I was thinking about how useful EvE's skill system is in situations where real life means you can't put int the time on a particular eveninig. My char is progressing even if I'm not. The problem I have with most negative reviews of EvE is the following statement: "Why does EvE reward me for not playing". Skill is not a reward, skill is a requirement to use different ammunition. I realize that coming from a different MMO style that the paradigm change is jarring. It took me a while (and loosing a hauler in low sec at a very young in game time point and almost quitting) before I wrapped my mind around it too. You have to realize that relative to the values of the "shinnies" in this game earning the isk to acquire them is WAY EASY. Heck for the smart and lazy there are totally passive ways of making isk. It has to be this way. Since all those shinnies are eminently destructible.
It is here that EvE departs from the standard MMO concepts and goes off in to left field. In a standard MMO, once you hit a certain level you work your ass off to aquire the appropriate gear. But once you've got it, it's your untill you sell/throw it away or you cancel your account. In EvE the ONLY thing that works like this are the skills in your head (provided you keep your clones up to date). Everything else, everything, is ammunition. Yes, some of it is rather expensive rounds (think bullets made of gold) but all of it is expendable. This is why so many newbies dont' survive the transition to EvE. They come from the other MMOs mind set where "if I get it, it's mine, mine, mine, muahahahahah". They get to EvE they think "ooo it's equipment - it must work like I'm used to in other MMOs". They skill up to fly something nice and shinny, and literaly get it blown to shreds right after un-docking it the first time. At that point they rage quit.
Incidentally this is probably why the average age of the EvE player is higher than the average MMO player. The younger one is the more attached to ones toys one becomes. The more likely that one is to rage quit.
NEWBIES: SHIPS ARE NOT EQUIPMENT - THEY ARE AMMUNITION. DEAL.
EvE works to a different beat if you think it works anything like another MMO you will come to grief. EvE PvE is very easy, because the point is not PvE, it's just a mechanism to get isk to buy the ammo needed to PvP. EvE has real PvP, but 80% of it happens prior to a shot being fired. Once the fight starts your gang has either gotten the upper hand or screwed the pooch. Most fights results are determined BEFORE the first shot is fired. And as in real life the win usually goes to he who makes the fewest mistakes.
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3 comments:
"They skill up to fly something nice and shiney, and literally get it blown to shreds right after undocking it the first time. At that point they rage quit." truer words have never been written. very eloquent and extremely accurate!
well worth a read I'll recommend this to any newbie I can.
~Manasi
I think I need to take out the "stuff I did last night and put that in a separate post"
This reminds me of a certain Australian players that got into Clown Punchers about the same time I did, with the same amount of SP, who was literally OBSESSED with fly an Apocalypse, at a time when I could barely fly CYCLONES. Sure enough he lost it within an hour of getting it and rage-quit and was never heard from again.
And about the skills, I think I understand why there is no skill queue, and never will be. CCP wants us to play, and not just blindly pay our monthly fee while the character is training to fly Dreds. And also, imagine what a boon it would be for character sellers; there's good money to be made there but it requires some effort, but with a skill queue everybody and their cats would start accounts strictly for character selling.
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