Posted on 07/29/2013 6:21:09 AM PDT by 1rudeboy
One of the largest video game space battles ever seen has taken place in the Eve Online game.
For five hours on 28 July about 4,000 players took part in the epic battle between two of the game's biggest alliances.
The two sides were fighting for control of resources within several of the game's solar systems.
Time was slowed down in the virtual universe to help servers cope with the huge numbers of players and ships.
The battle pitted spaceships belonging to CFC against those from the Test Alliance in a region of space known as 6VDT. It ended in victory for CFC.
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By the end of the conflict thousands of ships are believed to have been destroyed.
Their destruction has a real-world cost as the game's internal currency can be bought with real money.
So far no-one has worked out the total value of the ships destroyed, but a far smaller battle earlier in 2013 laid waste to far fewer spacecraft that in total were estimated to be worth more than $15,000 (£10,000).
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
Actually it is a really amazing feature. They implemented it a couple years ago when lag was hurting big battles. The servers intelligently dilate time as the number of players in a system ramps up. So that location in the virtual world starts moving at a deliberately slower time than everywhere else. The game stays smooth and the battle is still playable.
I use to play off and on a fair bit. Did dual account high sec mining and a lot of complexes.
I bailed when I could so the math and realized one good screw up where I lose a BS and by out days of my life. That was immersion breaking. I don’t want to put myself in a place where an infantile moron is able to retroactively invalidate hours of my life. I am not an adrenalin addict so when my corp moved to low sec I eventually bailed.
Then, I sit in a station and chat with people on the other side of the world, sometimes soldiers in Afghanistan.
The lowsec/nullsec thing I find really appealing, but I can't do it because the dog wants to go outside, the phone rings, etc.
Can't post due to copyright.
Is this the game where a guy turned a meteorite into a vacation resort and sold it for major real cash?
I really didn't worry too much about it, because making ISK wasn't difficult for me. Copying blueprints was the equivalent of printing money. I also had a number of research agents churning out expensive datacores. It was very low effort.
After I got my standing high enough, I rarely did missions on my own. But, I enjoyed teaming with a few friends. I'd let them have the mission rewards, and I'd pick up the valuable salvage from my wrecks and leave the rest. I'd use a heavily-tanked Dominix and get up close and personal, or pick them off from 100 km away in a Sniperthron. After a while, I didn't even bother with salvage and used an assault frigate. That was probably the most fun.
I made a fortune by buying new BPOs when they were first issued, and having everything I needed to build the first few versions of a ship as soon as possible. I'd sell them to early adopters that were willing to pay a large amount of ISK for the first ones. It only backfired on me once, with the new T3 ships that required successful invention. The market collapsed before I could sell my 2nd and 3rd ones, because people were not accounting for the implicit cost of a datacore.
Shortly before I left the game, I bought a small carrier and outfitted it with fighters. I even started and trained an alt for the express purpose of providing my own cyno field. I was discussing a venture into low-sec with some established corps, but then I lost interest.
Doesn't stop people from trying, though.
Main thing is, they keep it fun and interesting. As I see it, the full EVE experience is above all a thinking man's game. No slight on you ladies - I know that there's small but dedicated contingent of female players.
The EVE environment rewards patience, imagination and enterprise - qualities in short supply amongst many of the younger attention span-challenged players. I'm been in only since the beginning of June of this year, and I'm having a blast. Still learning the fine art of frigate, destroyer and cruiser survival.
For those who aren't familiar with the EVE universe: it's a sandbox. There is no endgame, no 'boss battles' no leveling up and no game saves. You can find a relatively safe place to 'park' when you log off, but that's as close to a 'save' as you're going to get. All of the choices you make matter. Nothing's on rails. You're basically free to do as you like, as long as you're willing to take the consequences. You can see the appeal.
EVE isn't 'fair' - not in any way, shape or form. The developers are mostly hands off and allow a wide variety of behaviors. There are areas among the 7500 fully explorable systems that are safer than others (hisec)- where a wanton attack on you by another player is essentially suicide for the attacker (and yes, there are those who exploit that). There are ares where the risk is greater (lowsec). Then there are areas where you are completely on your own (nullsec). But no area is completely safe.
I've had a mining barge suicide ganked in my home system by some one who had a grudge against a couple of our guys. I've had my face melted off in lowsec space because I got careless. The amazing thing is, most of the time, you can contact your opponent after the event and they'll usually help you out with advice.
We've had our corp wardec'ed - that is, war declared against us by another corp. Senior leadership eventually settled the issue, but not before I got blown up as a legitimate war target. And after that, the corp that wardec'ed us offered to help us out with anyone else we thought might need some attention. Amazingly complex dynamics in this game.
Add to that the fact that the game itself is absolutely gorgeous and has an epic soundtrack.
If anyone wants to try it out for free for 21 days, clicky this link. I guarantee that you'll have your mind blown.
You can buy ETC's (Eve Time Code) from CCP with real cash, and then sell them for ISK (the in-game currency). CCP limits how many ETC's you can buy with cash in a 24 hour period.
Players can buy the ETC's with ISK, and play the game for "free", i.e. using ISK you have accumulated in game, through whatever effort you expended.
However, there are still ways to buy and sell ISK on the black market. And there are lots of "macro miners" that do nothing but mine with automated scripts and sell the ore for ISK to sell for cash. These are generally believed to Chinese operations. One of the best YouTube videos of Eve I have seen is a guy mounting a sneak attack on a macro-mining operation.
Maybe it was a different vast online space game, but I remember someone doing that.
It was a game called ENTROPIA
sorry
LOL. That’s pretty funny. Glad I never got sucked into one of those.
Hah! You noob. I have 101+ million skillpoints, and have never flown a battleship. It should be embarrassing, I know, but I'm having too much fun regardless.
Have you heard of Eve University? I'm not affiliated with it (I went to a small, private school), but I've heard great things.
If lots of explosions are your thing Agony Unleashed runs a PvP school (also am not affiliated, but also highly recommended).
bookmark
I know a couple. But I think the Hellcats disbanded (all-female lowsec pirate corp).
They had the funniest comment on their website (at least I found it funny). Something along the lines of: “remember, you got beaten by a girl.” LOL
The fact that it was posted by someone from the UK was the icing.
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