EVE Online

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Ukerric_sl said:

The core of EVE is not the combat, it's the economy.

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Eve works because its one server without instances. If you have sweet gear and sit at a bank, it might be that some of your faction on your server who happen to be at the bank will know about it. If you have the balls to fly one of the truly expensive and unique ships in eve (Unique ones especially.), everyone in the entire game is going to know about it. People are going to try and kill you, going to try and find you. Even if they aren't after you, random people are going to know if you die. If they see you, its going to be something they remember- because that ship may die and end up never flown again. This doesn't just work for unique ships, the machines of alliances doing their work also provide plenty of other memorable situations. To move a fleet of super capitals, often you have to jump them across lowsec. A newbie doing faction warfare in lowsec that had never seen a titan or mothership before might suddenly find himself face to face with 60 of them. People even in highsec hear about these things, they see the freighter traffic it creates.

The value and resources of eve are just a catalyst for combat, the combined arena of it all makes that combat memorable to the people who play it. No other game lets you shape and create the game like eve. Everquest early on had the same sort of vibe in limited doses- think if the drama from all the servers had combined into one super server of drama and fighting. If you want to play eve- do yourself a favor and don't limit yourself to highsec. Do some faction warfare, find friends and places that will show you and talk about these things- there are a LOT of places like this in the game.

I'd really like to see a fantasy version, because im ultra bored with the standard bullshit level gear and repeat system of modern mmos.

Ukerric_sl said:

It's because it is their identity, part of what they earned. Besides, it assumes quality levels (purple is better than blue) which does not have to exist. If your purple armor was purchased on the dusty streets of the Jhiittah Bazaar instead of earned in battle... you're less likely to be attached to it. Specially since you can purchase right away a spare.

And, to get a fantasy game with EVE-like dynamics, you need that. EVE works because of ownership of territory and the strength of its economy. Both of which arise from the fact that players must purchase from players stuff, being a crafter takes away time (unreplaceable - unless you multi-account), and ownership of strategic ressources gives you an edge in economy.

The core of EVE is not the combat, it's the economy.

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Players only define themselves by their gear because A) that's all most have ever known, B) most games lead them to that paradigm due to their design, and C) any alternative way of defining one's character are ignored or stunted in favor of the endless treadmill of PvE content. And I predict that eventually the caul will fall from players eyes and that they will realize that the gear they pursue in the gear-progression PvE MMOs are impermanent and fleeting and that in the end there is little or no point in continuing the rat-race of gear progression at all. In fact I think that it has already begun, though I don't think that people quite grasp it yet.

Crafting...there isn't any reason that crafting and combat skills need to be mutually exclusive at all, regardless of how EVE handles them.

I don't think the core of EVE is the combat or the economy. They might be pillars, but the core of EVE is IMO the players themselves, their interactions and the drama they generate. I still remember the LV Titan abortion, Goons turning the game upside down, raeptrain have no brakes, etc. Those are the things that really put EVE on the map, IMHO, and what I think I'm looking for in a game.

The thing is, EVE isn't even that good of a game in my opinion. It simply is in a class all of it's own because few if any other studios do anything besides trying to create games that are at their core all the same. I'm convinced that you can create an MMO with some of the elements from EVE in a fantasy setting w/o having to adopt gear progression, but I don't think anyone is going to do it in our lifetime though.