Zero Punctuation: Eve Online

[martianman]

Pretty much sums up what I think of MMO's. I don't see the point in them, but there you go, it appears a lot of people do.

Also, if we are the choir, shouldn't we be singing? Maybe someone should come up with lyrics for the themetune.

♪Zero puctiation, he is usu-al-a-lee,
funnier, funnier tha-a-a-a-n youuuuuu,
So sto-o-o-o-o-p tellin' him how to do-o-o- his joooooooob♪

Topic: Nice, but no where near your best work.

btw, would you mind reviewing Spore when it comes out?(yes, the irony was the point of the song)

 

[zbobet2012]

Funny review, very per the usual yahtzee. That said not joining a player corp or at least joining one of the factional warfare gangs is like playing chess by yourself...

 

[Chocolate Source]

Loved - "They're to nerds what nerds are to normal people"

And it's true, the EvE communitys very elitist and think those who don't "get" eve should have the privilege of playing the game taken away immediatly.
The trial's pretty silly as you can only really start playing the game properly after a couple of months.....which is also pretty silly.

 

[paliente]

I played this game for 30 mins and then uninstalled it. Very spot-on review

 

[Jumpman]

the problem with reviewing an MMORPG is that since the social aspect is such a big part of its appeal, different people will have different expereiences based on the kind of people they meet and interact with. without the social interaction there isn't much point to them. Even WOW, the reigning king of MMORPGS is little more than a dozen or so quests continually recycled. can you imagine if the Elder Scrolls Oblivion had that little variety? People would crucify it!

So while I was certainly entertained (as always) by Yahtzee's review, I cant help but think it was sorta pointless aside from his critiques on the controls and general intuitiveness of the game. Here's hoping he reviews a more universally similar game next week.

 

[PegasusJF]

Another Eve vet.

Mr. Yahtzee.

I do concede some of your points. The PVE for EVE Online could be improved to be more on par with it's comtemporaires. Mining, love it or hate it, is not as exciting as other games, but I personally like it, and I've heard it compared to fishing.

The skill system is also another love it or hate it system. Personally, I would be appalled to have to train for cap ships the normal way.

For the combat system, keep in mind that this game was made before broadband was widespread, and was meant to be accessible for modems. Despite its simplicity at first glance, it does have its intricacies. IMHO it's roughly equivalent to the other MMO's I've played (COx, GW, AA). Instead of powers/spells you have ship setups. Plus, I don't know of any other MMO where a bunch of lower SP characters in singly weak ships can take down a vet in a more powerful vessel.

Eve is not the easiest game to get into, (though I has having fun on my second day and jumped into lawless space my second month, but that's another story.) It's a harsh universe the punishes the unprepared. But all this is not the point.

All the feature of EVE, their strengths and flaws real and imagined, the truth is EVE Online is far more than a sum of these parts, and there is one part you conspicously missed in your review. A part that is so vital to enjoying EVE yet you downright ignored it: The playerbase. There are so many good players in this game,good helpful people, and I find your blanket statements of them to be rather insulting, even if crassness is your way.

Anyway, you stated in the AofC review that a good MMO should have a feeling of being something greater than yourself. In that light, I challenge you to find a game other than EVE that allow its player base to make such huge inroads into the game universe (Saga of Ryzom and old SWG are close to this). Where they can actually own a piece of the game world, dominate the market (what other game has a free market like EVE), or even dedicate itself to reaching out to new players and make them at home in the EVE Universe. Teamwork is a must here.

You didn't even try faction warfare. That would have been a good primer for you in the game's PVP.

Does any other MMO have the scope of player interactions. Wars won and lost, alliances made and dissolved. Player structures built and fought over. Hundreds of players (a lot of lag though) in a single system battle among thousands in wars lasting months. I have to ask, what other MMO can match the sheer granduer of the things players can accomplish in EVE?

This, Mr. Yahtzee and my fellow readers, is why EVE appeals to so many, even though it has some rough spots and is not the most accessible MMO in the world. Simple fact, you have to make your fun, there is no other way.

You're free to dislike it, you're free to give it a bad review Mr. Yahtzee. But what irks me is that you reviewed the smallest, rather insignificant portion of this game, a means to an end (money and faction standing, which has it's own benefits) rather than the core. It is a disservice to your viewers to give such a limited review.

Not all games are bad because of a unattractive first glance, some you have to digest a bit, and I hope in the future Mr. Yahtzee, you take the time to do just that.

God Bless

Jason Fairfield aka Creed Richards

ps. The upcoming Ambulation upgrade should make the "worthless" character creator become quite important.

pps...if anyone wishes to read, here are a couple stories of my EVE experiences on the MMORPG.com forums. Which I felt where practical examples of the fun one can have in EVE.

My first steps into 0.0
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/1111703#1111703

and

The battle of ED-L9T
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/1081195#1081195

 

[Abbadon01]

Have to agree with you on some parts. Yes the interface is very unhelpful at most times and whoever told you that it wasn't about the grind was obviously smoking some good stuff. but the difficulty is what made it so good for me. Yes its like trying to climb a mountain with nothing but a rope ad some sun shorts but that keeps away the power leveling, success junkies who think its actually a good thing to finnish a MMO in 5 days. Its not a casual game and it took me a good week and quite a few million ISK to realise that perhaps if your going to run make sure you do it early. Player corps can be fun and if you looking for any kind of advancement down the track your going to need one. I can understand why you wouldn't like the game. You've never been a fan of MMO's so given that this review isn't all that surprising. Still funny as hell though. If you like the game good if you dont thats fine too. Its been around since before WoW and other MMO's where a deranged thought in some blizzard employees head (WoW player as well for the record) and isnt likely to suffer from one bad review.

 

[Xennith]

... Its been around since before WoW and other MMO's where a deranged thought in some blizzard employees head and isnt likely to suffer from one bad review.

That's sort of a silly way to talk about it. The point isn't to kill or even hurt the game with his satire, the goal is to better inform players who might be interested in the game (Players who have not yet played it) on what it is like. It will either better prepare them for the experience or to reaffirm their suspicions whether or not they decide to try it, or on the flip side it will let the players who like the game and aren't a bunch of dorks have a chuckle at their game's flaws and his excellent delivery of sarcasm.

In fact, because of his review, even negative as it is, he's more likely getting MORE people to try EVE just to see if he's right. In the end, while most will probably be driven off by the difficulty curve, the result is that more people, at the least, will probably try the game who wouldn't have even touched it otherwise, some of which might decide they like the weird way in which it's presented and keep playing, realizing that, as a critic, it's Yahtzee's JOB to criticize games.

Everybody wins except the people who fall into the troll.

 

[Ieyke]

Well you're certainly right on all accounts in regards to EVE, the reason I played it for a good long while was because I had a free 6 months of it (somehow) and the absolutely INSANE depth of the game really had me sort of intrigued. I mean the thing goes on and on forever in every direction depth-wise, but like space (which also goes on and on forever in every direction) it's quite hollow and boring almost the whole time. And when I say I played it for 6 months I really mean to say I had an extra "game" running in the background for 6 months while I played Dawn Of War and Call Of Duty 4 and Portal and various other FUN things.

I do have to give some credit to the claims that you and I "did it wrong" by not joining a corporation tho because the few times when a large group of my friends and I struck out into space as a fleet of Battlecruisers and Battleships to do some bigger battles it was actually rather enjoyable and I imagine you could do that on a regular basis with a corporation rather than the random chance that everyone is online at the same time and feels like playing EVE. However the learning curve for going from single person PvE EVE to corporation level PvP EVE is said to be hellishly steep. In fact they actually charted what seems to be a fairly accurate graph of it: http://go-dl.eve-files.com/media/0803/LearningCurve.jpg

 

[Voideka]

I didn't see anyone else mention this, though I might have missed it, but you missed out on the best description of EVE:

EVE Online is a perfect space battle simulator.

When you think about it it is true, and it is also why it is so horrible. Unlike more traditional space combat games, you are in a big ship rather than a small fighter. In a fighter you zip around, weaving through fire, dodging laser blasts and missiles like a regular dog-fight in a flight sim with fighter jets.

EVE on the other hand, is more like a naval battle. The captain of a battleship doesn't frantically steer around, aiming his weapons, dodging fire. No one on the ship does that. The captain stands there sorting through information, and then he tells everyone else what to do. You tell the helmsman or whatever it's called "turn 15 degrees north, then accelerate to 15 knots" and he turns the ship. Then you tell someone else "target that frigate and shoot" and the guy does so (not even in an interesting way, it's usually just punching numbers into a console or turning a dial). And that's EVE.

 

[Xennith]

Come to think of it, there seems to be a lot of people who registered on escapist JUST to respond to this thread, myself included.
Looks like Yahtzee is doing his job well, ahuahuahua!
Wow, we EVE players are a defensive bunch.

 

[Druidwitch]

Quite simply the review is good because it demonstrates what the game is trying to avoid - and mostly succeeds in doing - removal of thos elooking to skill / farm whore their way to the top. The restriction of skill training ensures that other players are on an actual learning curve, and this is a term you will hear within the Eve community a lot - HARD LEARNING CURVE. This is not a game for the low end of the IQ scale - if yoru preffered MMO style is wandering around like a numb nuts wafting a sword and shouting "i likes to beat up teh n00bs", then you are going hate Eve.

NPC missions are boring, shit and quite franckly a pointless element to the game, there only to keep aforementioned group happy (thats if they actually decide to play). Everyone else trains up a little, laughs in the face of player owened corporations operating in empire space and joins up with a deep space alliance who like to have huge 200 v 200 battles of various scales from frigate / cruiser small ships enagagements to Titans with BFG's. The game can be fun but it requires a degree of intelligence, a dash of persistence (which MMO doesn't?) and the ability to think outside your pre-fixed MMO box.

Low IQ numb nuts need not apply.

 

[Moravich]

He is very right.. I tried the trial and was bored out of my skull, it's just like WoW.. only in space, and 50x more complicated.

 

[Chromed]

I do have to ask, why review an MMORPG and try to avoid the whole MMO aspect of it?

EVE is no fun if you don't play it with other people. This goes for almost every MMO out there, but doubly so for EVE.

 

[shlobadov]

Wow, Yah, you put Cheltenham on the interweb map of shit! Good choice of random English town.

 

[Castar]

Y'know, I think a lot of people forget that Yahtzee approaches a game from a particular angle, with a particular goal in mind: Enjoyable, thoughtful entertainment that you can get into quickly, without depending on a lot of other people to make the whole thing fun.

Right. So next week Yahtzee totally *isn't* going to destroy Spore? Haha, you wish.

Face it, Yahtzee hates just about everything. I still find his reviews fun to watch, but sometimes it's clear he's just being a retard so he can do his thing. Seriously: "I will totally ignore the biggest part of this game and then declare it is boring and stupid!" Ok, mister, have fun, but know that you're now making bad comedy, not a review.

 

[Nadsat]

It doesn't really matter if Eve is intelligent, smart, sophisticated and has a fantastic user base !!SPOILER ALERT!! It doesn't !!END SPOILERS!!, if a game is not fun, it fails the primary function of a game. Eve was not fun for me, the best bit was the character creation screen featuring all sorts of useless skills and information. I was honestly pretty psyched about playing once I'd created my character but I felt my fun-levels rapidly decreasing once I was being sent to opposite ends of the galaxy in the slowest manner possible. M If I were to describe eve in one word it would be empty, there weren't many players (Jesus, even FFXI had more players) not much to do, except drive really slowly around a vast, empty void and mine asteroids. Maybe the fans are right, and player-run corporations are some-sort of magical turd-polish that makes even the worst game look like Christ himself had created it, but honestly going by what I've seen of Eve, it's not likely. A game, much like a book, TV series, movie, or any form of entertainment tbh, should be something that effortlessly draws in the audience, captivates them, and doesn't rely of the audience to do it themselves through user-created content.

***END RANT***

 

[PegasusJF]

Come to think of it, there seems to be a lot of people who registered on escapist JUST to respond to this thread, myself included.
Looks like Yahtzee is doing his job well, ahuahuahua!
Wow, we EVE players are a defensive bunch.

LOL, yes we are.

I once read a post on MMORPG.com that said eve online players are "The crazed physco cult of the MMO world."

I have to admit, I laughed at that.

But, there is a deeper reason. As I stated before EVE players are pretty fond of our game because it is so unique in the MMO world. I believe the fans and the critics can both agree with this.

Also, I didn't state this in my previous post but every other MMO I played was easier to get into and fun for awhile, but in the end it seemed so shallow and empty in the end compared to EVE.

But the main thing, especially we Eve players that frequent MMO forums, we so often see so much misconception about what EVE is. Misconceptions that if you took a hard look at them and begin to understand what really is going on (The "I'll never catch up with vets" is a classic one), and even if you still don't like it, even if you don't find it fun, you can still appreciate what the devs are trying to accomplish.

Yahtzee's review REEKs of this ignorance I'm sorry to say. His admission that he didn't even try to engage the player base during his trial, something that is absolutely critical to "getting" EVE, to understand what the devs set out to do when they made this game.

That IMHO, makes his review worthless, because he didn't bother to gather all the necessary information to make a truely informed decision. If he did that, spent a month with a corp, messed with the PVP or faction warfare and still came to the same conclusion, all power to him.

But he needs to encounter more than he did during his trial.

 

[nastykerm]

God some people go on my nerves. Let's weed out some crap here.

1) YOU NEED TO SOCIALIZE!
Shut the fuck up, right now, and quick ( goes to those "vets" how they call them ). Socializing in a game? Am I a fucking emo kid? Jesus if I want to socialize, have fun and meet people then I go out with my friends, yes, REAL LIFE FRIENDS! Socializing on the internet is a big looser and majority of those are emos. If I play a game I want to have fun. Fun I can have with others... PoA for example or others. But wasting weeks over weeks talking to people while doing shit... sorry... my time is too valuable for that.

Uh, do you even know what mmo stands for? IF you play an mmo to be alone then you are a fool. The whole point of mmos are to play with other people and to *gasp* socialize. Its like playing a single player and whining (thats what you are doing) about the game not having other human players.


In any case, I think EVE deserves a fair review. You dont give an mmo a bad review because you refuse to play it as anything other than a single player game.