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An angle on EVE's New Player Experience and the game's harsh realities
There are few MMOs on the market today that can seem as intimidating to a new player as EVE Online. Some of this comes from the infamous things people have heard about the game, tales of deception and betrayal, but there is a fair amount of complexity to EVE as well and no shortage of digital villains prowling New Eden's thousands of solar systems injecting risk into the game. The first days and weeks of gameplay experienced by many pilots has led to more than a few descriptions of the experience as an initiation of sorts, conjuring up images of hazings, an analogy that actually holds true in many respects. Anyone who sticks with the game learns through trial and error that the setting of New Eden, by design, can be quite harsh. Even if you're not into PvP, it pervades EVE Online; at the very least players who are to succeed in the game must ultimately learn to adapt and evade the more malevolent players, if not defend themselves from attackers directly.While EVE will likely never be as easy to get a handle on as some other MMOs out there -- the game's depth and complexity actually being a major draw for its subscribers -- CCP Games has taken steps to better ease new players into New Eden with the New Player Experience (NPE) which was part of the Apocrypha expansion launch. But is EVE's New Player Experience, which does not separate rookie pilots into a safe zone to learn the ropes, the right way to introduce players to the game? This is the focus of a WarCry article by Steven Croop titled "Aura is Aura by Any Other Name".
The state of nature: Philosophy applied to EVE Online
EVE Online, in short, is constant, controlled chaos. Alliances are made daily, are trained upwards, and ultimately fall. It's all just a question of when they fall that really differentiates them. Yet, amazingly, out of this controlled game of warfare comes a spark of philosophical intrigue -- the concept of state of nature.Steven Croop from the Warcry Network has written a feature article discussing the states of EVE Online's types of government versus the old philosophical concept. He theorizes that the same state of self-preservation, noted in the original philosophical concept, does make an appearance in EVE. While the state has changed from its original form (struggle for survival versus struggle to not lose expensive stuff) it still drives the individual of EVE to seek out forms of government for protection, such as corporations and alliances.Interested in the full read? Check it out over at Warcry and get your dose of philosophical goodness.
Wormhole exploration hearkens back to EVE Online's early days
EVE Online's latest Apocrypha expansion has elevated the exploration profession to new heights. The addition of roughly 2500 new and uncharted solar systems, expanding the game's galaxy of New Eden to over 7500 solar systems in total, brings what can honestly be called 'true exploration' to the sci-fi MMO. Territoriality is a major aspect of EVE and wormholes allow players to emerge in far flung regions of New Eden -- sometimes places they're not supposed to be -- leading to all sorts of unexpected near-death experiences. Players have already reported emerging from wormholes and finding themselves hunted by the local territorial powers (player alliances claiming those regions of the galaxy) or by the NPC authorities, in those cases where players are involved in factional warfare. Some pilots have found themselves deep within enemy faction territory, leading to all kinds of insane chases across the galaxy.
