With the charity course winding down, I have been giving some thought to what I can do with my suddenly copious free time. Besides maybe writing a book and recouping some of the money spent on my students, I was also thinking of getting back in to computer gaming.
Although never really an enthusiast, I have been known to while away the odd hour or two while staring at the computer monitor. There hasn't been much time to while away for the past five years or so, the result being that I am totally out of touch with the gaming scene today. That is why I asked a coworker who is REALLY into computer games, a fellow also named James, what might appeal to me.
Under some rather intense questioning, he managed to discover that I had played an MMORPG named City of Heroes some years back. The appeal to that game was that I could develop my character on my own, wandering around by my lonesome in various maps and dungeons and secret villain lairs. Attaching myself to a group of other players wasn't necessary, and I could indulge my surly curmudgeonly nature while still advancing in powers and levels.
James immediately suggested a space game named EVE Online, all the while offering many cautions about the complexity. Since I had cut my teeth on space-based games with the tabletop version of Star Fleet Battles, particularly since my opponents invariably liked playing races that relied on drones for their main offensive weapons, the warnings about how EVE Online was too detailed fell on deaf ears. I signed up for a 14 day free trial.
Just in case you are the impatient sort, let me cut to the chase and say that the game was totally boring. Dull, sleep inducing, uninteresting. But it wasn't due to the much touted complexity, which I found to be a feature and not a bug.
Each player takes the role of a specially bred starship commander, a bioengineered human that will spend their entire lives inside a special pod that provides for their basic life support. As new, larger, and more capable ships are purchased, the pod is simply plugged in to the new vessel and away you go. The trick is that you need to learn how to operate all this gear before you are allowed to use it.
And that is where the complexity James was talking about comes in. There are hundreds upon hundreds of pieces of gear that you can use to outfit your ships, and hundreds upon hundreds of skills that you need to learn before the game will allow you to use the shiny new equipment.
Take basic weapons, lasers for example. There are three basic types of lasers, small, medium and large. Before buying and hooking up some fighting lasers to your ship, you need to at least learn Small Lasers Level I. You have to spend money your character earns in the game by performing massively dull tasks to buy the textbooks that will allow him to learn the basic Level I skills. After that, each additional skill level (Level II, Level III) merely takes time instead of money. Tell your character to start learning the next level and leave him alone until a certain number of hours pass.
Each skill level increases the ease with which your character uses the small lasers, but it takes longer to learn higher levels. Eventually, when you get up around Level V or so, it can take most of a week.
But let us say that you don't like small lasers. Wimpy wimpy wimpy! You have your sights set on large lasers, the big boys of the laser family. Hook some of those up to your ship and watch the enemy burn!
But you can't just buy the textbooks for large lasers and have your character start to study. Instead you have to have at least a Medium Laser Level III skill, and you can't even start on the first level for medium lasers until your character has at least a Small Laser Level III.
So I spent a few days crunching the numbers, comparing the power levels of the people already playing the game with the time it would take me to learn all these skills and trying to figure out how long it would take me until I reached a point where I would start having some real fun. After mapping out the skill cascade required to get all my ducks in a row, I figured it would take about 9 months or so. Until then I would be pretty much scrambling to improve my character enough so I couldn't get killed out of hand by the majority of my fellow players.
The safest and easiest way to make money in the game is to mine asteroids for minerals, which you then sell at a space station. You warp out to a nearby asteroid field, wait five minutes or so until your ship fills the hold with ore, and then warp back to a space station and sell what you just collected. Then you warp back out to the asteroid field, wait five minutes or so until your ship fills the hold with ore, and then warp back to the space station and sell the new ore you just collected. Then you warp back out to the asteroid field....
Get the picture? Try doing that a couple of hundred times just to afford the textbooks you need to start learning the desired skills and see if you are sane afterwards.
Luckily, your character never sleeps. You can have him busily studying skills while you log off and have a life in the meat world. I found myself telling him to learn such-and-such, taking note of the time when he would complete the task, and then turning off the computer and going off to teach a class. When the learning time was up I'd log back on and tell my character to start on the next skill, make note of the time when he'd complete the task, and then turn the computer off once again.
After a few days of this, I started to wonder why I was even bothering. You guys are probably wondering why it took so long for me to ask that question.
The bottom line is that EVE Online is a great game for obsessive-compulsives with no life, people who actually enjoy performing dull, repetitive tasks for days or weeks on end as long as they can inch towards their goals. And, of course, these obsessive-compulsives have to be willing to pay twenty-five bucks a month for the experience. This video from Zero Punctuation says the same thing, but with a great deal more verve.
Now, if you will excuse me, I'm going to go play the original Medal of Honor that my gaming group gave me as a Christmas present a few years ago. I think that shooting a few Nazis is just the thing for getting the bad taste out that EVE Online left.
Universe of wonder, huh? It's a wonder, alright. It's a wonder they can find enough people to play this dog to make a profit.
Comments (11)
You should start watching anime. That'll absorb time AND money!
Posted by Steven Den Beste![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.hellinahandbasket.net/nav-commenters.gif)
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January 6, 2009 12:19 PM
Posted on January 6, 2009 12:19
World of Warcraft is my pet MMORPG addiction.
I AM having fun with it ... production value is good, Blizzard being a part of the Vivendi conglomerate with Universal.
They do offer a 10 day free trial ... trial accounts can't start conversations or open trade windows ... this prevents gold spammers from using trial accounts to spam from.
Posted by Kristopher | January 6, 2009 1:42 PM
Posted on January 6, 2009 13:42
Ah, Eve... A great game. I stopped playing, but i played THAT mmo longer than any other before getting bored.
Armed Canadian plays it currently.
Posted by J T Bolt | January 6, 2009 6:08 PM
Posted on January 6, 2009 18:08
Oh, and if you get serious about WoW, Marko, Labrat, and I are on the Steamwheel Cartel Realm.
If you want guestpass key, email me.
Posted by Kristopher | January 6, 2009 9:14 PM
Posted on January 6, 2009 21:14
Whoot another Star Fleet Battles player. There is a computerized version out there "Starfleet Command" that is pretty cool. Make drones less boring.
Posted by Joe | January 6, 2009 10:48 PM
Posted on January 6, 2009 22:48
"If you want guestpass key, email me."
I appreciate that a great deal, but I have to admit that I'm a bit afraid of World of Warcraft. It seems to be too easily addicting, with greater rewards coming the more time per day you devote to the game.
I'm only looking for, maybe, an hour game play a day. Something to distract me around dinner time so I can relax the rest of the evening. Judging by how excited some people get about the game, it would hardly be relaxing.
An analogy would be having a beer before dinner, while WoW is shooting meth.
James
Posted by James R. Rummel | January 7, 2009 12:48 AM
Posted on January 7, 2009 00:48
Heh. I can quit any time I want to.
The first dose is free ...
Posted by Kristopher | January 7, 2009 12:40 PM
Posted on January 7, 2009 12:40
Guild Wars might be a good option. There's no subscription fee, so you don't have to worry about paying and then not playing.
There's a fairly low level cap so you won't spend a ton of time level grinding. And while the PvE campaign *is* group focused, there are computer controlled henchmen available for you to use. Are they as good as other players? No, but they're decent enough if you don't want to join a group only to bail an hour later.
There are two different PvP environments. The first are arenas spead throughout the PvE campaign. This is where you can challenge other people with your PvE character which has your particular equipment and skills you have earned. However, because of the low level cap, it's less about how long you've been playing (thus giving you superior weapons and armor) and more about your ability to manage your skillsets.
There is also a PvP only environment where your character *starts* at the level cap with most of the common skills already available. In here, you don't have to worry about the Level 0 Squishy weilding only the Dull Dagger of Rustiness trying to face down the Level 2000 Tank carrying the Enchanted Broadsword of The Strong Strength of Strongness.
There's no free trial, but you can find a trial DVD for ~$2 plus another ~$4 on Amazon.
Posted by Yu-Ain Gonnano | January 8, 2009 7:00 PM
Posted on January 8, 2009 19:00
"Guild Wars might be a good option."
It does sound like it might be what I'm looking for.
Thanks, Yu-Ain! I'll give it a try.
James
Posted by James R. Rummel | January 8, 2009 8:13 PM
Posted on January 8, 2009 20:13
For what it's worth, as a longtime player of EVE (going on about four years now), I can understand how it seems daunting (and boring) when first jumping in, but the rewards for perseverance are well worth it. Engaging in fleet combat and planning strategy are some of the most enjoyable MMO experiences I've ever had in about twenty years of playing online games.
The restrictions you mention that keep you away from WoW are also the thing I like most about EVE: working adults who can't spend 18 hours a day online can still be competitive, since character advancement happens in real-time rather than by hours-invested. Moreover, those of us with a good knowledge of economics and market savvy can make an extremely profitable "living" in the game by commodities trading -- I make billions of credits a week with about 15 minutes a day of investment into it, and that easily funds my recreational activities in the game (as well as my account itself, since you can use in-game money to pay your monthly subscription fee).
The main key to enjoyment of the game, though, is cooperation with other players. The Zero Punctuation review was very funny, but he led off the review with a statement that showed he missed the entire point: "I wasn't going to bother with any of those player-run corporations." Much like in any real-world situation, people are stronger together than alone. It's quite possible to play the loner in EVE, but, just like in real life, it requires a lot more work than finding a good organization to help you. Dedicated soloers, just like "mountain men" in real life, wind up putting in a lot of sweat and tears for basic necessities that come very easily to participants in society at large.
I don't know if any of this is enough to change your mind or convince you to give the game a second look, but I enjoy reading your blog, and the sentiments you expressed aren't uncommon among new players who lack a friend to give them a leg up, so I thought I'd respond.
If you decide to take another look, shoot me an in-game mail, and I'd be happy to give you a tour around and help you hit the ground running. My character name there is also "Cypren".
Posted by Cypren | January 8, 2009 11:10 PM
Posted on January 8, 2009 23:10
For a fun and simple space game, I'd go with Master of Orion. It's an old DOS game from 1993, has a bunch of different options on how large of a game you'd like to play, and harkens back to a much simpler method of researching tech, building colonies and space fleets, and annihilating alien races.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Orion
I currently play City of Heroes, and they've made a lot of improvements in power sets, functionality, and content since the early days. If you decide to swing the hero bat again, look me up on Victory.
The way Cypren describes Eve, it sounds a bit better, since your character can progress while you're offline, but that whole "need to farm" thing is what puts me off from WoW and Eve. In City of Heroes, there's no need to farm - you can get everything you need through normal gameplay. You can solo or team, and there's huge flexibility in the types of character you can play and how you get through the game. They implemented an Invention system and marketplace, so if you do like to craft and buy and sell, you can do that, but it still isn't necessary to have a fully functional hero.
Posted by Le Bolide | January 19, 2009 2:09 PM
Posted on January 19, 2009 14:09