Hooray, finals and first semester are over! This means I have time for more bloggin'. I've got a couple of things to talk about concerning Stackless Python and JQuery, but since I'm not quite ready to address them (knowledge-wise) I'm going to write about something less techy that I feel like talking to everyone about anyway: EVE Online.

EVE is a "player-driven persistent-world massively multiplayer online role-playing game set in a science fiction space setting" (Wikipedia), or as a friend and I put it: "internet spaceships pew pew".

Now, as some may be aware, I also play the MMORPG Guild Wars, but I never mentioned it as a serious topic on my blog. This has several reasons. While Guild Wars will always have a special place in my heart, EVE deserves mention because of its innovative and different approach to how a massively multiplayer game functions... and because it is written in Python. Stackless Python, to be precise, but more on that later.

My Rifter in Rens, the local trade hub of the Heimatar region. The ships you see are all other players coming or going. They're also all flying ships several times the size of mine - don't let perspective fool you.

So, let's start by judging a book by its cover: graphics. EVE has stunning visual quality at surprisingly low requirements. I have heard of EVE being able to run on as little as a netbook with an onboard video card, while I can run it on highest graphics on my desktop computer: an AMD Athlon 64 X2 2.51 GHz with 4 GB DDR2 RAM and a NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT graphics card. Okay, to be fair it lags a little when I fly through a dust cloud or other high-particle effects, but it's just good enough for ye olde average hunt with the TLF.

"Activating warp drive."

Explosions? Beautiful. Bloom effects from light sources? Wonderful. The skyboxes and stars? Shiny and with good variation. Planets? Fully 3D (apparently) models, and with interesting unique textures (these were just upgraded in the latest expansion).

The only problem? Aliasing. By which I mean, no antialiasing. The EVE engine does not offer this feature for some weird reason, which becomes sort of striking and frustrating at times. I really do hope they fix this to offer the feature, even if it raises the necessary specs.

Enough about looks, what about the content? The story is somewhat de-focused. By this I mean, you are not the center character. The intro video makes this painfully clear. The overall gist is you, the pilot, are an immortal demigod-ish figure. Through some agreement with the collective of the EVE empires, you achieved the rank of a "capsuleer". Capsuleers are just that: they live in a space capsule for most of their lives. They cannot descend to planetary surfaces, but are destined to wander space forever. Pretty crappy deal, without considering the fact that a capsuleer is immortal by virtue of the fact they will always have a clone replica of themselves ready to be brought to conscience should the current body find itself deceased.

"Welcome to the afterlife." ~ what the cloning facility told me upon my unfortunate death due to running into 7 enemy players unprepared.

Capsuleers have access to the wealth of nations - 1 ISK (Inter-Stellar K(?)redit) is about what a regular battleship crewmember earns in a day, and 100,000 ISK is a fairly inconsequential amount for experienced capsuleers. They also have access to any technology they want, are highly regarded by the population of the galaxy, and are only bound by a few loose laws which are only enforced in high-security space (by the invincible CONCORD space police).

Okay okay, the "real" plot/setting (currently): Four nations -- the Amarr Empire, Minmatar Republic, Gallente Federation and Caldari State -- at war in pairs. It's a tumultuous world, but no "problem" for a "protagonist" to "solve" - such as in Guild Wars: Nightfall, in which a dark and evil god rises from his prison to threaten the world. The setting is just a status quo, which may or may not change, or which you may or not care about. (Read my little recap of the backstory here. Read it!)

So, the real story? It is the sandbox nature of the game. The real story is the story of Atlas Alliance's latest war with Wildly Inappropriate over resources vital to its members. Or the advances of the Minmatar militia against the Amarr militia into contested systems. Or pilots finding a better way to sneak resources into low or null-security space. All activities I listed here and many more involve only human players. EVE has a wealth of pre-made content, but the fact it allows enough complexity for completely player-generated fun is its true magic. But, this trailer explains it much better than I can:

EVE provides machinery for player-run corporations and alliances thereof, and making sure it's complex enough to allow for plenty of both internal and external politics for both the corporations and alliances. At over 5000 accessible star systems (not quite over 9000, but still) EVE is big, but not big enough for all the big egos and minds roaming it. Just take a look at the current influence map of the player alliances: (black areas are NPC-owned)

Each little dot is a star system. Each star system may have multiple planets, space stations, asteroid belts, or other distinguishing features I am currently docked at the Brutor Tribe Treasury in the Rens solar system, in the Heimatar NPC region, if you can find it.

Seems complex, no? The depth of EVE is amazing. No one player has ever maxed out all skills, or owned every type of item, though there are a few attempting to. Heck, some who have played for years don't yet understand how all aspects of the game work. And, as if to make things worse, the developers keep adding content! Plus, add to that the fact you can choose your own path: to be a law-abiding citizen or a detested pirate? A corporate mercenary, or a miner? Manufacturer or warrior? I don't even know the full list myself, but why don't you check the friendly career guide. Warning: 22 MB PDF download.

In my screenshots I only showed a couple ships, but consider this: EVE's ships are classified by 4 races. There are 32 ship types, each bearing 1-4 different ships , per each race. Plus, there is the new Tech III class of cruisers, which allows for enormous numbers of combinations of subsystems to form unique ships. This is also not including special faction variants of different ships from the regular factions, plus some pirate factions.

Isn't "Punisher" such a good name for it?

As far as MMORPGs go, I should mention EVE's economy, which is almost entirely player-driven. When I mentioned "ship-builder" earlier as a profession, I was not kidding. All ships (as an example), save the free newbie-ship granted to beginners, are player-built, from the smallest shuttle to the massive 18,127 m long Ragnarok Titan. However, the scope of the game renders the economic aspect of this game almost completely irrelevant to my current participation in the militia. Ship-building, too, for that matter.

The sheer size of the game means that cooperation is necessary. Today I ran across a forum question asking "which is the best solo ship in EVE?" The answers ranged from a sarcastic "Titan" to "You, sir, are an idiot." Many players join EVE and soon quit because the only "solo" things you can do are mining (with some risk) and mission runs. While both may be good income sources for things like corporations, it gets really boring to do that alone. In a fleet, with the ingame voice chat on, it all gets much more fun.

The one qualm I had about playing eve was the fact it is a pay-per-month game. So, is it worth it? Well, since I went off my trial subscription onto a real one, I would say so!

Hey look, a cat! Let's stop reading before he tells us the bad stuff!

The only catch: EVE Online is not an instant gratification game. It takes time to do anything right. And no, I don't mean time as in farming (sorry, Chinese economy) since there is no farming. Skill leveling, or "learning" as it's called, is done passively, whether your character is online or offline. Good thing, too, since for example Gunnery 5 would take me about 4 days to complete.

That said, even though skill training may be slow, it seems to always be enough for me. I can fly cruisers now, but why would I want to invest in one when the Rifter frigate is my cost-effective training wheels? I can make up for its cost and my equipment just in insurance! (Yes, EVE has ship insurance.)

So... There you go. A game review. You asked for it. No you didn't. But here it is. And this is your friendly Minmatar frigate and destroyer pilot, signing off.