Vladesch <nobody@nospam.com> wrote:

> "Jamie Kahn Genet" <lists@wizardling.geek.nz> wrote in message
> news:1ibv57f.1dbnnva1ssyopdN%lists@wizardling.geek .nz...
> > JohnR <repro007@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> "Jamie Kahn Genet" <lists@wizardling.geek.nz> wrote in message
> >> news:1ibuzg1.n9k4sqajuv0pN%lists@wizardling.geek.n z...
> >> > EVE is god awful (broken tutorial/initial missions, zero in-game help,
> >> > etc, etc). Anything else? I'm surprised someone hasn't stepped in and
> >> > made a decent MMORPG in this genre.
> >> >
> >> Have to agree, I so desperately wanted to enjoy it and just couldn't.
> >
> > It's a bloody shame is what it is :-( Good to hear it's not just me,
> > though! You start to wonder when you read there are over 10,000 other
> > players who somehow managed. Maybe things do get better later, but I was
> > shocked at how bad EVE was for a beginner. I've also never encountered a
> > commercial online game like this with NO help. Not even a simple in-game
> > FAQ :-(
> >
>
> I played through the tutorial (took several hours) and thought the game was
> pretty impressive. Its just a pity that the comminity sucks so badly, but I
> guess thats what you have to expect from a pvp (PK is a better description)
> game.
> Final straw for me was when newbies started getting PK'd in the so called
> safe zones.

Yeah, that worried me, but I'm used to occasionally getting blown away
by pirates even in 'safe' systems in Escape Velocity if I've a weak
ship. I hope as in Escape Velocity you become safer once you have a
reasonably decent ship? Or is there always the chance you can lose it
all in EVE (assuming you didn't backup with a clone, insurance and a
decent reserve bank balance - though my understanding is you'd still
lose a lot of time and goodies, yeah?)? That would truly suck :-(

> Skill training system doesn't do much for me either.

I never got far enough to find out if it would work for me. I was too
put off by the lack of help, shoddy tutorial and screwed up first real
mission.

Regards,
Jamie Kahn Genet
--
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

steve.kaye <nospam@giddy-kippers.co.uk> wrote:

> On 5 Feb, 09:24, li...@wizardling.geek.nz (Jamie Kahn Genet) wrote:
>
> > EVE is god awful
>
> I think that summation is a bit harsh. It's a good game - it's just
> not for you.

Well CCP had their chance to impress me and they blew it bigtime. It's
rare I'll give up the same day I pick up a game. It takes a lot to piss
me off that badly.

> > (broken tutorial/initial missions, zero in-game help,
> > etc, etc).
>
> That's funny, I managed to do the tutorials just fine with no outside
> help at all although a *lot* of people do get stuck with the same
> bits. One of the bad things about the tutorial is that it is very
> sensitive to the user not clicking the next button. If you do what it
> tells you to do and then do the next logical step and then press next
> you break the tutorial and need to start it again. One example is the
> combat tutorial - it tells you to target the pirate and and click
> next. It's obviously going to ask you to kill it - if you do that
> before pressing next then it asks you to target the pirate before
> continuing. Then you have to find another pirate to target.

Yeah, that accurately describes some of the shit I encountered. But then
after the tutorial, the first 'real' mission was stuffed due to a
warning that _funnily_ _enough_ I believed (said I would not be able to
complete the mission due to lack of cargo space), but apparently I was
_supposed_ to ignore... Oh, well... foolish me! *shakes head*

No, if even the real missions are buggered up due to poor
explanations/scriptwriting I simply cannot face delving in further.

> > Anything else? I'm surprised someone hasn't stepped in and
> > made a decent MMORPG in this genre.
>
> They have. It's called EVE-Online.

Escape Velocity is leagues ahead, even if it is SP. God what I would
give for multiplayer Escape Velocity! *sighs* Sadly it won't ever
happen...

> Seriously though, I heard of a Firefly based MMORPG being in
> development. Anyone heard anything about that?
>
> steve.kaye

Oh man, a Firefly MMORPG... *drool*

Regards,
Jamie Kahn Genet
--
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

Aboo wrote:
> Umm, I found the tutorial pretty easy and the game itself surprisingly
> in-depth. The only thing wrong with it is how empty space is. :P The
> game world is HUGE and it was rare for me to ever see another
> character controlled space-craft except when zoning in/out of stations
> and star gates.
[...]

One thing I miss from WoW is the sense of place. In WoW, I know what
zone I'm in. I can see, and hear, immediately, whether I'm in Elwyn
Forest or Duskwood or Durotar or Loch Modan.

In EVE, all the star systems look the same, and the sound isn't much to
speak of.

Naturally, there are difficulties in this area, but I think CCP should
have been willing to accept less realism, in order to achieve at least a
minimal sense of place.

--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org

On Tue, 5 Feb 2008 08:30:59 -0800 (PST), Aboo <jhemphill@gmail.com>
wrote:

>On Feb 5, 3:24 am, li...@wizardling.geek.nz (Jamie Kahn Genet) wrote:
>> EVE is god awful (broken tutorial/initial missions, zero in-game help,
>> etc, etc). Anything else? I'm surprised someone hasn't stepped in and
>> made a decent MMORPG in this genre.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Jamie Kahn Genet
>> --
>> If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
>
>
>Umm, I found the tutorial pretty easy and the game itself surprisingly
>in-depth. The only thing wrong with it is how empty space is. :P The
>game world is HUGE and it was rare for me to ever see another
>character controlled space-craft except when zoning in/out of stations
>and star gates.

Yes, I had no troubles at all with Tutorial or Missions.

The Eve game world is large, isn't it There are around 6000+ star
systems, so I was told. People tend to cluster in certain regions
though, which makes for a bit of lag.


Palindrome

On Tue, 05 Feb 2008 11:37:24 -0700, Lewis <gkreme@gmail.com> wrote:

>...and the realtime training, imo, is the worst idea ever in an MMO.

I actually liked that. It means new players can't be powerlevelled
and/or twinked to the extent they are in other MMORPGS. They have to
earn their skills the same as anyone else. Each to their own though.


Palindrome

On Feb 6, 11:57 am, Palindrome <damon-no...@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
> On Tue, 05 Feb 2008 11:37:24 -0700, Lewis <gkr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >...and the realtime training, imo, is the worst idea ever in an MMO.
>
> I actually liked that. It means new players can't be powerlevelled
> and/or twinked to the extent they are in other MMORPGS. They have to
> earn their skills the same as anyone else. Each to their own though.
>
> Palindrome

I liked that too actually. The fact that my character earned his/her
"skills" just as fast as someone who played 23 hours a day. In a real-
world type environment that made sense to me. It kept me attached the
game. What I didn't like is the fact that the first few skills, the
ones to help you learn faster later, took so friggin long to learn!
lol

This thread is actually making me want to go re-download that game and
give it another shot lol

Palindrome wrote:
> On Tue, 05 Feb 2008 11:37:24 -0700, Lewis <gkreme@gmail.com> wrote:
>>...and the realtime training, imo, is the worst idea ever in an MMO.
>
> I actually liked that. It means new players can't be powerlevelled
> and/or twinked to the extent they are in other MMORPGS. They have to
> earn their skills the same as anyone else. Each to their own though.

Each skill comes in 5 levels, from level 1 to level 5.

Training from nothing to level 1 takes a certain amount of time,
depending on your character's attributes (one of the five attributes is
"primary", the other is "secondary" and thus has "half weight" in the
formula), and the difficulty of the skill (its rank. The easiest skills
are rank 1. The hardest are AFAIK rank 16 and thus take 16 times as long
to train).

Training from level 1 to level 2 then takes *five* times as long as
training from nothing to level 1.

Training from level 2 to level 3 also takes *five* times as long as the
previous level, and the same goes for training from level 3 to 4, and
from 4 to 5.

Thus, if it takes 10 minutes to train a given skill from nothing to
level 1, for a particular character, then that character will need more
than 4 days to train that skill from level 4 to level 5.

The effect of most skills is just to give a bonus multiplied by skill
level. One skill might give a 3% damage increase for a class of
missiles, per skill level. Thus, with skill level 4, you get a +12%
damage bonus, and with skill level 5, you get a +15% damage bonus.

The result is that most players stop, for most skills, at skill level 4.
It simply isn't worth it to train up to level 5. Spend 4 days, or 10
days, or 40 days (yes, 40 day training times can happen. Larger training
times can happen too!) to increase a weapon system's damage from, say,
112 points to 115 points.


This is a huge advantage for less experienced players, because it means
that veteran players aren't all that much better. Veteren players will
usually only have a few "core" skills trained to level 5. The main
difference will be in breadth of skill. Veteran players will have many
skills, perhaps a hundred, trained to level 4, whereas a less
experienced player might have 10 or 15 skills trained to level 4.


The exception is when the game forces you to train a skill to level 5,
because level 5 in that skill is a prerequisite for learning some other
skill. Then you do it. But that's an example of bad game design. In
almost all cases, level 4 would be a sufficient prerequisite...

--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org

Aboo wrote:
> I liked that too actually. The fact that my character earned his/her
> "skills" just as fast as someone who played 23 hours a day. In a real-
> world type environment that made sense to me. It kept me attached the
> game. What I didn't like is the fact that the first few skills, the
> ones to help you learn faster later, took so friggin long to learn!
> lol

Yes, having those "learning skills" in the game in the first place was a
design mistake, and at least some CCP staffers have understood this.

> This thread is actually making me want to go re-download that game and
> give it another shot lol

How long since you last played it?

--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org

In article <54tjq39ttjpaivde9g148bua5re22ojtom@4ax.com>,
Palindrome <damon-nomad@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:

> On Tue, 05 Feb 2008 11:37:24 -0700, Lewis <gkreme@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >...and the realtime training, imo, is the worst idea ever in an MMO.
>
> I actually liked that. It means new players can't be powerlevelled
> and/or twinked to the extent they are in other MMORPGS.

It also means that someone who is good at the game gets no benefit in
training over someone who is not.

--
Bart: This is the worst day of my life.
Homer: This is the worst day of your life SO FAR.

Hi Jamie Kahn Genet, you wrote :

>EVE is god awful (broken tutorial/initial missions, zero in-game help,
>etc, etc). Anything else? I'm surprised someone hasn't stepped in and
>made a decent MMORPG in this genre.

There are some in development at the moment - one such is :

http://www.jumpgateevolution.com/

It is possible to sign up for the beta (whether you're accepted or not
is another issue, but at least you can sign up).
--
Dale

Don't mail me with "abuse" - use my name instead.

On Wed, 6 Feb 2008 14:07:38 -0800 (PST), Aboo <jhemphill@gmail.com>
wrote:

>On Feb 6, 11:57 am, Palindrome <damon-no...@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
>> On Tue, 05 Feb 2008 11:37:24 -0700, Lewis <gkr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >...and the realtime training, imo, is the worst idea ever in an MMO.
>>
>> I actually liked that. It means new players can't be powerlevelled
>> and/or twinked to the extent they are in other MMORPGS. They have to
>> earn their skills the same as anyone else. Each to their own though.
>>
>> Palindrome
>
>I liked that too actually. The fact that my character earned his/her
>"skills" just as fast as someone who played 23 hours a day. In a real-
>world type environment that made sense to me. It kept me attached the
>game. What I didn't like is the fact that the first few skills, the
>ones to help you learn faster later, took so friggin long to learn!
>lol
>
>This thread is actually making me want to go re-download that game and
>give it another shot lol

Same The unhappy face is because Tiscali actually closed access
to a lot of online games in the peak periods - not Wow though, oddly.
After almost a couple of months of non-playing due to their ballsup, I
figured I may as well stop my subscription until they get it sorted
out. I drop into the Tiscali Webforums every now and again to see
what the situation is, but it hasn't improved much.

At least they opened up Usenet again, although I wish they wouldn't
keep "losing" posts/threads. I see a lot of "Re:" posts and have
never yet seen the original post.


Palindrome

On Wed, 06 Feb 2008 18:08:49 -0700, Lewis <gkreme@gmail.com> wrote:

>In article <54tjq39ttjpaivde9g148bua5re22ojtom@4ax.com>,
> Palindrome <damon-nomad@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 05 Feb 2008 11:37:24 -0700, Lewis <gkreme@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >...and the realtime training, imo, is the worst idea ever in an MMO.
>>
>> I actually liked that. It means new players can't be powerlevelled
>> and/or twinked to the extent they are in other MMORPGS.
>
>It also means that someone who is good at the game gets no benefit in
>training over someone who is not.

There's truth in that, but someone good at the game (not me, yet)
knows what to do to squeeze that little bit extra engine/shield power
out of his/her ship, and knows how to organize their skills and
modules to get better range and firepower. That's what keeps me on my
toes.

My best personal example is a character I have who can launch drones
at a target around 60k away, when the standard range is 30k. Another
has a missile rig where I have got the range to around +60% of the
standard range. (forgive me if I'm a bit off, but my enforced absence
from Eve is making me a little hazy, heh.) I'm not an avid pvp'er
yet, being fairly small-time still, but an ore jetcan thief got a
surprise one day when I took their ship out before they even got hits
on me, even though one of their ships was the same general class as
mine. (A spare drone cruiser I use as a miner).

Basically you could be squaring up to another cruiser, but you never
know what the other guy has tucked away, and I like that
unpredictability.



Palindrome