EVE Online and the Power of Personal Influence

EVE Online and the Power of Personal Influence By Stephen Marshall Stephen received a B.A. in English and plans to continue shoving lots of information into his brain, officially and otherwise. His hobbies and activities include, but are not categorically limited to: writing, reading, video games, exercise, learning, racing, and stuff. Favorite novels of his include A Picture of Dorian Gray, Childhood’s End, and Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship. His favorite MMO is EVE Online. He lives in Overland Park, Kansas, and can be contacted at smarshall212@gmail.com.

When I first played EVE Online, I (reasonably) did not trust the praise my comrades gave to the game. A two hour tutorial? What in the name of gratuitous interstellar explosions could justify such a thing? There are spaceships, sure, and that sort of thing can get complicated, I'm told, but two hours? Can't I watch a movie and then learn it on the fly? Can't I just substitute my ignorance by making pew pew noises over the microphone? My comrades would have none of this. Two hours later, I realized that the tutorial was actually worthwhile. A month later, I realized I was playing a game unlike almost any other MMORPG.

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As it turns out, EVE Online is complicated. There is no moral certitude. You do not fight as a good guy or a bad guy. You do not grind for skills. There are hundreds upon hundreds of ships, and you can eventually train to fly them all. The starting classes and their favors have, at best, only a subtle importance. And to top this dreary deep-space realism off, there is no main storyline. Unlike the usual creed followed by just about every other MMORPG, there is no grand conclusion to your actions. And as soon as you learn all this, you are released like a salmon into the sea, with little more than your wits and a ship that looks like it was designed to plug the exhaust ports for larger ships. The feeling is not quite one of elation.

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But it's close. It's ever so close. What EVE Online gives you, and what almost every other MMORPG fails to give you, is freedom. Sure, you're playing a video game.  Sure, there are limits to the goofy little ship you control. But when you are released, the realization becomes apparent - this is truly an RPG, an RPG in the vein of a tabletop RPG. You want to be a mercenary, a CEO, a pirate? Work at it, and with a bit of luck, you can rise to the cream. Others will inevitably try to thwart you. But that's the point - you really play a role, a character, not some bland archetype that fits rigorously under qualities like Chaotic-Neutral or Lawful-Evil (though you may certainly try that if you wish). And a story? In a world like this, the stories make themselves. Take, for instance, the infamous example of the GHSC infiltration. A small group of people, agents under contract, infiltrated a corporation and gained their complete trust over the course of a real-life year. After this time, the spies proceeded to assassinate the CEO and steal or destroy all the assets of the company. Assets which on Ebay or other selling sites could net upwards of $16,500. No, in EVE Online, you don't wait for the carrot on a stick by some benevolent game designer, the gentle and predictable nuzzle of receiving the next best item or new unlockable trait. The drama of EVE is a glorious slosh of user-created, self-perpetuating madness. And it is terribly fun.

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True to anything, though, this is not for everyone. Some play the MMORPG to escape reality - EVE Online could very well seem like a cruel and frenetic extrapolation of reality, pasted judiciously into a sci-fi universe. And despite the sense of bewildering freedom, it has its problems. The little errands for credit can become just as boring as the ones performed in reality. For the informational value of the tutorial, it is a little slower than would be necessary.

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