Eve Online

I was interested in Dust for some time, but haven't checked it out in a while.

EVE always seemed like a potentially awesome game, but only for the stories that come out of it. The gameplay just doesn't seem like something that fun.
Even though I can't afford a subscription-based game anyway, I'd appreciate it if you'd try to sell me on it. What's so good about it? Where do you get the most enjoyment? What do you not like about it?

I started out years back with the likes of Battle Field 1 on the PC moving to PS3 around 2007. Since then loading my shelve with the ongoing series of the likes of: Ratchet and Clank, Uncharted, Resistance, InFamous, Killzone, CoD, Deus Ex, Bioshock, Battlefield, Borderlands, Rage, Brink, Crysis, Dead Space etc.  Multiply that list by about 3 and then several of them by 60 (I have a shelve full of a lot of bucks worth of ps3 games).

And yet my last purchases (latest Bioshock and Dead Space) were enjoyable, but it’s a repeating cycle of; immersion in the game, max as many trophies as I can, move to next game. I was never very successful with the various “twitch shooter” types of online play, always getting my butt handed to me, I would lose interest quickly and move on.

I remember my first introduction to M.A.G. and the level of its complexity, with the challenge of a high learning curve but showing the promise of a long running game with a dedicated community. I was somewhat more successful with the online play of this game.

The level of complexity of Dust-514 dwarfed M.A.G., and I really got my butt handed to me early on, and yet after leveraging the complexity of the game, found myself in the top 5 of each games leader boards most of the time. Something I’d never been able to do in all of the FPS online games I own.

Then I’m introduced to EVE which totally dwarfs the complexity of Dust-514. However Dust-514’s concepts are based on EVE and so I have a leg-up on some of the learning curve (knowing what to go after first).

Dust and Eve are NOT instant gratification games. EVE has been around longer than WoW with some players still active for 10 years now and most you see online having many years of experience with the game. The facts are that the frustration levels of the complexity of this game (along with the grieving/meta game mentality) will constantly drive one to near “rage quitting” time after time.

These are both games that require out of game tools with hours of out of game study and calculation to be able to be successful in the game. This is especially so with EVE. If you hate numbers, spreadsheets, complex helper tools, many levels of variables etc. you will hate this game. One can spend hours researching, calculating, skilling for, saving up for, purchasing (or building), and gathering the hundreds of variables associated with a given ship. With the anxiety of all your work being “suicide ganked” at any given moment.

And yet CCP (authors) somehow maintain the Perfect Imbalance - worth watching this at various levels (novice, amateur, expert) always bringing new challenge to all levels, and yet allowing the novice to mingle and find success among the amateurs and experts.

So what are some of the things that will likely grab (addict you) first? To name a few categories (there are 10’s if not 100’s of aspects/items to each of these groups)

The career paths
The Ships
The Weapons
The Ammo Types
The Modules
The Rigs
The skill tree
The boosters

And a ton of miscellanea, none of which is of trivial concern; Factions, Alliances, Corporations, Standings, various levels of danger/reward (high security space, low security space, no security space, wormholes etc.) various types of war, Free Market System, player manufacturing, player owned structures, it goes on and on.

All of these inter-relate, with both offensive and defensive strategies, as well as grieving and other heavy meta-gaming strategies that offset each other.

I kind of started this game for something to do while awaiting the ability to get a PS4 in my hands (and start anew filling that shelf with a new row of PS4 series triple A titles).

I may bore of this game at some point, could rage quit most any time, but for now, I have no interest/rush for a PS4 and can see that this game is going to hold my attention for some time to come. I hope it’s for the next 10 years, as that would be much cheaper than my shelf of PS3 games.

Note that if one can make about 600 million ISK (in game money) per month, that character can play for free. Many do.

Not sure If I did your question any justice … but there is a start.

edit, link did not seem to be working