Eve online -- Is it worth it?

I recently tried a trail version of Eve online, and have been playing for a while. I'm now a bit interested in the game, but I'm not sure if its worth a monthly subscription. It has some features and complexity that I've been looking for in a single player, off-line game, but I've haven't been able to find such games.

Before I get off track, is there anyone here who has played Eve online? If so, is Eve worth it? Also are there any games that play like Eve, but is off-line.
54,942 views 47 replies
Reply #1 Top
Well, my friend loves it, but I tried it and I think it sucked big time. Its just so repetitive. If you could fly the ship manually like in Elite it might have been more fun, but meh.
Reply #2 Top
Thanks for the reply. I was hoping for more responces.

Anyhow, is there a game called 'Elite' or something? Never heard of it before. Is it any good?
Reply #3 Top
If you could fly the ship manually like in Elite


If you like elite type games then Darkstar One is a well done modern version of the "classic" But I agree Muppet Eve is boring and so is Darkstar after the first hour or so.

But I can't be all negative, if you loved Elite you'll probably love Darkstar One.

Reply #4 Top
Have a look at X3: Reunion, it may be a better fit if you don't care for the "MMO" element. Be sure you pick up the 2.0 DVD version, which is Starforce-free. Amazon had it for about $10 last I saw, and it's worth a lot more than that.
Reply #5 Top
It really depends on what you are looking for in a game. If you are looking for a shooter type space sim the game is not for you. If you are looking for an RPG that kinda plays like a single-unit RTS, you might like Eve. I myself played it for a few months. One of its strong points to me, besides the almost insanely detailed game universe and emergent behavior, was off line character advancement. The character's skills training at a constant rate whether I am online of off was very important to me for an MMO as I often go weeks without being able to play a game. In the end, I found Eve was almost too realistic, it started feeling like a job, I started feeling like I needed to advance when I just wanted to kick back and relax. In some ways Eve is both more than a game, and less than one at the same time. It can't hurt to try it for a few months if you're interested. It is not all that expensive for an MMO. Even if you get bored after 3 months, you haven't really paid much more than what you would've for a retail game you wouldn't go back to after 3 months of play.
Reply #6 Top
In the end, I found Eve was almost too realistic, it started feeling like a job, I started feeling like I needed to advance when I just wanted to kick back and relax.


This is sort of the reason why I was asking. I feel that I have great potential for this game (already learned most of it in the 14 day trial), but it feels like its going to be too much work for me to enjoy.

Perhaps a 3-month subscription would be enough. I am interested in creating my own POS "Player Owned Starbase", even if I'm only going to keep it online for a little bit.

Have a look at X3: Reunion, it may be a better fit if you don't care for the "MMO" element.


Thanks for the game selection. I am bit too much of a lone wolf to care about the MMO component of any game. Perhaps if I had a few friends to play with, I might actually bother to advance my character to terrifying levels.

Anyhow, thanks for the starforce warning. The demo description mentions it has it as well, which is a shame. But I did find a manual in a .pdf format that I can read.

________________
Oh, by the way. Thanks for the other games suggested. I'll keep those in mind.
Reply #7 Top


Thanks for the game selection. I am bit too much of a lone wolf to care about the MMO component of any game. Perhaps if I had a few friends to play with, I might actually bother to advance my character to terrifying levels.

Anyhow, thanks for the starforce warning. The demo description mentions it has it as well, which is a shame. But I did find a manual in a .pdf format that I can read.


Yeah, the demo does indeed have SF. For what it's worth the SF-free DVD version is only $10 if you can find it, so at least it's not too much of a gamble. It's a neat game, really. 6 races with varying opinions of one another, a dynamic economy that reacts to you trading (and the AI trading as well, of course). It's a huge game too, 150 systems. There's plenty of stuff to do, and the added bonus is that it looks fantastic IMO. It's sort of... well I tend to think of it as the space sim equivalent of an Elder Scrolls game. There's a main plot but you're free to totally ignore it and just explore the gigantic universe around you.

Speaking as someone that can't stand MMO's I think X3 does a good job of capturing the "vast universe" and "free exploration" elements of a game like Eve without all those pesky other humans and subscription fees. That Egosoft is still releasing free content and feature upgrades for it after 2 years is no small thing, too.
Reply #8 Top
Eve is something you have to get into, and by that I mean invest at least 6 months . Getting podded and learning how to deal with pirates and arseholes. The thrills come when you join a corp and you start podding people and getting really good ships and loot . It takes time to get into and is EXTREMELY complicated to learn...masive learning curve for mastering that game much more so then any other mmo .
Reply #9 Top
As an EVE veteran, the key to enjoyment of EVE is first, set goals for yourself and go for them, second, find a good corp. Eve University might bee good for you.

I wouldn't suggest erecting a POS by yourself as a goal, becuase those things suck fuel like no tommorrow and the stuff they can do can be done better in other empire stations. They are most expensive and time consuming to erect.

Simply put, EVE is a very love it or hate it game. I can be so meaningful becuase EVE allows the players to have unrivaled freedom to act, while it can be boring becuase it doesn't give you stuff to do. There may be periods when you can't stay away and periods when you hardly log on (I'm in the latter atm, trying to get a little more drive)

If you want to know more, ask some more questions.

Hope this helps

God Bless
Reply #10 Top

Perhaps a 3-month subscription would be enough. I am interested in creating my own POS "Player Owned Starbase", even if I'm only going to keep it online for a little bit.


Unless Eve has changed drastically since I left about a year ago, 3 months aren't even enough time to acquire the skill set needed to singlehandedly construct a POS, let alone acquire the financial resources necessary.

Reply #11 Top
Eve is a really lame game, I'd strongly suggest anyone who isn't playing it to not play it, and anyone who is paying for it to stop. CCP is corrupt and their too many scammers besides CCP, the game is extremely boring (mining/mission hunting/etc), and you can easily lose months of work in a few minutes because of constant scammers who prey on those who don't know the latest tricks.

CCP is the company running Eve Online, and the fact that they play in the game and give themselves huge benefits (their corps and themselves) is widely known....
Reply #14 Top
CCP is the company running Eve Online, and the fact that they play in the game and give themselves huge benefits (their corps and themselves) is widely known.


Sounds like somebody got burned.


Actually, this is known fact. I know of at least one concrete case where a dev was caught manipulating a lottery to get his alliance much better equipment. And what did they do to the person that found out about it and exposed it? Banned him.

As soon as this particular alliance begins building Titans, the largest and most expensive ships in the game, which also have a "Doomsday" attack which is pretty much an instant win button, game mechanics are introduced which literally makes these Titans invulnerable.

So yes, I tend to agree that CCP is pretty corrupt, but it's still an interesting game. As a matter of fact, there's a massive coalition right now, dedicated to eradicating this particular alliance, so this is probably a pretty exciting time to get into the game.

Reply #15 Top
You say corrupt, I say powerful NPC (sort of). As you said, it has made the game more exciting. I always thought the devs were gonna go all out and be the Jovians.
Reply #16 Top
I thought it was a fun game overall. I played it for about 6 months. But it can be really unforgiving. One day, I lost 3 of my best ships in a war due to a game bug. This amounted to about 90% of everything I had gained up to that point in the game. I was looking at either starting over from square one, begging corpmates to help me recover, or just quit. So I quit.

It is extremely unforgiving. There is no xp or levels to cushion your fall. Only your bank balance and total time invested determine the power you have at any given moment, (and piloting skill of course, and friends). So if you lose all your money in a war or to scammers or thieves, and you're not very good at making friends, you lose everything and it's like you're starting over at day one. It sounds hardcore, and it is, but when you're actually in that situation and realize you just wasted 6 months of your life and have nothing, not even virtual possessions to show for it, it sucks ass and makes you want to quit.
Reply #17 Top
Completely understandable, but that is kind of what makes Eve so special in my opinion. I never had a gaming moment more tense (and panicked) than when I was hauling cargo I spent my entire wealth on(albeit a very modest sum compared to more experienced players) in a brand new industrial ship, having pirates lock on and start firing at me...getting through the jump gate with 10% ship health and being thankful their teammates waiting for me on the other side didn't have webs. "Must go faster!" Events like those turn haulers into speed freaks fast, real fast.
Reply #18 Top
It takes time to get into and is EXTREMELY complicated to learn...masive learning curve for mastering that game much more so then any other mmo .


I got a grasp of most of the game mechanics within the 14 day trial (those features I was able to play with that is). I felt that I learned the game quite fast, and thus I felt that I should play since I was able to learn quickly. The question is, is it unusual to learn most of the game in about 14 days?

I wouldn't suggest erecting a POS by yourself as a goal, becuase those things suck fuel like no tommorrow and the stuff they can do can be done better in other empire stations. They are most expensive and time consuming to erect.


I was only interested in how they pulled it off, and how it worked. You wouldn't happen to have a video of it happening, or something?

And yes, I' aware of the difficulty involved in their construction.

If you want to know more, ask some more questions.


I'll keep that in mind if I start playing again, or have a question that I want answered.
Reply #19 Top
I was only interested in how they pulled it off, and how it worked. You wouldn't happen to have a video of it happening, or something?

And yes, I' aware of the difficulty involved in their construction.


I don't have a video and I can tell you about my own experience.

I was the POS director for my corporation, and I oversaw the handling of 4 Large Caldari POS and several smaller POS. The small POS were miners and the Large POS were reactors. All of this was meant to create Ferrogel, a mineral essential to T2 item/ship production.

All these POS were scattered in about a 10 jump radius (probably would have been best to condense the reactors in a single system and have smaller, more easily maintained small POS doing the mining.) To reduce my haul time I set up hauling jobs for my corp mates, which did much of the work.

Each Large POS can take at least 6+ hours to properly set up, since each item has a anchoring and onlining time. Plus the largest POS requires over 200k m3 fuel to be transported from supplies in empire and elsewhere to a holding station and ultimately the POS per WEEK.

Now granted, the carrot for this little endeavour was a substantial payoff for selling the ferrogel, but unfortunately the ferrogel price plummetted and costs for basic reactants that we couldn't mine skyrocketed once the entire network was ready.

Through that time, I spent virtually all my play time in my Mastodon class Transport (t2 mammoth) named "Veronica"

It's not something I think I will want to do again (but I maybe economic conditions will make it tempting again).

IMHO, making POS a indispensable means of defense of station systems didn't do the game much credit. It introduced too much work in the games greatest strength, it's PVP combat.




Reply #20 Top
Eve-online is total waste of time. I played for a long time before I realized it was a dead-end. It has nothing like real strategy, just a good basic storyline. The items suk, the ships suk, the players are either total starry-eyed newbs or professional money-makers that manipulate the game to make profits on eBay selling the items they pick up from killing newb ships. Don't Use The Farce, Look.
Reply #21 Top

Eve-online is total waste of time. I played for a long time before I realized it was a dead-end. It has nothing like real strategy, just a good basic storyline. The items suk, the ships suk, the players are either total starry-eyed newbs or professional money-makers that manipulate the game to make profits on eBay selling the items they pick up from killing newb ships. Don't Use The Farce, Look.


Couldn't the same be said for all MMO's? Did you expect it to have strategy?
Reply #22 Top
Well, actually, I did. Somewhere in the hype that little bit of bait was thrown out and I went for it. You know how it is. Of course, there is strategy of a sort, I might point out. When you join a corp and they get you on teamspeak, you get to play all kinds of useless mind games while chatting with a bunch of boozers and tricksters. That's strategy, isn't it?
Reply #23 Top
The thing that makes EVE meaningful and fun is the community and the freedoms granted it. All other things are secondary to that.
Reply #24 Top
no, I would say the gameplay should be pretty important too. and be honest with yourself, is eve's gameplay really all that good? I mean, can you just log on and go pvp with some other people? no, you can't, you have to wait, and wait, and then get all excited, and then perhaps wait some more, maybe reconfigure your ship setup, then wait for another half hour until finally you get in a fight where you could get popped in a few seconds in which case you have to go back to square one again. people talk about the immense amount of strategy, and i agree there are alot of different ship setups that can determine your chances of survival and destruction. but when it comes right down to it the bigger fleets should win. And this brings me to the main point i want to make: 1)lag sucks, therefore eve sucks. because eve=lag in every way shape and form my friends. and if you are still able to deny this then i just don't know anymore.

now you might be saying to yourself: "people don't play mmo's for the gameplay, if they wanted to do that they would just play counterstrike.", but i disagree, i think mmo's offer some great gameplay opportunitis and are not solely for the purposes of socialization and roleplaying. They are also for the purpose of great gameplay. so please explain to me why eve is so superior. i am still trying to understand this and i have been playing the game for four months now. and i'm going to admit it, i'm thinking about switching to WOW.
Reply #25 Top
It is possible to play EVE a bit on a casual basis and have fun that way for some months. OTOH, to start experiencing the full potential of the game, it's necessary to join a corp so you get buddies to work and exchange lore with, and also to invest much time so you stay in touch.

My last corp was active on several fronts, they did mining, manufacturing and POS'es, and pushed their envelope regarding what they could do and where in space they could go (and survive). This would be impossible without a core of active corp members spending a good part of their free time online.

Being in a corp like that was a thrill, and also the other players were generally very helpful and welcoming, e.g. if you lost your main ship chances were they'd help you replace it, generally if you had little money people would give you equipment etc, and also any damages suffered while doing wotk for the corp was reimbursed.

To be a good EVE player, you also need to keep up on developments in ships, equipment and new features in general. It has been said that it's a game for equipment geeks.

Also, if you get your act together (and that probably requires being in a well-functioning corp), EVE PvP is said to be awesome.

I believe EVE can be a marvelous game for the right kind of person. Personally my main problem with EVE was its demand on my time, as I prioritize RL.