Have you ever wanted to strike out on your own? To claim a world and seize its resources for your own financial gain?  Well it’s your lucky day! In keeping with their Viking heritage the folks at CCP, based in Iceland, have opened up the many worlds of the Eve universe to be plundered.

To start you off let me tell you a little about EVE and its players.  EVE is a Space based MMOG unlike any other. The space flight itself provides you with stunning visuals in a completely open universe similar to X3: Reunion.   Combat is simple click and let the missiles fly while your time is spent managing scans, equipment, energy resources, and manuevers.  The sounds and damage notifications can all be adjusted to your play style, only telling you what you want to know.  Interstellar travel is only as difficult as navigating a right-click-menu, which seems to be a very common theme in game.   Want to know about something? Right-click it!

The place where EVE differs from most MMO’s is in its skill training system your Toon (character) is a continuation of yourself and he or she will do what you ask.  To learn a skill you buy a skill book and instruct your toon to begin training.  Training is a process of learning over time rather than of a function of how many times I can mine some random rock.  Your toon will continue to train that skill until its done, it doesn’t matter if you are online or not.  As long as you keep your skill queue full the toon will keep learning.  This allows the weekend player to remain competative with those of us who are in game every waking moment.

Before you die-hards out there cry foul, the mission bonuses, bounties, and salvage you collect in your time online will reward you with copious amounts of cold, hard isk (cash).  It is a player driven economy with crowded space ports full of people buying and selling every item in the game.  Economies supplied by newbies mining out small amounts of ore, as well as vast mining fleets.  Players with years under their belts and 3 month olds out together running dangerous missions, making a living off the loot and bounty.  Industrialists building Battleships and researchers developing the blueprints for those ships.  Ofcourse we can’t forget the Griefers and Pirates, which are treated as a part of life in EVE.

Another great addition is the fact that EVE is one of the few games that allow you to purchase play time cards with in-game currency.  The Pilot License Extension, or PLEX, is an EVE play time Card that you can purchase and import in game to sell for EVE currency, ISK, to other players.  Or if you are short on cash for the month but have a lot of spare ISK you can buy one and use it to add some time to your account. They are a very vaulable commodity on EVE so obtaining one will be expensive.

All this freedom comes at a slight cost, that cost is a learning curve that looks similar to a Tsunami-wave. (See graph below).  The game, from the moment you load in, is daunting.  Leaving you feeling confused and completely unaware of what to do.  It was like graduating from highschool and being dropped into the real world, all you get is a pat on the head and a “good luck boy you’re gonna need it”.  EVE is a grown-up’s game, don’t come in expecting the swarm of 12 year old’s forming an Alliance mob in WoW.

CCP likens the comparison of EVE to other MMO’s, as “…the difference between a playground, such as EVE, and a theme park, which would be the traditional MMO…” What they are saying is that in most MMO’s you’re just there for the ride, where as EVE can be your playground, you can do anything.  Though I highly recommend finding someone who already plays and have them show you the ropes for your first few days.

In this most recent expansion, all of which are free (with the monthly subscription), you have the ability to place Command centers on almost any planet in the persistent universe. (Which is all one huge “server”).  You can build mines, factories, and launch pads to exploit the natural resources, and convert them into rare components. Everything from basic fuels for Player Owned Structures to bacteria can be produced planet side. Some are useless for ship construction but great for sale to NPC’s or players for a quick infusion of ISK, while other highly refined components are used in the construction of Player Owned Structures (POS).

A few hours of training and you’l be able to scan down the Planetary Resources (image above) with a resonable amount of accuracy. A few days after that you will be able to drop down one of many grades of command centers, Basic all the way to Elite. Elite Command Centers take about 25 days to train so I stuck with Advanced, only about 4 days of training for that. After a few hours and 10 million ISK I had experimented enough to get a resonable set-up on a Temperate Planet (below).

My next attempt was even more fruitful. I colonized a Gas Giant (below) and was able within a short time to supply nearly all of our daily consumption of Oxygen an Coolant, two secondary fuels for POS equipment. If you would like to see player created tutorial on Planetary Management I highly recommend the EVE University, tutorial.

(Click Here to view the Tutorial)

The end result of this new expansion is the continuing amazement I and my fellow Capsuleers feel towards EVE, always interesting, somtimes quite frustrating, and always getting to spend time gaming with some awesome people.