Eve Online

Have you run across this one yet? Talk about crazy. It took me most of a Saturday to get through the tutorial! It even suggests that you go through it a few times to make sure you understand the crafting and skill systems.

That's nuts.

I mean, I get the time sink desirability of games, and the need for depth. I've been calling for greater story depth myself, but this seems a bit excessive. Any game that says, "look you're gonna want to do this a few times just to make sure you GET THE BASICS," might want to reconsider what is going on.

Now, before you think this is a poo-poo train for Eve let me talk about the good. It's real time. Meaning, if you elect to train up a skill it will take you X amount of time to do it. And they're not joking, if X is 5 hours then in 5 hours you'll get an increase in that skill. It's not level dependent. You get as much out of the game as you put into it. There's no buying your way to the top.

Which is nice. This way your buddy who still lives with his parents can't drop half his pay check with the Chinese Farmers to buy all the good stuff at the auction hall.

There's only one server/world. No need to co-ordinate with your buddies about what server to play on. Nice.

And the crafting system is deep. You farm the raw materials, put them into usable forms. Then you can sell them, or use them yourself. But that's just the surface. And, honestly, that's as far as I can get with it. Mostly because crafting annoys the bejeezus outta me.

If you're like me and not a crafter, then it's mission running for you. Here there's no real tweak or difference. You get a mission from a contact, go to the site, kill everyone, and get what you came for. That's all story driven stuff, which is good, but it's more of the same ol' same ol.

What is a big difference is teh complete lack of fashion in the game. Your character is really a ship. Now, you do get to design a head shot of your pilot, but that's it. Your view of you is your ship. And what ship you have is based on your skill sets and cash. Of course you can have multiple ships on hand to change out for different mission style.

The physics of the game is nice. There's no quick turning in the game, as your ship has to fly around in space. Now, there are a few tricks you can pick up for dog-fighting space, but I'm gonna leave those for you to discover on your own.

The upgraded graphics package is good. It offers apparent visual depth with good lighting from nearby stars.

But as an offering in the Sci/Fi world it kinda leaves me lacking. I guess it's the lack of fashion for characters, male or female. The ships are nice, but I want more than that from a game. I need a character to run around with. Star Wars had it right, but we all know what happened there.

All in all, Eve is worth the 14 day free trial to check out. If you dig it, pick the game up.

Luring them back from the MMO's

Lost players from your old skool paper and pencil game to the addictive world of the mmo? Want them back? Sure you do. Here's how. Customizable content.

As great as the MMO's are, they can't offer specific content built around the personalities of the character and preferences of the Player. If there is any dialog to be had, it's either a cut scene where you just get to passively watch or it's one or two lines of generic responses.

If you want your players back, you have to give them a reason to come back. Give them high adventure built around their character- not anyone's character. Give them vicious enemies, dastardly nemesi, and loyal vassals. Give them the sweep of John Carpenter of Mars, the depth of Tolkien, or the pulp of Doc Savage!

And, frankly, that's going to require a lot of planning. But you can do it. No one knows how to make your players squirm better than you do.