I got my computer sorted out with Windows 7, (finally a windows system that works), and so I decided to download EvE online, this being on the advice of some of my regular commentators. I’ve been having some fun in WoW lately with The Shattering, which entails riding around to all the new places and ganking all the people who have ridden around to see the new places. Plus a bunch of Wintergrasp victories with The PuG, which have been a lot of fun. But I wanted to have a look at EvE before Cataclysm hits, so I got the standard 14 day trial, downloaded the game in a couple of hours and logged in.

So the majority of my impressions are going to be from the standpoint of a WoW veteran. EvE feels very grown up. It’s slick and sexy, and damn complicated. I think one of the main reasons that dissuades people who have invested a lot of time in an MMO from trying out another is that you don’t want to feel like a n00b again. Well, at least in space nobody can see your noobness. I chose a character without doing any background study at all and promptly began the tutorial, which is nicely set out in that it doesn’t feel like you’re in some nooby care-bear zone. EvE has appealed to me right away due to the fact that I am more of an explorer and builder type than a destroyer. Saying that, my first quest giver that I hooked up with is the military one, but I figured that it would be better to know how to defend oneself immediately in this game. I’m up to the 6th of 10 quests from this guy, which has me chasing a bunch of nasty pirates around and blowing them into little bits. At one point the pirate boss offered me a spot in his team, and I thought “Cool!” but unfortunately I couldn’t figure out a way to actually join him.

Then on my 6th mission I got blown into little bits for the first time. Up to this point I was beginning to think that I was the awesome before reality came back to bite me with the noobish sight of me floating through space in a little capsule wheras before I had had my cool little Slasher ship. Luckilly I had taken out full insurance and I got my big payout of 13,000.00 pingers, (or whatever the fuck you call them), and I set off to the market. Where I found the same ship was going for 80,0000.00 pingers not to mention all the bits that I would have to re-install such as gatling guns and the like. It was here that I encountered my first problem with the game – I couldn’t remember the names of the devices that I had had installed. I knew that there was a thing that repaired the ship, (it had a little red cross icon on it), but searching through the market I had no idea what it was called. If anyone can help me there I would be very greatful. There were some other things as well, such as a mining gun, but I figured that it would be best to hop back and see if I could win this battle than to go and purchase all the stuff for my ship again only to once more see myself blown out of the sky. I did some mining, and quickly learnt to set a bookmark on my asteroid of choice, and I queued up 24 hours of training to get me looking smicko in the skills department.

But more than anything I have for the first time a feeling of excitement when a loading screen comes up. And I haven’t had that for a good while now. Oh, and by the way, any tips or hint would be very much appreciated.