doing a bit of treadomancy, rise, RISE I COMMAND THEE
i do play eve online. its a great game.
the game itself is free, and you have a 15 day free trial. all the expantions are free as well, so all you ever pay is the monthly fee, and once you have a good enough income source, even that can be paid for with ingame currency, meaning a fully free MMO
there are no levels in the game, you select a skill (laser turrets for example) and the skills are trained in real time, even if you are not logged, and since there is a limit of 5 ranks in each skill, that means that older players dont have that much of a advantage (it can take like 4 days to train a skill to lvl4 and takes 15 days to get it from 4 to 5)
there is also a npc police force is several systems that will destroy any ship comiting a crime (such as destroying a ship without provocation)
now the game its not for everyone, it has a rather steep learning curve and you need patience for it. there is little in the way of instant gratification in it (good things come to those who wait). you canīt just go out, kill 50 giant rats, go up 3 levels, buy a shiny armour and become king of the hill.
also there are no re-spawns, so if your ship gets destroyed, it stays destroyed, hence a advice as old as the game itself "dont fly what you cant aford to loose"
@Beldar: your points are perfectly valid, but its also a matter of prespective.
traveling is slow yes, but you are flying a spaceship using stargates to propel you from one star system to another, not teleporting around, and there are ships that can jump straight from system to system.
also the term dogfights dont really apply here, you are flying frigates, cruisers, battleships, carriers, not fighters. in eve you are admiral ackbar not luke skywalker, and as the captain of a ship 500m long, you choose a target and tell the crew to fire the guns at it, you dont go pull the trigger yourself.
its also normal that the best ship with the more skilled player tends to win, after all if you take a lvl 4 wow char and go tangle with a lvl 60 char, dont tell me you expect to win the fight. but there are ways to turn that around, just need to play smart.
i agree with your comment on pirates, but the existance of the npc police (concord) means they are restricted to systems without concord presence, thus are relativily easy to avoid, you just need to be careful
to end, my advice is to try the game, and dont give up after 2 days, i have been playing eve for nearly 2 years and i have not seen or done everything there is to see and do. just imagine elite 2 : frontier in mmo style
