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I took my first steps into the world of EVE online recently.. Taking advantage of the 14 day free trial, I downloaded the client (less than one hour to grab from the official site), installed and set running.The first thing I noticed was the lack of a hefty set of patches. I had assumed upon installation it would be the same deal as other MMO’s in regards to updates but was pleasantly surprised at being able to jump right into the world without delay. The intro movie held me up longer than the install did which is saying something in today’s world of PC gaming.

The little reading I did on the official site whilst downloading the client, indicated it would be a very, very bad idea to skip the tutorials and now I’ve had a little hands-on time I’m inclined to agree heavily. The tutorial missions lead you by the hand through the various aspects of the UI. Navigation, targeting, combat, trading, mining are all explained to a degree and you can check the tutorials at any point if you forgot something.

Once basic tutorial missions are over you are introduced to a new Agent, who supplies you with new Missions to complete for pay/rewards. I noticed after taking my first quest that extra reward is offered as incentive if you complete the mission before a certain time. For my first mission I had an hour and a half to complete it for an extra 20 thousand ISK (EVE’s currency), that was almost as much as the initial reward.. Its safe to say, it is in your best financial interests to complete missions by the given time. The other thing the game shows you at this point is that missions from Agents only last so long in your Journal (quest log). Taking the same missions as an example, if memory serves me rightly, I had 3 days to complete the mission before it expires. If you allow a mission to expire you lose standing (reputation) with the Agent who supplied it. If you complete in time it increases your standing and in turn leads to bigger, more rewarding missions .

At this point I was docked in a space station and took the chance to look over the trading and market settings on my UI. It seems very well implemented with a completely player driven economy. People mine asteroid belts and refine ore to be sold. Other people then take that refined ore and craft ships or ammo or weapons I assume, which are then also sold on the market. Blueprints for crafting these items can be acquired via some way I’m not too sure about just yet..

Before heading back out on my missions I was prompted to perform some training to initiate a skill-up. I chose to up my Frigate Pilot skill enabling me, hopefully to obtain a Merlin craft which seems a well rounded Frigate class ship. This is done a lot differently to other games. Skill-ups work in real time. For example, the next level of my pilot skill was estimated at taking just over 2 days to fully train. I set it going and the training continues whilst I’m offline. This is interesting as it means even when I don’t play, my character can be improving. The other interesting thing is, while you can pick your race/background at character creation, and to a degree this has an effect on your starting attributes, your free to train any skill available to you. The only deciding factor is time. With enough time you could theoretically train every skill in the game. Basically this means that although I started life as a combat pilot, there is nothing to stop me piling some points in mining and trading and then shifting focus from PvP to trading and mining.

UPDATE: Played a bit more of this, upgraded to a Merlin and now have it decked out with missile launchers and turrets. NPC pirates are real easy to kill in this thing now and I’ve completed the starting set of encounters available so i guess its time to move down into lower security space, perhaps some PvP. Ideally I’d prefer to group PvP with a friend of mine also trialling the game so I may wait till we can both get on together and form a fleet.

All in all, I quite like EVE. Mining is quite relaxing, the space scenery is worth checking out, combat isn’t all I hoped for.. I had visions of manually piloting the space ship in some elaborate, space dog fight, but in reality you only have to target a ship, set the orbit value to a range you can fire guns from and basically set and forget. Its more strategic then hands-on and most of the time is spent targeting the next pirate up and managing ammo/reloads/locking next target down. Its not easy by any means, multiple opponents require a lot of targeting and orbiting so you cant just sit back and watch it. Still… I had hoped for something a bit more from the combat. I’ll reserve judgement till I can get some PvP under my belt.

I think I’ll probably grab a months subs to this game and the odd game card now and then depending on the price..

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