EVE Online through the eyes of a former WoW player
Do you think WoW is complicated? Well, yes, figuring out whether 3 haste or 2 strength is better with my stats, pressing buttons in a certain sequence, and not standing in strange green circles — that’s complicated. When I started playing EVE Online and tried to comprehend all the information about the game at once, I was blown away.
After a couple of months of playing EVE Online, a guide for noobs from an experienced WoW player. First impressions.
—–
So, %username%, try to imagine that World of Warcraft is EVE.
- I’m a super hardcore gamer and hard mode is in my blood. In another MMO, I reached level 80 and had full tier 9 in 7 days /played. Just tell me how to level up here.
- I’m afraid I have to disappoint you… there’s no way. You won’t be able to max out in 7 days. In fact, not even in 7 years.
Imagine that all spells of all classes are available to you from the start, but to use them, you need to invest points into talents in a huge talent tree (keeping in mind the fact that you have no idea how to use them and what they do). Moreover, actually “investing” a single point can take anywhere from 10 minutes to a month of real-time. On top of that, you won’t be able to reset your talents, so plan your progression carefully. The spells you learn can be placed on an action bar, which has a fixed size, considering the restrictions imposed by your gear. Spells, again, require a specific amount of HP and mana just to be placed on the action bar.
Well, the good news is — even at level 10, with a simple little axe and a couple of spells, you can not only be slightly useful in PvP but also quite annoying to well-equipped level 80s. The bad news — to be truly useful, you need to level up for a long time. Long in real time.
Azeroth. All zones are divided into safe and dangerous. In safe zones, if some cheeky rogue attacks you, huge dragons will immediately swoop in and one-shot the rogue, no matter how good he is. Dangerous zones are divided among large guilds, with thousands of members. In dangerous (and even in safe) zones, you can be killed and have whatever remaining items seized. And you’ll respawn naked at the graveyard you indicated as your respawn point. If you didn’t specify one, you die forever.
Imagine that after receiving [Super Mega Sword of Vengeance], your immense joy is halted because to use it, you need to invest talents for half a year. There are many variations of the same weapon, each class of weapons has 30 different characteristics, half of which harm you, and you barely understand what each of them does. Plus, a larger sword is not always better than a smaller one; a player with a little axe can defeat a player with a massive sword and heavy armor. And of course, the most powerful armors are crafted only by players.
- Well, okay, I’ll go gather ore and figure out where to get the recipe. I’ll start crafting armor.
Heh. Let’s say you want to make [Uber Armor of Invincibility]. For that, you’ll need LOADS of different metals, which require a long time to learn to mine, join a powerful guild that will allow you to dig in dangerous zones, and mine, mine, mine. Well, or of course, you could just buy everything. Now you need to get the recipe. It’s simple, it costs just 150,000g. Next, you have to place your house in a dangerous zone, bring anvils and a bunch of junk there. Not to mention all that metal. To transport it all, you need to learn to ride a gigantic dragon, which is slow and clumsy but can carry a large amount of cargo. Or, you can enlist a friend who already knows how to fly dragons. Meanwhile, on the way, you can be attacked and have everything taken from you, so you need to rally more friends together. And then you sit and craft armor for 2 months, unless enemies come and take your house.
Plus, you can spend months studying the recipe and improving it to reduce production costs.
After donning the armor (assuming you have trained to handle it for half a year), you’ll become cool, but along with that, many new problems will arise. For example, you’ll be so heavy and large that you won’t be able to squeeze through the gates of other zones on foot, and griffons simply won’t lift you. You’ll have to strain your friend to run around in other zones marking crosshairs where gnomes or goblins will catapult you. Moreover, that armor won’t fit in any bank, so you’ll have to either keep it at the guild house behind the fence or stay in it all the time.
Imagine that each zone has its own auction house, and you need to transport goods by hand on dragons to each zone. To trade properly, again, you need to learn.
Imagine that the most precious metals are located in specific zones and respawn in the same places, but to mine them, you need to set up your house and equipment nearby. Additionally, these spawns need to be located with a special spell testing mountains, and all the delicious spots are occupied by powerful guilds.
Imagine guild battles with around 200 vs 200 and more.
And of course, imagine that an old character means much more a year later than a newbie who has been playing for a year. That all new instances and loot from them require learning and studying a ton of skills, most of which the old player has already mastered.
—–
So there you have it. In short.
In short and interesting. I hope to be a useful PvP player in about six months.