It's no major secret that I came to WoW from Eve. I started playing Eve in late 2006, left and came back all in the space of 6 months in 2009, and while I am still subbed, I don't play as much now. It was, and still is, a fun game to play, so long as you had others to play with. As my Eve gaming group got smaller, my enjoyment of the game lessened to the point where I was only really interested in things like the CSM and the space politics of nullsec. When I started playing WoW, it was with the intention to play mostly solo. Of course, me being me, I couldn't resist the urge to jump a little deeper into the more involved parts of the game.
Why the nostalgia trip? Well I still love to read up about Eve, and came across this ALOD article on TheMittani.com that I just had to talk about it. Here's a link to the actual kill. The total ISK value of this ship clocks in at around 44 billion. For those who know nothing about Eve, the largest ships in the game (Titans) cost around 100 billion isk for the hull. So this kill is almost half the amount of a Titan hull. To buy the ship and fittings with PLEX would cost a tiny bit less than $1,150 US. And the worst part, if you read the rest of that article, he did buy PLEX to pay for it, which means real money was lost in this kill. Sigh...
I've always found that the biggest mistake WoW players make in Eve comes down to a difference in mindset. WoW is such a curated, policed world, where any scams are reportable, theft is against the rules and any lost items are returned. You choose to engage in PVP, either by joining a PVP realm or turning on your PVP flag. There is no real loss if you die, just a small repair bill and a run back to your corpse or instance where you died.
Gear too is important. Having the best gear in the game directly affects how much damage you do, how much damage you can take and how much healing you can do. To be the best, you need the best. Even one green item can set you back in how well you do, and replacing any out of date items becomes a game of its own.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with all of this. Logging into WoW for an evening is such a good way to relax and unwind after a day that millions of players do it. I personally find WoW to be a better way to spend and hour of time than Eve ever was. Longer time periods feel more rewarding in Eve definitely, as some things can take months to return value. But to get home from work and then run two or three old raids in WoW feels better than to spend the same amount of time updating buy and sell orders in Eve.
That being said however, you simply cannot expect to play Eve the same way. It's generally accepted that missions in Eve (the closest they have to questing) are terrible. The gathering (that's mining essentially), is literally hours of sitting in one spot watching mining lasers cycle. Even solo PVP is hard, and while there are those who do it, it takes time to learn how to be effective at soloing. The world too is completely different. Even the so called "safe" areas of Eve, high security space, can be dangerous. Suicide ganking, the act of destroying another players ship before your ship is destroyed by the space police, has been ruled by CCP as a valid gameplay element in high sec.
Your ships modules (the Eve equivalent of gear), play a lesser role in how well you do than how you design your fit, and then how you fly it. Using officer modules (like the person in ALOD post) makes a very small difference to how well you do. Just because something is purple or green doesn't mean that it will make you do heaps more damage or live longer in a fight.
Eve is such a unique game that it really needs to be tackled in a unique way. You cannot come to Eve with the same mindset as WoW, and if you do, then you will more than likely come away hating the game. Come into the game with the right attitude however, and you will find some good times, good people and a community that is like no other. Just don't be like Mr Jimblidge, who I'm sure is firing up his secret lawyer contacts to find out who I am in real life because I wrote this.
As always,
GAME ON!
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