Welcome to my World of Warcraft Vs Eve Online comparison.
I knew it was going to happen, you knew it was going to happen… we all knew it was going to happen… its time to write all about WoW vs Eve Online.
What’s different about them, and will WoW gamers enjoy Eve?
Its hard to say, but here’s my thoughts.
World of Warcraft is set in a fantasy setting, where your avatar runs around killing monsters, and basically works his way up to killing the biggest baddest monsters, as well as finding the coolest loot and equipment possible.
In WoW you can pretty much reach “the top”. Call it level 80, call it a full set of epic gear, call it owning and running an elite raiding guild that beats dungeons on hard mode.
But personally speaking (not from a hardcore elite perspective, mind you) you can quite definitely reach an end point in WoW, and that end point is dictated by Blizzard.
And that’s cool. I love WoW, and to be frank I play it way more than Eve (my girlfriend and I both play WoW, but she doesn’t like Eve).
In Eve Online there is no top. You define the top, or you and your corp define your top.
Or more correctly, in Eve Online you don’t define a top, you or your corp define objectives and goals they’d like to accomplish.
For example you might set a long term goal of turning your 50 person corp into a 100 person corp, and your alliance into 5 member corps that can hold and control star systems in 0.0 space.
Or you might have a large mining corp whose objective is to dominate trade around Jita and make billions of isk out of it. You get the idea.
Where WoW is comparitively a linear MMO, Eve Online is one giant sandbox of possibility and (for some) uncertainty.
Lets Talk Early “Levels”
In WoW the early game or levels are quite straight forward and easy to get your head around.
There’s a guy or gal standing there in front of you with a giant exclamation point above their heads and you just right click them to start off the whole process.
WoW is built around accessibility and then manages to insert layers of complexity that only more hardcore gamers notice or optimize for.
Eve Online is quite complex right from the beginning.
To start with, you’re not just running around in a familiar environment, talking face to face with people in an intuitive environment, you’re in 3d space, floating, and you could go ANYWHERE.
There’s no “right click accept” quests, there’s no familiar earth like environment with familiar monsters to hack and slash at (again just by right clicking).
In Eve you need to control a star ship with multiple systems in an unfamiliar user interface (which I personally think needs a total overhaul — especially the right click menus).
To accept “quests” you need to dock in a space station (how do you even find those, asks the new player) and then from a complex menu system find an agent, and then accept a “quest” which doesn’t merely need you to run 50 steps to start killing wolves.
Instead you’re told, ok, go to this location in 3d space, out there somewhere, use a jump gate to access it, and then work out how to engage your enemy.
If I’m starting to sound like an Eve hater, bear with me, I don’t hate it at all — remember this is a comparison between WoW and Eve Online, and I’m comparing!
The point I’m trying to make here is that on one hand, you have a very accessible game in WoW where players feel at home in a familiar fantasy setting, not to mention an environment which is similar to the real world.
In Eve Online, things are very different — even the familiar user interface is gone, replaced with right click menu’s that you can just open anywhere on your screen.
Game Play, Complexity, and the “Experience”
How do both of these games play and whats the difference?
I’ll return to my “sandbox” example.
WoW is a linear game and it feels that way the whole time you’re playing. Its simple.
You know where you need to go, you know you’re supposed to kill stuff to get “experience points” in order to “level”.
Its a familiar mechanic passed down from many RPG’s and even from fantasy itself.
WoW also plays out like familiar fantasy epics like Lord of the Rings — it has orcs, goblins, and all the fantasy races that other fantasy settings draw from.
You start off as a lowly warrior/priest/mage/etc helping out the village people, and at the end you’re fighting back the Scourge and the end of the world itself.
Its familiar, familiar, familiar, and its tried and tested. It works and people like it. Its sorta like reading a good book, but you get to pick your role in the book… not to mention its way better fun and more interactive than a book.
So back to Eve Online…
As I touched on earlier, there’s no set objective for you to instantly recognize and embark on. I bet thousands of players are lost in the first 5 minutes of playing Eve.
To start with, there’s no “levels” like in every other MMO around, and every other RPG ever made.
You don’t walk up to someone, talk to them, and then through experience advance from level 1 to 2. You don’t double your hit points, and you don’t start killing spiders rather than wolves.
To further complicate things, you don’t even increase your skills by using them. You could log in and engage in battle after battle, but your shooting skills won’t increase.
In Eve Online you set skill training which takes you either a short time for very new skills (like 5 to 10 minutes), or anywhere up to 21 days and even longer for super powerful skills that let you fly some of the best ships in the game. But don’t worry, your skills train whether you are playing or not.
Getting back to early player confusion, there’s a manual to help you through it… which is good, in a way.
“Whats this?” I imagine new players ask themselves as they read the tutorial… I have to READ something?
Its true. In Eve Online you actually need to read stuff to learn how to play. Its no space simulator or super realistic flight sim, but chances are you’re gonna need to read that tutorial.
And I sorta lied earlier. Eve does have an early game objective in that there’s an “epic mission arc” to start you off on the right foot, but after that, you’re on your own cowboy.
You can keep running missions (questing), or you can go off and mine, or you can just kill pirates for bounty, or you can manufacture, or you can be a pirate, or, or, or, or…
Each role of course needs particular skill sets and learning. Manufacturing items requires that certain skills be learnt, materials acquired, and manufacturing facilities engaged. Its simple once you know how, but again, this stuff is relatively more complicated than that of WoW’s professions.
Let me echo the overwhelming thoughts of players I’ve met since starting in Eve.
That thought is, “Eve’s complexity is a GOOD thing”.
Eve Online is a complex online game, but because of that complexity it allows for an amazing variety of game play and experiences in CCP’s sandbox.
Next — Who is The Enemy in Eve?
In traditional fantasy settings like World of Warcraft there’s the evil guy plotting to end the world.
In Eve Online, who is it?
The Caldari? Maybe to the Gallente…
The Amarr? Maybe to the Minmatar who were enslaved by them…
Perhaps its pirates and their destabilizing influence? Maybe, but you can be a pirate yourself.
Maybe its that big player corp that greedily controls all the resources and star systems nearby. Not to them they’re not, and not to their alliance members and industrial corps that supply them with equipment they need to survive…
There is no “one big evil enemy” in Eve. And I hope there is never any introduction of such.
You make your own friends and enemies in Eve.
If your corp wants the space and resources owned by another corp, they’re your enemy. They’re evil.
If you’re a policing corp in 0.0 space, then all the pirate players are your enemy… and so on.
Eve is one giant sandbox. You can do whatever you want, and that can be daunting to people who like direction… or confusing to people who want to take part but are a bit overwhelmed by the scope of the game…
I mean, in Eve you don’t even need to fight!
In Eve you can literally never leave a space station, and just trade (throughout the entire sector, remotely) for a living, and amass billions of credits.
Or you can never fire a shot in anger and simply mine asteroids, create ammunition and ships, and research new technology and refine existing tech.
Or you can own a massive corporation of hundreds of pilots, mine moons, establish your own space stations, and make space craft so large that it takes months to acquire the resources to put them together…
The Bottom Line
While this isn’t an in-depth analysis of both games, in my mind, the difference between these games comes down to this.
- WoW is linear – you follow a set path.
- Eve is a sandbox – you do literally whatever you want to do (IF you can amass enough friends and resources)
- WoW is straightforward and easy to get into (with “hidden” complexities for those who look for it)
- Eve is astonishingly complex, and difficult for new players to get used to. (I’m still learning tons of new stuff every time I play)
I firmly believe that anyone who spends a month playing in a good corporation will end up loving Eve to death.
So will WoW players enjoy playing Eve Online?
How should I know? Try it yourself. Its free for 14 days.
Thank you for doing such a good in depth comparison. you get the bottom line across. I play both games. I’ve stopped playing wow, because honestly, once you’re addicted to Eve, there’s no turning back.
I have played Ultima Online, Everquest, Guild Wars, World of Warcraft, and Eve among the available MMORGs.
Of them all, Eve is THE most player-unfriendly, especially to new players, with Everquest a distant second and the others not even in the running. Eve is the ONLY game I have ever heard of where RIPPING OFF OTHER PLAYERS is actively encouraged by the game company. It is also a very complex game and the skill training system takes a LONG time, which isn’t inherently a bad thing but coupled with the constant griefing issues makes it a VERY diffucult game to do anything in for a new player. Don’t get me started on the so-called Customer Support – I used to think SoE had horrible customer MISsupport, Eve is quite a bit worse.
World of Warcraft is by far the most player-friendly, especially to new players.
Ultima Online used to be horrible for new players, with the SAME type of “ganking” and “griefing” issues Eve CURRENTLY has, but that changed a lot when they introduced the new shard versions.
I find WoW to be way TOO easy – got bored with it twice – but it is a far better game in MOST respects than Eve has ever thought about being, due to CCP’s total mishandling of the Eve player experience.
I’m glad that someone put together such a good comparison between the two. I played WoW for about 2 years off and on, and after a while I was just bored with trying to “get to 80″ and be done.
I’ve played Eve for about 2 weeks and I can’t imagine going back.
Thankyou for this in depth analysis of the two. I just started EVE and although I’m swamped with confusion I can’t quite get myself to go back and enjoy playing WoW. EVE, for all of its complexity, is just to awesome. That complexity is why I love it!
i have played both wow for almost a year eve 2 days i would NEVER go back to wow
Really a pretty good analysis of the difference between Eve and WoW. Some points I might add which affect if you might enjoy Eve or not:
- You have to be able to cope with losses – even though PvP is actually almost 100% avoidable, you are never really safe. Everybody can shoot you, always (in high security regions the bad guy just gets killed by the police pretty fast). Also, Scamming, Ganking, Pirating, whatever is in no way “illegal” in Eve, so if you get scammed its your own fault.
However, as harsh as this might sound, it also creates a real and challenging sense of danger in the game world. If you **** up, it has consequences, your ship is destroyed, your expensive implants maybe to. So, you learn to deal with it – you learn the common scams, how to avoid griefers, to insure your ship and to never fly anything you can’t afford to loose. I enjoy it much more to play in such a setting than in WoW where nothing you do ever has any consequences, not for you or your “enemies”.
- You have to be willing to put effort into learning the game. Even though the tutorials are much improved now, the game is still way way more complex. If you don’t want to reach out, search for guides, ask for help in rookie help – you will have a hard time ocassionally.
- No handholding. Eve doesn’t tell you what to do. There is no “progression” like in WoW, you are tossed into a huge dynamic player-driven world where you have to set your own goals. Want to be a spy, a industrial magnate, a trader, a hauler flying a clossal freigher, a politician, a diplomat, a combat pilot, a mining god – all possible. But this wont come to you on its own, you have to get active yourself and pursue the career you want to take.
Also, some common missconceptions about eve:
- You have to mine and thats boring. Absolutely wrong. In fact, mining is probably one of the worse ways to make money. Mission running, Salvaging, Trading, heck even Hauling will earn you isk faster.
- You can not compete with those older players. Also, not true – you can not compete with them in all things at once, but if you focus on a specific goal, you can become competetive really quickly. Also if you fly with corpmates, you can fulfill absolutely integral roles in a fleet, starting from day 1.
All in all, yes Eve is a harsh Mistress – where WoW cuddles you, takes you by the hand and leads you through its happy-go-lucky playground, Eve tosses you out into a harsh, competetive, dangerous universe. It cares nothing about you, and if you die it laughes at you and spits on your corpse
That said, 99% of all players I met in Eve are actually pretty nice and helpful persons, I even had many conversations with pirates about why I got killed, and what I might have done differently.
So if you have the guts and the willpower to get over some roadbumps, Eve can offer you a vast, incredibly complex and fascinating universe, where almost everything is possible, and every action you take can and will have consequences for you, for other players and maybe the entire universe.
I’ve watched my girlfriend play the very beginnings to Eve- and watched her ragequit within an hour, not to come back.
I’ve been playing for a couple months.
Which is to say that I’ve been fooling around a bit with a tad of mining, buying ships too expensive that I can neither afford to lose, or am not well enough trained to equip.
In that time my corporation has had several war declarations against it, with some aggressive enemies. It’s had goons who’ve killed me because ANYONE in my corporation can do so without suffering consequences. No police protection for corporate based violence. The person performing the violence can’t even be kicked from the corporation without docking- something that doesn’t have to happen for hours and hours of slaugher.
Enh. It’s complicated enough that someone’ll always pull some rule out of their ass and use it against you. Learning the game is made all the harder by sheer number of variables, many of which the noob won’t even consider, making questions about ships, advancement, earning ISK all the more difficult.
And then, when everything is going well, on a story Arc, suddenly someone from a faction that broke off from the one that was at war with you (STILL at war with you) will spot you in a system, wait 6 hours for you to undock, and then pod you. They’ve been playing for three years, you two months and sadly, that’s not just common but completely acceptable, encouraged, and just… Nasty.
So the game isn’t for everyone. In WoW, PVP ganking has limits. Quite eventually, one can get the heck out of the situation, even if it means giving up and going somewhere safe. In Eve, that’s not an option. Even for newbies.
The GF Ragequit over quest text that didn’t fully explain what she had to do to kill the wee enemy that were fighting her ship. The help text wasn’t even enough to guarantee her success with even those missions. That’s how the entire game is run. “Not quite enough information.”
Good writeup. I played WoW for a couple years and got bored. Found EVE and played for a year and ended up going back to WoW before WoTLK came out. One thing I prefer in WoW is the pace. The grinding and questing is faster in WoW. I seemed to have a lot of down time in EVE as I was waiting for long skills to finish. I was also in 0.0 space and was expected to gate camp for long periods of time. Borrrrrring. Not enough missions in EVE. Killing mobs in WoW is OK when you can do it in a forest, then in the desert, then in the mountains, then in the snow, etc. EVE seems to have about 5 missions that you have to do a million times. And all the previous posts about how hard it is in the beginning in EVE are absolutely true. I was lucky enough to find an experienced small corp who adopted me. Made a huge difference.
I’d like to definitely stand behind one of the points, especially one posted by Mike. Any one out there considering Eve should really look into player corps that mentor newbies. Having folks that can help guide, train, etc you in almost *any* direction you want to go in can make the difference between a poor initial experience and a great one.
This is why they’ve established themselves. An open door to give you a strong start and help you gain positive experiences. This can really cut down on the initial overwhelming nature of the game.
E .U. (gotta find what that stands for yourself. I’m not here to hock someones corp, lol) is definitely one that comes to mind.
I’m happy to hock on my own blog
E.U. is a corp called Eve University for those wondering… I also highly recommend them.
About: “And then, when everything is going well, on a story Arc, suddenly someone from a faction that broke off from the one that was at war with you (STILL at war with you) will spot you in a system, wait 6 hours for you to undock, and then pod you. They’ve been playing for three years, you two months and sadly, that’s not just common but completely acceptable, encouraged, and just… Nasty.”
It sounds a lot elitist. Too much jerkiness. It’s like playing an early MMO in a time there was no rules. Eeek.
EVE IS REAL LIFE………..I MEAN IT IS LIKE REAL LIfe.. real war..real people behind the wheel…….thank god with no real weapons….it is the greater game of all….because it is real 90 percent..the only thing missing is fyshical contact!!!!!.about all the other thing’s…………those thing’s happens to real war too..it is just….us!!!!!….i am new player..i dont like action’s.. that have no honor.!…but i came to realize..eve..is………. WAR!! so…..like war..every body.play to win…maybe cruel.(.and beleive me..i am not happy to say.).but it is war…anybody of us don’t like it…well……………..log off permenantly!!!( i ve done that in past but came back again!!!i wonder why is that now!) .all .the others………..let fight…carry on… warriors..
- Jeff
The point in EVE isn’t that you should be spoon fed all the answers and solutions to your problems automatically. It’s about thinking and figuring things out your self.
Having tried WoW my self I got tired of the grinding before my trial had expired. In Eve there’s a “limited” number of missions, actually there’s around a hundred different ones, but grinding, you see isn’t mandatory. You dont have to save the damsel 20 times a day, you dont have to gatecamp for hours. You can always quit your corp, or find another way to help them like you can find many other ways of earning isk.
Eve, as such, is massively complicated, but it’s made up of countless of simple things. Get one simple thing at a time and eventually you will see the bigger picture clearly.
Hey all,
I’ve been reading this mix bag of responses and would like to add my two cents.
Having played wow for about 4 years on and off I found it truely gripping. I found the quests amazing and the gameplay really quite beautiful. It is the most addictive game ever and I don’t blame anyone for staying unemployed in this economic downturn just to play wow.
After all, I pretty much did that.
I lost my job in january 2009 and couldn’t find work so just played wow until about July 2009 when I met my partner who was playing at the time.
I moved away from England and moved to Sweden to be with her. Now things are looking peachy… Eitherway she loves wow and thinks eve is boring.
eve isn’t boring by far, it is a massive game. just a bit slow to start.
There are a few things missed out on this but its covered on other eve noob guides. A nice key point here is that you can’t change your name and run away with the loot like you can on wow. you can have another character and send the loot there (no soul bound loot)
Scamming occurs in all MMO’s as does inflation, I remember when peacebloom was 10silver for a stack and now it’s up at 15gold (maybe more since i left)
If it’s a game you can play on ventrilo with all your mates going crazy about, I think wow would suit better… but i’m gonna reserve my thoughts on that because I am yet to find a good corperation in eve.
Another point is that eve hasn’t sold out yet, admittedly it has advertisements everywhere but it hasn’t gone to tv and recruited big celebrities.
Everyone can get amazing loot easily in wow and it does’t take long before you can get a pump character like everyone else.
wow has a great raid structure and there some pro raid guilds, but because everyone can get loot easy the pro players are getting less and less in favour of the more lazy afk types.
Everyone looks the same in wow, if your a warlock your clothing has got to be dark and brooding. if you choose a priest chances are it will be white and religious, the same goes for any class.
The ships look the same in eve but there are more types.
You can have a completely different load out and play style in eve. (surely thats the same as talent points? you ask. well no, not really, you still have to perform a specific role in your raid and that usually conforms to healing, damage or tank, eve expands on that greatly by allowing the best loot to be achieved on your own aswell as in corperations, thus granting more freedom on looks and style, plus there are more roles in corperation fights. not just dps, tank and healz)
I’m no advocate for either game, I like them both…
There is much more oppertunity in eve in terms of trade and commerce than in wow’s linear auction house.
I also prefer the structure of the missions in eve. Yes there are around 50 quests that you repeat but please don’t gimme that, I’ve done quests in wow that were exactly the same as ones in the beginning.
get 6 yeti hides…
kill 6 yetis…
loot 20 screws from buckets…
escort the mechanical chicken…
kill hogger…
that goes up through wow just like it does in eve the only difference i guess is that you can do them in a forest or a desert as someone said.
not to mention raids, having to do the same stuff night after night isnt really different is it.
free expansions in eve, game time can be bought with in game currency. (the game can be free)
I know miners that have 2 accounts both free… one for mining one for fighting.
I know wowers with 2 accounts
I look forward to cataclysm and seeing how the world is changed for good but at the same time i despise another disenchanting of ones useless epics. the best example was the burning crusade. that made tier 1 and 2 epics falter in the sight of the new improved greens from outlands. not sure how eve would do that.
the only real fun is the development, comparisons with other players and most of all the community… just like in eve. (without the community either game would be put down after a month)
final thought,,, me and the missus went into a shop the other day only to see some 13 year old kids buying the wow box set. ive raided with 15 year olds and they just go to bed early leaving you with a missing person. eve probably has that too but im hoping the difficult learning curve will weed out the kiddies. (not that theres anything wrong with young players, they just tend to be less interested)
boy i should write a book
cya later
Skuzi
Skuzi’cai (in eve)
I’ve played just about every MMO on the market and quit them all except EvE. I’ve played EvE since its inception in 2003. The reason I continue to play is that it’s dynamic and unpredictable. I’ve seen enormous and powerful alliances destroyed, not by war, but internal subterfuge. Others destroyed in combat. This results in a massive relocation of personnel and equipment and opens of those formerly forbidden parts of space to other players willing to take their chances. It’s all fluid, nothing is forever in EvE.
There is no such thing as an uber spaceship in Eve. Every ship has its strengths and weaknesses. The clever player enhances his ships inherent strengths and exploits his opponent’s weaknesses. This is true from the smallest interceptor to titan class ships. Everyone/ship can be destroyed; no one is invulnerable, including you.
EvE is beautiful. CCP has over the last year upgraded the graphics engine and the result is nothing short of stunning. The complex alloys making up your ships skin looks like real metal and will reflect the color of the star system you’re in. Weapons effects are also amazing. If you blow a structure up, the explosion and sound effects are wonderful to behold.
EvE can hurt. Unless you’re a “station jockey” you WILL eventually lose a ship to another player or an NPC “rat”. This means you will likely have to spend millions to replace it. If you’re scratching for isk, this can be a daunting task even after an insurance payout. If you get “podded” you can lose neural implants that cost far more than your ship to replace. However, with all things EvE, there are ways to reduce the chance of this happening by using a little intelligence and foresight.
If you are considering trying EvE, the key to survival is to join a good corporation. Your corpmates will provide guidance on what skills you should train and often provide you with enough starter money to buy these skills. They will also provide you with countless bits of knowledge on everything from game dynamics to which star systems to avoid. If you lose your ship, they may even buy or build you a new one for free. At some point you may even decide to start your own corporation which can be done for a nominal fee.
People who have never played EvE often complain that they won’t be able to compete with older players with tens of millions of skill points. Yes and no. If you attempt to go one on one against a heavily armed Zealot Heavy Assault Cruiser with your shiny new T-1 Punisher frigate, your chance of survival is about zero percent. However, if you join a fleet with five or ten T-1 frigates whose players have some electronic warfare skills, there’s a high probability that you can kill him. That’s the way EvE is. No one and nothing is invulnerable. It’s about using your head and working with corpmates to ensure your mutual survival.
Something not mentioned in the above posts is that EvE is played on a single server. The average number of players online seems to range from about 30,000 up to 55,000 (on weekends). This can result in some server lag is busy commercial star systems like Jita. But the CCP gang is always working on ways to improve the server performance. Still, for the most part, unless you are in one of the heavily populated systems, you won’t notice any degradation in your computers performance.
The future of EvE continues to develop. CCP is currently working to allow players to leave their ships and walk around space stations populated by retail complexes to buy and sell items and ships.
EvE is vast but not difficult. With a little help from your friends you can get enough money and basic knowledge to help you avoid the pitfalls that can discourage a new player.
Eve is Brutal. I played WOW and just wanted a PVP experience that didnt have to be set up, BG ARENA ETC. I wanted to be able to do world pvp without a town spawning lvl 80 elite guards to protect it. I get thats to protect nubs from being ganked but it still sucks.
In eve your corp/alliance can own the space your in…imagine owning Ellwyn forest…..
The thing that makes eve brutal is the fact that losses means losses. You dont respawn in your shiney spaceship again, if you loose it, you need to buy a new one…imagine if everytime you died, you lost whatever armour you were wearing in WoW….byebye t10.
Very complex. But very rewarding.
For prospective EVE players… i suggest you go into this experience with the mindset of “ok i know nothing about spaceships and im now required to fly one”
DO NOT skim or skip the tutorial… if u dont have the attention span for reading through this… i suggest you may fall short of your dream of galactic domination.
EVE punishes ignorance and believe me when i say players can make a living off new pilots mistakes…my advice here is trust NO ONE. if they can kill you they will…the question is when they do will you ragequit and let them win…or will you make a note of this and set yourself on a path to revenge by any means.
i started playing eve in 2009 and can say that i have avenged every death for which i was taken advantage of. if u train with merciless purpose E.G first tank to keep ur ship alive and then DPS and speed to engage and outflank the enemy… u can honestly win in 1v1 against 5 yr old players within 5 months… the amount of time you can save yourself by swallowing your ego and taking the advice offered by more experienced players IS WORTH IT… dont just want the big ships cos they look cool.
if u are a content tourist this game isnt for you…to pilot the largest ships in the game i’ve heard that the best possible speed to merely PILOT a titan is like 9 months…
I suppose eve does a lot of things better… it mirrors the true nature of people. it is what u can make of it… if u get bored there is literally thousands of better things to do.
wow IMO= vacuous button mashing and escapist plagiarism
EVE IMO= Cold hard vacuum…if u read this far u have the attention span to play…fly safe
Well guys, while pouring through a forum yesterday I skimmed over a post of “wow jokes” and one piqued my curiosity: “When a player leaves EVE to join World of Warcraft, the IQ of both games go up.” ….. Prior to raising my eyebrows at this I’d read nothing about EVE, so I’ve been doing a lot of reading this morning. My initial thought: the idea of running through multiple star systems is simply amazing!
I’m not one for flight simulators, but I haven’t read anything about the combat system when you come across any number of aggressive scenarios. Do you have to fly and shoot, while working comms and/or attempting diplomacy? Is there a more nub friendly race to start with? Where are most of the recruiting corps located in the systems? I might give the trial a go and see how it feels.
As far as wow goes, I’ve been playing on and off nearly 4 years now and have seen big changes with game play. It’s getting far easier, more achievement orientated and near annoying to log into. Everyone works at the same targets, wears the same tiered sets and are generally damage meter marshals (no longer how, but how hard). I remember the vanilla days were seeing full tiered sets on chars was actually quite rare and inspiring. Now, every toon with enough badges can be a hero.
This has been an interesting read, thanks all for discussing.
I have read both the comparison and most of the comments and, as a relatively new player in EVE, I’m right in the phase of confusion that succeeds the initial tutorial quests and the waning of newbie enthusiasm.
I have played many MMOs since 2005. Some I have played only for a short amount of time – enough to realize that they are not for me, after all. A few, I have played more consistently. EVE was an accidental find so to speak. It is a game that thrilled me when I started playing. Then the epic mission arc was finished, and I was like “Ummmm… Now what?”. Two weeks later, I had quit playing, logging in just to set new skills to be trained. When my subscription ended, I did not care to renew it.
While playing and even after the end of my subscription I read a lot about the possibilities in EVE. I also talked to quite a few people in the game, who not only helped with advice, but also kindly provided money and gear, and – whenever the time difference allowed – took me along in mission running.
A week ago I renewed my subscription. I think my story with EVE is not yet over. However, I do have the feeling that up till now, I am only scraping the dust on the surface of this deeply complex game and its unlimited possibilities. I am really seeking the freedom of choice that a sandbox game like EVE is offering, and which I cannot find in any other MMO, yet I am totally at a loss when it comes to determining how I am going to use that freedom.
I noticed that both the author and some of the commentators stress the importance of being in a good corporation. This is something I have been told and I have read many times over both in game and while doing my EVE-related research. The point is: how do you find such a corporation? There are literally thousands of them. Do those corporations you find interesting actually recruit new-comers (or at all)? How does being in a corporation help you find out what you like doing most in EVE, if you have not yet figured out yourself? My experience from other games and guilds/clans is that even an organized guild/corporation, with a strict recruiting process, a good and active website and ingame community, might not be suitable for everyone, in the end.
Personally, I might like to be a mercenary in EVE. Doing all sort of stuff (including killing, escorting, patrolling, policing, pirating, spying, ganging or even mining) just to get paid handsomely. Not that I’d not also like other roles. But, honestly, I cannot find any way I could really discover the proper corporation to join.
Any advice?
Eve is a player driven game (sand box). That been said the economy is simply amazing, over the end year holidays prices for everything shot up as alot of players where doing real life stuff and no one was manufacturing ships and equipment. WoW is a awesome game so ive herd and because of that tried it a few times but man i just got so bored.
I use to play all sorts of games : fps, strats, racing etc. Since Eve i simply can not find my self playing anything else as nothing just cant compare. Imo Eve has set a standard and if that standard can not be met by another game i simply wont play it.
My toon is about 8months old now after suffering loss after loss as someone stated if you die its gone, but thats what makes it fun and makes the pvp exciting. Eve is a harsh universe and as said before player driven thats why the game developers CCP dont interfear.
Come join us in Eve so you can to enjoy blowing up other peoples hard earned ISK and ships.. but first you have to die alot
Silverleif – one of the most difficult challenges players face when beginning to play EVE is the process of shedding assumptions. Your race only matters if you role-play and combat is… different. It’s hard to explain. It is both simpler and more complex. Sometimes it is slower, other times it is faster. Often you spend hours lying in wait for an enemy, only to be snapped out of your reverie by your fleet commander on comms saying “Check Check, they’re three jumps out. Fleet composition as expected. Battleships to optimals. Activate cap transfer chains and orbits. Drones out. Two jumps… one jump… PRIMARY FALCON.”
Other times, after those hours of waiting, your FC will order you to turn tail and run for your life. If your leadership is competent, your spies well placed and your pilots trained, EVE combat is over hours before it begins.
The game is also waiting for you from the beginning. There is no “grind to 80″ before you can really engage in the content. With an experienced EVE player sitting behind you giving you advice, you are relevant within 48 hours. I got a friend into the game recently, (literally sitting behind him) and he scored his first pirating kill that night can-flipping. By the end of the first week he was making his money tearing around hostile nullsec looting abandoned wrecks and feeding us intel about enemy movements and fleet concentrations.
I’m not gonna lie, “waiting for you” doesn’t mean it likes you. EVE offers no protection, no guidance. One of the reasons the average player age is 35 (statistically, my own corp averages about 27-30) is that youth is not an asset in the game. Experience, durability of spirit and a clever eye for people is crucial. Steadiness and trust are valuable assets that leaders identify and reward.
As to the role-playing thing, in EVE, whether the role you play is one of the ones CCP has designed, or a role of your own making, you *will* end up playing a role. Perhaps for this reason, EVE players tend to have much higher tolerance for role-play than you encounter in most games. It also helps that the line between the roles role-players play and the role *you* are playing is sometimes narrow. We may not have been role-playing when CVA (RP Amarrian alliance a few thousand players strong) refused to surrender for ideological reasons, but Providence and Catch burned down around our ears nonetheless. We’ve moved to a new home now, months later, but the fires from that fight still haven’t completely died down.
Do not go into EVE expecting to play a game. EVE is not a game. EVE is a blood sport. It is the Roman Coliseum, and the players are gladiators, fighting for their own reasons, yes, but also for the entertainment of an obsessive audience, many of which have put money (often real money) on the outcome of events.
Not that we take the game too seriously or anything.
*cough*
@Silverleif Bloom
I’m sorry no one answered your post, I have been playing eve for 3+ years now and was browsing reviews to best describe the game to friends.
To answer your questions, if you haven’t yourself already,… no. – Eve is not like a flight simulator, there is no frequency tuning while trying to fly via joystick ect. In fact, there is no joystick at all. Eve is point and click. In the endless voids of space your ship will continue in a direction at a certain velocity until you tell it otherwise.
Make no mistake, in a battle you’ll be kept busy maneuvering as many real physics factors are taken into consideration regarding damage, tracking, tanking ect. Believe me when I say you’re first few battles will involve a heavy dose of ‘real’ adrenaline (In smaller fights I still feel a rush.)
Although you may be disappointed there is no joystick (referred to as “twitch” movement), it should be noted that space is vast, there is no terrain and very few obstacles which would require manual navigation. In fact, manual navigation would be quite tiresome in many respects.
Also, there are as many as 60,000 players on the single network at a time, and as many as 1200 in a single battle. That is a lot for the server to keep track of and the movement system no doubt is probably most economical for both your client and the server itself.
In addition, there is no nub friendly race. All races are equal and well balanced, at the same time no race will restrict you from flying any other race’s ships, restrict you from any profession/occupation, or restrict you from any role within your corporation/fleet. It only determines your characters basic look (think ethnic background) and starting region/ship.
There are no limits in eve online, you can be decent at everything, or you can be really good at one or two aspects. It’s your choice, nothing is stopping you.
Hope that answers a few questions. As everyone else has mentioned, get the 2-week trial – its free, what do you have to loose?
I have played both WoW and Eve Online extensively, as well as many other MMOs. And the one thing I’ve learned about Eve Online is that if you really make an effort to enjoy all of the possible aspects of it, Eve is well over ten times as complex as any other game ever made in history. Because of the player-created goals and inspirations for what to do, there have been several instances where I had to do something – not given to me by some NPC but a real mission given by a HUMAN player – and when I looked back on it, I said to myself “Did I really just do that in a video game?”.
Here is one of my coolest experiences:
At one point the corporation I was in (a.k.a. Guild for those not familiar with it) was in a nullsec alliance, which means the space is completely controlled and fought over by human players. During a recent battle besieging a space station one of my corp mates had his ship destroyed, and I salvaged the wreck. As per the rules set out by our corp leaders, the salvage of a corpmate’s ship has to be returned to that corpmate. However, the next time I logged on to try to do this, the war we were in had gone badly and an enemy alliance had completely taken over the system that I was docked in. I was safe in the station, for the moment, but I was unable to access any of the facilities for refitting my ship, etc. and there were several of those enemy players in the system at the time. If I left, I wouldn’t be able to re-dock at the station and would probably die within about 30 seconds. So I waited, and notified that corpmate of mine of the situation.
After a couple of days, thankfully the system came back under control of a friendly alliance at least temporarily, and I was able to access the module fitting system of the station. I modified my ship layout to include several Warp Stabilizers, i.e. pieces of equipment that make it harder for someone to lock down my engines so that I can’t escape. There were still several enemy ships in the system and no allies; they had probably been ousted earlier. However, with my refitted ship and my corpmate’s stuff, I decided to try a mad dash for safety.
I undocked, and started aligning for one of the stargates. There were ships right on the station; one locked onto me and activated his warp scrambler. To his surprise, I kept going since I had that special equipment on my ship. I made it to the gate and jumped through.
On the other side, that guy who tried to lock me down had called in support from his allies. An Interdictor ship, a special ship able to drop a high-strength warp jamming probe that jams everything in a 15km+ radius, came through the gate after me and dropped a jamming probe. I started moving at best speed to the boundary of that jamming field, but more of his friends started coming through the gate after me. I was screaming for help in the alliance channels, and eventually one of them did show up and engage the attackers…but it was too late. My ship was too badly damaged by the time he arrived, and I was destroyed.
So in the end, I failed…but what an experience!!! I dare anyone to name another game that can put someone in a situation THAT complex.
I decided I want to put a second great experience in Eve on here, to really show the difference between Eve and WoW. What I’m about to describe you simply can’t do in WoW, or any other game like WoW (Rift, Perfect World, etc).
At one point, a group of corp members including myself decided to set up a base in Wormhole space. A wormhole system is a special star system outside of the regular network of stargates; the only way to get to one is through a wormhole (big surprise) which acts just like a stargate…except that wormhole moves around. Every couple of days or so (more frequently if ships fly through it a lot) it will move to a random location in the middle of nowhere of another star system, which could be any of the 1000+ star systems in Eve including the low security ones. A corp that had already found this particular wormhole system sold it to us, and led us to the current location of the entrance wormhole. Once inside, we could always find the exit.
So in we went, and BUILT OUR OWN SPACE STATION complete with weapons, hangars, manufacturing and science arrays, and began living life in a wormhole. A player owned station in Eve needs several different materials as fuel on an hourly basis. Some can be manufactured from mining asteroids and ice in space, others can be manufactured on player-built automated planet mines if you have the right planet types in the system. We didn’t have all the planet types we needed for all of the fuel, so we were forced to do fuel runs to normal space to get the remaining materials we needed.
Keep in mind, as I said before, that entrance wormhole moves every couple of days. In higher quality wormhole systems, the main exit wormhole more often than not will keep popping up in low security systems which means anyone flying out of there would have a high risk of being attacked by HUMAN pirates. Sometimes additional wormholes appear to that system temporarily, and if you’re lucky one will be to a safe high security system. And occasionally that did happen. However, it was rare, and we needed fuel, and the only ship type really capable of doing those fuel runs through dangerous space is a Blockade Runner.
If a ship has the CPU and powergrid capacity for it, any ship in Eve can fit one of the standard cloaking devices. However, these devices do not allow you to warp cloaked, only fly at sublight speeds (at a reduced speed at that). A Blockade Runner is a special type of cargo hauling ship that can fit a unique Covert Ops Cloaking Device that allows you to warp cloaked. During this time in this wormhole system, I was the only player who had the skills needed to pilot a blockade runner, and I happened to bring mine into the wormhole when I first entered. So, by my own personal choice, I became the main station refueller for our group.
Every time the station was about to run out of those critical materials that we couldn’t get in the system, I would have to grab whatever loot we had extracted from the system, fly through the exit wormhole (often having to scan it down myself, which could be considered a minigame), quite regularly flying through several high danger, low security systems to get to a major trade hub in high security space, so that I could get the best prices for both selling the loot and buying the fuel we needed. I often flew right past gate camps of 8 or more pirates. I, on my own, one single player, was one of the central reasons why that station was able to stay online; if it had run out of fuel, we would have died. In the position I was in, I could have grabbed everything of value from the station and run, leaving my soon-ex corpmates high and dry. The value of the stuff I was carting around on a regular basis was quite staggering. However, I didn’t; I honored my corpmates, I respected the trust they put in me, and I did my duty diligently. And this was just ONE of the several main activities I was doing in that wormhole system. I helped hunt NPCs for valuable salvage, I mined massive asteroids in space, I established planet mines, I manufactured ammunition as I had the most efficient production skills…the list goes on. And even with all this combined, that’s still maybe 50% at most of the kind of stuff that can happen in Eve.
WoW, and games like it, simply do not have this kind of situation, or anything even close to it. If you’re the type of person who doesn’t like griefing and any kind of real challenge, don’t bother trying Eve. We don’t need you whining about getting ganked in the local systems or in the forums.
However, if you want a real challenge that will test you to your limits, in many ways, come on in to Eve. I look forward to flying with/against you.
Im in my trial period stil and yesterday i got a badger from a quest. Thrilled i went to activate it only to be told I had to learn the skill. Ok, fine, I thought and bought the skill book, ONLY to be told I couldnt learn it on a trial account!
Needless to say, when I get off work, Im pulling out my credit card…
Started Eve a week ago and there’s just too much to learn, but i must say, i am a type of person that also wants to know so whats next, and that is what eve has given me. There’s always something new.
@Leo Smith eve is GOOD with being able to gank people you noob y don’t you stop being such a carebear and do it yourself… It’s fun to get ganked anyways. When you go into battle in WoW do you get a rush from the thought of losing your stuff? Phhhh NO instead your like, ok respawn and start to kill people in pvp for no reason because there is no gain from killing them… Except for a LITTLE fun maybe… In eve when you go into a battle it is for gain not just fun. You kill someone, they LOSE their ship and modules and YOU can salvage their ships for money… Also you WoW players will be too illiterate because all you do all day is sit at home eating potato chips and run missions – er ‘quests’ while you never lose your virginity until you find a nice girl on WoW… Until it turns out SHE is a HE…
I <3 ranting on how much you WoW players suck EVE's ***k.
hope this was educational to all you 10 year olds who are thinking about getting WoW and turning into a… Ok fine I won't rant anymore sorry.
XD
First of all, I must say: A good article. I was at first bit worried it would be nonsense, since the games are… basically, two different genres sharing only aspects of MMO, imo. But the comparison you did was rather well done, describing the fundamental blocks of both games.
Also, there are many good comments that I read, before me. They too give great insight into the world of EVE, and its… difference from games of WoW family. It must be said, though, that both games are aimed for different player needs.
I play WoW, and I play EVE. I love both games, but both games sometimes bore me. In EVE I love realism, sort to speak. It was mentioned many times before, but it can’t be stressed enough. Every action in EVE has its consequences, be they good, or bad. The “bad stuff” is what WoW lacks, but we cannot expect such thing from a game of that type. But is “bad stuff” really that bad? Yes, I do get annoyed when my ship gets blown up. But still it’s just game, and if anything, I blame myself for letting my ship be blown. With this, I set myself a higher aim, not to do mistakes of this kind again, or to get more skilled than my opponents. I might have lost millions of ISK worth, but after bit of rage, I just laugh at it. After all, it’s just a game.
What I also love in EVE, is the variety of things you can do. In WoW you’re rather limited to PvP activity against players, or doing PvE quests and dungeons/raids. And that’s it. You can’t call crafting an occupation in WoW. In EVE, however, things are… quite the opposite. It matters, because most of the items can be player-made, if not nearly all. And, as such, the economy in EVE is… alive. I am no spec at economy, but once you get glimpse of how market in EVE works, and then compare it to WoW… well. It’s like a XXI century compared to Stone Age. And this is one of the main aspects for which I love EVE.
But, back to activities. In EVE, I am mainly running missions and, bear with me, mining ore. By many, the latter is called most boring occupation. But I enjoy it. Why? Because I can, for a while, put combat aside and devour those asteroid belts, getting ISKies with the minimum of effort. And I love the numbers. Yes, I love the numbers! It might not be as thrilling as an artillery barrage of an array of large turrets, missiles, or whatnot, but it is great break when I am tired of shooting rats all over again. And then, when I get bored of mining, I welcome the thunder of guns with a smile.
But mining and running missions aren’t the only things you can do. You can mix few activities into one big op. Ah, I can remember, when I and few of my friends went for Wormhole Hunting. I and my other friend were hunting the wormholes into WH-space, just to mine the High-End ore. It was thrilling, especially with knowledge that there are other, player-piloted ships in the system, and we were just waiting for their probes to scan us down, expecting their battlecruisers any moment. It was fun too, though, when the WH leading back to our system collapsed, and we had to find another one, usually on the other side of the universe. What I feared most, was to be stuck in WH-space while our only ship capable of scanning new wormholes was out. But I’ll never forget my corp-mate shocked question: “Where did you get that ore from?!”. Hurr Hurr.
The point is, that potentially boring activities may turn into the adventure.
Well, I would love to elaborate on PvP in EVE, Industry and whatnot, but sadly I did not have opportunity to experience all these aspects of the game just yet.
WoW is the kind of game thats awesome for 3 months, then you realise how stupid it is to reroll 3 characters and do the same quests, kill the same mobs and run the same dungeons as the last toon.
EVE is the game where you only have one toon, always improving, always learning. No rerolling, nothing is ever the same. Every experience is different, because anything can happen. Nothing beats the feeling of defending the space you fought and died for against the Russian blob.
WoW is good for the people who dont want different. Who just want to rinse and repeat the same activities everyday for the same outcome. Despite being hard to get into, newb unfriendly, EVE rewards the effort you put in. A battle will change the world, even by alittle. Come to those who want a challenge, to have fun and feel like your making a difference when playing. But for those who like the monotony of a linear grind, however cleverly disguised, stay where you are. EVE requires more than that.
Well, Ive been playing Eve for treee and half years. It is by far my favorite game in its genre, ever. Someone said wayyy above that eve was ALWAYS UNPREDICTABLE… Thats what makes it fun as well as ALL the various other aspects.. but here you go : THIS IS EVE… I wasn’t being a mean guy, BUT THIS SUMS UP THE GAME IN A NUTSHELL….
EVE System > Channel changed to Ubtes Local Channel
Tang Tso > oh noooes
Tang Tso > NOOOOESSSS
Tang Tso > N O O O E S S S
tonyshoes >
tonyshoes > had to do it… sry.. i left whatever you had in the ship
Tang Tso > That ship took me a week to earn enough to afford you bully
Tang Tso > I am going to petition you for harassment
Tang Tso > And contact your corp leader
Tang Tso > bully…
tonyshoes > lol
Tang Tso > You have ruined my eve experiance
tonyshoes > well, you made mine a little more fun…