Eve Online

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Cakedaddy
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Eve Online

Post by Cakedaddy »

I downloaded, loaded, and started playing. You can get a free 14 day pass HERE. They just released a HUGE patch, and it's apparently a really bad time to be joining because of it. Oh well. The first thing I noticed was, their patch server suuuuucked for me. It would start DLing, then error out. I'd restart it. It would error. It did however continue where it left off each time. So, after many restarts, the patch downloaded. I created my character. MANY dress up options. Many race, religion, school of thought, etc options which affect your starting attributes. I picked things I didn't agree with philosophicaly so that I could have the attributes I wanted to play with. Not that I had any idea what I was doing anyway.

So the game starts and I start the tutorial. Good tutorial. LOOOONG tutorial. Deep game with lots of stuff. I think it'll be easy to pick up on, but take a while to master. Did some combat with some AI drones (pirates). Combat is slow, but not. It's not all point click twitchy stuff. But, you have to think really fast stratigicaly because things move slow. As some one else said, it's like naval combat. Takes time to aquire the target, get them in range, etc. I'm sure things change depending on the ship you fly (I'm in the newb rookie ship).

Well, that's all I feel like typing for now. I've been in the tutorial for about 45 minutes, and I'm not done yet. Will continue later.

But, LOTS of potential, it appears.
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Cakedaddy
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Post by Cakedaddy »

Finally finished the loooooong tutorial. Last thing it covers is missions. How to get them, how to complete them, etc. So, that's what I'm doing now.

What I've learned:

1. Missions are very similar to missions in SWG. Talk to someone. They say 'go shoot this guy and bring me his cargo' or 'Take this stuff and deliver it some place'. Pretty straight forward. Missions are obviously geared toward you skill level. There's a whole other mission thing available. Haven't gotten into that yet. Might be more lucrative/dangerous. I don't know yet.

2. Combat is very much like SWG use to be. You pick a target, and attack. Then the die are rolled, etc. So far, the only strategy for me is to orbit the target, to keep moving and harder to hit, and keep shooting till they are dead. So, select target, initiate combat, then take your hands off the controls while it plays it out. I'm guessing that it gets a little more involved later on. There are many different ships, weapons, sensors, etc. So, I'm guessing combat becomes a little more hands on later on. But it's still VERY automated. So, I guess one could argue that 'skill' doesn't play as big a part as 'level' does.

3. It's a VERY big game. Huge map. HUGE. Enormous. Not sure how that translates into game play, etc. But, it's VERY VERY big.

4. Piloting is very automated. Doing missions, you set way points, destinations, then hit autopilot. You can pick 'most direct route' or 'safest route'. Obviously safer is normally longer. My mission jounies have been lasting about 5-10 minutes each. You warp around, etc. So, the jouneys can take a few minutes, but, at least you aren't locked at the contols. However, I haven't been attacked or anything yet. So, I'm guessing the jouney can be interupted and stuff.

5. I did some mining in the tutorial. Have not done it in real life yet.

6. You can bank your goods at the various space stations. Which ever station you bank your stuff at, that's where it is. It's not a universal bank (like UO). So, you have to keep track of your stuff. There's a built in tool that keeps track of everything, so you won't loose it.

I've run one mission outside of the tutorial and I'm up to 100k kredits. Have not priced ships or anything. I'm just assuming they cost in the many millions. But, the tutorial stressed getting a new ship. Even the crappiest ship you can buy is better than the newb ship.

I see lots of potential for PVP, player interaction, etc. However, I'm wondering how much is out of the player's hands. I guess it will be no more out of the player's hands than SWG use to be. Who ever has the bigger gun will win. But, when it comes to group combat. . . I guess strategy could over come bigger guns, maybe. I'm going to keep playing, and it's interesting enough that I could see myself paying for an additional month after the 14 day free tial is up. As far as long term playability. . . yet to be seen.

Oh, there's this whole corporation thing as well. Standings go up and down based on mission run, etc. You can also start your own corp. Not sure what the bigger scope of that is though.
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Cakedaddy
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Post by Cakedaddy »

P.S. Playing in window mode is pretty slow on my machine. Full screen was pretty smooth.
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Post by Cakedaddy »

Another quick update:

I did some ship shopping. I can buy ships in my skill level for as low as a few thousand kredits. I have just over 250k right now. The ship I have is doing fine for the types of missions I'm running right now, so I'll probably keep saving up. These are alot like escorting NPCs in UO. Some give you a good pay off, some are kind of light. But all seem to be no risk. To run the other missions I see, you need to have money in the bank for some reason. I couldn't afford any of those missions. I'll have to read up on mining and the ships and stuff. As well as ship add-ons that might be useful. I have alot of skill points to spend (21k) with skills costing anywhere from a couple hundred, to a couple thousand. So, once I spend those, some stuff will probably open up to me as well.

Anyway. Deep deep game. Missions are getting boring though. At least I can do them while watching TV.
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Post by GORDON »

I'm thinking I'll fire it up when I get back from Ohio. No point starting a 14-day trial and then going afk for 8 days.
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Cakedaddy
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Post by Cakedaddy »

Bought a new ship. I don't remember if I mentioned this, but ships range in price from just a few thousand kredits, to many millions. Maybe more, didn't do that much shopping. I bought a transport ship, as those are the types of missions I'm running. It's twice as fast as my first ship and only cost 8k. I've VERY limited in the upgrades I can buy for it though. But, it decreased my travel time and it's a cheap ship to risk out there. I bought some skills. Bought Navigation for 20k and it only took a couple minutes to train it. Then I bought the Afterbuner skill so I can buy afterburner upgrades to speed the ship up even more. That cost another 20k and took about 20 minutes to train. That's when I noticed all the after burner upgrades are for ship classes other than transport. No idea if there are add-ons for my ship for speed boosts. . . I will probably just buy a low end frigget class ship that will hold the add-ons I'm looking at. The add-ons cost anywhere from a few thousand to a few million, and the ship I'm looking at is about 240k. I have about 300k now. Have not engaged in any sort of combat outside of the tutorial yet. In fact, my current ship has no weapons anyway. I'm wondering if the current guy I'm working with as far as missions will eventually run out of stuff and pass me onto someone else for missions. SWG style. I'm noticing my status in that faction going up as I do missions.

As I'm learning, things are getting easier to do, and then I start looking into other things to do. Seems there are TONS of things to do.

The economy is similar to SWG as well. Player made and NPC supplied goods for sale. Things are for sale all over the place. Where ever it is, you have to go pick it up. So, you have to make sure you don't buy anything on the other side of the universe as it will take forever to get it. Prices vary as well. So, you balance between price and distance for pick up. No idea how to sell stuff on the market yet. Haven't had anything worth selling. NPCs buy damn near anything, SWG style again.

As you can see, I'm seeing ALOT of similarities between EVE and SWG. Except, the consequences of your decisions are WAY better. I'm looking forward to learning more and figuring out what it will take to enter the combat arena. Would be fun to start hunting down the pirates and protecting miners and what not for starters.
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Post by Cakedaddy »

One more thing, I can see myself upgrading the PC soon so it runs better. Pulling into certain high traffic areas brings the FPS down to an unacceptable level. I have a GeForce 6800, so it's not a card issue. I'm still running an Athalon 2100XP.
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Troy
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Post by Troy »

Getting close to the final decision yay or nay?

Sounds interesting so far, but the auto-fight kind of takes the Free PVP coolness out of it.


I mean, Tarkin could have autoed the Death Star in the Battle of Yavin!




Edited By Troy on 1134976271
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Post by Cakedaddy »

Not even close to a final yet. WAY too much in the game to really know what the hell is going on. The dude that was giving me missions has stopped. And I can't find another agent to give me missions. I know they are out there, I can't find any. All the agents I talk to are too high leveled. I ask for help on the chat channels, and people say "Click here, there, etc", but, I don't see what they are talking about. Once I figure out the mission stuff, things will get moving again. Right now, all I've done, in UO terms, is pick some stuff up off the floor at the bank and sold it. Bought a horse with the money I made. I think that's about as much as I know. So, to say, "This is it!!" wouldn't be possible. I just see alot of interesting stuff going on that I have no idea how to participate in.

I did take a look at the bounty board. It had a bunch of people on it. The cool thing is, it shows if they are on line or not. You can also have the map highlight systems that have had recent murders happening. You could hunt the systems with >10 killings in the last 1 hour and stuff. However, I saw a transcript of some combat. A missle someone fired did 110 points of damage. My weapons so far are doing around 3 points. There are targeting jammers, hyperdrive jammers, etc. So, lots of strategic stuff with combat. The click/twitch aspect has been removed though.

I'm still leaning towards signing up and paying when the free trial is over though. I haven't seen anything all that bad yet. Will probably start posting questions on message boards to get a better feel for if the game is my kind of game though.
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Post by Cakedaddy »

Up to 500k now and about to buy a bigger ship. The shuttle isn't cutting it because of it's small cargo area and no weapons. The new missions I'm getting (finally figured out how to get some) require more cargo space. So, I'm training skills and will buy a new ship and upgrade its engines/afterburner/warp drive to speed it up. It can have 2 high, 2 medium and 1 low (whatever the hell that means). Actually, it refers to the types of add-ons it can support. High = Weapons, Medium = shields and not sure what else. Not sure what low is either.

Anyway, the game is slowly opening up for me. . .
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Post by Leisher »

I'm mildly interested. Depending on your feedback the next few days or so Cake I'll proibably sign up for the free trial.
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Cakedaddy
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Post by Cakedaddy »

Wait for Gordon to sign up so you can learn together. Or, so I only have to explain things once. :-)

As it stands, I'm struggling to not shirk my responsibilities so I can play EVE.
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Post by Troy »

I'm in, as of this morning... DId my first few training missions, got my first 20k or so and am trying to figure out the mining bit.
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Post by Cakedaddy »

I haven't touched the mining, outside of the tutorial. I saw some 'mining guides' posted on the eve-online.com forums. I'm finding the forums more helpful than the ingame rookie chat line. The chat line didn't help because the players helping assume too much knowledge on my part. The forums walk you through stuff step by step. That's how I found out more about the mission agents and stuff. Do your story line mission thing through the contact you got from the tutorial. You'll end up with about 400k credits and an implant you could sell for about 120k. Assuming you get the same stuff I did of course. It was well worth the time and set you up pretty good to move on to the next step of buying a new ship.

I'm getting about 50k per mission, and they take about 15 minutes each to run. Let me (us) know how you do mining. I'm hoping to cut down on the time with the new ship.

Also, I'm posting questions about PVP in the new player forum on eve-online.com. In case you're interested in that conversation.

What's your name and race? You gonna round up Seker and Zerk and buy all the stuff we take from you off our vendors again? :-)
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Troy
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Post by Troy »

Na, never talked to zerk outside of game, and Seker doesn't play anymore.


Mining is pretty simple. I already have the 60k I need for a bettermining ship.

I'll try the main storyline... I'm supposed to meet someone, somewhere.


Is lag bad for you? It seems to be a bit of problem in the few sectors I have been in. Lots of talk about how bad it is.

Name TasmanianX

I'm a Caldari, Deteis

out of the War academy, with a penchant for advanced missles.




Edited By Troy on 1135028698
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Post by GORDON »

Also, I'm posting questions about PVP in the new player forum on eve-online.com. In case you're interested in that conversation.
I was going to ask.

Make sure you find out about pvp soon, because if there's no risk we'll all be bored within 3 months, and in that case I won't even bother.

But it sounds to me like you're tooling around the universe completely safe. Bad sign.
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
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Post by Troy »

Also, I'm posting questions about PVP in the new player forum on eve-online.com. In case you're interested in that conversation.

I was going to ask.

Make sure you find out about pvp soon, because if there's no risk we'll all be bored within 3 months, and in that case I won't even bother.

But it sounds to me like you're tooling around the universe completely safe. Bad sign.

From what I can tell we are in "town"

right now

mining sucks and there isn't much going on.

I'll need a new ship or two before I can go mine in the Areas with bad security, where the pirates are.




Edited By Troy on 1135030017
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Post by Cakedaddy »

What he said. We are in town. Making more jumps than I need to so I don't get blowed up. However, even in town, if someone wants you dead, you can still die. Just, they will most likely die too. Kind of like UO was. If you wanted to kill someone in town, it could be done at high risk to self. And, the good stuff is in the low security areas. High security mining areas are dry and you have to wait for ore to spawn, etc. Pay off is bigger if you leave town.

What I'm not sure on is if you can actively hunt the bad guys. Someone was implying that if you go aggresive on someone, then you are the criminal. I asked more questions about that one. Haven't heard back yet though. Over all, finding random victims is suppose to be really easy and plentiful. Finding bad guys is a little harder as they have the upper hand in escaping easily and/or just not attacking you to get things started. But again, I'm digging for more info.
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Post by Troy »

Heh, went to some of the lower security areas to mine and do a food drop off... NPC pirates nearly got me, didnt see anyone as far as PCs tho.
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Post by GORDON »

Is it like you're in town, or like you're in Trammal?
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