Eve Online review: The line between MMORPG and simulation blurs

EVE Online is a sci-fi MMORPG game published and developed by CCP, a company based in Iceland. EVE Online is known worldwide as a very massive sci-fi universe where there are over 5,000 galaxies that can be explored, fought over, or even colonized. It is a game of massive content, where politics and the economy are almost 100 percent player driven. EVE Online also managed to reach Asia by releasing it in China and Japan. It is a shame however that these servers are not connected, and limit the population. Other Asian players stick to the North American server since most don’t understand Japanese, while the Chinese server is strictly for China region.

Massive fleets locked in battle

CCP recently released Dust 514, a PS3 first person shooter game linked to EVE Online. The most amazing two linked systems are the auction house and bombardment system. The auction house in EVE Online andDust 514 are both the same, so that EVE players can manufacture equipment and power-suits for the Dust players and vice-versa. The bombardment system allows players in EVE to directly affect ongoing battles in Dust by sending in orbital bombardments.

Massive and fun gameplay, but quite hard to master.

EVE Online has lots of stuff to do in it, but it is still boring, at least in my opinion. Compared to other games, EVE Online feels more like a simulation in a way. Mining has to be one of the most boring aspects of the game, in which you have to go to star systems and mine the asteroids until you run out of cargo space. After that you return to a base, process it, and sell it to the auction house. Rinse and repeat forever.

Finding the right equipments never been so hard

Mining, I suppose, is pretty much the main profession in other generic MMORPGs, and gathering tends to be repetitive in most games. However, even the combat in EVE is boring. It is mainly about choosing a target, auto-orbit it with one button, and just choose which weapons and other modules you want to use during the battle. I know that EVE has garnered a lot of fans, and most will disagree with this, but I think most gamers will feel that EVE is generally more boring and less active compared to most MMORPGs. As I said before, it does feel like a simulation instead of an RPG.

However, things might change a lot once you start communicating and doing stuff together with other players. In EVE, every guild (a corporation in this game’s terms), are made and managed by the players alone. Just like in real life, corporations must rent spaces to operate properly. Corporations can go to certain stations and rent cargo space, hangar space, and so on. Indeed, it is extremely realistic and sometimes complicated.

Economy is one of the coolest aspect in the game

There are too many gameplay variants in the game for me to explain, but it won’t be too overwhelming for new players. Okay, maybe it is overwhelming, especially the amazingly informative yet complex user interface, but not as much as you would think. The good thing about this game is the fact that you don’t have to be everything. The game in fact highly recommends players to be faithful to a certain profession, since they need skillbooks and a very long time to advance their skills. Each skill starts from level zero and goes to level five; it will take around a week to train to level five, although you can still train even when you’re offline. Players would need more than 18 years in real life to master every skill available in the game, so it is impossible for players to be an omnipotent god of humankind, at least as the game stands now.

Amazing character and ship models that will urge you to take screenshots of them.

EVE has been around since 2003, and as far as I know, it’s the MMORPG with the most crazy graphic overhaul, especially the character creation section. If you haven’t tried the new character creation and are curious about it, I suggest you search Youtube videos. It’ll likely blow your mind. I’ve never played any single player RPG that has such a detailed character modification and model.