Command and pilot a starship in Eve Online

Today I signed up for the Eve Online 14 day free trial offer and received it right away by email. Then you click on a confirm link in the email and are taken to a page to fill out with your desired username and password. Another email is sent and your 14 day trial is activated. The client download is 616.5 MB.

This is a great beginning to a post from an Eve Online player:

This is a story of deception, intrigue, and double crossing. It is a story of liars, bandits, and greed. It is a story of the worst of the human condition, and how the motive for profit will drive a normally nice guy to the deepest depths of evil and betrayal. This is the story of my life in Eve Online.

So intrigued by that opening that I was off to the site to sign up for the no credit card required trial. After downloading and launching the client for the first time, check out the online player numbers:

By comparison as of this writing, there were 28,534 residents online in Second Life, while SL shows 4,362,082 total registered. Clearly the number registered isn’t very telling. Check out the relatively small number of trial accounts using Eve Online.

After logging in, players are treated to an opening story with some fantastic visuals. Not sure my pictures below do them justice below but I was psyched to get in and actually start playing.

I was thinking a cross between Stargate and Star Trek before even getting into the game. After the background video, a rather lengthy character creation process begins. This might be the longest I’ve played to date. There are detailed descriptions of what each choice entails so players can make a suitable choice.

After creating your character, it’s onto the tutorial which will take you through the process of the interface, how to buy and sell at the market while docked at the space part and then my favorite part piloting a starship.

After your 14 days free trial are up you can continue on with the Eve Online subscription prices (click that link, prices below subject to change):

$14.95 / month
$38.85 / 3 months
$71.70 / 6 months
$131.40 / 12 months