I’ve been playing MMOGs of various types for something like 15 years now, and I can honestly say that I’ve never played anything quite like EVE Online.

Mechanically, the game isn’t much different from any other MMOG out there.  Instead of riding your horse across the countryside you’re flying a ship across the galaxy…  Instead of swords and spells you’ve got lasers and missiles…  Instead of XP you’ve got SP…  Instead of gathering up herbs and skins to craft armor, you’ve gathering minerals to build spaceships…

What makes EVE so special isn’t any particular game mechanic, it’s what you’re allowed to do with those mechanics.  Specifically, you’re allowed to do just about anything.

Most MMOGs have some kind of code of conduct or rules for the players to adhere to.  Generally speaking, griefing is frowned upon.  You can appeal certain kinds of harassment and get a GM involved to fix things.  You can get yourself suspended or banned if you’re too much of a jerk to the other players.  EVE, in general, doesn’t have those rules.

You are allowed to swindle other players out of their hard-earned cash.  You can lie, cheat, and steal.  You’re allowed to trick people into attacking you…  Or you can lure them to their death…  You can sell people junk at absurd prices…  You can ransom people, or just blow up their ships…  All of this is allowed.  The only thing stopping you is the reputation you’ll earn.

Because of the way character improvement takes place in EVE, it takes a long time to develop a decent character.  Some skills take literally months or even years to train.  So folks aren’t generally willing to simply delete a character and roll up a new one.  And that means that your reputation follows you around.

If you’re a jerk and spend all your time griefing other players, you may suddenly find yourself unable to get into a decent corporation.  Or maybe folks will band together and hunt you down, repeatedly.

EVE Online is truly driven by the player community.  CCP has created more of a framework for interaction, than a game.  A game implies a certain degree of structure – certain objectives and rules that govern how your progress.  In EVE, your objectives and how you progress towards them are largely your own.  And the consequences of your actions are generally governed by other people, not the game mechanics.

You don’t need to kill monsters to gain XP, you accumulate SP constantly throughout the day.  You don’t even need to log in.  So you aren’t forced to kill anything, ever, unless you want to.  You can spend all your time manufacturing equipment or hauling cargo.  And there are entire corporations devoted to those occupations.

Of course, if you want to kill things you certainly can…  There are corporations devoted to running NPC missions, or piracy, or mercenaries, or hunting down the pirates.

EVE Online really is whatever you want to make of it.