The first time you jump into a major fleet battle the adrenaline pumps so hard you'll think your heart is going to burst outta your chest. You spend the rest of your Eve career looking for that feeling again (it does come from time to time).
CCP love this stuff and encourage it. They've scaled Eve to support ever-larger fleet battles; nonetheless it's no wonder that an engagement of of this size meant significant lag for some. The players will always be pushing the envelope of what the servers can support.
I had to stop playing Eve because I needed my life back. But for some, yes, a significant material loss in Eve represents such an investment of personal time and energy that they will quit in despair. As a result there is no other MMO with such a richly woven player-driven plot. Nothing else comes even remotely close.
Once you've played Eve, every other MMO seems to be developed for those who need their PvP plotted out for them, conducted in a padded cell of safety where no-one ever really loses anything significant. And tremendously uninteresting as a result. c.f. the upcoming Elder Scrolls Online.
EDIT (addendum): I should add that even reading about this battle sent me running to pull out my old and dusty Eve navigation charts, check on the sovereignty status of my old alliance, rewatch a few old Eve war vids and even confirm that my long-dormant accounts still exist. Maybe if I had to spend six months in hospital I'd subscribe again. But otherwise, no, I have a life now and it's an itch I can never scratch.
1. Video art made using well-composed in-game footage that may not be entirely representative of the general experience. Most of the official promotional videos fall into this category. Since Eve is a visually sumptuous game, it lends itself well to this form. It is practically machinima, although I'd be surprised if anyone has modded the engine as many machinima artists do.
great examples include:
"Dreams of Yasur" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ_UiIYarhg
"Lacrimosa, Tortuga" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYEaPLCCIrY
"Empyrean Age Trailer" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKdTJjDnYzE (official promo)
2. Capture of a real battle. Here lies the real nostalgia. Unfortunately they tend to be less visually sumptuous and more hundreds of variously coloured & labelled objects in a highly technical 3D HUD that is almost incomprehensible without some Eve experience. They also tend to be long. Ideally accompanied by fleet voice battle chatter because otherwise they are not only dull to watch, you'll have no idea WTF is going on.
recent good samples include:
"the Battle of Asakai" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLqb-m1ZZUA
"Anatomy of a fight" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMFahR4wXTg
"Everlasting II" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMU2SsF0IZk
and just to compare and contrast the fleet battle experience, here's an early Titan-class ship kill, from two opposing perspectives:
"Bhaalgorn vs Nightmare". Must be from around 2004. Two vicious-looking and rare ships duke it out for a few minutes in what looks like a high-stakes stand-up fight. At the end it becomes apparent that this is, in fact, a promotional sales brochure and both ships are on the market. The realization of what that meant for the whole structure of the game is what attracted me to Eve in the first place. http://dl.eve-files.com/media/09/Bhaalgorn%20vs%20Nightmare....
CCP love this stuff and encourage it. They've scaled Eve to support ever-larger fleet battles; nonetheless it's no wonder that an engagement of of this size meant significant lag for some. The players will always be pushing the envelope of what the servers can support.
I had to stop playing Eve because I needed my life back. But for some, yes, a significant material loss in Eve represents such an investment of personal time and energy that they will quit in despair. As a result there is no other MMO with such a richly woven player-driven plot. Nothing else comes even remotely close.
Once you've played Eve, every other MMO seems to be developed for those who need their PvP plotted out for them, conducted in a padded cell of safety where no-one ever really loses anything significant. And tremendously uninteresting as a result. c.f. the upcoming Elder Scrolls Online.
EDIT (addendum): I should add that even reading about this battle sent me running to pull out my old and dusty Eve navigation charts, check on the sovereignty status of my old alliance, rewatch a few old Eve war vids and even confirm that my long-dormant accounts still exist. Maybe if I had to spend six months in hospital I'd subscribe again. But otherwise, no, I have a life now and it's an itch I can never scratch.