T w e n t y S i d e d

Let’s just agree up front that I’m not going to be able to scratch the surface of a rough outline of a summary of this game. I’ve been playing for about a week, so writing about EVE at this point is like a guy from Azerbaijan deciding that since he spent 24 hours in Anchorage he’s qualified to write about AMERICA. The subject is too big for anything as ambitious as an overview. So if you’re an EVE veteran, try not to rage out about overlooked details or errors in this write-up. EVE is huge and there’s no way I could get it all down in the week I’ve been playing.

I’ve rolled a few characters, bought some ships, joined a corporation, and smashed about a million asteroids. The game isn’t so much “fun” as it is “engrossing”. I’m in it for a month, but I’m not sure I’ll extend my account beyond that. We’ll see. I’ll talk more about this in the podcast later this week.

A corporation is a player-run group. In other games they’re called guilds. The corp I joined is Starfield Enterprises. I joined Starfield because:

1. They’re not so massive that I’d be lost, so I could ask my newbie questions without feeling like I was shouting into the storm.
2. They focus on industry and mining, which is what interests me.
3. Their name isn’t stupid. Far too many corps think that members would want to fly under the flag of “xXMurdar EliteXx” or “Surprise Buttsects”. And too often they are right. Sigh. Still, I feel compelled to note that when it comes to players choosing lore-friendly names, EVE is actually one of the best. It’s second only to LOTRO for non-stupid character names.
4. They seem like a nice bunch of reasonable, low-key players who enjoy the game.

Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely… etc.

EVE plays nothing like a traditional MMO. You don’t “grind mobs” for XP, nor do you kill them for random drops. There are quests, but they’re mostly tutorials and not the meat of the game. The actual game – the thing that drives the action – is entirely created by the players. Once you graduate from the newbie zone you’ll likely be flying a ship built by players using a factory built by players from raw materials harvested by players. It’ll be outfitted with player-built weapons and player-built systems and no matter what you do with it, you’ll probably be selling your efforts to players. (Unless you make your living as a pirate, by killing players.)

As a way of explaining how deep, technical, unusual, and emergent the game is, let’s talk about PLEX. There’s a cool story behind this, but like anything to do with EVE it’s incomprehensible without a couple minutes of instruction to provide context.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Sandbox Space Sim: EVE Online”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.