A player-driven persistant-world MMORPG, developed by CCP Games. EVE contains "the world's largest game universe", spanning thousands of solar systems, each with their own planets, stations, asteroid belts and moons. Players advance through the game based on the learning of skills (which advance in real-time, even when the player is not connected to the game), attributes (which can be increased through the training of learning skills, or the usage of implants) and the acquisition of wealth and items (modules, ships, materials, etc can all be sold and bought for the in-game currency, ISK).

Unlike most MMORPGs (e.g. World of Warcraft, Runescape, etc), the EVE server is not split up into shards - i.e. there is a single server which all players connect to. The EVE universe is persistant, so if a player leaves the game, the universe will continue to exist and be changed by the actions of NPCs and other players.

Many of CCP's staff have EVE-related blogs, discussing what they are working on and problems they may have encountered. Unlike a lot of game developers, CCP are very open with players and explain how the game works internally. For example, CCP have released that the EVE Server program is written in Stackless Python, along with many algorithms and equations for learning time and other in-game statistics.

EVE costs $14.95/€14.95 a month (correct at time of writing). The servers have a daily downtime period, between 11:00 and 12:00 GMT to allow for a server reboot and minor server-side patches and fixes to be applied.

At current, the game is available only to Microsoft Windows users, although support for Vista is incomplete. It may be possible to play the game on Linux using either Wine or Cedega.

What is EVE Online?

EVE is a massive multiplayer online game (MMOG) set in a science-fiction based, persistent world. Players take the role of spaceship pilots seeking fame, fortune, and adventure in a huge, complex, exciting, and sometimes hostile galaxy.

There are a few things that make it very different to other MMO's
1. It is in space and not some RPG style fantasy world.
2. To advance your character, skills are trained. They will continue to train till it is completed if you are online or not.
3. Everyone is on one server (thats over 22,000 players on one server. They are upgrading the entire server cluster in Feb)
4. It is made by a small icelandic company called CCP, not a big American company, therefore CCP listens and interacts with its customers.

www.eve-online.com

Excel Virtual Environment Online, a Microsoft developed tax computational game, created to encourage children to start filing their taxes from a young age.

An MMORPG that revolves around flying spaceships. The best pvp MMORPG in existance not only because of the combat system but because when you die, you really do lose everything you were using at the time unlike WOW where it gets a little damaged and you just repair it :/

A good MMORPG game...Yet it takes away a man's sex drive....and the motivation to pretty much do ANYTHING else.

A fly mutha of a game. Addictive, but fun. Chicks dig it

A game, online, and NOW ON Mac and Linux!

Spatial MMORPG. Not many chicks dig it.

A nice attempt at a Space themed MMORPG which was going well until it was discovered that the most of the developers were members of the most powerful clan (Band Of Brothers) and were helping them with inside knowledge to give them the upper hand.

Poor graphics, boring point and click interface (you can't actually manually fly the ships in combat) and hours of grinding needed to actually get anywhere.

Players fall into 4 broad categories

1- Hardcore - Spend all their time at their keyboards picking on newbies, sunlight will kill these people if they ever step outside

2- Farmers- Clans that mine repetively to sell ingame money online for real money

3- Drama queens - Like Voogru, who act as quasi-game police hunting farmers (because they desperately want to be admins but no amount of their kissing CCP's arse ever helps)

4- Triallers - those who play the 2 week free trial and realise what epic fail it is and do something more productive with their time

All in all, absolute fail, a game that desperately wishes it was Elite (an old Atari ST,Amiga game) online, played long term by sad lonely people whom one day will wake up and realise it is all just a load of pixels and what have I done with my life?

add to that the no-none can ever be certain that the developers are still cheating makes for a game best avoided.