I don't play EVE because there are already enough demands on my time, but damned if this commercial (entirely done with voice comms) hasn't come close to pushing me over the edge:
Parent: "I'll stick to solitaire"
The idea behind Eve is extremely appealing but damn if I'm not just done with people screaming into a microphone. I'll stick to reading the postmortems after interesting things happen
As such, things getting loud is always either extremely exceptional, or fitting and unsurprising to the context.
Both of these videos are accurate, and while the second one does happen, the former is the actual norm.
Aside from the huge time-sink that's involved in any MMO, I mostly don't want to have to have a part-time job playing politics. That's what kills it for me; I love that Eve Online exists, but I have zero interest whatsoever building a whole other parallel set of friendships, alliances, etc. outside of my current life. Even if they were the nicest antithesis of League of Legends chat, I just don't have the emotional energy to put into it.
With one or two friends, I'd say one could have a blast pirating for a couple years. It's one of the higher doing_fun_things:total_time_playing ratios I've found in a multiplayer game.
The balance is really well done. Two specialized smaller ships > one general larger ship. And coordinating on voicecoms after you've got the normal sequence of actions down doesn't sound that different than a sci-fi series.
"Jumping. Two contacts. Found them on the belt 5. Miners, no escort. In position to warp disrupt. Popping bubble and web. Tackled. Jump, jump, jump." (Plan comes together, fireworks ensue)
And in general, most people keep it in perspective. Hence "it's just internet spaceships" jokes.
yes, some people call EVE their life, and their irl is just something to get money. It's certainly not for everyone.
To be fair, not all corps are dysfunctional. I had some good times and no one was like that.
That's one of the interesting things about EVE from a story perspective.
For most games, you're the "Chosen One": the Dragonborn, the Master Chief, The One. You're supposed to be the hero of a grand and epic story. To succeed in spite of the odds.
And this clashes greatly when you put that same storyline in an MMO. And somehow you have to reconcile being the Chosen One with all the other Chosen Ones running around and doing the same quests for the same rewards.
With EVE, there is none of that. You can be a plain ol' miner, or some other cog in a vast machine. Or you can be a pirate, and strike out on your own. Or whatever. You don't start out special, but maybe you can become special over time. And be part of a story that is talked about for years to come.
I've never played it though.
It's way more fun reading about them.
It takes skill, dedication, as well as some luck (since you can't tell who is in the "system" with you in wormhole space, unlike in regular space). You have to constantly do scan, and entrances and exists shift (so you _can_ get stuck with no way back).
But that's the fun of it!
I remember back in the day when we had 1,000+ ships in a system attacking LV and basically you used to just sit there and hope that what you were doing was having any effect at all.