EVE Online is almost an Elite/Frontier/First Encounter veteran's dream come true. Trade, economy, building, massive pvp battles. And I've loved the game and played it for years, on and off since 2006 and more recently in a serious way since 2011, even running my own small empire of corporations where a hundred and fifty odd players call me 'Emperor'. And in EVE standards, that's a very very small Empire, smaller even than some corporations.
However, there's always been a major issue in EVE for me which is the player's connection to the world and the ship. There's an abstractness to it which has always left me cold, whether it's organising my planetary mining via moving around pins on a map to the throw-away attitude we EVE players have to our vessels. Hell, one of my maxims is: If you fly it, consider it already lost. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is that EVE's economy is almost uniquely based on construction of vessels and equipment for those vessels. It's the ultimate money-sink and the entire community, is based around this mentality of fighting and killing other players or producing the stuff people need to fight and kill other players. There are people like me who try our best to protect people and players, especially the new players but we're very much in the minority. Even this attitude has it's own special name which is considered derogatory: care bear.
The attitude of EVE and their parent company CCP very much encourages that EVE is a brutal hard place to live, griefing, piracy, wars are encouraged, rules changed so that the only place you'll ever be safe is in a non-player company. In HighSec space anyway.
Now don't misunderstand me, I have no problem with EVE being a brutal world, it's much easier to be the hero, if everyone around you... isn't. But the way this has manifested in the local economy, the local culture is that it's difficult to build an emotional connection, with your character, your ship, even your fellow players, because in the back of your mind, you know... EVE encourages them to backstab you eventually when you've given them access to your Empire's resources. It's difficult to relax.
Elite, I expect to be a hard world, but I expect it to be a world, where although I can and will lose my ship. It's my ship. Unless I'm a bad combateer, I stand a chance of holding onto that same ship for a decent amount of time, to the point that if I lose it, it will hurt me. And I need that hurt. I need that connection to emotionally invest in the game and in my character. I need to be able to protect my ship, have the ability to flee, even if I stand a chance of getting caught, I need DEATH to have meaning. In EVE, if you have your jump clone updated, other than the loss of your ship and cargo, it has relatively little meaning. This work into showing your ship age with you makes me happy. I want to love and care for my ship and buy it the odd present. In science fiction, the ship is a character, whether it be the Millenium Falcon, the Enterprise (choose one), Serenity or the Battlestar Galactica.
I don't expect ED to be easy, I expect to have to fight to survive, but I also expect that if I fight, I can survive (even if by fighting I mean running away). I want to have and to own, a ship I can love.
However, there's always been a major issue in EVE for me which is the player's connection to the world and the ship. There's an abstractness to it which has always left me cold, whether it's organising my planetary mining via moving around pins on a map to the throw-away attitude we EVE players have to our vessels. Hell, one of my maxims is: If you fly it, consider it already lost. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is that EVE's economy is almost uniquely based on construction of vessels and equipment for those vessels. It's the ultimate money-sink and the entire community, is based around this mentality of fighting and killing other players or producing the stuff people need to fight and kill other players. There are people like me who try our best to protect people and players, especially the new players but we're very much in the minority. Even this attitude has it's own special name which is considered derogatory: care bear.
The attitude of EVE and their parent company CCP very much encourages that EVE is a brutal hard place to live, griefing, piracy, wars are encouraged, rules changed so that the only place you'll ever be safe is in a non-player company. In HighSec space anyway.
Now don't misunderstand me, I have no problem with EVE being a brutal world, it's much easier to be the hero, if everyone around you... isn't. But the way this has manifested in the local economy, the local culture is that it's difficult to build an emotional connection, with your character, your ship, even your fellow players, because in the back of your mind, you know... EVE encourages them to backstab you eventually when you've given them access to your Empire's resources. It's difficult to relax.
Elite, I expect to be a hard world, but I expect it to be a world, where although I can and will lose my ship. It's my ship. Unless I'm a bad combateer, I stand a chance of holding onto that same ship for a decent amount of time, to the point that if I lose it, it will hurt me. And I need that hurt. I need that connection to emotionally invest in the game and in my character. I need to be able to protect my ship, have the ability to flee, even if I stand a chance of getting caught, I need DEATH to have meaning. In EVE, if you have your jump clone updated, other than the loss of your ship and cargo, it has relatively little meaning. This work into showing your ship age with you makes me happy. I want to love and care for my ship and buy it the odd present. In science fiction, the ship is a character, whether it be the Millenium Falcon, the Enterprise (choose one), Serenity or the Battlestar Galactica.
I don't expect ED to be easy, I expect to have to fight to survive, but I also expect that if I fight, I can survive (even if by fighting I mean running away). I want to have and to own, a ship I can love.
