Is it worth playing EVE Online as a casual player?

[Dark Sun Gwyndolin]

Title. I've always toyed with the idea of playing EVE Online due to having a modest interest in Space Sims and MMO's, but I've heard that EVE is very hard to get into. That in and of itself is not a turnoff; I enjoy learning new games, especially complex ones, and teasing out its depth. However, I've heard that EVE A: is a "lifestyle game" that expects you to dedicated all your gaming hours to it, and B: there are rumours of high-level players basically enslaving noobs.

Is it possible to enjoy EVE as a solo, casual player, or should I stick with Elite Dangerous?

EDIT: I started playing it, and after losing my exploration frigate to a booby-trapped "ghost zone", I've fallen in love with it and am eager to play more; it may finally replace Runescape for me. I based my character on Suletta Mercury from G-Witch.

[Kodokuro]

Sure, eve can be your second job. i can recommend to play as an alpha for a few weeks and then decide if you want more.

What experience you are looking for in eve? The most important question.
https://english.eve-guides.fr/images/wtd.jpg

You can have a botomless wallet if you buy PLEX with real money and exchange it for ISK (in-game currency). Just learn the diference about what you consider fun and what is considered as a job to pay for the fun so you dont die grinding

Personally i enjoy my job in eve wich is trading and selling ship equipments. Im a space trucker :)

[Thbran]

it really depends on what you want to do etc

[Rager]

Eve is only as good as the corp you find.

The combat is not enjoyable imo, it is very much a old man game.

If you enjoy building up money and market stuff eve is ok at it. Even though don't let people fool you saying it is a true sandbox game.

They say player run ecom, but they sell ships on the website as account base "deals" that flash on the side of your bar. They also added a skin system that have rare paints you can only buy as well outside the game.


And they encourage mutiboxing, and that increases high sec ganking, because one person can control muti accounts to do it. Instead of needing needing one player per ship. And it inflates market for miners because to be a good miner you need more than 1 account.

[Kegbelly]

Originally posted by Rager:

Eve is only as good as the corp you find.

The combat is not enjoyable imo, it is very much a old man game.

If you enjoy building up money and market stuff eve is ok at it. Even though don't let people fool you saying it is a true sandbox game.

They say player run ecom, but they sell ships on the website as account base "deals" that flash on the side of your bar. They also added a skin system that have rare paints you can only buy as well outside the game.


And they encourage mutiboxing, and that increases high sec ganking, because one person can control muti accounts to do it. Instead of needing needing one player per ship. And it inflates market for miners because to be a good miner you need more than 1 account.

yes and they are most likely broadcasting too and never any action taken

[Heathy]

well you're still paying the extra to run that extra account, you still have to put in the extra time to manage that extra character.

its proportional, if you only have 1 account its only costing you 1 sub and you only have to manage 1 character. the more accounts you run the more your time is split and the more its costing you in subscription fees.

its why people say to join a corp and make friends, because it is better to have other players fill in and help one another than for everyone to try boxing a whole corp of accounts.

for the most part the extra accounts are used to fill in for things your main character can't do. things like hauling, scouting, scanning, market trading, PI, manufacturing and research slots.

lots of ppl have a combat pvp character and a market alt, or a combat character and a mining character or various other combinations.

I know they sold a retriever at one point, people weren't happy about that, but the vast majority of modules and ships in the game are made by players. I've looked on the account management and I can only see them selling skins but maybe I'm missing something. ah yes it is still there is it the industrialist career pack. I think that is the only ship they have sold so far.. I think those packs are one time purchase as well. and the retriever probably costs about 5m to build in game. Personally I waited and trained to fly a retriever but that was over 10 years ago now so, I'm not too bothered by its existence, I don't think its big enough to break the economy.

[Rager]

Originally posted by Heathy:

well you're still paying the extra to run that extra account, you still have to put in the extra time to manage that extra character.

its proportional, if you only have 1 account its only costing you 1 sub and you only have to manage 1 character. the more accounts you run the more your time is split and the more its costing you in subscription fees.

its why people say to join a corp and make friends, because it is better to have other players fill help one another than for everyone to try boxing a while corp of accounts.

for the most part the extra accounts are used to fill in for things your main character can't do. things like hauling, scouting, scanning, market trading, PI, manufacturing and research slots.

lots of ppl have a combat pvp character and a market alt, or a combat character and a mining character or various other combinations.

I know they sold a retriever at one point, people weren't happy about that, but the vast majority of modules and ships in the game are made by players. I've looked on the account management and I can only see them selling skins but maybe I'm missing something.

To me, that takes away the sandbox nature. For me, the human elements of getting people on to do said content is a time management thing.

In a sandbox game, these limits to what you can do alone reflect on the ecom. When people can pay for more accounts and do things that a group can do. That throws a pebble in a pond of a sandbox game. The game is also balanced around it as well.


So imo it really does more harm than good.

[Dark Sun Gwyndolin]

Guys, I just wanted to know if EVE can be viably played as a solo, casual player. Multiboxing doesn't come into it.

[Heathy]

but because it takes a certain amount of time to get things done in the game, it takes x amount of time to build ships, it takes y amount of time to move from here to there. throwing more accounts at this doesn't really speed up the pace of the game itself. for the most part it just allows you to do more things simultaneously.

part of it is the training time, its very time consuming to make a single character a jack of all trades. but it is much easier to make two characters and have them share that load, effectively halving the time it would take to train everything on one character.

then you have the issue with, parts of the game being menial or just kinda, boring, there just isn't enough ppl playing and wanting to do the menial stuff, so thats why you have an alt do it. it beats waiting around for someone to want to help you move that stuff to jita, or sit in an orca giving boosts, or craft some items for me.

Ideally you do want to make friends in the game and play in an equally cohesive manner, having structured organisations working together is the drive the game needs to create the conflicts. but it is 1000s of people working together, individual people boxing 2-3-4 accounts isn't tipping the needle that much. when you already have huge corps working together in equally cohesive ways.

[Rager]

Originally posted by Nephalim Glory:

Guys, I just wanted to know if EVE can be viably played as a solo, casual player. Multiboxing doesn't come into it.

It does, because the game is balanced around multiboxing to the point that solo casual players feel it the most.

Originally posted by Heathy:

but because it takes a certain amount of time to get things done in the game, it takes x amount of time to build ships, it takes y amount of time to move from here to there. throwing more accounts at this doesn't really speed up the pace of the game itself. for the most part it just allows you to do more things simultaneously.

part of it is the training time, its very time consuming to make a single character a jack of all trades. but it is much easier to make two characters and have them share that load, effectively halving the time it would take to train everything on one character.

then you have the issue with, parts of the game being menial or just kinda, boring, there just isn't enough ppl playing and wanting to do the menial stuff, so thats why you have an alt do it. it beats waiting around for someone to want to help you move that stuff to jita, or sit in an orca giving boosts, or craft some items for me.

I will give you examples of muti boxing hurting the game.


They redesign of Orcas, and mining drones.

The prices of pretty much everything.

And high sec ganking and gate camping as well, mutiboxers do it more than just players.


All of these things have a major impact on the game. You are right crafting things takes time, but that is just one part of the game.

[Heathy]

yes and boxing is also one part of the game that has been around since before I started in 2008, its been part of the game for over a decade, closer to two.

its a Pandora box situation, it exists and it can't unexist, too many people have invested too much time and money into it, the game is too niche to survive on true box rules. even then you'd still be able to VPN. if they prevented VPNs you'd again lose more of the already niche player base and the game really would have 5-10k ppl playing. I would say that at least half of the player base is likely alts, but then it has been that way for years. its always been such that, if you planned on being serious about this game, wanting to go into industry or capital gameplay where you NEED your own cyno alt. then you will have a second account.

the game itself pushes you in various ways to want another account to support your main one. too many ways that not having at least 1 alt really is putting you at a disadvantage. in the long run for sure. its unfortunate that it is that way, but it would be exactly the same in another mmo, like everquest, not having a box is putting you at a disadvantage. its not so much about wanting it to change but accepting that it exists and adapting to it.

for me personally I know that it doesn't matter how many accounts I box, i'm not going to be able to go toe to toe with large multi thousand man blocs by myself, so the scale of the competition between individual dudes boxing 20 accounts and large coalitions with 1000s of players working together. its nothing. you can't box enough accounts as a single player to make that much of a difference that the large groups of players working together aren't already doing at a much larger scale.

[Rager]

Originally posted by Heathy:

yes and boxing is also one part of the game that has been around since before I started in 2008, its been part of the game for over a decade, closer to two.

its a Pandora box situation, it exists and it can't unexist, too many people have invested too much time and money into it, the game is too niche to survive on true box rules. even then you'd still be able to VPN. if they prevented VPNs you'd again lose more of the already niche player base and the game really would have 5-10k ppl playing. I would say that at least half of the player base is likely alts, but then it has been that way for years. its always been such that, if you planned on being serious about this game, wanting to go into industry or capital gameplay where you NEED your own cyno alt. then you will have a second account.

the game itself pushes you in various ways to want another account to support your main one. too many ways that not having at least 1 alt really is putting you at a disadvantage. in the long run for sure. its unfortunate that it is that way, but it would be exactly the same in another mmo, like everquest, not having a box is putting you at a disadvantage. its not so much about wanting it to change but accepting that it exists and adapting to it.

for me personally I know that it doesn't matter how many accounts I box, i'm not going to be able to go toe to toe with large multi thousand man blocs by myself, so the scale of the competition between individual dudes boxing 20 accounts and large coalitions with 1000s of players working together. its nothing. you can't box enough accounts as a single player to make that much of a difference that the large groups of players working together aren't already doing at a much larger scale.

I agree with you on that, I just really really hate that it, and what I said many many years ago would happen did happen, and now I feel the game overall is not in a good state.

Heck even the rising prices of plex, and omega cost all reflects on this stuff.

[Heathy]

I think its kinda natural that the plex price will rise, with the price rising IRL and the fact that it just gets easier to grind ISK every year, the price of plex will just grow until it reaches a point where its impossible to grind that much ISK in one month.

if I play during an event and farm sites like the winter event or the crimson harvest etc. I've had monthly turnovers of 10b, thats just farming sites with 1 char and selling skins and boosters and officers effects, enough to buy several months of game time through plex. the late game sink is either structures, capitals or continually buying plex. there are also way more people wanting to buy plex than there are those selling it.

[Dark Sun Gwyndolin]

Originally posted by Heathy:

I think its kinda natural that the plex price will rise, with the price rising IRL and the fact that it just gets easier to grind ISK every year, the price of plex will just grow until it reaches a point where its impossible to grind that much ISK in one month.

if I play during an event and farm sites like the winter event or the crimson harvest etc. I've had monthly turnovers of 10b, thats just farming sites with 1 char and selling skins and boosters and officers effects, enough to buy several months of game time through plex. the late game sink is either structures, capitals or continually buying plex. there are also way more people wanting to buy plex than there are those selling it.

I have no problem with simply buying Plex; it's what I did in Runescape. As a casual player, the cash I get from converting an hour's work worth of Bonds / Plex would vastly exceed what I could grind in a month of laid-back play. I would use the time saved to spend on more interesting activities, or those that have rewards that can't be directly bought.

[Lupin III]

Honestly, it's okay for a few weeks, but then it REALLY slows down and you have to start depending on being in a corporation to get anywhere.

[DyNaMiX]

EVE is one of those games where I can log in for an hour, and achieve an hour of fun. Or I can log in for an entire day, and get a day's worth of enjoyment. Some specific tasks might require a little more focus or work, but there is nothing stopping you from playing casually. It's a sandbox.