EVE Online and WOW are the top 2 best MMO games out there, I think. But EVE Online requires a lot of patience. In the beginning, you are like a little baby so you can't really do anything in the beginning other than mining and trading. So don't expect to be a space pirate or anything that involves a lot of combat until a long time from now. Other games, let you do all kinds of things early but this game doesn't. You have to invest a lot of time into this game. One thing cool about this game though is investing time into this game doesn't require you to play. You level up automatically over time. One reason, I really like this game is this game is like real life but in space. People have the freedom in this game to be the bastards that they are or angels or a little bit of both etc. The strong are allowed to prey on the weak etc. This game is not a children's game.

PS
There is a powerful police type force almost everywhere so it's not like 100% chaos in EVE online. So people can't just prey on the weak everywhere without consequences. And unfortunately, you don't fly your ship like in Freelancer or other similar games. Everything is automated... And dying in this game, hurts you.

EVE Online is great.
"EVE of Destruction" sucked! What was Gregory Hines thinking!?

I've played EVE on and off since 2006 and all I can say is that it crushes anything on the market today when it comes to content and size. Since it's not a linear, brain dead "hack 'n slash" WoW style, the learning curve is steep as hell and if you're not into that kind of game play, stop reading :)

If you're still interested then here are some bsic info.

At first it seems like EVE is a nice little space simulator MMO but i'd say EVE is divided into three different simulators.

1. A political simulator
EVE has THE biggest gamer influence when it comes to the game world itself as well as in-game features and future implementations. There is actually a council that consists of players that communicate with the developers regarding the game world and upcoming features.

2. An economical simulator.
The economy in EVE is frikkin advanced on a country size level. They have economical engineers that monitors the in-game economy and a change of player sovereignty (yes players can "own" systems) could mean a huge impact on the market. Taxes and all that fun stuff are implemented and the mechanics actually allow for players to run banks (not really an easy thing but still possible).

3. A space simulator.
The game itself is of course played in space. The world consists of over 5000 solar systems, where a large part of the outer rim is claimable by player corporations. Besides that there are over 2000 "worlmhole systems" that are uncharted and filled with danger and goodies. You can fly everything from cargo ships, mining ships, battleships and all the way up to big ass "titan" warships, so there are lots of options to choose from.

Then we have the skill system... a tedious frustrating system that I personally love. All skills needed for everything requires real-time training, meaning it takes a whole crap load of time to learn stuff. All skills can be trained from lvl 1 to 5. Lvl 1 may take a few minutes to learn while training from 4 to 5 may take days, weeks or even more then a month. Got a lvl 5 qued up now that will take me 32 days...

However, since it requires real time to train, the timer continues even when logged off. Basically as long as you are training, your character will be advancing even when you are logged off so your pals won't out-run you :)

In short, IF you wish to play EVE, expect to spend several hours learning how the basics work and then months trying to figure out what the hell you want to do in the game, and then finally do it. The entire game is basically run by super corporations and alliances of players so it's a social game where lots of friends = more fun. Of course you can run solo pirate but lots of friends = access to help, resources and so on :)

I really love the game because of it's sheer size and advanced mechanics. All expansions are free as well and the nice integration with Dust 514 for the PS3 opens up an interesting future for cross platform gaming :)

So IF you are interested, i can send a 21 day trial instead of that default 14 days that exists.

Best economic simulator out there. Incredibly cut throat. You will die. A lot, and there are no good Samaritans.

"You will die." is an understatement. :)

From the creator of Wing Commander, Chris Roberts

Invest in Star Citizen,

you control your ships(s) and the economy. And it's persistent. If you log off while your ship is in unprotected space, it may not be there when you log back in. The game will be full of pirates, raiders, alien hostiles, military, police, traders, explorers, miners and bounty hunters. If you grief anyone in the game a bounty will be put on your head for all to see. And since each individual pilot in the game is an actual human player, there will be many bounty hunters...including myself. There will be ship boarding action, so you could literally steal a ship if you take out the crew defending it. But you have to weigh that risk as perma-death is included. And there are no skills to learn. Your skill as a space pilot determines your survival and profits. Atmospheric flight may be added later.

Site goes live Friday if you're interested!

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/blackout/

http://www.cloudimperiumgames.com/news/27-Press-Roundup

EVE Online is awesome +1
Shame its hard to find a really good deal on subscriptions :(

It takes a longtime to get into it, steep learning curve. There are a lot of threads, information and other useful tools made to help keep track of trading stuff, mining and the like, but you do need to invest a lot of time into it. Mining, trading, fighting.Pretty much the core of the game. People like myself spent a lot of time reading up and getting into the mining side - it CAN be boring for those who aren't interesting in that aspect or in a game which has that as one of the main things you can do in it. Having said that, i did spend a few months on this game - its a real time sink, but i really enjoyed it (not a big MMO type game fan.. Path of Exiles and Warframe aside since didnt have to pay for either). The only reason i havent resubbed was due to lack of funds (unemployed)

Ok i spent about two hours into the game finished the tutorial mining a bit, LOVING the look of the game (i have a bit of a soft side for space games) my character is a Gallente Stargazer who was educated in military academy Male kinda looks like the bad guy from The 13 Assassins remake
Edit: The two hours not counting the character creation

...and they usually choose to be bastards. EVE is huge and quite 'realistic' (as far as SciFi can be that) and really is fun if you have lots of time to invest (and have a considerable frustration threshold). But the community in the forum is ... unfriendly to put it mildly. Don't expect people to cut you some slack just because you are new.

Haven't played any mmo games but the attached picture might be fitting.

This.

Infact because you are new is a reason to give you a fucktonne of shit.

I still play eve and for the most part im a nice person in it, but I have a character that doesnt train anymore so I use its other slots to train suicide gank characters, takes a couple of days to train then I go and kill people in highsec until my sec is so low I cant really do anything (usually about -6) then i biomass the toon and train a new one. The cycle of life so to say.

Not i dont do that all the time just maybe a few days every month or 3.

I played through the tutorial recently and I liked it a lot but I don't like that it requires a subscription from a game where I will eventually lose "progress" not to mention you really need to sit down and focus. Not that its steep learning curve is negative once you get the hang of it it's just that the time and energy needed for this game is a bit high.

i'm not sure what you mean with losing progress, but it should be mentioned that even game time is a commodity that can be bought/sold with the in-game currency, so once you get your business rolling (whatever that is), the game basically becomes free2play. It is doable, and it's even possible to do it from the start, but if you are new don't count on it.

You can play for several years, buy a very expensive ship and then be unlucky enough to lose it and then you basically lost time. You probably had fun while doing this but I don't know, I'm not the kind of player that would just accept that and move on.