The EVE Community ROCKS!

I have mentioned this before but I'll gladly do it again and again - the EVE community plain and simply ROCKS!

Not that I ever had any doubts about this, it's just confirmed to me every single time I'm online.

While I was away from EVE I was playing a few other games - I am a gamer after all :)
I went back to World of Warcraft to try the new expansion (another fail from Blizzard) and after that I took a good time in World of Tanks as a some friends tricked me into trying that.

In WoW the community is huge beyond all imagination - but again with more than 10 million players at the launch of Warlords of Draenor what can you expect?
- the problem with the community in WoW is that every single player believe the game is build around them. Be it the raider, the hardcore or casual - they all want the game to be more about them.
What it all comes down to in the end is a very (in numbers) small percentage of players actually doing any good for the game. Mainly podcasters and bloggers. The rest is trolls and "me me me" players. Just a look in any random chat in the game will confirm this.

World of Tanks is (if possible) even worse than WoW. The fact that you're only in any given match for up to 15 minutes really seem to make people think that any other player is a noob who don't get the game mechanics, tactics or is there only to have the team go down in flames.
And having all the player stats (WN8, Efficiency, Win% and more) is really a bad thing as the "good" players can single out the weaker players and troll them down very easily.

In EVE there's so little of this compared to numbers of players. Yes, there's the players always begging for ISK that might be told to "go die in a fire" or maybe a player asking a somewhat stupid question and people having a quick laugh on their account. But in the end all players in EVE are trying to have people keep being active in the game.
Ask the right way (not scam!) and players will gladly help you out if you just lost your ship and need a little ISK. If you're a new player others will help you with links to guides or spend their own time explaining or showing you how to handle different things in New Eden.
- it's simply the best online community I've ever been a part of! And for that I thank every single pilot roaming the systems!



NOTE: I'll be working on some elements of this blog during the next few days so it might change looks a bit.

The EVE vs WoW Rant

Yesterday I sat down and did some thinking - mainly about the things I miss in EVE, but had in other MMO games.

All in all, this came down to an "EVE vs WoW" battle in my head as I spend about 2 years and 7 months playing WoW after all.

Is this turning into some sort of rant? You bet!

Will you make WoW sound better than EVE? At times.

Do you like anything in EVE at all? I do.

Interface

I really miss the ability to make the interface mine! I don't need a ton of add-ons as I had in WoW, but the interface is just not anywhere close to usable. If you set it up for one thing then it's more or less useless for all others. In WoW you new that you'd never go heal as say a warrior, so that made you set the interface as a good "inter-your-face". You needed info on your character and your target (group and raid almost optional).

In EVE you need to fit too many things into a screen that's half full from the start. There's not much you can disable or ignore as the threats are lurking all over New Eden so every bit of info is able to save your ship.

Looking for Group

I know this is a WoW feature but damn it's neat. When running instances (dungeons) in WoW you could queue up in an automated system and be thrown into a random group to run with - maybe even just while in an NPC corp.

A feature I really miss something like in EVE as a new player. It could be made so the person in the queue could not  group/fleet with players at a higher standing than him/her. So if your highest mission standing/level was 3 then you couldn't group with people who were 3+. Maybe make it so players with a standing within X of the next level could join the fleet would still have an average of Y making them able to fly said level.

- I am aware that missions don't work like instances, so it's not as easy as I make it sound.

Quests & Missions

Let me say that I hate both in every aspect and try to do as little of them as possible! A thing that reflects this is two of my main characters in WoW. My old main was herbing his way from 15-85. The other and most recent main made his 100th quest while leveling from 85-90 after MoP hit.

In EVE I find the missions to be wasting my time by having me jump more from one system to another than doing the actual fighting. And should you want to grind a little standing this only get worse.

Crafting & Production

I LOVE the production system in EVE. If it was a chick I would take it to dinner!!!

The fact that you need to think ahead a bit, and it takes time (more than just the time of a click) to create things are so great! The problem as I see it is that if you're not full on into production then you don't get to do any at all.

If you're in a corp it's mostly done by players in control of POS, best skills or those dedicated to it.

As a new player that doesn't leave you much. So you gotta hunt down a system with a close to free assembly line.

WoW makes it a matter of grinding your profession and after that it's all about finding the recipe/pattern, and you're set to go... if you have the materials. In this way a fresh 85 (the level you can get profession to max) can actually create viable items on same terms as a high end hardcore progression raider... give he/she has the materials and recipe/pattern.

Skill vs Skills

This one might have an entire community rage on me - but so be it.

To me it seems like EVE is a matter of skills (the ones you train) and not really skill (the ones you have). It might be the core of it all when you're at a certain level of play but as I see it now there's not even a slight hint that this is the case. In WoW one thing was level and gear - another was skill. A skilled PvE geared player could whoop a certain body part of even a well geared PvP player. I liked that. EVE is making it (to my knowledge) too big a benefit to have a PvP fit ship. It's like saying a suit from Wall Street can't break your nose, but the pizza guy most likely will. It makes no sense to me at all.

Things to Do

I never ever thought I'd say this... but man is EVE limited when it all comes down to it. There's a billion ways to make a living in EVE and that simply rocks! Having said that every single way feels like a job after two months.

And to be honest, you get nothing to show from your effort. To make things worse it's nearly impossible to play the game with only one character - if you want to get into the different ways of playing/making ISK.

In WoW you could always take a day off from the usual ways of play to work on a new outfit (transmog) for your character. Hunt down a new mount or even pet battle if you're into that. There were more options to make your character personal. When it came down to fights this was also the case as you could make your healer cast bigger heals or faster heals depending on what stat you had as the first priority.

FYI I haven't tried all the ways to make a living in EVE, but I've talked to other new-ish players about this subject.

End of Rant

Do I miss WoW in general... no. Do I hate everything in EVE... no. What I do miss in WoW is the fact I could do what ever I'd like to do with or without the help of others. I could sit down one day and throw myself into PvP. I didn't have to train for it - I simply had to die and get better at it. I could solo old content (instances and raids) for items/mounts on my beloved Priest. A thing that was great fun on a disc priest I must say.

EVE is more like making your character sheet look better than others. It's a training game, and while it does have it's advantages it has far more disadvantages if you ask me. It's not too late to start EVE though - but it's more corp-dependent than WoW is guild-dependent unless you want to do high end progress raiding or large scale ranked PvP.

Note: While thinking about this post, and writing it, I've asked myself two simple questions:

1) Will I go back to WoW?: I don't know. The panda thing simply killed my joy for the game so at the moment I can't see myself back in WoW.

2) Will I quit EVE?: Odyssey seems like a time to answer that question. One thing is what it looks like on paper but when it hits Tranquility it may feel different and be either a dealbreaker or a time to go full throttle into New Eden.

EVE vs WoW

If you think I'm about to compare a battle axe to a laser then you should seek help. I'd rather point out a few differences between the way you interact in the two games.

World of Warcraft
In my WoW years I was able to do everything myself (apart from instances and raids).
There was no problems in having any number of toons with the different professions and making a ton of gold. Also it was almost idiot proof to make gold on the AH (Auction House) by flipping items or selling crafts or materials as people didn't want to gather them.

Some might even agree that WoW is a social one player game (or a really huge chat client!) in many aspects. It's more or less only if you play current content (or PvP) you need anyone to group with.
But the PvP in WoW is a bit... meh.

In Azeroth everything is focused on the endgame. Leveling a character is something that just needs to be done before you grind for gear that make you able to "slay the dragon". That is the obvious downside to endgame content. Everything else is simply in the way as the game doesn't really start till you're in current/endgame content.


EVE Online
As a new player in EVE I've noticed that it's not as simple to make your own empire as in WoW. This is mainly due to the way you train skills and the fact that you can only have one character per account training at any given time. There's no way to make a grind to level a profession in a few hours. It takes time and a lot of it!

The main character in EVE is trained with a great deal of focus as you can't just visit a class trainer and redo your talents for a few gold if some boss is being a bitch. So you have to figure out (at some point) what kind of missions you want to do if you want perfection in time spend in missions.
- in other words you shouldn't train directly for a freighter of you want to do missions that need firepower.

New Eden doesn't only bring PvP - it brings WvP (World vs Player). If the right bounty is on your head you have to look over your shoulder every step you take or sleep with your finger on the trigger.
A feature that make players trust other players - but the most trusted player may be the one sealing your fate.
- it's a game within the game.

But there's one thing that makes EVE really special to me. NOTE: This is where I get people to hate me.
It has no endgame. From the second you start playing you're a part of what EVE is: a sandbox game.
You can do everything but that's not to be adviced though as it will get you killed more than once. But in reality there's no "high level I pwn ya all" endgame.
You can live in high, low or null sec if you feel like it. There's nothing stopping you.

I know some of the null sec players will argue this no-endgame-talk but that's up to them. I mean if it's so endgame to fight epic battles in null sec why don't they have the balls to do just that and not fly into high sec to kill miners?
The only true endgame to PvP is fighting another player in the same SP (Skill Point) range. Then it's about player skill that can bring the real epic battles.


Maybe after I've played EVE for another year I might have a different view on some of the things I write about here - but I'll never live and fight in null sec just to take a trip into high sec in order to show off.



Bonus info: since I've turned my updates into a blog I'll skip the update numbers.