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On the surface you will see a space MMORPG, ships, weapons, stars, planets, asteroids and lots of things going €boom€. But you will get multitudes of seemingly different answers after you get past the surface.
Answers to what is Eve online will vary as much as there are players in the game. It is a sandbox, with no rules and just a few boundaries. Who you are and what you do determines what Eve is for you.
Eve is about spaceships and space. You will create a character and start in a space station where you will receive a beginners ship. After that, it is all up to you where to go and what to do. There are training missions and career mission chains but you are not forced to do any of them.
One new player named Wolf's Dragoon put it this way;
€I sat at my console. I raced a car, but coders had chosen my tires. I shot a gun and ran, it didn't weigh me down. I unfolded a story already writ, picking discussion like cards from a trickster's hand.
I sat at my PC, logged my MMO. I incremented levels, but I ran out. We danced end-game, all choreographed fights - deviation meant loss. I play video games like rats runs the maze: 2 walls and one sense of Forward.
I joined Eve, and Space opened wide...... No levels, no script..... I choose my ship, I choose its engine; the speed and the guns, its target and bullets; the business, the profits, the cost; allies and enemy, the good and the bad. Physics is the playground, we are at play. We make history, and offer no apologies. To a new player... Eve means freedom.€
Eve is freedom, to go where you want, to do what you want, to be who you want to be in game. But this does not mean that it will not cost you.
As the old saying goes, €Your freedom to swing your fist, ends where my nose begins€ and there are a lot of noses in Eve. The entire player base is one one single server, so wherever you go there are others who are exploring their freedom also.
You have the freedom to go into low security space and those in low security space have the freedom to shoot you for being there. You have the freedom to declare war on a corporation, and they have the freedom to hire mercenaries to protect themselves. You have the freedom to buy low and sell high, and others have the freedom to undercut you and take over the market. To coin a phrase, €Freedom is as freedom does€.
If I may quote from the coronation speech of Empress Jamyl I:
€I am the harbinger of hope, I am the sword of the righteous. And to all who hear my words I say this, What you give to this empire I shall give back unto you€
You have the freedom to mold the universe, and what you put into Eve Online is what Eve Online will give back to you. Fly Safe and Be Ware!
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