Eve Online: Incursion Detected Derelik Region (large screenshots)
 

http://i.imgur.com/O98pW.jpg
Alliance forces are massing on gates to prepare to defeat the Sansha invaders. ETA to engagement 10 minutes.

http://i.imgur.com/HGh2l.jpg
Engagement started.

Looks nerdy

Is this... a thing?

Eve online. It's a pretty fun space based mmo. The economy is 99.9% run by players. The other .1% are skill books sold at certain stations,. The screenshots are from the equivalent of a 10 man wow raid.

You can choose your own path in the game. You aren't limited by race or factions. Some people are pirates who attack and ransom peoples ships, others are traders.

The universe is HUGE with multiple systems designated by a security status. In .5-1.0 you are pretty safe. Any aggression will immediately trigger Concord Police response. They drain the aggressor's 'mana' and basically one shot them. There is low security which is .1-.4. This is where all the pirates are as they are kill on sight in any high sec areas. You are protected when around stations or stargates, but are SOL if you get attacked anywhere else. Null security space ranges from 0.0 to -1.0. Player Corporations (Guilds) can control huge patches of this space, putting up their own stations and home bases.

The game has a rather steep learning curve but once you get the basics down it's downright addicting.

This is the main problem I have with it. I also dislike the skill system.

I honestly love complex games. Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine Online has a lot of complexity, and it sounds like you'd hate it, for that alone, K_A.

EvE is more than you can handle, Skurai. At least it is if you were to take it seriously at all. Fans have put together an 800 page reference guide, in case you doubt me, and there are still things that haven't been figured out with complete certainty by the players.

While that does sound intense as fuck, it really doesn't sound much harder than Imagine...
Is there a monthly bill, or is it complete FTP? Do I need to buy "premium" or some gay shit, like most "free" MMOs?
If it's completely FTP, I'll do it.

EVE is on a different level regarding complexity.

Are we seriously talking Rocket Science Level video games, here?

There is a monthly fee, though you can pay with in game currency, if you can afford the market rate (around 400,000,000 ISK, last I checked). In this case, someone else paid real money for the time, and you're buying the token from them. You can get the first 20 days free with a guest pass, or 14 without, IIRC.

EvE is a simulation. The economy is not broken. Actions have consequences. The best way to outfit a ship depends not only on its role, but on your skills which effect the usefulness of different modules (rather than just whether you can use them) and also how much you can afford to lose. You don't fly what you can't afford to lose; you always eventually lose it if you fly it.

Of course, all the money in the world won't help you if you don't know what you're doing. Sooooo many lol noobs get pwned doing stupid things in ships they bought by selling game time for ISK. There is no "I win" button in this game (though admitedly, super capital ships come close), nor some magic formula for success chiseled in stone. It's a game that you succeed in based on the experience and knowledge of you and those you are with.

In short, way more then the mind of Skurai could ever even begin to comprehend.

You're aware that I only act dumb to be annoying, right? :o

Anyways. I mean. It sounds good and all, but the monthly fee sounds pretty lame. And if the only way to get good is based on experience, then, I mean, I'll need more than 20 days... so maybe later.

The skills you train just train automatically after a given amount of time, and eventually the time it takes to get to the next level of a skill becomes pretty absurd. It seemed to me like you would need to keep an account active just for the sake of training skills, and playing the game would probably become a secondary feature.

It would take some 18 years to max out every skill in the game with max implants that give bonuses to training times. You do not need level 5 skills to be effective in the game.

Monthly fee >> pay 2 win
And when we're talking about a single shard universe with 30,000 concurrent users, it's not cheap to maintain, so no, it's not a false dichotomy.

Indeed. Still, training (at least a large part of) one subset of skills (e.g. Gunnery) to level 5 is a good way to make things less painful. That is, at least if your intentions are to make enough money to buy one PLEX per month as a by-product of having fun.

I said nothing about pay 2 win.
Holy fucknuggets, it's like none of you have ever touched Imagine before.

I just explained why there are only two plausible possibilities.