{"id":50061,"date":"2020-05-30T16:15:47","date_gmt":"2020-05-30T20:15:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=50061"},"modified":"2020-05-30T19:41:23","modified_gmt":"2020-05-30T23:41:23","slug":"the-other-kind-of-mmo-the-half-roguelike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=50061","title":{"rendered":"The Other Kind of MMO: The Half-Roguelike"},"content":{"rendered":"

The obnoxious white line is still there. I’m leaving it in, otherwise I’ll never learn. I’ll fix it before next time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now that introductions are out of the way, let’s discuss the game’s progression and some of its mechanics.<\/p>\n

It’s common for an EVE<\/em> player to follow a certain progression through the game: start in highsec (the safe section in the center of the galaxy), learn the basics of the game there, accumulate a bit of property, get bored, and move out to lowsec or nullsec (areas on the outside, more friendly to PVP) and live there. That’s more or less what I did. I didn’t venture outside highsec until I’d been playing the game for almost a year, during which time I only occasionally did any PVP.<\/p>\n

PVP-focused EVE<\/em> players sometimes say that the game’s PVE is boring, which in a way is true – but for me, that was kind of the point. Instead of “boring,” someone who genuinely enjoys the game’s PVE aspects would probably call them “relaxing.” EVE<\/em> is, overall, a slower-paced game than most MMOs. First of all, its combat (which I’ll go into more detail about later) is less twitch-based than your typical hotbar MMO. Second, there are in-game professions that don’t feature combat at all, like hauling, mining, industry, and playing the market (a game unto itself in some ways).<\/p>\n

If there's an MMO with a more complex and involved in-game economy, I haven't played it yet.<\/div>
If there's an MMO with a more complex and involved in-game economy, I haven't played it yet.<\/div><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

When I started my first character, I unexpectedly found myself spending much of my time hauling. Hauling is not exactly an exciting trade. Basically, you find a ship with the biggest cargohold you can manage, find a commodity that’s cheap in one part of the galaxy and expensive in another, and get your haul on (you can accept hauling jobs from other players through the in-game “contract” system, but in my experience that’s not as profitable). If you do it inside high-security space and exercise a bit of common sense, there’s relatively little risk you’ll be attacked or lose your ship\/load.<\/p>\n

What makes hauling tolerable as a profession is the game’s autopilot, one of its most vital conveniences. You can simply set a destination, turn on autopilot, and go make a sandwich or something as your ship charts a route and follows it. This meant that hauling is a profession very friendly to alt-tabbing out of the game, or playing it in windowed mode. In fact, I played EVE<\/em> in windowed mode almost exclusively, and I suspect many others do too. In windowed mode, I could pick up some goods, set my autopilot, and then go goof off on the web or do other work (usually the former). It made for a relaxing experience – the game has space-y, ambient music, and you can listen to the sound of the stars whooshing by until you hear a pleasant computer voice telling you “autopilot disengaged, destination reached.”<\/p>\n