuzzy chilled out feeling? You can start trying almost everything in the game even with low SP, ask yourself wether there are activities that you enjoy, which would get even better if you spent more SP in them and then do it. Don't just play the game for progressings sake. Trust me, finally training Battleship 5 is nice but not 4 weeks worth of nice. It won't make you enjoy the game more, it won't make running missions turn from boring into awesome.
Eve does have its carrots, the skills however are not part of it. Or atleast not as big a part as they are in games like WoW. The best way i can say it is probably that they are not equivalent to WoWs levels. It appears so on first look, but they really have a different purpose/meaning. They are not central to the game, they are important, but you don't do what you do for their sake, infact its the other way around your skills help you to do what you (like) to do better.
Asking for skill improvement based on use/kills is like reversing cause and effect:
I better my skills so that i can kill pirates
vs.
I kill pirates so that my skill gets better
Different strokes for different folks i guess.
I posted some info about EVE a while back on the EVE-O forums. It was someone asking about if they could play this game casually and I put a bit of info in on it.
Games like WoW, Rift and the like... They're kind of like "cramming for college exams".If someone has blocks of time to invest, they are "easy". If they don't, nor have additional chunks of time they can guarantee as available to "keep advancing" -- they won't be able to keep up with their friends nor will their gear retain sufficient value to be of use in "higher end content". A HAC from 3 years ago is still a good ship to use but the same can't be said about equipment in those other games.
If your goal is to be more a soloist type that flips between various groups as you play, then this game probablly won't fit anywhere near as well as one of the "carrot on a stick" games. (not an insult, I have played them and it is chasing a short-term catch style carrot that then moves, making all your stuff "junk" while also requiring revamps of skill-trees to meet this set of tweaks.)
In this game, there is no carrot to chase. It's something you get as you play. You can't race to it. You can't make it come to you faster. You will reach it if you stick to a chosen path that you pick - the bitch is knowing how to pick a path with so many options available.
EVE is a very social friendly game in this respect. If you get in with a "good fit" group for your style of play, you'll probably stay. If not, you'll probably leave. This social side is what keeps and costs the game the bulk of its players.
The downside to this is that EVE is also one of the most brutal environments for new players and "trust me" often translates pretty closely to "F*** You".
Scams, gankers, griefers of all sorts run through this game so trying to find a good group to hang with can be a challenge for many - that and how the hell do you determine if a group would be a good fit until after you know a bit about them?
tl;dr - if it's progressing at a set pace, this is a great game. You won't fall behind others even if life gets in your way but if it is "cram for exams" style of play you are after, with constant advancement notices, this game will flat out suck.
You are totally right bout goal setting.
Keep on rockin'!