What is EVE? I don’t know how many times I’ve been asked that simple three word question… and it always left me standing there, waiting for the flies to just land in my open mouth… I never had a good short, to the point answer. Because EVE is not simple, short or to the point... whateverthehell it is.
It’s a game, right? Oh it’s a game alright… and it’s an MMO and an MMORPG too for some… it’s a persistent virtual world and a personal virtual life… it’s a gankers paradise and the haunt of risk adverse OCD miners and Industry spreadsheet geeks and Market mavens… It’s an experience that simply MUST be shared with friends and thousands more and a Hermit’s dream, it’s a single shard universe, and a lonely desolate wormhole system… it’s a Harsh Mistress and a Gentle Beauty… an exotic sheer bikini clad Lover, and a triple 1600mm Tritanium plated Bitch.
It is all this and so much more… but it is NOT easy nor is it simple… to play, to live in, to fly in and to die in, to define or to explain.
But, over the last few weeks, I have found my personal short-simple-to-the-point answer…
EVE is Fun… and as far as I am concerned, if it’s not fun for you… yer doing it wrong.
You see defining and or explaining EVE for many stems from a desire for our friends and family to understand this our collective hobby. We who enjoy it get so much out of it… partly because EVE IS horrendously complex and hard to learn. It is hard to explain a ‘game’ that can be so very extremely harsh and unforgiving. Those of us who love it do so BECAUSE it is ALL of the above… and one other thing… we have FUN doing all of it, even the boring, painful, shitty stuff.
This thought has been gelling in me since I read Wilhelm Arcturus’s post, This is EVE and EVE is Different over on The Ancient Gaming Noob. I don’t really follow TAGN ‘closely’ because he is a nullsec player and I could not care less about nullsuc, and his blog also covers a lot of WoW and such and so I have to pick and choose what to read over there… Please understand I’m not dissin’ his blog or playstyle, I’m just picky and I don’t play WoW so a lot of it means Na-da to me is all. But he is also an EVE player and very often has insights and a depth to our game that I would sorely hate to miss… so I do keep up with him.
Anyhoo… in this post which was his BB#61 - Origin State, post… he says a few things that really hit home with me…
“EVE Online will not meet your expectations.
That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but you’re going to come charging in with some ideas in mind and EVE just isn’t going to line up with them."
And…
“If you look at blogs from people playing EVE Online… …things can be quite different. Sure, some days we are all talking about the same thing, like the latest expansion. But there are times when we clearly aren’t just playing in different areas of the game, but it seems like we might be playing totally different games.”
In no other MMO I know of or have heard of is this more true. … it seems like we might be playing totally different games… because… we are and yet, we are all still playing EVE. This is the Dichotomy and the Duality, the Yin and Yang, the Male and Female, the Creation and Destruction that is EVE and that is a huge part of the human experience.
When all is said and done, I enjoy my time in EVE more than any other hobby I have ever had. I fly in EVE with my sons… we have a corp that is our own. We are currently flying with friends we have had for almost 4 years… and some we just met last week. I have my bad days… and sometimes I am the bad day others’ have… but everyday, bad to best, I look forward to it more, and have more sheer fun doing it, on par with anything else I have ever had as a hobby. Seeing the guys on TS, and in the POS… Endy, and ‘nipples’… Sov and his “About your fit…”, Tsra and his “Damn, I’m outta arsenic…”, AI and his ”….” (he’s kinda quiet…), Strigon and his “I just push F1…”… and all the other guys…
Over the last few weeks I have had wonderful wins! And amazing losses… we have run sites like Real Pros and we have run sites like we were drunken retards… we have had GFs and terribad fights, but always post ‘GF’ in local as we warp off… I have made a mountain of ISK… and spent damn near all of it… and I have had an absolute blast during all of it… Yea, EVE is a lot of things… but first and foremost it HAS to be…
All For the Fun…
When all is said and done,
the war over,
the battle lost or won,
when your ship has gone nova,
you understand then…
When you turn ponderously for home,
your Hulks laden with ore,
like a citizen of old Rome,
sweat and blood for the corp,
you understand then…
When the smoke clears,
and you’re back in the hole,
you see your greatest fears,
are not loss of control,
you understand then…
When you were scared and shaking,
webbed and pointed as you tried to run,
when you realized YOU weren’t breaking,
you understand now…
...that it is all for the fun.
Fly Reckless and see you in the Sky =/|)=
You're absolutely right, and that's both a blessing and a curse for CCP. On the one hand, Eve has a lot of aspects that can appeal to a variety of players. On the other, it's complex, and squirrel-attentioned modern humans don't like complex things. Plus, it's very possible you can invite a friend to play and end up liking very different things entirely, and never seeing each other. It's hard to build a community from such widely divergent perspectives.
ReplyDeleteYea... I love this game. And personally I think CCP is doing ok in riding the razors edge between the Griefer and the Bear... and I personally have not met many ingame who have the curse of squirrel like attention... No, I feel those are that vast majority of gamers who try EVE and quietly exit or run screaming... and while I want our great game to be healthy, I have no problem with it being a niche game... I'm personally happier in my niche surrounded by intelligent OCD players who understand me.
ReplyDeleteAnd while I agree on the difficulty of building a community from such disparate playstyles, it does seem as if we have done just quite exactly that now doesn't it? =]