What Is Eve Online

Eve Online is an MMO very different from most other available games. You don’t hack at orcs, dragons, and elves to gain levels because, for one, there are no orcs, dragons, and elves. For two, there aren’t any levels either. No, in Eve you are a pilot of a spaceship. These ships range in size from fighters to “super” capital ships (think Super Star Destroyer huge).

If you ask the question “What do you do in it?” about a game like World of Warcraft, the answer is pretty obvious. You raid for better and better gear after grinding out to the top level. The answer to this question is much more difficult when asked of Eve Online. Put simply, the best answer would be “Whatever you want to do.” And this really means WHATEVER you want to do.

Do you want to spend your days as a pirate, making people eject from their ship so you can steal it? You can do that. Maybe you’re a more peaceful person who just wants to spend his time mining shiploads of veldspar ore in secure space. Perhaps you and a few friends decide you don’t need the rules imposed on your by the empires, or by other players, so you go and form a corporation to carve out your own rich niche of zero security space. The point here is that Eve is a sandbox-style MMO. You don’t have to follow quest chains around the universe (though you can if you want to). You jump in and do what you like.

What is Eve Online? It’s not a game for everyone. If you are one of those people who needs constant direction as to what you should be doing in a game, play something else. If you loved old style MMOs like Ultima Online and the freedom they gave you to do what you wanted, then come to Eve. The game sports beautiful graphics and all players connect to one single server. That means no matter what time of the day you log in, other people will be on too! No more ghost servers!

Perhaps one of the most intricate features of Eve is its market economy. “What’s so intricate about that?” You ask, “Lots of games have auction houses.” Yes, but Eve doesn’t just provide an auction house. Players run the entire economy. From mining the raw ore to producing space stations and battleships, players do it all. You can play the market, bringing your wares from station to station looking for the best price. Or you can even place a work order to get someone else to do it for you. Ever bought stock in a corporation inside a video game? You can that here, too.

Eve Online is not for the faint of heart. Entire corporations worth of players have been scammed out of billions of the in-game currency (called “ISK”) and the developers not only avoid punishing people, they love it! So long as the people doing the scamming aren’t breaking the game to do so, then the developers consider it within the bounds of the player-run economy. That’s why many of the larger corporation have a lengthy sign-up procedure involving referrals. One spy can wreak havoc, potentially stealing or destroying items worth thousands of dollars in real life. Caveat Emptor indeed.

Eve really is an online gaming experience like no other. Where other games continually seek to coddle their playerbase and keep them safe from harm, the Eve developers are like the bad parents who just don’t care (but in a good, fun way). Do what you want, when you want, and how you want. So what is your answer to the question “What is Eve Online?” Why don’t you give it a try and find out?