Skip my psychobabel and jump to the end for the links!

To say that Eve Online has a steep learning curve would be a massive understatement.

Even a skilled pilot with years of experience will find herself learning something new – even if it’s just a little tweak here or there – on a weekly basis. There’s so many options and settings tucked away throughout the interface, it usually proves quite overwhelming for new players.

For you seasoned veterans out there, did you know you can find just your ships in the assets window searching by category for the string “ship”, or that you can set your drones to concentrate their fire in the drone overview, or find wormholes faster by putting four probes inside a fifth probe set one scan range higher?

For those that choose to stick it out – the depth of the game, its politics, strategy, social aspects, and ever expanding universe can be quite rewarding. I welcome the steep learning curve as a firewall that keeps World of Warcraft kids at bay.

If there’s one massively multiplayer game that is deserving of your attention, it’s Eve. Where others enforce grinding away hours of your time, Eve’s skill progression is based on real world time with no requirement to grind. Your RPG style skills increase at a constant rate whether you’re online or off.

And while other games in this genre such as Star Trek Online seem to fall short after only a few weeks or months, Eve’s developer, CCP, continue to astonish with their ground breaking game design.

Just as games in a gambling joint rely on the psychology of addiction to lighten wallets, Star Trek Online seems to leverage the same principles to generate sustainable subscription numbers.

There are a wealth of design features in EVE that you just won’t find in any other massively multiplayer game.

Eve is inching towards the decade old mark with a solid player base, both young and old. On January 10th, 2010, the record for highest number of pilots simultaneously online on the same server was broken with 56,021 accounts. Shortly after the release of the last expansion, codenamed Dominion, Eve Online won top honors as the #1 MMORPG for 2009.

Over the years, each expansion is bestowed to the players without any demand of additional monetary compensation. The latest addition, codenamed Tyrannis, promises to throw planetary interaction into the mix of space combat, mining, research, and exploration.

To get yourself up to speed before the soon to be released expansion launches, check out this mix of beginner tips, strategic guides, calculators, and useful information that covers a few specific aspects of the game.

====Planetary Interaction Tools====

http://www.4ward-eve.ch/pi

This site lets you sort out which planets you’ll need in order to build all the different products. You can show any combination of planets and products. Start by clicking on Production possibilities. You should quickly notice that each planet can produce one type of P3 product, and a minimum of two planets is required for a P4 product. (hint: there’s only one 2 planet combo to get a P4!)

http://kaa.mhost.ru/eve/planets.html

Mouse over the different resources, products, and planet types on this site and you’ll get instant feedback as to which combinations you can use.

====Other Useful Links====
Science & Industry guide

http://evefiles.mysterious-mysteries.com/eve-online_science_and_industry_guide.html

Star maps

http://evemaps.dotlan.net/map/Genesis

Wormhole Explorer

http://www.staticmapper.com/

Agent Level and Standings required calculator

http://www.evegeek.com/agent.php

Ore regions chart

http://www.eve-files.com/media/corp/WLDs/roid_grid.jpg

Ore calculator spreadsheet

http://www.somestuff.myby.co.uk/eve/ore-factors.gif

NPC damage info

http://www.evegeek.com/npc_damage.php

Posted on April 23rd, by admica in games, review.

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