Not underappreciated at all. It's 20 years old and still among the TOP 20 most popular MMOs. Not everyone likes that kind of gameplay though. I was an EVE beta tester before it was released openly, and I finally decided that it wasn't for me. (I don't like the turn based mechanics, or "the ship is actually the person" kind of narrative)
Maybe I put it wrong. I should have said "your avatar is the ship."
There are no "people" in EVE Online. The "people" are supposed to be biological clones suspended in amniotic fluid integrated with the ship, so although they have the thoughts of the person they represent, they never get to leave the ship, and die when your ship is destroyed, so you get to create a new clone. That means you can't just walk around a station after docking, or get off your ship in space and do a space walk around the asteroids. The only thing you see about your persona is your profile photo that you generated at the beginning of the game, nothing else.
Walking in stations did exist for a while, but people complained it was just a medium for microtransactions that was distracting the devs, so they went back to mugshots and nobody else ever seeing your choice of pants.
I know, and got excited about it for a while when it happened. I think they should have invested more on it, and even extend it to landing on planets and whatnot, like how Elite Dangerous did, but on a second thought, maybe not as not every game needs to be every other game. It's just not for me this way.
Nowadays, you can actually leave the ship and stretch your legs in a 1 room station quarters. And I'd say in the social sense there are people almost everywhere, they will be present in the many chats or 'in person' in space, even when you hope you'll be left alone..
I think the philosophy of the capsuleer/ship mechanics is a refreshing one, and there's a cyberpunk feel to being wired up into that hull.
Are you sure about the quarters? My Google searches result in that the feature was dropped in 2018 or so. Couldn't find any sources about the current situation though.
Your character has a name, and even a portrait made by you, of your player's 3D model, but after those initial ten minutes of character creation, you basically never interact with the 3D character again. As soon as you begin the tutorial, you're floating in space in a ship. When you switch ships, the game unloads one model and loads the next. When your ship gets exploded, players see an escape pod. Then you get back in another ship.
