Corps are about as real as most of the organized guilds in other MMO's. While in other games, it may be organized to accomplish raids/quests/<whatever it is you do in that game>, that's not far removed from whatever it is the corporation/player in EvE has decided to do. Equate the red dragon and his dungeon with the corp/alliance that owns the space next door. (I'm a Titan Slayer!) Or for the highsec player, the missions/asteroids/trade-routes/etc. that they choose to make their goals.
That's a really good point. I guess there is something of a comparison between the Guilds and Corps.
When you get right down to it, the single truly distinguishing aspect of EvE Online is the single shard gameplay. Given how successful this has been for CCP, I am really surprised that there has yet to be a fantasy MMORPG that has copied this distinction. I wonder why that is? Is it significantly more expensive to run a single shard game? Is it more difficult? Probably yes to both those questions, but CCP has managed to survive doing so, so why not another company? Especially one with deep pockets like Blizzard?
Or could it be something else?
Perhaps making a land-based fantasy game on a single shard is just too difficult? In space, you have infinite room to add new star systems (wormholes, etc) to accommodate new players on a single shard. With a land-based game, I imagine that is far more difficult. Land has terrain that needs to be make sense - such as hills leading to mountains; you can't just plop a mountain range anywhere. Streams need to flow downhill to the sea, and not vice versa. So any single shard, land based game would probably have real trouble expanding in a sensible way to accommodate an increasing player pop. Or am I overstating the difficulties?
If you want to get the memo regarding science fiction, check out
Atomic Rockets. Railguns in particular firing "instantaneously" over 200km would still pack a significant quantity of kinetic energy. Not to mention the whole conservation of energy law, meaning you have to put at least as many joules of energy into shooting the projectile, as it has going at whatever speed it impacts the target. (Actually it's very likely to be significantly more energy to shoot it, since you're going to lose energy along the way to other things, and have a pile of heat to deal with.)I'm not complaining, I think it's implementation of player economies is far better than the other MMO's I've played, and I appreciate the sandbox nature of gameplay. But it's Sci-Fi with out the science. In other words, there is as much fantasy in EvE as there is in any other MMO.
That was a really good website.
Thanks for the link.
But when I talk about "realism" I am not referring to science fact. Truth be told, for me, a game (or movie/book/etc.) slavishly devoted to scientific realism can be just as much of a bore as a game that operates on a cartoonish level. No, when I refer to "realism", I am referring to the so-called "human element".
EvE is the only MMO that has ever earned any money from me. While I have tried a bunch of other MMOs, I never subscribed because they all felt...perhaps "superficial" is the best term here. In other words, I never was immersed in the gameplay because the gameplay always felt divorced from reality. I never cared for any of my characters because I just could not relate to needing to kill an orc, or retrieve 10 direwolf pelts, or what-have-you.
EvE is fundamentally different because - in the best tradition of science fiction - it mimics the real world with its gameplay. So, instead of needing to slay a dragon, my characters are usually more concerned with making enough money to pay for my insurance, or studying navigation so I can earn a core competency certificate and apply for a job with a corp. And, of course, the single shard adds even more realism via the resultant emergent gameplay, such as a market based on corp performance, sov wars, and being able to interact at multiple levels (political, legal, etc.) with every other player in the game without worrying about what server they are on. Even the fact that there is no true "endgame" to EvE adds to the realism. In EvE, like life, it is not about beating an unber-bad guy, but about taking it one day at a time, hopefully becoming a bit richer and wiser.
When you take these elements and multiply them by the 400K player-base, you get a vibrant, living game world unmatched by any other MMO out there. Only in EvE can you have true, unscripted corporate espionage, wars of conquest, ponzi schemes, and general nefarious doings that make the world seem so real and limitless.
