[Full-Auto]

Has anyone played the online space game EVE?

EVE Online | Download

I'm downloading the 14 day free trial right now. I'm not sure if it will be playable with my iMac 2.8ghz but I'm hoping it runs smoothly.

I've been looking for a good online game to play with my new iMac and stumbled onto this game today.

Anyone else out there play it?

[Shaddim]

I think it's a good game, I played it many years ago. Not sure how it is today, but it can't be any worse than the other MMOs out there.

[mr. burns]

don't even bother with the mac version. it's complete garbage. it's not even a port. it's run through Wine, a wrapper. they basically chose the most half-assed way to bring the game to the mac and when they released it to the public, it wasn't even stable enough be considered a beta.

if you have a bootcamp partition and windows, i highly recommend playing that way, just to get the full potential from your machine. last i checked the windows version was the only one with the recently overhauled graphics engine, so it looks 100 times better than the 'classic' mac client too.

[Full-Auto]

Yeah, I installed it on my Mac and you're right - it's ugly compared to what it looks like on my Windows machine. It's playable, but barely so. There are so many graphics bugs it's really annoying.

Oh well...

[Big Mac]

It sounds interesting, but I think one MMO is enough for me.

[Andrew Stephens]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

It sounds interesting, but I think one MMO is enough for me.

What!! You mean macnn is just some giant online strategy game!! Take the blue pill, take the blue pill!

[Shaddim]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

It sounds interesting, but I think one MMO is enough for me.

WoW?

I'm seriously thinking about jumping into Lord of the Rings Online this summer, looks to have better story elements.

[Big Mac]

Hahaha, yeah WoW. Blizzard is my favorite game company anyway (and not just for the obvious reason).

[Cipher13]

I just re-activated my EVE account after a billing fiasco a few months ago, and the game is simply stunning with the new graphics engine.

Regardless of its beauty, it is by far the best MMO around, in my opinion. Fully player-driven, and therefore incredibly dynamic, it's great that a player really can influence the universe significantly.

For anyone that plays it, I'm currently flying (depending on the task at hand):

1. An auto-cannon Hurricane (Minmitar Battlecrusier), mostly fitted for up-close-and-personal encounters. Generally used for shipping extremely valuable gear that's worth fighting for, low-sec ratting, or PVPing (can't wait to fit a cloak and camp some gates).
2. An artillery Maelstrom (Minmitar Battleship), fitted for long-range extended bombardment and heavy tanking. Mostly for mission running (level 4 solo).
3. My newest acquisition, a Republic Fleet Firetail (Minmitar special Frigate), which is just an incredible ship (not that the above aren't). Max speed is 3346 m/s with the MWD active. This ship is fitted to be a blockade-runner really, and low-security scout. Again, can't wait to get the cloak on this baby. It's a pretty decent ship to run drugs and other contraban in.

[Peter]

do you play PC?
I want to get into this game.

[Cipher13]

Originally Posted by Peter 

do you play PC?
I want to get into this game.

Yeah, runs pretty well on my old P3, though my video card doesn't support shader model 3, so I can't use the new engine. My girlfriend's card does, however, so I may have to swap the two without her noticing...

[Peter]

Originally Posted by Cipher13 

I just re-activated my EVE account after a billing fiasco a few months ago, and the game is simply stunning with the new graphics engine.

Regardless of its beauty, it is by far the best MMO around, in my opinion. Fully player-driven, and therefore incredibly dynamic, it's great that a player really can influence the universe significantly.

For anyone that plays it, I'm currently flying (depending on the task at hand):

1. An auto-cannon Hurricane (Minmitar Battlecrusier), mostly fitted for up-close-and-personal encounters. Generally used for shipping extremely valuable gear that's worth fighting for, low-sec ratting, or PVPing (can't wait to fit a cloak and camp some gates).
2. An artillery Maelstrom (Minmitar Battleship), fitted for long-range extended bombardment and heavy tanking. Mostly for mission running (level 4 solo).
3. My newest acquisition, a Republic Fleet Firetail (Minmitar special Frigate), which is just an incredible ship (not that the above aren't). Max speed is 3346 m/s with the MWD active. This ship is fitted to be a blockade-runner really, and low-security scout. Again, can't wait to get the cloak on this baby. It's a pretty decent ship to run drugs and other contraban in.

how many experience points do you have?

[Cipher13]

66 skills, 2.34 million SP. It's amazing what you can do at such a low level with the right initial setup. Minmitar/Brutor/Military/Slave Child/Special Forces had me in a Cruiser in no time.

I also made the mistake of not investing in learning points until very recently - that would've helped me out immensely.

[Peter]

I've just started as an engineer intelligence guy. Seems cool!

[Cipher13]

Very nice. Engineering is an awesome thing to start with a lot of points in - that, Navigation and Learning. Depending on your race, of course; Engineering is important as a Minmitar because the weapons I use generally require immense powergrid (my current 1400mm Siege Cannon use 3250MW or something, each).

A few tips that could be handy:

Don't underestimate "Learning" skills as I did. Spend a week or two learning a buch of those (preferably those adding to Int and Mem firstly), and subsequent training times will diminish drastically.
Don't fly a ship you can't afford to replace - you *will* lose them even in high-security zones.
Keep an eye on your insurance policies - they do expire.
Always keep an up-to-date clone (there's nothing protecting you from total death in EVE except your clone. If you get podded and you have no clone, or it's out of date - say goodbye to *all* of your progress, potentially from day one).
Trust nobody.

It's a bloody overwhelming game to start, and the only consolation is that it was like that for everybody, I guess.

EDIT: Oh, and learn Salvaging as a priority. It'll make you a shitload of cash.

[Peter]

Cool. I am a Minmata Engineer. Stats:
Int: 17
Perception: 6
Charisma: 6
Willpower: 6
Memory: 10

28 Skills, 809,000 Skill Points.

Are you in a corp?

[Peter]

PS, Eve Skill Monitor widget for Mac OS X

[Peter]

Cipher, whats your ingame name? Mine is ...
Chloe Starsky!

[Weyland-Yutani]

I've started playing EVE after giving up on the stupidity that was WoW. I just couldn't handle playing a game that didn't change. Playing computer games is pointless enough, but without the reward that you've accomplished something... that's just insane.

Anyways, I've decided to give EVE a try. I'm using the Mac client on a 2 GHz iMac. The machine is plenty fast enough, but the client isn't really stable. In the last five hours it has crashed three times, seemingly at random.

There are also some graphics glitches, I think? It seems that every time I exit a stargate my ship is effectively invisible - at least to me - until I set it to warp somewhere, then it reappears. [EDIT: yea that's probably supposed to happen ]

As for the game itself, it is interesting so far. The XP system is certainly unique. It is incredibly overwhelming, there is so much information to parse and the missions are sort of forced upon you. If you ask whether a mission is available, then you are take that mission *now* or lose reputation. Lose enough reputation, and you won't get more missions.

Of course there are other ways to get money and stuff, but missions and access to them does add variety to the game and shutting oneself out of that isn't going to make things more interesting.

EVEN though the game is overwhelming, the Mac client is crashy, the roleplaying aspect is unknown to me and even though I still only grasp a tiny part of the game, I have to say my first impressions are very favorble. I like it!

The character creation is fun, although some races will only yeald ugly people.. and although one can change eye-color and skin-color, one can't change hair-color. Also there are about two hairstyles for each race and the rest are variations of bald, for the men. Sometimes for the women too.

In space, some races don't have facial hair. Most look menacing.

So, to summarize:

Pros:
*** Fun character creation
*** innovative XP system
*** Huge universe
*** mesmerizing graphics
*** Nicely layered gameplay, which deepens the more you know

Cons:

*** Very limited character interaction
*** pretty hard for beginners
*** the Mac client is crashy, no two ways about it
*** planets and space stations are inaccessable, you live in your ship
*** I fear this game is more inspired by Escape Velocity and Elite than true masterpieces like Sundog

Also questionable, is the presence of a coherent storyline. I don't really know yet.

I hope I'm wrong about the last point! Sundog, although simple in the grand scheme of things, was still far more complex than Escape Velocity and Elite. I hope EVE aspires to higher levels than those.

I also hope they manage to clobber together a Mac client that crashes less than 2-3 times per session.

[tycheung]

i think eve has a pretty good MMO setup in terms of economy, crafting ("industry"), resource management, contracts, player owned starbases and structures, exploration of unknown parts of the universe etc. fleet warfare is supposed to be awesome. its completely player driven. the ships are beautiful and pretty configurable, and designed to have very specific roles. (go to wikipedia and look up the charts of the different ships)

The downside is you really need to be in a good corp, and to be in a good corp you really have to invest your time. esp if you venture out into low sec where piracy, warfare, and other shenanigans happen. eve never sleeps, as opposed to WoW which is somewhat of a more static universe. i am just a casual player and not in a hardcore corp so most of what i do is missions and salvaging- which get boring after a while. but to go into a corp and venture in the 0.0 space - be prepared to get sucked in, lose lots of ships, etc. some of the crazier people work 24-7 at this stuff, manning gate camps, ambushes and garrisons (sitting there for hours waiting for 30 secs of action...) yada yada.

other people get good at playing the market and make billions that way, but heck, you'd probably get better returns off of real money....(there is a way to translate in game currency into real money but it's a tad shady....if you farm enough credits, you can trade em for time codes which you can resell....or you can do the whole underhanded direct transaction....)

[Cipher13]

Originally Posted by Peter 

Cipher, whats your ingame name? Mine is ...
Chloe Starsky!

Which constellation are you in at the moment? I think I might've passed you the other day while in transit from Oppold to Ovetsmunnur (where my level 4 agent is).

My in-game name is Asmodaix.

No corp for me just yet - there are things I wanted to work on on my own before I apply for a large corp. I need to learn how things work a little better yet. I'm in a dummy corp that has like 3 members, that was set up by an RL friend.

Originally Posted by Weyland-Yutani 

I've started playing EVE after giving up on the stupidity that was WoW. I just couldn't handle playing a game that didn't change. Playing computer games is pointless enough, but without the reward that you've accomplished something... that's just insane.

Anyways, I've decided to give EVE a try. I'm using the Mac client on a 2 GHz iMac. The machine is plenty fast enough, but the client isn't really stable. In the last five hours it has crashed three times, seemingly at random.

There are also some graphics glitches, I think? It seems that every time I exit a stargate my ship is effectively invisible - at least to me - until I set it to warp somewhere, then it reappears. [EDIT: yea that's probably supposed to happen ]

As for the game itself, it is interesting so far. The XP system is certainly unique. It is incredibly overwhelming, there is so much information to parse and the missions are sort of forced upon you. If you ask whether a mission is available, then you are take that mission *now* or lose reputation. Lose enough reputation, and you won't get more missions.

Of course there are other ways to get money and stuff, but missions and access to them does add variety to the game and shutting oneself out of that isn't going to make things more interesting.

EVEN though the game is overwhelming, the Mac client is crashy, the roleplaying aspect is unknown to me and even though I still only grasp a tiny part of the game, I have to say my first impressions are very favorble. I like it!

The character creation is fun, although some races will only yeald ugly people.. and although one can change eye-color and skin-color, one can't change hair-color. Also there are about two hairstyles for each race and the rest are variations of bald, for the men. Sometimes for the women too.

In space, some races don't have facial hair. Most look menacing.

So, to summarize:

Pros:
*** Fun character creation
*** innovative XP system
*** Huge universe
*** mesmerizing graphics
*** Nicely layered gameplay, which deepens the more you know

Cons:

*** Very limited character interaction
*** pretty hard for beginners
*** the Mac client is crashy, no two ways about it
*** planets and space stations are inaccessable, you live in your ship
*** I fear this game is more inspired by Escape Velocity and Elite than true masterpieces like Sundog

Also questionable, is the presence of a coherent storyline. I don't really know yet.

I hope I'm wrong about the last point! Sundog, although simple in the grand scheme of things, was still far more complex than Escape Velocity and Elite. I hope EVE aspires to higher levels than those.

I also hope they manage to clobber together a Mac client that crashes less than 2-3 times per session.

Yeah, the Mac client is ****. The new graphics engine isn't supported (though that's not the fault of CCP), and it's just generally really dodgy. Run it on a PC or through Windows if at all possible. You'll lose ships to a crashing client, which is bloody annoying (happened to me multiple times when my machine was BSODing due to an audio driver problem).

Your ship is cloaked when you enter a system through a stargate - it's supposed to be that way to give you a chance to take in what's going on there. You're untargettable for the 30 seconds or so that you're cloaked, so you can use that time to, if necessary, pick the ojbect in the system that you're most closely aligned to and get the hell out (or to sus things out and decide if you can take out aggressors, etc).

Yeah, the mission system kinda sucks, but it's only meant to be a crutch really - I think the intention of the game is that you end up doing real missions for real people, working in a corp to whatever end.

There's definitely a coherent storyline - an ever-evolving one. Check out some of the stuff on the website, the news releases and lore and technological briefs. It's pretty interesting, though I'm not so much into that kinda thing.

They're working an expansion called 'ambulation' which will, as the name suggests, allow you to play your own character rather than playing a 'ship'. Walking around stations, landing on and exploring planets, etc. Should be pretty cool, though it's a long way off.

[Weyland-Yutani]

Thanks for the explaination Cipher

I suppose I could install the Windows version if I bought Windows.. but it would have to be Vista, right? Isn't the new graphics engine for DX10?

I thought I heard that was not supported by Windows XP.

Until then I'll chug along on the crashy Mac client - speaking of which: one thing that annoys me with it aside from the crasyness, is that sometimes it destabilizes Mac OS X after crashing and *other* apps become unpredictable, windows not showing up, apps freezing.

It's like good old OS 9 after a crash!

[mr. burns]

the new graphics engine requires DirectX 9. not 10. 10 support is still in the works for the future, but who knows when that'll be. XP will be fine.

[Weyland-Yutani]

Originally Posted by mr. burns 

the new graphics engine requires DirectX 9. not 10. 10 support is still in the works for the future, but who knows when that'll be. XP will be fine.

I am confused..

Trinity's new graphics engine also incorporates a major performance improvement, by offloading a great deal of its work to the GPU (graphics card), whereas most of the rendering work is done by the main CPU in the current version. The new engine requires a sufficiently modern graphics card, as well as the relatively new DirectX 10. As such, Trinity will actually come in two different flavors: Premium and Classic. Windows users whose hardware does not meet the requirements for the new Premium engine can continue to play the game on the existing Classic engine, which is essentially an upgraded version of EVE's existing graphics technology.

[emphasis mine]

Inside Mac Games Feature: An Introduction To EVE Online

Someone said cider ports couldn't handle DX10, so that's why the premium graphics engine in EVE didn't work yet on the Mac port..

Wintel software requirements make my head spin

[Cipher13]

The new engine doesn't require DX10 just yet (which I guarantee, because I don't have it, and I'm using the new engine). All it requires is a Shader Model 3.0 vid card.

Not sure why wrappers can't handle it.

[Cipher13]

Originally Posted by Weyland-Yutani 

Thanks for the explaination Cipher

I suppose I could install the Windows version if I bought Windows.. but it would have to be Vista, right? Isn't the new graphics engine for DX10?

I thought I heard that was not supported by Windows XP.

Until then I'll chug along on the crashy Mac client - speaking of which: one thing that annoys me with it aside from the crasyness, is that sometimes it destabilizes Mac OS X after crashing and *other* apps become unpredictable, windows not showing up, apps freezing.

It's like good old OS 9 after a crash!

Totally missed this post before, sorry.

I've played EVE on 3 systems, all of which were running XP (two being SP2, one being SP1 x64 edition), works just fine.

[Weyland-Yutani]

Originally Posted by Cipher13 

Totally missed this post before, sorry.

I've played EVE on 3 systems, all of which were running XP (two being SP2, one being SP1 x64 edition), works just fine.

That makes much more sense, than that EVE premium is 'Vista'-only.

Now tonight CCP will be applying the Trinity 1.1 patch, which will make some improvements on the stability of the Mac client. How much, remains to be seen, but any improvement would be noticeable

EVE Online | EVE Insider | Forums


Portraits should now render correctly and not cause crashes.

Ships can now warp safely without crashing the game.

Improved D3DX compatibility, which will address several stability issues.

Reviewed the way the game interfaces with Mac graphics drivers, which will also address stability issues.


Please note that the issues which require a driver fix to resolve will probably remain after this patch. This can include some graphics errors in the map, and occurrences of the "disco effect" in object textures.

[Weyland-Yutani]

Now I've installed Vista and am using the EVE premium client.. I just have to say that the graphics are really nice.

I like this game. I think I'll get a subscription when the trial period is over.

The best thing about this game compared to other MMOs is that you don't have to grind and you don't have to play for hours at a time to achieve something.

[olePigeon]

So is the ultimate goal always to get a huge ship? Or can people effectively form a "Rogue Squadron" of sorts and take down capital ships with a well coordinated attack of small fighters?

[Weyland-Yutani]

Originally Posted by olePigeon 

So is the ultimate goal always to get a huge ship? Or can people effectively form a "Rogue Squadron" of sorts and take down capital ships with a well coordinated attack of small fighters?

EVE isn't an RPG as far as I can tell and so far I have not had contact with a single player, nor do I expect that will happen for quite some time.

At least while one is gathering money and skills and larger ships, it's a 'mission' game, i.e.: Do this mission and get money.

There are plenty of other ways to get money, but that is the most straightforward one.

So what happens when you're rich with a big ship and high skills? I don't know

[Cipher13]

Alternatively, you could skip NPC missions completely, and start picking up player-made contracts and doing work for human corporations and whatnot. It's entirely up to you. You could get a big industrial ship and start working on profitable trade routes, you could mine, do research, manufacture - anything, really.

Originally Posted by olePigeon 

So is the ultimate goal always to get a huge ship? Or can people effectively form a "Rogue Squadron" of sorts and take down capital ships with a well coordinated attack of small fighters?

Not so much. A group of frigates could quite easily take down a battleship. The way my battleship is set up, I can't hit **** once it's closer than about 30km, or if it moves too fast. I need support ships to help with frigates and interceptors and whatnot (though I usually just take a smartbomb or keep a 'tailgun' or something to take down smaller craft, albeit slowly).

There are a number of smaller ship classes in the game that you can't fly until you've got a hell of a lot of skill points - heavy assault ships, covert ops ships, and so on.

Bigger certainly isn't always better.

[olePigeon]

If a game like EVE can make lots of money, surely a networked Escape Velocity that people have been asking for for the past 10 years would make some cash.

[sek929]

Oh god, don't even joke about that.

halo 3 would take a back-seat if a new online EV came out <drools>

[Cipher13]

EVE basically *is* a networked EV. That was my first thought when I heard about EVE Online.

EDIT: Used "basically" twice. Doh.

[sek929]

I am very interested in EVE, but there are two problems:

1: My aging PowerMac couldn't run Worms Armageddon for all I know.
2: I would not sleep or eat and just play all the time, basically the South Park WoW episode.

That said from what I've seen of EVE it's right up my alley...maybe my next Mac purchase will be the breaking point.