get WoW instead.. cataclysm comes out on the 7th!

If you want reasons for wow.. feel free to ask

You can try EVE free for two weeks. The link is on their website. From my experience, EVE is definetly not for everyone. I really wanted to like it. It just looks amazing. The ships are absolutely gorgeous. So I got the trial, played the tutorials, messed around for a little bit, and then gave it up. It's just soooo boring. I couldn't stand it. You literally have to spend months or even years to get some things (namely, the ships that I think are the coolest). If you watch the Zero Punctuation for EVE, it basically sums up all of my feelings about it.

That being said, I do have some friends who love it. They'll spend hours at a time just mining. Go to some asteroids, sit there for 10-20 minutes, bring what they mined to a station, sell it, and repeat.

Basically, I recommend that you do the trial. As far as I can tell, it's one of those love it or hate it games. Some people swear it's the most amazing MMO ever (visually I would agree), but others (me) find it horribly boring and uninteresting.

Anyway, I'll make a case for WoW I guess.

While paying per month sounds like bullshit... they constantly come up with new content, bug fixes, and balancing fixes.  It's easily the best polished game I've ever played.  No problems like Demigod where someone finds a problem, details exactly how to fix it, and a year later it isn't fixed.  There are new patches constantly, many bringing new raids / gear.  If there is a major bug, they might hot fix it (sometimes in less than a day after the bug is found) before patch day.  But in general, there just aren't glitches or bugs.  With all of the content, that is seriously amazing.  Speaking of content:

There is SO much fucking content.  If you really want to get into all the lore and shit, there are volumes written in game lol.  It's really like 3 games in one.  Leveling up to the cap takes a significant amount of time (longer than it takes to beat most single player RPGs).  Once you finish that though, there is still so much to do!  There are 10 and 25 man raids (which you can pug or be in a guild for), and those reset every week.  They increase in difficulty so you can't really do all of them at once.  For a guild, once you finally make it through one, you're ready to start chipping away at the next.  In the meantime, there are numerous instances for 5 man groups to kill shit and get gear.  The 3rd part of the game is pvp!  There are a handful of battlegrounds to duke it out (15 man, 25 man, and 40 man groups) and get honor / gear.  There are different arenas so you can kill people on a competitive level with a team (2v2, 3v3, 5v5 with an AMAZING rating / matchmaking system).  You can kill people in world pvp.. so while they're out questing or w/e you can start blowin them to pieces and piss 'em off lol.  You can raid world cities.. killing npcs and striking out against the alliance or horde.  You also get a taste of pvp / instancing while leveling if you want to (not necessary to level).

Doing the pvp part of it is really like a separate game.  Some people just do that alone after they level up, and ignore raids.  Some people just do raiding and like to be cutting edge.. getting server / US / World firsts.  Some people strive to be the best of both worlds.. and some just play it casually, doing pug raids and battlegrounds.  Whatever your fancy.. it's there (they've made it MUCH more casual friendly, so you don't have to play ridiculously long hours to have some decent gear and have fun / experience content).

Basically.. there is something to do all the time, and there are ALWAYS a lot of people in battlegrounds / dungeons 24 / 7 (literally).   

Also, if you do end up getting it, hit me up and I'll tell you which server I'll be on in Cataclysm.. start a char on my server and I'll give you plenty of starting gold and a shit ton of bag space + tips!

Edit:  Oh ya.. the forums are huge and very active.  There are numerous leveling guides, so you can see what people who level characters like it's their job have to say (for some, it is lol).  Like to theorycraft?  Thousands of pages detailing different strategies, math behind which skills are better, which stats to go for and when, the best way to kill a boss, how the newest patch will effect anything and everything, etc.

true true, recruit a friend ftw.  I level'd to 80 in 3 weeks.

p.s. "damn Vodka" the drink or the guild?  (was in Vodka for a bit before I stopped playin)

Edit:  btw, they've made it muuuuch more casual friendly.. so you don't have to play alllll the freakin time to have decent gear

Pacov, when you start the trial you can add Se'len to your friends list and I'll be happy to answer any questions you have while doing the tutorial/finding your way around.

The game has a bit of a learning curve, but it's really not bad. CCP is actually removing the #1 thing that makes starting in EVE terribly boring - learning skills. The way EVE works is everything trains in real-time without you having to do anything. There's a skill literally for everything (every module, ship, implant, etc). You just select which skill you want to train, and it tells you how much real time it will take to train it. The learning skills increase your attributes so that training times are shorter, but you have to spend time training those too and while you do that you can't train anything else, which is boring.

But, on December 14 all learning skills are going away, everyone is getting a base stat boost, and for anyone who already trained the learning skills, the skill points are being refunded and can be put into other skills. Basically, this change makes starting up in the game a whole lot easier.

As to the game itself - it's a sandbox. And it's a sandbox that, yes, does take some time investment. You can get into a cruiser or battlecruiser pretty quickly, and a good enough battleship likely within a month or 2 (depending on if you shoot straight for it or make some training detours) and that pretty much opens the majority of the game for you. Obviously this is pretty basic, and it will take a good deal of training time to maximize your ship's fitting, and there are lots of advanced ships to learn to pilot which require a time investment. 

There are ships that take a year or so to get into. These are capital ships, the biggest and baddest. The catch is.. they're only useful in PvP. They're big, they're slow, they can't move around like normal ships (need a partner ship to open a cyno field for the capital jump drive to lock onto and jump through) because they're too big to fit through gates. The supercapital ships (supercarriers and titans) can't even dock, they have to remain in space and are a basically mobile space stations. Very few people ever pilot these. And the capitals in general are just designed to be used in PvP. Carriers launch lots of fighters and fighter-bombers, but they can't be used in PvE missions and carry no guns, instead they fit remote repair modules to support PvP fleets. Dreadnaughts have big guns, but they also can't be used in missions and really can't hit anything smaller than a battleship (and struggle to hit even those). So while they take a long time to get into, their usability is also (justly) limited.

If you are interested in PvP, the game is designed such that absolutely every ship class is useful. Little speedy frigates and interceptors (advanced ship) zip around and warp scramble targets so they can't escape while the battleships pound them to dust, and cruisers/battlecruisers are tasked with eliminating these pesky tacklers. Covert ops with advanced cloaking devices fly scouting a few jumps around the main fleet to make sure the fleet leader knows what's going on and doesn't get surprised. Stealth bombers wait for a fleet battle to start, then decloak and launch their bombs on the busy enemy fleet to deal massive AoE damage.. And, of course, you can just hop into any of these ships and be part of a small roaming gang.

PvE gameplay involves manufacturing, research, mining, trading, exploring, or just doing missions for an agent. These are more or less straightforward, though exploring actually involves fitting a scan probe launcher and using probes to scan for hidden sites that can't be found any other way.. so it actually is 'exploring' and not 'flying around space to see what there is to see'  

Also, if you do get into EVE, be aware that after a couple of months of paying subscription, you should be able to earn enough in-game money to pay the monthly fee with. CCP introduced an official way to do this, you can just buy 30-day pilot's licenses on the ingame market for ingame money and those give you a month of playtime.

Also, unlike WoW and other MMOs, all expansions to EVE are free, and CCP does 2 expansions per year (winter and summer). This winter's expansion is split into 3 stages, one of which already hit and introduced a new salvage ship, and mostly fixes. The bigger chunks of the expansion will be a brand new character creator (everyone will get a free re-make), and Sansha's Nation space invasions (it's a pirate faction), which should be a big boost to the game's PvE aspect as you'll be able to hop into big fleets and have massive fights to beat the invasions back.. and get rewarded, of course. This will all go in by the end of January.

On the WoW front, I would have to say that if you were to start playing WoW, this (cataclysm) would be the best time to start. Reworked new player areas, and a huge fresh crop of new players means you will have people at your character and player skill level to progress through the game with, which is a great thing.

That said, I haven't played WoW in ages, and have no plans to return. Eventually I just hit a point where I realized that I wasn't having fun. It was more like I had acclimatized myself to accepting long bouts of repetitive action for carefully timed rewards. I lost any sense of immersion.

I immediately found Eve refreshing. It's not that it's better than WoW, exactly. The two are coming from such extremely different directions, and are offering different experiences, that it's really hard to compare them directly. I'll try to cover some of the main points as I see them:

Eve is initially tougher than most MMOs to get into, and getting past that first hurdle can take some time. Partly this is due to the interface, which, while perfectly suited to Eve, is very much unlike that used by any other MMO. Partly this is due to playing within a three dimensional space, which can be disorienting or awkward for some people. Partly, this is due to a lack of visual cues. While the graphics in Eve are nice, you will likely find it much easier to handle combat "zoomed out" to the point where you can't really see individual ships anymore. And partly, also, this is due to the fact that you have nearly unlimited options from day one, but little real guidance. You might really appreciate the wide range of ships, modules, skills, implants, corps, alliances, systems, wormholes, professions... or it might overwhelm you. My best advice in that regard is to join a new-player corporation or a training corporation (Eve University is a good start).

Eve has a bit of a identity problem. The developers, at any given moment, can't decide whether they are catering to PvE focused "carebears" (the majority of the population) or to the PvP focused null-sec alliances and low-sec pirates. This won't mean much to a new player, but I feel it is one of Eve's most defining traits

Eve can pay for itself. You can pay your monthly subscription with the in-game currency (ISK). This won't really be an option for you right off the bat, because you won't have much cash, but if you enjoy the game and are still playing in a few months time, it's a nice option to have. While I don't mine much any more, there was a time when a weekend of off-and-on mining would pay the monthly bill for both my accounts.

Eve is a very social game. And I mean very, very, social. Corporations routinely span hundreds of players, and alliances are often built up of dozens of corporations. Your corp mates will generally be the people you spend most time playing and chatting with, so it's important to find a group you can get along well with. You also want your corporation to be active, and run by a CEO and directors who have... well... direction, and who have the strength of personality and determination to get you there. A good corporation is your support structure. A bad corporation can ruin your enjoyment of the game, so feel free to abandon a sinking ship!

Eve's economy is player-run. WoW and other games have crafting, but in Eve, 99% of everything is player created, from resources that players mined and harvested themselves. I find it interesting to watch the fluctuations in the market whenever an expansion is approaching, or a particular ship is being rebalanced, as miners start stockpiling minerals, and industrial speculators start hiking prices.

PvP, in Eve, generally ranges from small gangs to multi-alliance fleets. Solo PvP is generally ill-advised, simply because your opponent is rarely alone. On the large-scale fleet side, you have hundreds and hundreds of battleships and assault cruisers supporting dozens of capital ships. On each side. A single battle can easily see a trillion ISK destroyed, which translates to tens of thousands of dollars and months of work. It's kind of Epic.

During my time with Wildly Inappropriate, fighting the Russian alliance Solar Fleet (among others), I personally lost a few hundred dollars "worth" of assets. Not that I actually paid for any of it, but Eve has a pretty stable dollar to ISK ratio, so it's interesting to step back sometimes and consider just what any given loss or kill was worth.

This brings us back to the economy. Large fleet fights and alliance sovereignty wars in general have noticeable impacts on the economy. Every ship and every weapon, shield, etc etc etc on each of those ships was built by someone, and each one lost has to be replaced. This keeps the economy going stable in way unseen in other MMOs.

I think that's all I have time for. It's definitely an intriguing game that offers a radically different experience. But it isn't for everyone, and it has a steep learning curve, which scares a lot of people off. If nothing else, give the 2 week trial a go. And for your own sake, ask a lot of questions, and whenever possible fly with others. You'll get an idea for the game a lot quicker that way, and end up having a lot more fun. Trying to get at the meat of the game alone, and in two weeks, is a very tall order.

Good advice - I'll keep that in mind and likely start with the 10 day trial.

louist - thanks for all the feedback.  I appreciate the details you fellas are covering and that makes the game, at least, sound much more interesting to me. 

RAF requires that person to send you the 10 day trial btw.  You then become linked to their account for 90 days.  Also, to get the xp bonus they have to be near you on a char in the same level range.  

On the other hand, he can create an account, play on that alone for a few days, then if he likes it he can be RAF'd and choose the server (esp if he goes PvP and decides he hates PvP servers, or the other way around, not that there is that much world PvP low level). 

But, yes, if you start the trial if you want to be RAF'd you're going to have to restart your account.

You can have 10 characters per realm/server, up to 50 in total per account.

If you want to transfer a pre-existing character to another server, it's $25 (unless you are migrating from a high population server to a low population server, it's then free). 

If you have RAF, it's typically better to just re-create your char and play for 5 hours and be done with it  

There are "New Player" servers but, again, recommend RAF'ing over that. 

The difference between PvP and PvE is that on a PvP server you have the ability to kill members of the opposite faction if you see them.

This can be frustrating (80s raping lowbies), but it can also be fun (impromptu duels of roughly equal levels, or killing another character over a resource node). Since you'll be able to fly in Azeroth in 10 hours, lowbie areas may be prone to "death from above". Especially since some of the high-level content is really close to low level content. Once you get to level 58 you can travel to Outland, however, and once you're there there you can fly as well so if you see an 80 you can just take off, plus mostly the only 80s in Outland are just farming reputation or gathering resource nodes unlike in Azeroth where they may be nearby questing. 

I'm not sure what steps Blizzard has taken to prevent high level characters from raping lowbies while they are questing. I have seen level 85 elites posted around the starting areas, and there is a flying guard over major cities. But if you're questing out in the open plains, I think you're out of luck. 

I'm on a PvP server and I'm happy about it. 

Thanks for all that feedback too, fadedC. 

So is there any kind of significant PvE play in Eve? It always reads like a PvP oriented game.