You lose 60% of your stuff if you get killed IF you're at the higher levels and IF you didn't buy insurance for your ship. Noob levels are completely covered. Cheaply. From what I can gather so far, Eve is a big-boy MMO, meaning that no one's there to hold your hand. There are risks and rewards and you have to weigh the risk involved in every decision. If you want to venture out by yourself in low-security space with your little tin can ship, you're probably going to get jumped, killed, and robbed. However, you're also allowed to be the one to do the jumping, killing, and robbing. Another cool thing that I really like is that it's not a level-based MMO; everything is based on skills, and your skills level even while you're offline. For instance, I'm about to boot it up in a second and I should be done with my Frigate skill level so I'll be able to pilot a bigger ship, when last night I had hours to wait for it. You can also prioritize which skills to level first in-game so you can level more skills while you play.
It's a really, really cool game. It's slow, sure...but it is most definitely not boring. It's complex, not complicated. I haven't played WoW in several months and I'm probably going to cancel my subscription and get Eve. I really, really like the fact that there is ONE server and that server maintenance is every day for ONE HOUR, not once a week for 8-12 hours. All add-ons are FREE and you can actually pay for your subscription with in-game money once you get higher. The thing that has turned me off of WoW in the past year or so was that it's so painfully repetitive, even with the nice new cross-realm grouping they added.
Granted, I'm still a noob. I'll let you know what I think in two weeks...it might really turn out to be sucky after a while, but for me I think it'll keep my interest. The controls take some getting used to as there is no W S A D directional control. It's almost like an RTS in terms of controls. The interface can be overwhelming at first and isn't the most user-friendly thing ever, but it adds to the level of realism, I guess. There's also a built-in jukebox where you can choose which songs from the Eve soundtrack you want to hear, and they're all fantastic. I'm going to try to put my own MP3s in there and make my own playlist.
Immediately I was forced to realize just how big this universe is, and how FREE it is as well. You can literally do anything you want and your choices affect the state of the entire universe and every player since there's just one server and everyone is on it.
It's not action-packed at the lower levels and sometimes it becomes a little tedious, but I've yet to become bored. I keep coming back to it with the same enthusiasm as when I started. It's not for everyone, however...this video, while funny, isn't really exaggerating too much. Eve is a game that appeals to certain types of players instead of most types of players like WoW. I think the biggest reason I like Eve, however, is that it's actually challenging.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/208-Eve-Online
