Imagine a game like no other, an MMO so full of player interaction that its economy could be measured by real-world analysts. Imagine a universe laden with political intrigue, espionage and wars encompassing over a quarter of a million players all on the same server. Take yourself out of the mindset of a single avatar in a game world and put yourself behind the controls of a spaceship capable of doing practically anything you see fit. Take a step back, re-think how an MMO is traditionally played and delve into the world of New Eden. Delve into the world of EVE Online.

To fully understand EVE can be quite an undertaking. On the surface, the game looks a bit like a third-person science fiction game of some kind, but it is so much more than that. The game is more of a real life simulation in some ways and, because of the gameplay mechanics, it is able to give the player nearly limitless options for living out that simulation. The foundation of all of this comes from roots similar to that of every other massively online game: character creation. New Eden, the name of the actual universe within EVE, is comprised of four different races: Caldari, Gallente, Minmatar and Amarr. Each of them represent a different faction of the human race within this new universe and, as with every game, each has their own background story. The good news is that the racial backgrounds are not just fluff, they are solid enough to provide a foundation for even the most seasoned of role-players to work with. When it comes down to actual gameplay value, picking any one of the four races is just as viable as the next. Every character, regardless of race, is open to the same possibilities as every other character in the game.

Racial decisions aside, the next major step in the character creation process is to move on to the skills section. Skills are the meat and potatoes of EVE and, without them, the game would not have worked nearly as well as it has thus far. As you walk through the creation process it will give you some options as to which direction you want to head with your character. If you want to fight, you go that route, if you want to trade, you go that route, and so on and so forth. Each set of options leads down a path that slowly assigns skills to your character. These will form the foundation for what you will do later in life, but, once again, will not define what your entire career in-game will turn out to be. This process is merely a stepping stone and they are to be taken as a method of getting your feet wet with the game’s skill system. Once you have chosen your paths, you assign your attributes. Attributes work differently than they do in other games and should be paid attention to more closely than other games as well. Advancing skills in the game is based off of their corresponding attributes. If I want to increase Gunnery by a point, it comes from my Perception and Willpower scores. If I want to increase my Science by a point, it uses my Intelligence and Memory. Charisma is pretty self-explanatory and refers to skills involving more social aspects of the game: Social, Leadership, Trade and the like.

For the sake of time, I will omit the section on the tutorial as it has changed drastically since its inception several years ago. Once your character has been made and you enter the game world, Aura, your in-flight assistant, will guide you through the rest of the general gameplay mechanics. As a note, though, I highly recommend that any player give the tutorial a full play-through. The information it gives is truly invaluable. It will introduce you into the wide world around you and, beyond that, it will start some of the storyline missions that will help link you to agents for goodies later on in the game.

After completing the tutorial and working your way through some of the basics of the game, you are now handed the reigns and given the opportunity to do practically whatever you want. Gameplay is left entirely up to the player at this point and, with this, I wish to highlight one of EVE’s best features: freedom of choice. The sheer number of possible career paths within this game universe is astounding. Many people tend to want to focus on combat since that always sounds like it would be the most exciting part of the game. Combat is far too vague, though. How about a Tech II Minmatar-focused, shield tanking, artillery specialist? Or maybe the Gallente-focused, armor tanking, passive reconnaissance tackler? Also consider your motives for fighting. Do you want to be a pirate that preys on miners and traders or do you want to be the savior of those in need? Perhaps combat doesn’t fit your style of play. Maybe you would rather build things so that you can profiteer off of those pesky adrenaline-junkie pilots. Alright, well pick a race to focus on, snatch some blueprints up from the market, rent a manufacturing slot and start building anything from ammunition and small modules on up to massive battleships and space station components.

Aside from the traditional roles one can fill out in the game, there are the other roles that are not normally found in MMOs. There are no guilds in EVE, but there are corporations and those corporations can be members of alliances. These alliances can control vast amounts of space and, because of the amount of political turmoil associated with holding space, many positions within an alliance’s ranks become available. Corporations need members for politics and other diplomatic relations, handling forum and website issues, conducting recruitment and even managing the finances. You can actually be a CFO (chief financial officer) in this game. Another viable option is to become a spy and actually infiltrate the ranks of an enemy corporation or alliance. The options for job possibilities within the game are only limited by the imagination of those who play it.

Regardless of what role you choose, the game is still focused around ship combat and so there are quite a few avenues with which you can follow. The four weapon groups of consistent of hybrid, lasers, ballistic and missiles. Each of the game’s races tend to pick favorites here and give bonuses to those weapon groups. Caldari favor missiles and hybrid weapons, Gallente favor hybrid weapons, Amarr favor lasers, and Minmatar favor the ballistic weapons. Picking a race to focus your skills on usually entails focusing on the correlating weapon groups as well so that you do not end up becoming spread too thin. With any direction you choose, actual combat plays out the same and it involves quite a few factors to keep in mind. Your velocity, the enemy’s velocity, your own skill, your enemy’s skill, your enemy’s shields and/or armor, your range and your ammunition type all come together to form the actual amount of damage you deal. You move in with your ship, select a target, navigate towards it and, once you are within range, one fire by activating all weapon modules. Battle starts the beginning of a dance that goes back and forth as you and your enemy exchange punches, repair portions of your ship, and navigate skillfully to create the most difficult target to hit.

Combat is, once again, just the beginning, though. There are many ways to actually pursue a combative lifestyle. I touched on piracy and anti-piracy earlier, but these are only two specific lifestyles. Running missions, defending miners in your own space, freely attacking people in lawless space, launching wars on a small (or large) scale and a thousand other ways to generally pick a fight. People have even been known to load up their ships with smart bombs and literally suicide into other ships, it really does get downright creative when it comes to people finding ways to kill each other. There are corporations with different goals for combat and, depending on your combat role, you may choose to go for a smaller or larger corporation. Some focus on piracy, some focus on mindless killing, some act as the defensive arm of an industrial-focused alliance, some even declare war on their opponents so that they may freely kill them anywhere in the world.

Overall, though, EVE Online is a world that tinkers with the imagination. Being able to do anything to accomplish your goals (even meta-gaming!) is quite an enticing offer for anyone. Scamming players, stealing in-game money (while in character), robbing people of their possessions through piracy, sacking player owned stations, all are viable options for turning a profit in New Eden. The game is entirely skill-based and, because of this, your character can head in any direction you see fit. Deciding to change from one role to another is as simple as training a new skill and working towards that new goal. With over a quarter of a million people playing, there is always something going on and, thanks to a wonderful development team, new content is being added on a regular basis all at no cost. Now has never been a better time to check out this wonderful game and all of its possibilities so I suggest you run over to download a free trial for yourself!