Tuesday, June 26, 2007

The Invasion, EVE Online for the rest of them

This whole affair with BoB against Red Alliance and Goonswarn has made me realize how vast and incredible EVE is, and how much freedom it gives us players and pilots . When I try to explain to non-mmorpg friends, or to my family (if I'm courageous) what EVE is and what I do in this virtual world, I'm often at a loss. How do you put it into words - such freedom, such possibilities. They're left dumbfounded by my statements of ship manufacturing, fleet mining, espionage, political back-stabbing, PVE, PVP, fleet battle.

Which is why, when I came across Jim Rossignol article, The Invasion, via GameSetWatch, I was blown away. Finally, here was someone who could put in words, what EVE Online is, how vast and beautiful it is, and how ruthless and deadly it can be. I strongly recommend that you head over a give a full read. Then read it again. Send it to those friends who can't understand why you spend hours on end, playing with folks from across the world, whom you've never met. They may finally get it. Here are some excerpts:

The Eve folk are a backwater among gamers, quietly living out their sci-fi archetypes, loving the laser-death and the complex market-driven economics. Their game is one that most people loath, and few people understand. It seems so far from the iconic bustle of Halo and Tekken, or even the populist online games such as Warcraft and Star Wars Galaxies. But that’s how we like it: offbeat, unadulterated, intimidating.
...
But there’s more. There’s the thrill of enormity, the novel anonymity amongst the vast murmuring crowd. You don’t have to listen, but there are 70,000 voices in there. Unlike all the other arcade scintillations that make up my gaming life, this is nothing personal. There are thousands of other people in the Eve galaxy, and what takes place is a social story, like the deep history of a town or city. There are thousands of personal vignettes taking place, hundreds every hour: the perfect kill, the minor betrayal. Theft, crusades, trade wars and bounty hunts; even the mining operations, with industrious gamers ploughing the virtual fields of the asteroid belts, all these moments weave into the fabric of what is unfolding for a tribe of people. The pirate fleet that arrived just too late, or the heroic last man out, sat there making cash until the final second… They’re the stories of a war that no one can see, but all the Eve-goers share. Just the same as anywhere else in our world, something always happening, and it’s always happening /to someone/.

Thanks Jim, for putting into words, what we can only describe through emotions!

1 comment:

ENAGIZA said...

Hi there i have been out the gamming scene for years, can you please help with a few questions? Will people sell things to me for real money? Do i need to buy things with real money to get going on EVE Online?