[HN Gopher] Eve Online fans cheer Microsoft Excel features at an...
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       Eve Online fans cheer Microsoft Excel features at annual Fanfest
        
       Author : Tomte
       Score  : 283 points
       Date   : 2022-05-07 06:32 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
        
       | eugenekolo wrote:
       | Ballmercon is wild this year!
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICp2-EUKQAI
        
         | sph wrote:
         | Love me some KRAZAM. It's such niche humour there's nobody I
         | can share it with.
        
         | olivierestsage wrote:
         | Life imitating art imitating life.
        
         | Maximus9000 wrote:
         | Such an underrated youtube channel!
        
         | paulmd wrote:
         | yeesh... office 365? the casual is coming from inside the
         | stream!
         | 
         | everything past excel '03 was downhill imo
        
       | XorNot wrote:
       | I love how this is getting around because it seems like such a
       | weird headline, but any EVE player current or former will just
       | go: "yep makes perfect sense"
        
       | jereees wrote:
       | A much better title: Eve Online strategy game announces
       | JavaScript API to export user data.
       | 
       | The current title is misleading and clickbaity. There's no Excel
       | features inside the game, heck it's not even a CSV API.
        
         | carlosdp wrote:
         | Yes, but "Eve is a spreadsheet MMO" is a meme, so this title is
         | more creative and funny to those that know the meme, driving
         | them to the article.
        
           | apeace wrote:
           | It's not clickbaity or misleading at all, though. Eve has an
           | official partnership with Microsoft to make an Excel
           | integration, and the fans literally cheered it during the
           | fanfest. I don't understand what's clickbaity or misleading
           | in the slightest.
        
             | carlosdp wrote:
             | I didn't say it was? I think the meme is hilarious, I love
             | Eve and have played it since childhood.
             | 
             | I was just explaining why the title would be more
             | attractive to anyone who follows Eve.
        
         | Sakos wrote:
         | Eve already has APIs if you want to build tools that interface
         | with the game. They literally did announce exporting directly
         | to Excel.
         | 
         | https://www.eveonline.com/news/view/fanfest-is-here
         | 
         | > We're leaning into the phrase 'Spreadsheets in Space' by
         | partnering with Microsoft on a project revolving around
         | democratization of data in EVE Online. Soon we'll even be
         | releasing an all-new extension that feeds data from EVE
         | directly into Excel without any technical experience needed
         | 
         | If it's clickbaity, it's because CCP intended it to be.
        
         | Recursing wrote:
         | At 2:06:29 In the video https://youtu.be/ri6eTeCBUww?t=7586
         | they mention "With Microsoft we're building an extension that
         | will allow players to log in and pull data directly into Excel"
        
           | rexreed wrote:
           | Or into any other app that can accept data in the JSON
           | format. The title of the article is a disingenuous jab.
           | Exporting fine-grained data from a game that you can use for
           | your own statistics, not locked into a single-purpose
           | application with restricted abilities is powerful. Use Excel
           | or build your own analytics, it's up to you.
        
           | ako wrote:
           | Seems like something they can already do with Odata v4. You
           | can provide excel (and powerbi) compatible json payload.
        
         | wlesieutre wrote:
         | What makes Excel's Javascript API Excel specific is their
         | schema for providing type information with the data. Such as:
         | const myDate = {         type:
         | Excel.CellValueType.formattedNumber,         basicValue:
         | 32889.0,         numberFormat: "m/d/yyyy"       };
         | 
         | That's more Excel focused than a CSV export would be. I don't
         | see any specifics about the API implementation but they may be
         | using this in the provided JSON data. Maybe those average ISK
         | prices for commodities are provided with more decimal digits,
         | but with formatting to display two digits, etc.
         | 
         | Excel add-ins and data types:
         | https://devblogs.microsoft.com/microsoft365dev/ignite-2021-e...
         | 
         | EVE Online and Data Type APIs:
         | https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/excel-blog/data-types...
        
         | flexd wrote:
         | There is a extensive JSON API available here [1], which I'm
         | assuming this Excel API will make use of. And we already have
         | this functionality in Google Sheets, so it's not exactly
         | something new. It will be good to see more use of the API
         | though, and interesting to see if they maintain this in the
         | years to come. Perhaps them making a Excel extension will cause
         | them to spend some time fixing all the things that have been
         | broken with the API for a long time [2].
         | 
         | [1] https://esi.evetech.net/ui/ [2] https://github.com/esi/esi-
         | issues/issues
        
       | Shadonototra wrote:
       | i'm probably missing something, but exporting a CSV would have
       | been better choice than a proprietary format that locks users
       | into a proprietary tool
       | 
       | to me it sounds like microsoft is colluding with game developers
       | to lock in users more than to help users
        
         | Sakos wrote:
         | I think they consciously chose Excel because it provides an
         | online platform that can allow real-time updates and easy
         | accessibility.
         | 
         | If you want the data in another form, you can just query their
         | APIs instead.
        
         | jabroni_salad wrote:
         | You can already do that. You can even just copy+paste tables
         | out of the game to dump into a website or textfile if you want
         | (which is how a lot of stuff works currently).
         | 
         | They also have APIs for a lot of stuff.
         | 
         | I used to use a program called pirates little helper that would
         | monitor your clipboard for when you did a ctrl+a ctrl+c in your
         | current chatroom's userlist and it would query those
         | character's recent deaths to see who was likely to be a high
         | value target.
        
       | SantiagoElf wrote:
       | Read it as Eve has only fans exported in Excel ...
       | 
       | Anyway, yeah I played EVE - it is Excel in Space. So good there
       | are finally APIs.
        
       | honestduane wrote:
       | As somebody who has code in Excel, who was at Fanfest in 2012 and
       | even ended up on some YouTube videos during it, this makes me
       | smile.
       | 
       | I remember in one of the MonkeyCommend meetings while kicking BoB
       | out of the South, we actually talked about Excel lacking this.
       | 
       | It feels like we created the world we wanted, on a 10 year delay.
        
       | bearjaws wrote:
       | Brings back memories of my trading empire... 5x alt accounts
       | scouting for best trade routes using the export data to CSV
       | feature... Bringing ships and gear into null sec to sell for huge
       | markups...
       | 
       | Good times.
        
       | martincmartin wrote:
       | What are some other games where spreadsheets help? I'll start:
       | 
       | - Kerbal Space Program. Figuring out the sizes of different
       | stages, how many solid boosters to add, etc.
       | 
       | - Factorio. Ratios of different factories, mostly for creating
       | science packs.
       | 
       | - Cookie Clicker. Figuring out what to buy to get the best
       | marginal cookies per dollar.
        
         | Mockapapella wrote:
         | Cyberpunk 2077 for crafting items to figure out the best return
         | on items used to craft
        
         | vkou wrote:
         | Most MMOs 'benefit' from spreadsheets and APIs. Any situation
         | where players are incentivised to optimize/track/gather
         | statistics benefit from them.
         | 
         | Guild Wars 2 is an example of a very casual MMO that
         | nevertheless has an extensive API, and a wide range of fan-
         | built sites that use it to optimize/track history of trades,
         | manage your account, track achievement histories, improve wiki
         | information, etc.
        
         | Taek wrote:
         | For cookie clicker and factorio the math was simple enough that
         | you could mostly do it in your head, plus each of them had
         | wikis that spelled out all the answers. I think you only really
         | need a spreadsheet if the numbers are dynamic and continuously
         | changing depending on your situation.
        
           | bentcorner wrote:
           | In Factorio I just let things buffer on belts and eyeballed
           | things as I went along. The hard part was designing things
           | such that I could arbitrarily scale out builders/belts as
           | needs changed.
           | 
           | Satisfactory requires you to be slightly more intentional
           | with ratios but (at least when I played) I came up with some
           | balancing belt designs that let me get away with not needing
           | to be super accurate with matching input/outputs. As long as
           | I kept things at like 101% it'd all work out at the end. I'd
           | need to do some head math to figure out initial build
           | capacity of some product and I'd expand after that as needed.
        
             | massysett wrote:
             | I always used Helmod (a Factorio mod) to plan my factory. I
             | though using a spreadsheet would be too hard. But by the
             | time I figured out Helmod I probably could have just used a
             | spreadsheet.
             | 
             | But at least with Helmod it's still in the game UI. Using a
             | spreadsheet seems too much like work.
        
             | Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
             | > In Factorio I just let things buffer on belts and
             | eyeballed things as I went along.
             | 
             | Same. I'm surprised how many people talk about spreadsheets
             | with Factorio.
             | 
             | I cover a resource patch with miners, then keep building
             | smelters until I end up with an idle one at the end of the
             | line. When I discovered a new item I'd need to produce, I'd
             | just built a small line of assemblers and see what my
             | output looked like, and go back to fix any supply
             | constraints.
             | 
             | Was it optimal? Almost certainly not. But I definitely
             | enjoyed not playing it as a spreadsheet.
        
               | argomo wrote:
               | Same. My first play thru I just allotted a large space
               | into which to extend assembly lines if needed, then I
               | brought their outputs back to a central spine from which
               | I could siphon them off for input into subsequent
               | assembly lines. I think this really helped me "feel" the
               | concept of backpressure.
        
           | depaya wrote:
           | Factorio has been talked about a lot on HN for it's parallels
           | to programming. I think it would be an excellent learning
           | tool for people looking to get into programming, and I think
           | this also extends to spreadsheeting too.
           | 
           | As you say, to start out the ratios are simple enough, but to
           | a beginner it'd be a good exercise to plop the Red and Green
           | science ratios into a spreadsheet for practice. Once you
           | upgrade your assembly machines there is a modifier bonus
           | applied across the board, now you need to account for that in
           | your ratios. Not only can you pump out more product from the
           | same footprint, but you potentially need to rebalance your
           | ratios to account for the modifier.
           | 
           | Once you get into speed/efficiency/productivity modules
           | complexity can really ramp up. In addition to getting the
           | ratios correct for the machines, belt speeds need to be
           | factored in, production rates need to be considered...
        
             | ineedasername wrote:
             | > _I think it would be an excellent learning tool for
             | people looking to get into programming_
             | 
             | That's a bit like using crack cocaine to help learn about
             | the pharmaceutical industry.
        
         | wmeredith wrote:
         | Every time I try to get back into Destiny 2 (I have thousands
         | of hours in that game), I remember that I basically have what
         | amounts to old actuarial tables I'd need to go update and I
         | just bail after about 30 minutes.
        
         | cgh wrote:
         | Dark Souls and friends, with the help of soulsplanner.com, eg
         | https://soulsplanner.com/darksouls/weaponatk
        
         | ineedasername wrote:
         | Cult Simulator. Used one to keep track of related bits of
         | information and card interactions in order to piece everything
         | together.
        
         | perlgeek wrote:
         | Let me throw https://www.fallenlondon.com/ into the ring.
         | 
         | It has lots of options to acquire various items and qualities,
         | and depending on our situation, spreadsheets can help a lot
         | figuring out which one is most efficient.
         | 
         | It even has the "bone market", an exchange where you can build
         | skeletons from various bone types, and sell it to NPC vendors,
         | some of which have non-linear payout curves. There's an
         | optimizer for that written in Python:
         | https://github.com/Saklad5/Bone-Market-Solver
         | 
         | It's an awesome combination of great writing, bizarre,
         | whimsical stories and a potential (but not a hard requirement)
         | to optimize by spreadsheet and other methods :-)
        
           | spiralx wrote:
           | I realised after getting back into it this year that I
           | started playing FL about 11 years ago, it's amazing that it
           | has not only lasted that long but that it still has a ton of
           | content I've yet to complete.
        
         | SkeuomorphicBee wrote:
         | - Diablo 2. Figuring out the optimal distribution of skill
         | points for your build, taking into account all the different
         | buffs from all the different mechanics.
        
         | blamazon wrote:
         | Satisfactory is like 3D Factorio.
        
           | malfist wrote:
           | Did they ever improve the belt system? I played it in early
           | access and it was a chore to get belts to tile reasonably and
           | be able to manifold off of them to feed more than one factory
        
             | Isthatablackgsd wrote:
             | Coffee Stain (Satisfactory Dev) made improvement with the
             | games. They are on Update #5 now and soon will be releasing
             | Update #6. Try it out now to see if they fix it.
        
             | bart_spoon wrote:
             | They continue to improve the building and placement across
             | the board, so that really depends on when you were playing.
             | It remains in early access but its very solid at this
             | point.
        
               | malfist wrote:
               | Last I played was July 2020, about a month after release
        
           | Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
           | I really wanted to enjoy Satisfactory, but I found that a
           | first-person perspective just plain sucks for factory
           | building. I haven't played it in a long time though, so maybe
           | they've made some improvements?
           | 
           | I ended up enjoying Dyson Sphere Program so much more. It's
           | the "Factorio but with a third dimension" that I really
           | wanted.
        
             | InfoSecErik wrote:
             | About 40 hours into my save, I realized I could use the
             | "foundation" blocks as a way to organize the factory since
             | everything snaps to a grid when you place stuff on top of
             | it. There's also a "hoverpack" item in late-game + some
             | folks use fly-mods. I haven't gotten that far, so I end up
             | using lookout towers + foundations to get things neatly
             | arranged.
        
               | Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
               | Oh, did they add snapping to a grid when building on
               | foundations? There wasn't a snapping option when I
               | played. At best, you could align one building to be
               | directly adjacent to another, but that didn't help when
               | making belts.
        
         | amalcon wrote:
         | Almost all of them. Back when I used to play Kingdom of
         | Loathing (a super casual game whose main attraction is that it
         | contains a lot of jokes), I used spreadsheets to optimize
         | everything from which food to eat to which familiar to use
         | when. Way back in the day, I wrote a (for me-at-the-time) math-
         | heavy guide for the N64 Goldeneye game; I used spreadsheets for
         | that.
         | 
         | I know of people who've used spreadsheets for routing speedruns
         | of games you wouldn't think you _could_ optimize that way (e.g.
         | entries in the Mario Kart series).
        
           | vintagedave wrote:
           | Do you still have a copy of the Goldeneye guide? I'd be
           | curious to read it. Math was not in my mind when I played it
           | back in the day.
        
             | amalcon wrote:
             | I don't, but GameFaqs still does. Keep in mind that 1999-me
             | was... not a great writer, or particularly good at math, by
             | HN standards.
             | 
             | https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/n64/197462-goldeneye-007/faqs
             | /...
        
               | pedrosorio wrote:
               | "If you want to know what Perfect Dark is, just do a
               | search for it (I used Yahoo and got tons of hits, and the
               | game's not even out yet)"
               | 
               | Feels like getting out of a time-machine :)
        
           | ElvisTrout wrote:
           | Hey fellow KOLer! It was a spreadsheet heavy game for sure.
           | Good times.
        
           | forgotpwd16 wrote:
           | >Almost all of them.
           | 
           | For any game that can be optimized in some way someone has
           | made a spreadsheet for it.
        
         | wingmanjd wrote:
         | I recall having something like this for Freelancer. Calculating
         | best profit over time for cargo runs while balancing the risk
         | of the route for said profit.
        
         | 8K832d7tNmiQ wrote:
         | Genshin Impact for gaining the best possible damage out of your
         | available artifacts.
        
         | glenneroo wrote:
         | I use spreadsheets for lots of games for various reasons but
         | generally because the UI of many games is "klunky" and often
         | doesn't provide enough information without requiring tons of
         | clicks, or even worse, only shows info once and you have to
         | remember it for the next 100 hours of play-time. I generally
         | don't play a game through to the end in one sitting, I'll put
         | it down for months and revisit and have no idea where I left
         | off. Here's a small list of recent spreadsheets...
         | 
         | - Divinity Original Sin to track skills i've assigned to which
         | characters as well as discovered recipes.
         | 
         | - Dyson Sphere Program to keep track of which star systems and
         | planets i've visited (there are tons) to show roughly how much
         | of each resource is there, sun/wind energy stats, etc. and
         | whether i've exploited the resources there or not.
         | 
         | - Game Dev Tycoon to keep track of what types of games i
         | released and the resulting ratings (which determine payouts).
         | It's a very arbitrary system and i feel only through trial-and-
         | error can you discover what games will get good reviews. It's
         | borderline cheating but i figured since i did it myself, it's
         | only half-cheating ;)
         | 
         | - Mount and Blade to keep track of which kings, queens and
         | princesses i have interacted with and their likes/dislikes for
         | when i communicate with them. Necessary because once you start
         | a dialog there's no way out until you finish the dialog. And
         | there's absolutely no way i can remember 300+ names and their
         | standing with me, plus i play very irregularly (still Early
         | Access and things change constantly). Yes you can click on
         | royalty names and it'll tell you the standing, but it's just so
         | much easier to have a spreadsheet open on another monitor which
         | you can glance at from time to time.
         | 
         | - Rogalia for recipes, rent, combat, conversion times, selling
         | rates...
        
         | peeters wrote:
         | Stardew Valley had at least one well-shared spreadsheet for
         | planting schedules and expected yields.
        
         | robotnikman wrote:
         | From the Depths, for creating the right cannons and ammo for
         | your ships
        
         | pjc50 wrote:
         | Anything stat-heavy. Genshin Optimizer:
         | https://frzyc.github.io/genshin-optimizer/ for example; the
         | game has no data export at all, so there's an OCR program you
         | can run that screenshots your inventory for analysis.
        
           | user_7832 wrote:
           | Slightly tangential but do you still play Genshin Impact? I
           | used to play for a while before I realized how terrible it
           | was for my mental health and fortunately stopped.
        
             | pjc50 wrote:
             | I do .. lightly, and without spending money on it. It's a
             | nice world to wonder around in. But I can see how people
             | might fall down the gatcha hole.
        
               | user_7832 wrote:
               | I agree. The design (particularly the audio) - I find
               | really great, but the gacha aspect is bad, and the game
               | is also very inconsiderate of players' time (eg the low
               | payout of the dailies). I've also not spent any money on
               | it, and don't plan to spend anything on such games in
               | general. Very ironically, what pushed me off the game was
               | losing my 50/50 of Hu Tao... something designed to make
               | me spend money cut me off entirely haha.
        
             | wccrawford wrote:
             | As with most Gacha games, the gacha portion of that was so
             | poorly designed for casual players that it was basically
             | poison.
             | 
             | I really, really liked the gameplay and the exploration,
             | and to a point, even the plot.
             | 
             | But the gacha was absolutely murder for me. I couldn't talk
             | myself into spending a single cent on it. And I say that as
             | someone who probably spent over $500 on a single gacha game
             | over a couple years.
        
         | jakamau wrote:
         | Two defunct website games from 20 years ago come to mind.
         | 
         | - Archmage
         | 
         | - Archspace
         | 
         | I think back on those games fondly and haven't found anything
         | that scratched the same itch.
        
         | Bayart wrote:
         | I had massive spreadsheets playing WoW when addons that
         | facilitate accounting weren't there.
        
         | gtaylor wrote:
         | X4 and any other titles in the X series. It's single player
         | spreadsheets in space.
        
         | colanderman wrote:
         | Dwarf Fortress famously has Dwarf Therapist:
         | https://github.com/Dwarf-Therapist/Dwarf-Therapist
        
         | aabbcc1241 wrote:
         | Travian. Figure out how many troop to send after receiving spy
         | report
        
           | delroxy wrote:
           | I played the heck out of this game, and funnily enough it led
           | to becoming friends with some other players IRL
        
         | pacoWebConsult wrote:
         | A lot of Runescape resource to XP / hours calculators. What
         | they really need to do is replace VBA with a proper programming
         | interface. Rubberduck VBA [1] Adds some essential features into
         | the VBA IDE but they really just need to add C# support
         | directly.
         | 
         | [1]: https://rubberduckvba.com/
        
         | freeflight wrote:
         | Pretty much all of them, taken to the extreme this manifests in
         | ways like automated/machine assisted speedruns.
         | 
         | On the not so extreme level; DPS calculations to decide which
         | item/ability combination is the most efficient in dishing out
         | damage.
        
         | npteljes wrote:
         | Factorio, Mindustry, and Battle Cats were the games I used
         | spreadsheets for.
        
         | fbcpck wrote:
         | Any games that have competitive, collaborative multiplayer
         | aspect I think!
         | 
         | Especially _Google Spreadsheets_ ; perhaps not
         | math/computation-heavy like EVE, but it's one of the best tools
         | to organize data in a collaborative manner online.
         | 
         | An example: Inventory management/dashboard of a clan of 30
         | members:
         | https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tpbLmB4Fha_0TpMd4h3d...
         | 
         | I also see it (ab)used frequently as a mediawiki/online text-
         | editor alternative, barely using any spreadsheet mathematical
         | formulas, using it simply as a place to write text for others
         | to read, e.g.: this gigantic reference spreadsheet:
         | https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JjK7Ws4gfzKChRs5ueox...
        
           | slightwinder wrote:
           | Any game can be competitive, it doesn't need multiplayer for
           | it. Speed runs are a prime example of this. All you need is a
           | goal, and people will compete who will reach the highest
           | value. I mean we have even an Excel esports-League now, and
           | there are twitch rivals for the cozy game Stardew Valley...
        
         | ehnto wrote:
         | At some point StormWorx creations need some significant
         | planning to pull off. Star Citizen even in it's current alpha
         | form, you can plan mining and trading activities to get the
         | best results.
        
         | nivenkos wrote:
         | - Kerbal Space Program
         | 
         | I thought it'd be cool to write an optimiser for this. I.e.
         | given this craft file for a payload subassembly, give me the
         | cheapest/lightest/fewest parts booster subassembly that will
         | get me to orbit with a remaining delta V of X.
         | 
         | Parsing the possible mount points seemed like a nightmare
         | though.
        
       | donutshop wrote:
       | So wholesome haha
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | nobrains wrote:
       | This combines 2 of my favorite things: games and spreadsheets.
       | However, it isn't generating any excitement in me. Just some
       | feeling of dread and gloominess. I guess, its because in my mind
       | I don't want games (pleasure) and spreadsheets (work) to mix.
        
       | matt321 wrote:
       | Aurora4X (you're welcome). Similar to the idea of EVE ONLINE but
       | much more indepth without the pesky things like graphics. Calling
       | all Hackers: Lets make an open source Aurora4X style came that's
       | played online.
        
         | ixwt wrote:
         | Not open source, but is Prosperous Universe something similar?
        
           | klysm wrote:
           | Prosperous universe is just the spreadsheets part of EVE
           | lifted into its own game
        
         | Arrath wrote:
         | Don't you fucking dare. I'll find the other 8 nerds across the
         | world that play that game and never emerge again as I watch
         | 5-second increments tick by.
        
       | T3RMINATED wrote:
        
       | brolumir wrote:
       | Am I the only one who thought of this video?
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xubbVvKbUfY
        
       | pyinstallwoes wrote:
       | This is ironic since I've always heard eve online compared to
       | playing/viewing a spreadsheet with graphics.
        
       | UweSchmidt wrote:
       | Anyone on here plays this game? Is it worth it?
       | 
       | Dropping everything in life for that one perfect game will always
       | be a temptation... ;)
        
         | bruce343434 wrote:
         | Basically eve online extracts the worst traits out of people
         | and has a huge botting problem.
        
         | eveplayer123 wrote:
         | I'm not sure how you define "worth" it. I had a load of fun
         | once I felt like I had control over how to play and what to do
         | with my time there. I even had fun when I was losing/dying.
         | 
         | I quit because real life has to take priority for a while, not
         | for anything negative about the game.
        
         | 2000UltraDeluxe wrote:
         | When the game peaked around 2011 ,EvE felt more of an unpaid
         | second job without pay. But what a job it was! Once you get
         | sucked in, you could spend several months per year playing EvE.
         | 
         | Luckily, CCP screwed things up quite badly, and I lost
         | interest. If they hadn't, I'd probably be stuck playing EvE
         | rather than living in the real world. :D
        
           | yvdriess wrote:
           | Interestingly, I've also seen a lot of EVE friends that have
           | gotten jobs because of their EVE connections (logistics,
           | computer security, state dept, ...)
        
             | paulmd wrote:
             | One of the diplomats killed in Benghazi 10 years ago was
             | also a diplomat for one of the major EVE alliances (and a
             | moderator on the forums from which they draw their members)
             | and was on alliance comms the night when it happened. Very
             | nice guy who led an interesting life.
             | 
             | https://www.wired.com/2012/09/vilerat/
        
         | polotics wrote:
         | I played one hour. If you're stuck in some embassy like the
         | noted Benghazi-based Eve player whose real life interfered, it
         | may help keep real-life connections alive. Otherwise I would
         | strongly advise to be your own Sim, bench press and all that.
         | Maybe a VR version hooked to a treadmill? Anti-Cheat on these
         | is kind of unexplored territory though...
        
         | emil0r wrote:
         | Used to play EVE a long time ago in a known alliance. The game
         | mechanics were not that good. What made the game shine was that
         | it's an extremely complex sandbox game, where almost anything
         | goes. This leads to a very complex game that is almost entirely
         | governed by how the other players react to your interactions
         | with them. The drama, dreams, hopes and despair that comes with
         | playing the game is the real reward.
         | 
         | It used to be that the game was really harsh when you screwed
         | up, which made the adrenaline pump when you did something you
         | knew was dangerous. For me as a hardcore gamer at the time,
         | that was the initial kick. Now a days I believe they have
         | lessened the harshness a bit, but it should still be one of the
         | few games where you can lose literally hundreds of hours in
         | investment by losing everything you own in the game.
        
           | slothtrop wrote:
           | I have to imagine that the social element is what makes it
           | addicting, since I found it to be a rather constricted slog
           | particularly if you aren't sociable. DF/Rimworld sort of
           | accomplishes the complex-sandbox thing for solo players,
           | minus the drama.
        
           | sascha_sl wrote:
           | This is a really important part of figuring out if you want
           | to get into EVE. CCP are terrible game designers. They're a
           | "throw shit at the wall and see what sticks" kind of game
           | design studio. The market is a graveyard of items and
           | associated mechanics that are design failures and are never
           | to rarely relevant. They keep adding new mechanics that are
           | broken, in balance and intended purpose. Their ship balancing
           | team is two people.
           | 
           | But somehow this pile of crap mechanics by the sheer mass of
           | them makes for an emergent sandbox. It feels not designed,
           | like so many other video games. Systems that are not meant to
           | interact with each other do in unexpected ways. Don't go in
           | expecting every career path in EVE to have thought behind it.
           | You have to figure that out.
        
         | kuroguro wrote:
         | I used to just solo explore nullsec. Found something very zen
         | about planning routes, scanning and sneaking past players to
         | not get blown up (still happened a lot).
         | 
         | Ended up joining a newbie corp as the return trip to sell stuff
         | often wasn't worth it. They had a hauling corp that offered
         | buyback for most items. Still played solo for the most part.
         | 
         | People kept telling me that I'm playing the game wrong FWIW but
         | not participating in the social aspects freed me up to boot up
         | the game for an hour whenever I wanted. Haven't played for a
         | few years but I did enjoy it.
        
           | lapsis_beeftech wrote:
           | I was mainly attracted to the game for the economic
           | simulation but also thought I would enjoy solo exploration
           | based on watching such gameplay on Youtube. I wanted to do
           | PvE and interact with the community in other ways than
           | fighting, but EVE Online is a PvP game at heart. I left
           | because all I found while exploring were other players eager
           | to murder me.
        
             | russh wrote:
             | Yep, I just want to mine, explore, and occasionally do
             | missions.
        
           | moritonal wrote:
           | Did you read about the player who tried to visit every system
           | without dying? Seems you both have the same mindset.
        
             | kuroguro wrote:
             | Oh haven't heard of it. It's probably Katia Sae? Ty,
             | bookmarked a video and an article on it, gonna go trough it
             | in a bit :)
        
         | mekkkkkk wrote:
         | I played for a while in both large alliances and smaller niche
         | corporations. It's a very flawed game that is completely unique
         | and mesmerizing.
         | 
         | The bad:
         | 
         | - The dreaded "learning wall" is/was very real. Nothing is/was
         | properly explained or introduced. Best tip is to join a new
         | player friendly corporation ASAP to get some proper explaining.
         | 
         | - The combat is janky and a lot of the skill involved is/was
         | learning how to abuse or sidestep technical limitations such as
         | the one second server tick time and the quirky methods of
         | manually controlling your ship.
         | 
         | - A lot of players prey on newbies to scam or troll them out of
         | what little they have. There is a certain edgy attitude to a
         | lot of pirate players that are attracted to the games "full
         | loot" model.
         | 
         | - Most of the "missions" or "dungeons" feel really stale, and
         | it's slow as molasses.
         | 
         | The good:
         | 
         | - Looks completely amazing. As in jawdroppingly beautiful if
         | you like hard sci-fi.
         | 
         | - Everything that matters is run by players. This is the most
         | unique aspect of the game. No other game has a constant ongoing
         | player driven lore like Eve. The market, the social
         | constellations and much of space itself is run by players.
         | There have been huge market plays, alliance mutinies,
         | assassinations, mineral cartels and colossal battles that has
         | raged for days. All is talked about by players, and since
         | everyone is playing on the same server, it's relevant for
         | everyone.
         | 
         | - The setting is pretty good, and the atmosphere is great. The
         | "races" all have very distinct motivations and character.
         | 
         | - It has a "full loot" PVP-model. If you fly something and it's
         | destroyed, it's gone. Including everything you were carrying.
         | Some of it is dropped so that other players can pick it up.
         | This means that PVP combat can be _incredibly_ sweaty, and I
         | have never had actual adrenaline shakes the same way I 've had
         | from Eve. It also makes every kill incredibly satisfying. The
         | rush of flying something relatively inexpensive and managing to
         | kill someone flying a pimped out super expensive ship is quite
         | incomparable.
         | 
         | I probably skipped a lot of stuff, but that's some scattered
         | aspects atleast.
        
         | apeace wrote:
         | I'm a current player, and I think it's absolutely worth it to
         | get started.
         | 
         | Other comments have covered many aspects of the game, so I'll
         | just point one thing out: the players are super friendly!
         | 
         | It's funny because Eve is a game where you can -- and WILL --
         | get destroyed by anyone, any time. It's dog-eat-dog, it's cut-
         | throat, it's merciless. I remember the first time I lost a 250m
         | ISK Astero to a hunter. The cost was equivalent to hours of
         | gameplay for me at the time. Brutal.
         | 
         | And yet, you know what happened next? The guy who destroyed me
         | sent me a message and asked if I was new (he could tell). He
         | congratulated me on what I did right and gave me tips on what I
         | could've done better. He sent me 200m ISK because that's just
         | not a lot for a seasoned player. He helped me refit my ship so
         | that I could escape future hunters more quickly.
         | 
         | This guy went above and beyond, but that type of friendliness
         | is very common in Eve. I'm sure there are jerks, but I haven't
         | come across one yet.
        
           | zulban wrote:
           | He played the meta game. Get more new players to play more
           | and longer gives him more and bigger targets later. The same
           | reason I wouldn't totally whoop my friends at smash brothers
           | back in the day. If you just barely win, you may win more
           | games, because newbies aren't discouraged.
        
         | chimen wrote:
         | It is, I play it on and off since 2006 [1] (don't laugh at that
         | username, was done as a joke by a friend to get me into the
         | game). You can do A LOT of things and pretty much NOTHING 80%
         | of the time. It really feels like a permanent grind/work type
         | of thing that's why I take such huge breaks from it.
         | 
         | The community is the real deal. It can be awesome or real
         | shitty, just like at work :)). It features great politics,
         | economy, social structures and everything above and beyond to
         | make it, for me, the best game I ever played.
         | 
         | 1: https://zkillboard.com/character/767478026/
        
         | thg wrote:
         | Don't bother. EVE used to be absolutely great (community-wise,
         | gameplay-wise the game always was more "lipstick on a
         | pig"-like), but these days it's just a shadow of what it once
         | was.
         | 
         | By continually dumbing the game down to "make it more
         | accessible", the constant lying by the devs and them going back
         | on their words and it more and more becoming a microtransaction
         | hellhole, CCP managed to destroy the one single thing that made
         | EVE successful: The community.
         | 
         | I greatly enjoyed the decade and a half I played it (beta until
         | 2018'ish), but truth be told, it's only ever been going
         | downhill pretty much since the Incarna expansion with 60$
         | monocles (2011).
         | 
         | CCP fucked their loyal player base over and over and over again
         | until most of us simply didn't want to take it anymore. The
         | playerbase these days mostly consists of bots and instant
         | gratification people expecting everything on a silver platter,
         | constantly whining if they don't get what they want, only to
         | inevitably leave again after 3-6 months even if they do get
         | what they want.
         | 
         | I remember my first decade in EVE with great fondness and made
         | some terrific friends there. Regarding the 5 years that
         | followed, I seriously regret not quitting sooner. I'm still
         | somewhat active in the EVE forums, though. After all, that's
         | where the real PvP happens. ;)
         | 
         | - A very bitter vet
        
         | alexashka wrote:
         | > Dropping everything in life for that one perfect game will
         | always be a temptation
         | 
         | Is it? How bad does your life have to be, that you'd settle for
         | a game instead?
         | 
         | I tried Eve a couple of years ago. I spent more time puzzling
         | out why anyone plays it, rather than actually playing it. You
         | have to do boring tasks, to get money, to do what? Oh, to get
         | to do more boring tasks, to get more money. Ok, but to do what?
         | Oh, to get to do more boring tasks, to get more money.
         | 
         | Hm... what am I missing? Oh, you get to run around stomping
         | random people once you have a lot of money. Oh, okay, so, you
         | get to be an asshole or do more boring tasks to get to be more
         | of an asshole? Yes.
         | 
         | Ok... that's extremely addictive and enticing for some people?
         | Yes. Wow... What fucking losers some people are. That's the
         | conclusion I came away with.
        
           | pawelmurias wrote:
           | People love agency and sense of progress through gathering
           | virtual points.
        
             | alexashka wrote:
             | That doesn't explain why anyone would choose Eve over
             | Tetris, or you know, gathering 'virtual points' in real
             | life pursuits.
        
         | DonHopkins wrote:
         | Three words: Dyson Sphere Program!
         | 
         | Trailer:
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6xHlPki-jE
         | 
         | Let's Play:
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0xTNF7fPJg
         | 
         | Dyson Sphere Program | Advanced Belt Tips and Tricks
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzsgBYplAHs
        
         | yourusername wrote:
         | The best thing about eve is reading the stories about the
         | politics and intrigue in the game that come out every few
         | years. Participating from a grunt level is more a 5 hour
         | standoff with a enemy fleet that refuses to fully commit or
         | running spreadsheets to see what commodity you need to haul
         | from where to where as a space trucker or where you need to set
         | up your manufacturing base and where you need to buy your
         | minerals.
        
           | _fat_santa wrote:
           | Another commenter put it best: "I've never had so much fun
           | just reading about a game while never having the desire to
           | actually play it".
           | 
           | EvE Online is a deeply interesting game, and I think it's a
           | testament to how long the game has been relevant. But while I
           | love reading about the economics, wars, scams (EvE allows
           | player scams in game), I could never see myself actually
           | playing the game. It would suck up far too much of my time
           | and money.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | causi wrote:
         | In my opinion it was until it became easy and "legal" to
         | exchange dollars for in-game currency via Plex Passes. It not
         | only creates the constant temptation to just buy your losses
         | back rather than playing but lets you assign a dollar value to
         | everything you do. I played for five years but I quit after I
         | calculated I was grinding for $1.72/hr.
         | 
         | EVE absolutely has the potential for incredible experiences but
         | that tainted the authenticity for me in a way I could never
         | shake off.
        
           | lupire wrote:
           | > I played for five years but I quit after I calculated I was
           | grinding for $1.72/hr.
           | 
           | It's weird how that made you feel _worse_ than grinding for
           | $0
        
             | mwigdahl wrote:
             | It's a well-known effect, first documented by the
             | _Freakonomics_ guys: https://freakonomics.com/2013/10/what-
             | makes-people-do-what-t...
        
             | mekkkkkk wrote:
             | It's not that weird. Before PLEX, it wasn't "grinding for
             | $0", but it was "grinding to get the Ishtar heavy assault
             | cruiser". Making the monetary value visible the way that
             | MTX does sort of kills the allure.
        
         | bart_spoon wrote:
         | The answer is highly variable and depends on what you want out
         | of a game. In my opinion, it is essentially the pinnacle of the
         | MMO genre, largely because the economy and content are all
         | player driven, which is what in my opinion makes it continually
         | relevant and fascinating while also very inaccessible to most
         | people. It is interesting and appealing to a large number of
         | people in the abstract, but of that group only a small number
         | will be able to get much enjoyment out of playing it.
         | 
         | I do wish we could get more games in a similar vein. I wonder
         | if there is an opportunity out there for an MMO that lives
         | somewhere in between the hardcore player driven sandbox of Eve
         | and the more common, mainstream theme-park MMOs like WoW, if
         | such a game is even possible.
        
         | gabereiser wrote:
         | I played it from launch until around 2010 or so.
         | 
         | Is it worth it? No. Is there a good alternative? No. EVE Online
         | always had an element of spreadsheets to it. It was designed
         | that way. The original game design was done inside excel.
         | 
         | Personally I find it fascinating that CCP didn't build their
         | own spreadsheet functionality into the game considering how
         | many players used spreadsheets to calculate mining yield
         | returns, industrial runs, research and BP copying. The only
         | area of EVE where spreadsheets go out the window is war.
         | 
         | I have probably 20,000 hours in the game. I lived on EVE from
         | 2003-2010 and then would log on every once in a while to get my
         | space fix.
         | 
         | The one thing I will say about the game, it inspired me to try
         | to create my own back in the day. It was too much work for me
         | but I did manage to get a demo of flying around from Star
         | system to star system using an EVE-Online like warp and scene
         | management.
         | 
         | The artwork of EVE is fantastic. The space environments are A+.
         | The actual gameplay though is a bit stale to todays gamers.
         | It's more a kin to old school rpg's where you target something
         | and let the auto attack do it's thing.
        
           | makach wrote:
           | hear hear.
           | 
           | In reality the game is more an economics simulator where war
           | is the instrument that engages with your numbers.
           | 
           | Stopped playing when the game became P2W, I miss it probably
           | the same way a nicotine addict miss the cigarette.
        
             | gabereiser wrote:
             | >I miss it probably the same way a nicotine addict miss the
             | cigarette.
             | 
             | I tried to describe what it's like to be so involved in a
             | game and then not. This analogy is perfect!
        
           | _fat_santa wrote:
           | So one thing I've always wondered about EVE. We all know
           | about the "corporations" in the game and they seem to be
           | ingrained in the culture of EVE. Were those "corporations"
           | started by the creators (like the Alliance and Horde in WoW),
           | or are they purely player created?
        
             | rkangel wrote:
             | Purely player created. They're basically guilds in other
             | games.
             | 
             | There are some built-in 'NPC Corporations' that you start
             | on, and default back to if you get kicked out of a Corp,
             | but they're basically just placeholders.
        
               | gabereiser wrote:
               | It's also important to acknowledge that these NPC
               | corporations have a high tax rate so there's a financial
               | incentive for players to leave these NPC corporations for
               | Player driven ones. Most player corporations have a lower
               | tax rate, less than 10% or matching if there's a war on.
               | Sometimes a corp will increase taxes to recoup war bonds
               | but it's only temporary.
        
             | mekkkkkk wrote:
             | There are both, but the NPC ones are largely holding
             | players that are very casual or new. Most of what you read
             | about are probably not corporations though, but alliances.
             | Alliances are groups of player owned corporations that work
             | together. The massive battles are mostly fought between
             | these.
             | 
             | What makes Eve interesting is that all star systems except
             | for those in the very middle of the map are controllable by
             | players, and actually provide value to those holding them.
             | So that's why you have these gigantic, drawn out conflicts
             | and large battles where player blocs with thousands of
             | players each are fighting for territory.
        
           | pmoriarty wrote:
           | _" Is there a good alternative? No."_
           | 
           | Check out _Astrox Imperium_. It 's been described as "Eve
           | Offline". It's made by just one developer, but it's really
           | impressive for that.
           | 
           | I've never played Eve myself, so I can't personally say how
           | they compare, but I enjoyed the hell out of _AI_.
           | 
           | (PS: I have no association with _AI_. I 'm just a very
           | satisfied fan.)
        
             | gabereiser wrote:
             | Unfortunately, there's no comparison. AI doesn't come close
             | to the breath of Eve. It's cool. It's a good game
             | especially for a solo-dev (very impressive!) but Eve Online
             | has so many avenues to gameplay.
        
               | LanceH wrote:
               | The terror of someone else showing up in a system you
               | thought was empty while you're carrying something super
               | valuable.
        
               | Arrath wrote:
               | I know I was practically useless in my stealth bomber,
               | but I had great fun futzing around deep in enemy space
               | scaring their miners and leading response teams on wild
               | goose chases.
        
               | splitstud wrote:
        
               | gabereiser wrote:
               | Eye on local, yes, especially in WH space... man oh man,
               | anxiety through the roof.
        
               | jesterman wrote:
               | Don't keep your eye on local in WH space, that won't
               | work! Eyes on DSCAN, I quit Eve almost a year ago, and
               | the key I used for DSCAN still doesn't work, I've pressed
               | it so many times.
        
               | chupasaurus wrote:
               | And there's Curse even for that.
        
               | gabereiser wrote:
               | shhhhh, the learning curve gods curse you for teaching
               | fresh meat what not to do instead of teaching them with
               | pew pew. The cruel harsh world of nullsec.
        
           | leokennis wrote:
           | > The only area of EVE where spreadsheets go out the window
           | is war.
           | 
           | That is very real-life-like then...
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escalation_of_commitment is a
           | very real issue in wars.
        
           | moritonal wrote:
           | The X4 series is a comparable (but weaker given the lack of
           | human element) single player alternative experience.
        
             | gabereiser wrote:
             | Correct. The multiplayer aspect of EVE is unmatched, even
             | to this day. X4 (really the series) is a good alternative
             | if you want a SP experience. The AI wasn't that good
             | though.
        
           | Jenk wrote:
           | > The only area of EVE where spreadsheets go out the window
           | is war.
           | 
           | Not if you include all of the ship setup calculations, POS
           | and Capitals efficiency, etc.
        
         | Dave3of5 wrote:
         | I have recently. It's OK not a brilliant game but good.
         | 
         | In terms of the spreadsheets in space that's only one aspect. I
         | bought a little package for PS5.99 which has skill boosts and
         | some plex. All in all that setup my FTP character to be able to
         | do whatever I want. So you can ignore this entirely and just
         | play the game the way you want tbh.
        
         | sepnax wrote:
         | I don't but I hear it's about the community and the drama that
         | the community generates, more than it is about the game itself.
        
         | ladyattis wrote:
         | Not really, eventually you either turn into a carebear (highsec
         | or nullsec aka nullbear) or you wind up pulling odd hours to
         | cover vulnerable systems until their invul status returns. And
         | the rare time you get into a huge fleet battle you're basically
         | pressing buttons when your fleet commander says so and there's
         | little to see since it'll be in time dilation if it's a sizable
         | fleet battle.
        
         | redrobein wrote:
         | A bit different but I've been spending a lot of time playing
         | Path of Exile recently. I would recommend ignoring any meta or
         | the economy and treat the game like a roguelike instead. The
         | shear amount of items/abilities/passives/mechanics make for
         | insane build diversity. Learning stuff and planning builds is
         | as satisfying as the gameplay. I spend about as much time
         | ingame as Path of Building (a build planner)[1].
         | 
         | Here's a short showcase showing what some of the mechanics are
         | like: https://youtu.be/S8vRgG9LrIg
         | 
         | [1] https://github.com/PathOfBuildingCommunity/PathOfBuilding
        
         | perihelions wrote:
         | Choose life!
        
         | trelliscoded wrote:
         | It's absolutely worth it for the people you'll meet playing the
         | game. I'm in Iceland right now for the annual player meeting
         | and it's been a blast. Many alliances have internal tools which
         | interface with the game and external crowdsourced market data,
         | and it's common knowledge that those tools are better than real
         | world logistics software, so working on them is a great way to
         | learn how to build relevant products.
        
           | hutzlibu wrote:
           | " and it's common knowledge that those tools are better than
           | real world logistics software"
           | 
           | I don't know if this is true, but it would tell a lot about
           | this world we are living in.
        
             | shaky-carrousel wrote:
             | It tells that the things you do for passion are nicer, and
             | better, than the things you do for money. Which makes
             | sense.
        
             | vsareto wrote:
             | >I don't know if this is true, but it would tell a lot
             | about this world we are living in.
             | 
             | The real world is generally a lot messier than EVE data,
             | but it's definitely true.
        
               | eve2853 wrote:
               | Is it?
               | 
               | EVE released an update today (as it does most Tuesdays,
               | and also often the next day or two in the week if there
               | are issues). Part of that update included significant
               | changes to a number of blueprints, which are the plans
               | needed to manufacture items in game. Blueprints come in
               | two varieties: originals and copies, and you can perform
               | various activities on them (manufacturing, research to
               | improve efficiency, copying of originals to make copies,
               | etc.). I wrote a tool which imports the game's Static
               | Data Export (SDE) and makes various calculations about
               | all of blueprints in the game (profitability, etc.), so I
               | ran it on the SDE from the new update. Each 'activity'
               | has a set of fields, like what it outputs, etc. But, the
               | 'copying' activity is hard-coded to output blueprint
               | copies. There is a field to say what it outputs (and that
               | field is sometimes present in the data), but the value is
               | always empty. Except today it was not always empty. A
               | relatively obscure blueprint for a Taipan (a kind of
               | upgraded rookie ship given away as a one-off in a past
               | special event) apparently had the information for its
               | 'manufacturing' activity listed as 'copying' instead. So
               | now it claims that if you copy an original, you get the
               | actual manufactured ship, and not a blueprint copy. This
               | broke my tool, because I had put in a check to see if
               | this field was ever non-empty, because if it was it might
               | mean the game had changed in a way that meant something
               | in my tool needed to be updated.
               | 
               | If you look at the information for the blueprint in game,
               | it still claims that the copying activity outputs a
               | blueprint copy. They hard-coded it, too. It now takes as
               | input all of the materials required to manufacture the
               | ship, though. In this case, there are no blueprint
               | originals for a Taipan (if there were you could make an
               | infinite supply of these one-off event items), and any
               | copies that might exist can no longer produce the ship,
               | because you cannot copy a copy. The only valid activites
               | for a copy are 'manufacturing' and 'invention', except a
               | Taipan blueprint no longer has a manufacturing activity
               | and never had an invention one. So I updated my check to
               | ignore this type, and moved on. Needless to say, this
               | change was unrelated to any of the actual announced
               | changes for the update, not mentioned in patch notes,
               | etc. Just another Tuesday in EVE.
               | 
               | [1] https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Taipan
        
             | sascha_sl wrote:
             | I think the most tangibly fun bit of tooling was a forum
             | plugin that generated a unique, slightly reworded version
             | of sensitive forum posts that, if screenshotted and shared
             | by a spy, could be traced back to the forum user.
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | adriand wrote:
             | I work in logistics right now and I can confirm, it's not
             | pretty.
        
               | klibertp wrote:
               | In around 2005 I had a pleasure of visiting a central
               | office of a shipment company, and could see their setup
               | for the whole country involved: 1. a hacked ISDN
               | connection "borrowed" from the neighbor one floor below;
               | 2. an entire shipment tracking done from a single Excel
               | file kept on a Windows shared drive and edited
               | simultaneously by different people. My respect for
               | whatever dark magic Excel did back then was instilled
               | deep into me, along with unending wonder about how didn't
               | it all blow up spectacularly yet.
        
             | TheaomBen wrote:
             | I actually got into software/systems engineering working on
             | internal software for "minor" player groups in EVE. The
             | level of integration[0] those orgs had 10+ years ago
             | outranks 80% of my current real-world clients in terms of
             | discoverability, documentation and depth.
             | 
             | I mean that's what you get from a bunch of eve-playing
             | nerds committing to a labor of love. Best projects I've
             | ever had.
             | 
             | [0] Real time updating mining & trading boards by location,
             | 100bn+ ISK inventory tracking down to the cent across
             | _many_ corps, characters, inventories  & contracts, ...
             | Killboard & market data feeds, risk evaluation, resource
             | allocation optimisers... Absolutely impeccable archives &
             | backups going back 5+ years, on top of postgres & flask
             | iirc.
             | 
             | edit: And audit logs EVERYWHERE. Seriously, I've seen
             | better CYA/KYC/chain of responsabilities from eve
             | recruitment corps than some actual for profit entities.
        
               | kizer wrote:
               | This is wild. I had no idea the game was like this. Now
               | I'm feeling inspired to finish that browser strategy game
               | I started a few years ago.
        
               | ethbr0 wrote:
               | Also, the combination of (mostly) player-run economy +
               | substantial no-consequence PvP zones + large player
               | organizations seems to attract a different sort of
               | person.
               | 
               | There are still your average gamers, but EVE had a much
               | more adept playerbase (in terms of real world skills)
               | than any other MMORPG I've played.
        
               | jesterman wrote:
               | As the saying goes: "When an Eve Player quits Eve and
               | moves to Wow, the average IQ of both games goes up".
               | Incredible game, took up far to much of my time.
        
         | zdkl wrote:
         | It was beautiful.
         | 
         | I played probably 8-10k hours across three characters and 8
         | years. So not _that_ much ;)
         | 
         | The world used to be much harder to get into, requiring a ton
         | of RW time, RW skill and grinding to really progress. Then each
         | seperate workflow (PvP, PvE, industry, extraction, scanning,
         | ...) became safer as well as easier to grok and master as a
         | single user.
         | 
         | Then there was somewhat of an eternal september amongst a
         | dwindling population as the old guard finished dropping out.
        
           | makach wrote:
           | if you ever want to try virtual heroin, this game would be
           | it.
           | 
           | fortunately CCP managed to ruin it with P2W so I was able to
           | stop my addiction.
           | 
           | it _was_ one of the best games out there ,imo.
        
         | zppln wrote:
         | I spent a summer or so playing Eve maybe 10 years ago. I
         | eventually joined EVE University to get a taste of the social
         | aspects. One of my most cherished gaming related memories is
         | still going with them into nullsec space for the first time and
         | the moment where our scouts reports that we've just run into
         | Test (which was like the biggest alliance back then?).
         | Obviously we got shot to shreds. :)
         | 
         | Haven't played the game since, but it is pretty damn comfy and
         | I'd recommend anyone to try it out.
        
       | dang wrote:
       | Recent and related:
       | 
       |  _Eve Online is getting Microsoft Excel support_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31293066 - May 2022 (103
       | comments)
        
       | smrtinsert wrote:
       | Was Google Sheets not viable for their purposes? This is a
       | hilarious title btw.
        
       | acutis_fan wrote:
       | Maybe I'll be able to do some excel interop spreadsheet syncing
       | for Eve Online now :)
        
       | bmitc wrote:
       | Eve Online is continually fascinating to me. People basically
       | have jobs playing that game. It's bewildering to me. I tried
       | playing Eve Online once. I think it took me quite a while to get
       | through the initial setup, and then I was just placed in space. I
       | had no idea what was going on, and then someone took me out.
        
         | carlosdp wrote:
         | Eve is an example of what the whole "play to earn" thing could
         | actually look like and not be micro-transaction fueled casino-
         | psychology games, imo!
         | 
         | There are people who basically do play full-time, running a
         | corporation or something, and even kinda roleplay a bit, and
         | some of the best leverage that into what resembles a salary by
         | doing Twitch shows or selling merch and such.
         | 
         | So in essence, the players are paying these people to
         | effectively become NPCs in the game to better their enjoyment
         | of it! And it's been going for 20 years now.
         | 
         | Eve Online is the prototype for the metaverse.
        
         | drexlspivey wrote:
         | Eve Online is the real Metaverse
        
         | teh_klev wrote:
         | Join a corp, that's where the fun lives.
        
           | lucisferre wrote:
           | If by fun you mean spreadsheets.
        
             | LanceH wrote:
             | Some of the spreadsheet guys just need bodies flying stuff
             | so they can spend more time on the spreadsheets.
             | 
             | During my peak Eve time around 10 years ago (I no longer
             | play), I had left spreadsheets behind and was using full on
             | databases to keep track of things and identify
             | opportunities in the market and manufacturing.
        
               | acrobatsunfish wrote:
               | Congrats for also winning Eve
        
           | eveplayer123 wrote:
           | I played Eve for a few years and had plenty of fun without a
           | corp, although I think it steepened the learning curve
           | because there were too many competing interests.
           | 
           | I landed on a number of fun activities that I enjoyed and
           | felt an adrenaline rush while doing solo, like stealing loot
           | from pvpers and, especially, gate campers, disguising myself
           | in a Venture and killing other miners, killing MTUs, and
           | hauling through dangerous places (especially Pochven).
           | 
           | Overall, I think the game became more fun for me solo when I
           | started putting myself into danger and hanging out around
           | pvpers. I had to get accustomed to dying in cheap,
           | replaceable frigates to get a sense of what was safe to fly
           | and not get angry and ragequit the game because of some loss.
           | 
           | I think corporations alleviate a lot of that by having
           | generous buyback programs and, often, free ships for members.
           | Definitely still possible to forego all of that if you're so
           | introverted you don't even want to join some corp's comms.
        
       | clownpenis_fart wrote:
        
       | epa wrote:
       | I think this just proves the value in analytics in all areas, not
       | just work but in sport, games, etc
        
       | Taylor_OD wrote:
       | Eve is the greatest game to read about that I have almost no
       | interest in ever playing. I'm glad it exists.
        
         | ehnto wrote:
         | I feel that, it sounds like such a grand adventure but I just
         | know there was thousands of hours sunk prior to each Big Event
         | that I could never bring myself to do.
        
         | kryptn wrote:
         | Eve Online is the best game I'll never play again.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | sitzkrieg wrote:
         | honestly as someone who played it for about 6 years at the peak
         | fun time to play it, its a lot more fun to read about than
         | actually play
        
           | Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
           | I love the _idea_ of the game. I love the mechanics of it,
           | such as permanent loss of your ship. It means there 's always
           | a demand for crafting. I also really like the hands-off
           | approach the devs/admins/etc take to what happens in game.
           | 
           | But...the gameplay is just boring as hell. This video sums it
           | up: https://youtu.be/4c6jafaiPh8?t=65
        
             | outworlder wrote:
             | > But...the gameplay is just boring as hell.
             | 
             | Depends on what you are doing. The first time you manage to
             | escape with your ship intact after an incursion in low
             | security or (specially) Null sec space, you get hooked. Or
             | when you do the same, but in wormhole space.
             | 
             | If you are doing missions or participating in alliance
             | shenanigans... yeah. Lots of mindless button pushing. At
             | that point, trading in the market is more fun.
        
             | sitzkrieg wrote:
             | the modern counter to this would be juicy targets
             | (freighters, starter ships full of plex etc) afk/unaware in
             | 1.0 getting popped by jihad destroyer fleets. but it was a
             | good meme people who didnt explore what the game offered
             | liked to perpetuate
        
             | HPsquared wrote:
             | It's a stressful game, some enjoy the stress. Now that I'm
             | employed, not so much.
        
               | Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
               | If you stick to 1.0-sec space, it's not stressful at all.
               | But instead, it's boring because there's next to zero
               | risk, and also no reward. You can mine low-value ores
               | while AFK, or go ratting and have boringly easy
               | encounters.
        
               | outworlder wrote:
               | > there's next to zero risk
               | 
               | It's never zero, though. Which is a far better situation
               | compared to many MMO games where they really have zero
               | risk areas (or the whole game is zero risk).
        
               | notreallyserio wrote:
               | Other than Jita I agree. Don't try to move too much money
               | through Jita or bot accounts will pod ya with no
               | (effective) repercussions.
               | 
               | Or if not pod you at least destroy your ship and steal
               | all your stuff.
        
               | waynesonfire wrote:
               | It can be. The beauty of Eve is you get to decide how to
               | play the game, how much stress you want to take. You
               | don't have to do it the way other one is. It's completely
               | fine to mine in a Venture. The game is a fractal at every
               | level of game play, the risks and rewards simply go up as
               | you advance in the game and develop more ambitious
               | personal goals.
               | 
               | You can decide what level to play at and grow as you
               | like, as you get better.
               | 
               | It's with this approach that I'll probably always return
               | to Eve, play it for a bit, stop and repeat.
        
           | antihero wrote:
           | Honestly for me it was the emergent meta gaming that made it
           | for me. Sitting on a gate at 4AM with someone (tolon) playing
           | guitar over TeamSpeak and getting drunk af and despite having
           | sixth form the next day.
           | 
           | Sneaking into another halls at uni to cover a BoB guy's door
           | with bees I'd cut out and printed (we became friends over
           | this!)
        
             | slowmovintarget wrote:
             | The most fun I ever had in the game was alliance roams. 15
             | to 20 of us on voice chat, coordinating engagements.
             | 
             | Also fun:
             | 
             | - Running training exercises for new players. We'd train
             | them how to fly in formation, how to align ships, how to
             | scan. The final training exercise for the corp was a "Snipe
             | Hunt" where I was the snipe. They had to catch me, but if
             | they managed, they were allowed to blow up my ship.
             | 
             | - Hauling for a mining gang. Fifteen people in mining
             | barges and me in a large transport moving rocks back to our
             | Player-Owned Station. Posting nonsense and memes in chat,
             | while having the craziest discussions. Every once in a
             | while, we'd get jumped by raiders and call in the cavalry.
             | 
             | At least three of the corps I was part of got flipped and
             | shredded from the inside. Players worked to earn trust,
             | become officers in the corp, gain security clearances, only
             | to steal everything. They had fun, I guess.
             | 
             | But the time investment became way too heavy to keep
             | playing once I became a father.
        
             | sitzkrieg wrote:
             | i indeed flew with dbrb and had many gate drinking nights.
             | but i realized the game was irrelevant at some point
        
         | kixiQu wrote:
         | Also describes how I feel about Dwarf Fortress.
        
           | Semaphor wrote:
           | In my case I like reading about Eve gameplay, but I actually
           | want to play DF ;)
        
           | Taylor_OD wrote:
           | See I've actually enjoyed DF a bit. I've just never had a
           | game go off without some major bug that caused issues. Last
           | time I was pretty invested and a bug cost me ~10 hours of
           | progress. Havnt picked DF up since.
        
         | throwaway894345 wrote:
         | I think I only want to play it for the opportunity to play
         | around with automating things.
        
         | phreack wrote:
         | I find it hilarious that every time Eve comes up, a comment
         | exactly like this is always around the top. It should be
         | codified into an Internet law.
        
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