Article Contents

Quick Summary
General Idea of the Game
Goals and Strategies
Character Creation
How much does it cost?
Quests and Things to do
The Eve Online Community, and is it safe?

Quick Summary

EVE Online is an incredibly unique offering in the world of Massive Multiplayer Online gaming (MMOG). EVE Online holds a different deck of cards when it comes to it's game structure. In the great majority of games within this genre, called Massive Multiplayer Online Role playing Games (MMORPG), the entire blueprint of the game is preconfigured and generally the same for all players. The never ending monster hack and slash, leveling up, waiting for monsters to respawn, collecting rare magical items, and completing various quests is not a part of this game. In EVE Online, the freedom offered to you is fantastically immense. There is no set standard for what you are supposed to do. No outlined quests, no predetermined game objective, no road map that defines what you must do to win. In a nutshell, EVE Online is a MMOG that offers completely open-ended freedom to create the gaming experience of your dreams. Freedom and creative thinking are the games two strong points and really set it apart from the rest. Players who have experience in games that require genuinely creative thinking and love a challenge will delight in EVE Online. However, the game is not for everyone. EVE Online is in a league of it's own, and players not accustomed to it's unique gaming approach may be put off by it's incredibly challenging nature. The online gamers create the adventures without the inclusion of a storyline. The playing environment is visually breathtaking with a world large enough to be considered a truly immersive experience.

A quick run down of the storyline can be summed up pretty quickly. Earth underwent a serious expansion in the area of space exploration that led to the discovery of a wormhole. This wormhole sent space explorers into a star system whose distance from Earth has still not been identified. These explorers named the wormhole EVE. Some time later, for reasons unknown, the gate collapsed. It left thousands of colonized civilizations stranded within the star systems of EVE with no way out, no hope for rescue. For millenia these civilizations fought tooth and nail to survive, and when all was said and done only five colonies remained. The Amarr Empire, the Gallente Federation, the Caldari State, the Minmatar Republic, and the Jovian Empire. They now hold power over EVE's complete star system and everything in it. Several small, independent states exist but hold an influential sway of a lesser degree.

The above is just a quick summary of the game, check out the article below for a more in-depth explanation of the environment, winning strategies, and more!  

General Idea of the Game

The game objective of EVE Online, considering it's exclusion of a common goal, is power. Complete, unequivocable, unrelenting power. You have the freedom to use ingenuity, strategize to win, develop skills, and use your own initiative to gain a power position. You can hold power over the markets, become a dominating military force, hold immense financial power, and become a political leader with influence over the many regulatory functions of the gaming environment. You can get involved in mining, manufacturing, trade, combat, exploration, and other professions. Your powers can span across local areas, regional perimeters, and even universe-wide to create an impact that will show every player in the game your authoritative powers as a strategically respected player. EVE Online demands that you become a force to be reckoned with or perish because of insufficient creative thinking skills. Because you and your fellow players create the adventure, you will have to use problem solving skills to outsmart them. There are no quests, no preset cooperative play methods, and there is no such thing as trust or friendship. Only power. Craftiness, shrewd playing tactics, and real world thinking skills are crucial to your success in this game. If you have already developed incredibly keen street smarts in real life, you stand an incredibly good chance of becoming a respected power figure within the game.

Game Goals and Strategies

As this article outlined in the previous text, there is no predefined goal. The players create the world and all situations and challenges inside it. There is, however, one common goal that stays consistent throughout the game: the quest for in-game currency (ISK). The following game goals and strategies will help you to become a more proficient, richer player.

For players of EVE Online who choose mining to be one of their primary focuses, the following character attributes will need to be developed exclusively. The following attributes critical to a miners success are listed in order of importance from 1-5 (1 being the most important).

1. Intelligence
2. Memory
3. Perception
4. Power
5. Charisma
People going full steam into the trading field won't need to assign attribute points to charisma. Choosing to be a Caldari allows you to possess very high intelligence and memory attributes. As you can see above, these character attributes are crucial to the mining profession.

There are eight minerals in the game that you will be mining for. These are:

1. Tritanium (Low End)
2. Pyerite (Low End)
3. Mexallon (Low End)
4. Isogen (Low End)
5. Nocxium (Low End)
6. Zydrine (High End)
7. Megacyte (High End)
8. Morphyte (High End)
You can also mine ice from the numerous Ice Belts, which becomes refined into various isotopes. The most valuable mineral to mine is always changing because of market fluctuations within the game. One day the best mineral to mine will be Megacyte, and the next day it could change to Morphyte. It simply depends on the market position at the current time.

The best ship for a novice miner as a Caldari is the Caldari Bantam, hands down. After selecting your ship, you will need to apply skills to it. The most common strategy is to add Caldari Frigate 2 and Mining 1 to your list of skills, then Caldari Frigate 4, and Mining 4. These skills will give you the ability to amass the most minerals in the shortest period of time.

There are three indisputably popular ways to mine in EVE:

Jetcan Mining: This method is considered by the community to be the most practical and efficient. It involves the least work to get started and allows you to transfer the most cargo easily. A cargo container holds much more cargo than any mining ship you could possibly use. You simply mine, unload your cargo into the jettisoned container, and then hauling it to the station. Repeat as needed. Be aware that when you are jetcan mining, anybody can come and steal your cargo. You are not completely without protection though. You can shoot any pirates down with CONCORD interference. You usually stand a pretty good chance of eliminating the pirates before they get a chance to steal more of your cargo.

Giant Secure Container: This method is less practical than jetcan mining, but offers the advantage of a secure container. These containers are password protected so that only the password holder(s) may access it. The complexity of using the smaller capacity giant secure containers in comparison to jetcan is daunting to say the least. It requires 8 giant secure cans to equal the capacity of one jetcan. A solo miner may be able to mine this way, but groups will be overburdened by the amount of time it takes to collect a good amount of cargo.

Fill and Go: This is the simplest method but very inefficient. You fill your cargo, warp to the station, empty your cargo hold, warp your ship back to the belt you mine from, and repeat the process as needed. This method is usually a only good idea when you are in the later stages of your mining career when time is not a crucial factor, as your cargo will fill up too fast.

The Caldari race has the best mining ship but not the best hauler. If mining in a team you are strongly advised to use a Mammoth ship proprietary to the Minmatar race.

This is just a short version of a mining strategy, but this should give you a good start. I included a mining strategy in this article because the entire game is based on money and power. What kind of short version game guide would be complete without including how to gather the most valuable item in the game?

You have a wide array of high-tech equipment, complex customizable spaceships, and social interfaces to learn. There is also a gigantic list of items to master and understand how they fit into the game.

Ammunition and charges

There are many forms of ammunition and charges, each having their own unique damage capability and primary function. Learning which weapons will work most effectively for the battle at hand increases your chances of winning. Read on, learn.

Concussion Bombs: These radiate an omni directional pulse that causes kinetic damage to its relative area.

Electron Bomb: These radiate an omni directional pulse and causes electromagnetic damage to its relative area.

Lockbreaker Bomb: These based bombs use electronic bursts to cause target locks to fail. These bombs are conditional, working only to break the target lock when the vessels signal is weaker than the bomb jamming capability.

Scorch Bomb: This bomb causes thermal damage to its relative area. It also uses a complex armor strengthening system, making for adequate heat resistance.

Shrapnel Bomb: This bomb creates an explosion that delivers damage from its varied design. These bombs are adequately armored to sustain explosions in their immediate area.

Void Bomb: This bomb is able to successfully eliminate a percentage of a vessels energy source.

Cap Booster Charge: These charges provide an immediate boost to your capacitor.

Frequency Crystals: These modulate lasers to produce a laser beam capable of being used aboard battleships, cruisers, frigates, dreadnoughts, and stationary defense systems as a weapon of choice. Frequency crystals come in four varieties: Advanced Beam Laser Crystals, Advanced Pulse Laser Crystals, Faction Crystals, and Standard Crystals.

Hybrid Charges: Advanced Blaster Charges, Advanced Railgun Charges, Faction Charges, Standard Charges

Mining Crystals: These crystals are specially created with refractive qualities, boosting specific mining yields. For example, a Gneiss mining crystal will boost the yield of only Gneiss.

Advanced Blaster Charges: These are a mix between shell and plasma core charges, specifically designed as ammo for rail guns and blasters.

Citadel Torpedoes: These are the heaviest bombs available, able to be used only by star base class defense batteries and capital ships. Four different types of Citadel Torpedoes exist, each with its own unique damage ability.

Missiles: These are jet powered projectiles that carry a wide variety of warheads and payloads, 9 to be exact.

Nanite Repair Paste: While not exactly falling into the category of ammunition and charges, this paste is applied to ships with damaged structures in order to provide a quick fix and hold things together. Any damage incurred to vessel should be looked at by a certified technician as soon as feasibly possible.

Projectile Ammo: This metal cased ammunition is used as an artillery gun and auto cannons only source of firepower. There are four different types of ammo: Advanced Artillery, Advanced Auto cannon, Faction, and Standard. Each of them have their own unique damage capability.

Scan Probes: These probes come in several different variations, seven total. Combat Scanner Probe, Core Scanner Probe, Deep Space Scanner Probe, Discovery Survey Probe, Gaze Survey Probe, Quest Survey Probe, and Warp Disrupt Probe. Probes are used for all kinds of missions, the great majority discovery, analysis, and transmission of data.

Scripts: These items are used to calibrate specific module functions and processes. There are a total of 9 scripts available in the game. Focused Warp Disruption, Optimal Range, Optimal Range Disruption, Scan Resolution, Scan Resolution Dampening, Targeting Range, Targeting Range Dampening, Tracking Speed, and Tracking Speed Disruption. All of them serve a unique purpose.

Blueprints: There are seven different classes of blueprint. Within those seven original classes are a multitude of subclasses. Just as the name implies, blueprints describe structural makeup and general construction of various game elements and objects.

Drones

Drones are self powered, dancing through the sky with the greatest of ease. They are controlled by remote, and used for a variety of deep space projects. There are a few different classifications of drones, each with their own special abilities.

Combat Drones: These combat vessels are released from carriers and mother ships. One combat fighter drone is specific to each of the four races. The Caldari have the Dragonfly, the Minmatar have the Einherji, the Gallente have the Firbolg, and the Templar have the Amarr combat drone.

There are eight different heavy attack drones that are capable of delivering more damage to their opponents through the use of heavier artillery. Light attack drones are quicker and more agile in the air and come in eight different varieties. Medium scout drones come in eight different type, are a bit larger, a tad slower, but carry better scouting equipment. Sentry drones are a crucial part of the drone genre. They are EVE Online's deployable watchdogs. Again, there are eight different varieties of sentry drones, each with their own unique characteristics.

Combat Utility Drones: These drones are primarily used to neutralize energy sources of various enemy vessels. There are three different energy neutralizing drones and one heavy webifier drone.

Drone Upgrades: There are four different drone upgrades, each offering unique upgrade abilities. Drone Control Unit, Drone Link Augmenter, Drone Navigation Computer, and Omni directional Tracking Link.

Electronic Warfare Drones: There are 12 different electronic warfare drones: Light Tracking Disruptor Drone, Heavy Target Painter Drone, Medium Sensor Dampener Drone, Light Sensor Dampener Drone, Light ECM Drone, Medium Tracking Disruptor Drone, Heavy Sensor Dampener Drone, Heavy Tracking Disruptor Drone, Heavy Sensor Dampener Drone, Heavy Tracking Disruptor Drone, Medium Target Painter Drone, Medium ECM Drone, Light Target Painter Drone, Heavy ECM Drone.

Logistic Drones: Twelve different drone classifications populate the logistic drone genre. Heavy Armor Maintenance Bot I, Heavy Armor Maintenance Bot II, Heavy Shield Maintenance Bot I, Heavy Shield Maintenance Bot II, Light Armor Maintenance Bot I, Light Armor Maintenance Bot II, Light Shield Maintenance Bot I, Light Shield Maintenance Bot II, Medium Armor Maintenance Bot I, Medium Armor Maintenance Bot II, Medium Shield Maintenance Bot I, and Medium Shield Maintenance Bot II. These drones are all used to maintain and give assistance to the non combat aspects of warfare.

Mining Drones: There are four different types of mining drones available: Civilian Mining Drone, Harvester Mining Drone, Mining Drone I, Mining Drone II. They help miners in their efforts to amass great quantities of raw minerals and materials.

Implants and Boosters:

Improved Blue Pill Booster: This pill gives the pilot a euphoric rush that will allow him/her to better control the boosters without feeling uncomfortable.

Improved Crash Booster: This pill booster will make a pilot's reactions much keener. Any missiles fired stand a much better chance of connecting with the target.

Improved Drop Booster: This pill booster improves tracking efforts on targets through forcing the pilot to enter a state of dementia.

Improved Exile Booster: This pill booster makes a pilot more resistant to attacks and able to withstand a greater degree of attack damage. The armor still gets blown to smithereens, but the booster allows the pilot to slam right through an enemies attack damage .

Improved Frentix Booster: This pill booster offers the ability to hit the target much easier, all thought processes are blocked out by painkillers, making for an easier targeting effort.

These are just a few of the pill boosters available.

Manufacture and Research

There are many preconstructed components, materials, and reactions that are used in high end manufacturing, here are just a few.

Advanced Capital Ship Components: These are modular components that are used in manufacturing advanced capital ships. All four races have proprietary and vastly different component structures.

Capital Ship Components: These are modular components used in manufacturing standard capital ships. Once again, all four races have their own specific component qualities and benefits.

Construction Components: These components are used to produce various equipment for the four races. Each of the four races has their own specific construction components, and it really makes it fun to try out all these goodies.

And so much more! Listing all of the items in the game could be made into pages and pages of information. Because you can find this information easily on EVE Online's website, we won't go into further item explanations. This article is and was meant to be far more interesting than that. Full of first hand, honest truth about the game and what it has to offer players.

EVE Online Character Creation

Players can choose to become one of four playable human races: Amarr, Caldari, Gallente, and Minmatar. Each of these races have three different bloodlines whose only purpose is to provide distinctive appearance characteristics. Each EVE Online subscription account allows for three separate player accounts. This means you can play as three different character classes at one time, experience more of the games fun factor by switching characters, or allow your friends and family to create a character without disrupting your game play. Once you choose your character, you can not change it mid-game. So, being able to have three accounts will allow you to find the best character class for you.

Much later in the game, learning skills will surpass the initial attributes given at the beginning. Picking a character with the attributes you desire can give you a good head start, and what's not to like about that?

If you wish to create a player for combat, you need to have high perception and will power attributes. An industrialist will need to have high intelligence and memory. All attributes assigned will work with each other synergistically to create the most well rounded player for the task he/she will serve. Providing you assign the attributes to your character that make them the best for the job they do, you will have a wonderful gaming experience.

Exploring the EVE Online World

A quick rundown of the gaming environment goes like this. There are over 5,000 star systems and 2,500 randomly accessible wormhole systems. You can explore using customizable ships you, the player, create. The star systems are connected to each other through "jump gates". These "jump gates" make transferring into different systems quick, easy, and adds a streamlined feeling to the game play. In the star systems you will find a multitude of graphically beautiful phenomena; planets, moons, space stations, wormholes, complexes, asteroid belts, and more.

We will give you an example of how exploring works below, more detailed exploring strategies can be found through the in-game tutorial.

Using probes to scan the many environments allow you to identify many (if not all) of the valuable and pertinent objects in the area. Sometimes, 1 probe will be enough and you will not need to expend 4 probes to scour the area, but most times 4 probes are the accepted standard. Finding wormholes and easy to miss exploration sites can be tricky business, launching 4 probes will ensure you locate everything there is to find. When two probes create a red circle in between themselves, it means the two probes have detected the same thing. Using two more probes to cross this red circle will allow you to officially "discover" the site, whatever it may be.

Exploring the game and learning exploration strategies is much easier in groups of people who have previous game play experience. You will find your skill level will increase at a quicker rate with some people around you to learn from. The learning curve of EVE Online depends on the company you keep. If you have good wingmen, you stand a much better chance at learning everything you need in order to survive the unforgiving environment. The Gaming Atmosphere of EVE Online and What It's Like To Play

As you can see from the screenshot above, EVE Online is visually stunning. If played on a resource friendly machine with a powerful video card, this game will truly amaze you. Incredibly smooth, vivid, graphics too, not some pixelated polygon mess of advertising hype. Remember watching video game trailers and wishing the game looked that way when you played it? EVE online has this in-game graphical prowess and seamless video quality to boot, rivaling the incredibly beautiful trailers and preludes to games we loved in the past. It's a visual milestone in the world of PC games and has achieved incredible popularity across the globe.

Playing the game feels like no other, completely unique and special in every way. The way the explosions bathe your eyes in graphical splendor is truly a sight to behold. And it never gets old! Because of EVE Online's incredibly revolutionary graphics engine, players are mesmerized with their first time experience. Flawlessly smooth and incredibly vivid, this game provides more of a visual feast than the game series Myst. That is one tough order, as Myst has been known throughout the Internet for ages to have legendary visuals.

When beginning play for the first time, a helpful tutorial guides you through the games basic functions. It shows you the various options and settings you will need to adjust for your character along with what everything does in the game. This tutorial works really well to help beginning players get a feel for the game.

After the tutorial system, you are then introduced to your first game objectives, agent missions. Every player’s first agent mission will be selected from a mining, trading, or combat non-player agent. After you finish the initial tutorial, this is a great game play primer. These missions will teach you the skills you need to play the game

Joining a player corp within the game is almost a necessity in EVE Online. They can teach you a lot about the game and answer all the specific questions you have quickly. There is nothing worse in a PC game than getting frustrated from the learning curve. Player corps also allow you to be taken under the wing of fellow players. The world of EVE Online can swallow players up almost instantly. A beginning player has to fight with determination in order to survive. These corps are also great for helping you earn lots of ISK (in-game currency). Deadspace missions are great sources of ISK.

New players are very valuable as frigate pilots. Just because you are a new player doesn't make you worthless. That is a fantastic part of EVE Online, you can become a worthwhile part of the action from the very start. There is also a really effective support ticking system that can help solve your in-game issues quickly.

If you want to go solo in the game, it can be a rather boring. Solo revolutionaries and renegades are encouraged to form a small band of players with a common goal. Pirating freight ships, mining groups and so on! Small groups of solo players can specialize in accomplishing specific goals and make a pretty good living in the game. Joining an army of some sort would be a more action packed route. It all depends on what you are looking to accomplish in the game.

How Much Does Eve Online Cost?

The present cost is €14,95 / $14.95 a month (the European cost includes VAT). You can save on costs by ordering longer subscription periods. Payment can be made through online payment methods or by mail order. Using the mail order option will cost a bit more than paying online, but you can still use the longer subscription period discounts.

You can even test out EVE Online to see if you like it! They offer a 14-day, fully functional free trial that gives you plenty of time to test out nearly everything in the game. There are only a few restrictions in the trial that make it different than the full version. You can not train certain skills like industrial ships, you can not use the contract system, and you can not transfer ISK to other players. Other than that, everything is active. Also, if you send an invitation to a friend, and he or she upgrades their account, you receive an entry into a monthly drawing for all kinds of cool giveaways.

EVE Online actually made an impact in revolutionize the PC gaming industry. You can use your in-game currency to purchase ETC, or EVE time cards. Savvy players who can amass enough in-game currency to play the game efficiently and pay for their subscription costs are among the most respected in the game. Become one of the few, the proud, the freeloaders! This system is administrated by the CCP staff and all transactions are under their full authorization. ETC time cards come in 30-50-90-100-180 day passes, and provide all of the same features as a regular subscription. We wish you luck in the quest to buy the game without paying for it, EVE welcomes the challenge.

Quests and Things to Do

One of the most important things you should do in the game is familiarize yourself with all of the options you have available to you. There are a lot of menus to learn and what functions they serve. When you first log into EVE Online, this large list will be on the left hand side of your screen. Take the time to figure it all out. If you jump right into the battle scene without being able to efficiently use these controls, you will be left behind on the battlefield.

Minus the special events that are periodically held for EVE Online, the two major game activities are Player Versus Player combat and Player Versus Environment. It's easy to get involved in the action because the players create the gaming experience. Trying to give an accurate depiction of what to do in this game is impossible, the environment is constantly evolving and changes all the time. There is however, one really cool event that has not changed in years.

It started with two weekends in 2006. Eve Online decided to offer their players something truly special in appreciation for their game purchase and undying dedication to become skilled pilots. They held a live streaming video compilation called Eve TV, sponsored by the games creators, called the Alliance Tournament. The Alliance Tournament is still held today, and is the greatest player versus player battle within the game of Eve Online. The Alliance Tournament to Eve Online is like the World Series in Major League Baseball. It is the ultimate showing of player skill and determination.

The Alliance Tournament is amazing. It's the ultimate showcase of the most respected, skilled pilots in the game to show the world their stuff. 64 Alliances are allowed to compete over 3 weekends of incredibly intense, strategic battling action. Only the final weekend of battle is broadcasted on Eve TV, bringing to a close the most exciting display of battlefield prowess to be found in the game. You can watch this final weekend even if you are not an Eve TV subscriber.

EVE Online's Online Gaming Community

EVE Online is run on one gigantic server. There is no scouring thousands of servers in an effort to locate games with patches created by fellow players. One server does it all, and most days you can find over 25,000 players logged in. You simply sign on to their server and their huge amount of included game features stay the same for everyone. Simply put, the rules, tools, and software are the same for all players. There is no possibility for software alterations, so your guaranteed a flawless playing experience. Because everyone is forced to be in software based synchronicity, you will never encounter the problem of not being able to participate because of software incompatibility.

The safety of the EVE Online gaming community is a matter of speculation. One one side of the coin you have the rule abiding game players who play for the love of the game, and on the other you have "hush-hush", finance oriented entrepreneurs playing the game for behind the scenes cash. We're talking real money, dinero, U.S. dollar greenbacks.

The rule abiding players always have the option of reporting any terms of service violations to the EVE Online staff members. This includes any form of harassment that carries into areas of real life, threats of physical violence, sexually oriented or physical address type questioning, that sort of thing. As in any massively multiplayer game, the rules are enforced and handled by staff members quite efficiently. Real life dangers aren't much of an issue with EVE Online, it's the background hustle and bustle of cash crazy players who tend to break terms of service.

Behind the scenes of any legendary, massively multiplayer game there will inevitably be some activity that can't be proven until it takes place. To give you an idea of real life scenarios that transpire within the game, a character known as Ricdic amassed a great deal of ISK (in-game currency), and sold it for $5,000 USD on the black market to the masses of dedicated gamers trying to get ahead. If Ricdic had simply stolen the in-game currency he would not have gotten into trouble. In-game theft is not only allowed, it's encouraged! But alas, he sold the in-game loot for real cash. He is now banned from EVE Online. Participating in any activities such as selling in-game currency for cash is a bannable offense.

On a more positive note, there are over 300,000 players on the EVE Online networks from over 230 countries. This makes EVE Online one of the most popular Massive Multiplayer Online Games in the world. The game players are friendly and helpful, happy, and always ready for some action. Overall, the chat is safe and revolves only around the game. The majority of chat users are knowledgeable and happy to be a part of the game. Get yourself a copy and see what you've been missing.