EVE New Citizens Q&A

Hello all,

First off, long time gamer/MMO'er, first time Eve player.

Let me start by saying I have only been playing for a little over a week which I understand isn't a spit in the bucket of Eve time but this is just my first impressions of the game.

I am a HUGE fan of Sci-Fi to begin with so Eve always intrigued me, although many horror stories of Eve's MASSIVE learning curve have swayed me from giving it a shot.....until now.

Upon character creation the game is pretty straight forward. The tutorial pops up and off you go. Grab a ship, finish said tutorial, and on to the training quests. Just for sake of argument, when I say tutorial I am speaking of "Aura" the glowy blueish godlike entity you start with and training missions being the starting agents that have a specific line of quests, mine were: Industry, Mining, Business, Military, and Advanced Military(I believe).

Learning to control the ships basic movements are fairly easy, as are the Neocom buttons to the left of the screen(by default). Finishing these quests was mostly a no brainer with a LITTLE bit of rough water in the Military lines, but other than that....fairly easy go.

After these quests were over however I didn't really have any idea on what to do next. I "assumed" I needed to train skills since some took days/weeks/months to complete, so I picked a few and filled my queue trying to stay on the path of mining, since this is where I wanted to go as far as a goal(I thought massive strip mining vessel able to wipe out asteroid belts in one fell swoop).

This is where I needed to be pointed in the right direction I guess, so I figured may as well join a Corporation(I will not name specific Corps as to not tarnish names).I joined the recruitment channel and within minutes was spammed by nearly a dozen recruiters to join them. After weeding through them I had made my choice, a solo capsuleer starting a new Corp after returning to Eve after a small hiatus from playing looking for a fresh start, but with many years of Eve experience. I joined and he was quite helpful for the first 2 days, answering all my questions and even giving me an idea of what to fly if I chose to mine and what fittings to use, although he was not really a fan of mining. He said I should instead try for a "Drake" and then we could REALLY have some fun in low sec. So after chatting on teamspeak a bit he convinced me to stop my mining training and push for the Drake. I managed to train the skills fairly quickly and soon had what was needed to pilot this bad boy of a ship(I was told most people would just fly away from me if I had one because they were a pain to kill)although I did not yet have the ISK. A couple days went by during this and my new mentor hadn't logged back in. On day 3, getting the itch again and still no sign of my leader(When he recruited me I was told he played every night and usually all weekend long and day 3 was a Monday and still no sign of him) I spoke with my friend(forgot to mention there is 2 of us going through all this) and we decided to head out and look for a more active Corporation with a lot of members vs. one member who couldn't be there all the time(I understand RL is first). So we moved on, back to recruitment.

After speaking with my friend we decided we still wanted to stick with mining, so this time would seek out an actual Mining Corp. Looking through the recruitment tab we saw a Corp asking "Miners Wanted" and "New Players Welcome!" with a little over 100 members. This sounded right up our alley! We joined their public channel and were greeted straight away. We were also mailed a standard recruit mail with instructions(very detailed mind you) on how to acquire an API key. Being new to the game we were a bit sketchy giving someone a link to our account info, but after a bit of research we saw the API was something Corporations used to spot spys and fakes using new characters to hide behind. So we applied and sent our API's in to the Corporation CEO. Two more days went by hanging out in the public channel before we were finally able to meet said CEO which kinda went like this:

(Random public chat box chatter)
CEO: So Zerstorung not hanging out with (CEO name of previos Corp) anymore?
Me: No he went offline for 4 days straight and we decided to move on to something a bit more larger scale.

(Random chatter back and forth between myself and other members for a bit kinda cracking jokes and goofing about, nothing rude and not about anyone just purely random about tough crowds and what not)

(I had been looking at the CEO's thumbnail and saw long blonde hair on a fairly skinny looking character and assumed it was a woman and began addressing the CEO as a she, while other members kept referring to the CEO as he. This isn't new, guys play girl toons all the time, not a big deal......until I mentioned it in chat)

Me: Oh, I'm sorry, (CEO's name) picture looks like a chick, that's why I was saying she....(as I had zoomed in I noticed the long blonde hair was long blonde dreads and could now see a five o clock shadow on the face the was also apparently blonde) and whilst typing my impression of the thumbnail other members had started to say:

Member:Oh now you did it

Member2: Oh thats not good

(Channel disappears)

Wha?!?

I found their pub channel again and tried to rejoin to find myself banned from their channel. I messaged the polite member that had sent me the mail and asked what had happened just now? He replied "I don't know, he's the boss, sorry...and that chat closed.I then messaged another who was a female toon and was chatting quite a bit with me and got the response "Yea lol....bye" and that chat closed.

After being shunned by an angry CEO(that apparently didn't like having his fake picture compared to a woman) we decided to stay away from Corporations for the time being and form one of our own. Now we youtube and sit in high sec learning. Thinking about Titans....

Since you already have a buddy, staying on your own for a while makes sense. It takes a while to find a corp that is right. With the way that CEO responded it sounds like you are better off. I have no idea what his problem was.

Instead of forming a corp, you might just "fleet" up with your buddy instead. That will allow you to work as a team. Having a corp opens the possibility of being wardecced for no reason - and with no way to defend yourself at this early stage.

Both of you should get into T1 mining barges as soon as possible. I prefer Procurer since it's a lot tankier to start. Get some tanking skills trained. Then one of you can cross train into a basic hauler like the Miasmos to move the ore you mine. The other can work on mining yield via mining upgrades and T2 strip miners, or work towards some ore refining skills. T2 mining barges are only worth it if you know you want to stick with mining.

I also recommend moving around to different systems/regions to find a place you like. Try some ice mining as it will put you around other miners and you might find people and a corp you like. Don't be afraid to talk with people in local - make friends. No trash talking until you can back it up.

After you have the ability to earn isk regularly, you can decide if you want to go towards PvE or PvP training, or stay with industry.

Good luck & welcome to Eve.

As a CEO of a corp that actually does stuff in space he got at least 4 blinking chat channels all the *beep*ing time he has to pay attention to. On top of that random convos and 2 different guys poking him on TS. He has simply no time to deal with jerks. How you see yourself in that pictures doesn't count. If you appear to be a jerk you be one.

The average age of a toon in EVE is 2 months. Statisticly it's a wise move to consider any new player as gone already. You have to convince older players that you are worth their time.

I wouldn't think you would post your Corporation as "New Player Friendly" then? I have run MANY MMO squads, guilds, clans, and have never felt the need to dump a toon because he was new and didn't know what he was doing or who I was. I've trained people from level zero to level cap and sure it is a struggle, but without new players, the game dies. I'm assuming one of the reasons Eve is still surviving is because new players are joining all the time. If you already consider them gone.....what do you do when all the vets are Eve'd out and go on break? That makes servers shut down......look at WoW(flame if ya like but still an insanely popular 10 year old MMO). Everyday more and more vets leave that game due to the game being made too "simple". Nowadays you'd be hard pressed to find someone that has played since vanilla. But it still is going strong.

seems like a pretty thin 'reason' to kick you from the corp / chat.

I suspect the 'culture' of a corp, might end up being the most important thing.

The first corp, ok it happens. Not really much of a surprise there.
Returning players that try to run their own corp dont tend to stay around for long (note there are exceptions, but in general they get hit by the realization that being a CEO is hard, and end up giving up on the corp within a short amount of time).

The second corp.
If everything happened the way you said it did, its one of the strangest reasons i have ever heard for kicking someone, so are you 100% sure you did not say or do something different that might have upset him or another corp member?
By the sounds of it they rushed you trough the recruitment process, so chances are high they either found out some information about you, or discovered that you had an attitude that did not fit well with the corp, and thats why they kicked you.

For your next post..

There are many many corporations out there that will advertise them self as new player friendly, while i reality they are not, and even more that will advertise them self as new player friendly because they are new them self's and have no idea what they are doing. "We are noobs, we learn together" kind of thing (which in most cases leads to a lot of people quitting, and a dead corp).

What you have to understand is that running a corp in EVE is much much more different then running a guild/cabal/clan/whatever, and many people go into the role thinking it will be easy. "Just let me put my advert in local a few times and get some members and everything will work on its own from there".
Hint, it does not work like that
Being a member of a "good" corp or "bad" corp will be a completely different EVE experience.

So, new player gets into the game, decides to join one of these noob friendly corporations, or decides to start their own without doing any proper research in any of the cases, end up in a bad corp, thinks that thats how EVE simply works, and quits. Starts to run a corp, realizes its hard, quits with their first war dec.

I have no idea how many EVE players have quit because of those two reasons, but i would imagine the number is quite high.

But, a lot of players also quit because they realize that EVE is not for them. And recruiters in corporations that are new player friendly runs into this a lot. I used to tell the recruiters that they should only expect 1 out of 4 recruit to stay around past their trial, and trust me after you have dealt with a few 100 trial players that quit, you dont bother to spend 100% of your time hand holding them anymore.

Anyway, the point with this is... EVE is not WOW, its not the same play style, its not the same genre, its not the same atmosphere, its not the same "end game".. Honestly i cant really think about any similarities beyond the fact that they are both MMO's, comparing them is quite pointless and attempting to do so will most likely lead your EVE career to its certain death.

Well now that my rant is over..
If you decide to try to join another player run corporation i would suggest that you use this guide which will help you with the background research. And for the future... The recruitment channel is in general bad, avoid it

I agree. Even the most bitter and elitist of veteran corps can sometimes be more "friendly" for certain newbies than an actual newbie corporation. All that really matters is "can you fit into their 'cool kids club?'"

@OP...

Sooner or later everyone will experience what it is like to be in a "bad" corporation. It happens. Just understand that there are many other groups with their own ways of operating and communicating with each other. Don't let it get to you.

My advice is to figure out what you want to do and seek out the people that do just that. Not all of them will advertise their willingness to recruit... and some (like PvP corps) will randomly recruit you if you show a certain "spark."

Lastly... if you see a corporation that has "skillpoint restrictions" (see: they require you have XX amount of skillpoints) ignore it and talk to someone in that corporation directly. Just be relaxed and explain to them what you know, that you want to learn, and maybe make a few off-color jokes for good measure. Attitude and "people skills" can go a long way.

Simple things:

1. Those corps, both of them...don't look like the once you want to be in.

2. Never ever let anybody tell you what to train/fly/do in EVE, you are paying for the game, you are the one that should make out what you want to do.

Wow (no pun intended), a rant of NC.

But I agree, comparing WoW and EVE is like comparing an apple and a banana, both are fruits, but that's about it.

I appreciate the advise(and criticisms for that matter) from all who replied. Like I stated in an earlier post, I find it amazing how helpful the majority of Eve's playerbase is. The TINY amount of trolling and go back to WoW's I have experienced since starting are FAR outweighed by the amount of helpful tips and veterans out there.

I agree with you all as far as Eve being nothing alike to WoW.....all you have to do in WoW is hang in trade for a few minutes before you are belittled and harassed for being a noob, and here it seems like 90% or more approach you with a smile and say "I remember when I was new"........it is quite refreshing to see especially in a game that has been on the market as long as Eve has.

To those of you who help and try to encourage new players, I want you to know, as a BRAND new player myself, it does not go unnoticed!! We new guys are looking for the Vets and want to see them with a smile and saying how cool this game is....not like WoW Vets who say how good it USED to be before the company F'd it all up. It seems like everyone still here playing has nothing but good things(so far) to say about Eve.

For that reason, and for the help I have received thus far, I will continue on my Eve journey, whether it be a slow and steady or viscous climb to the top, I will renew my sub and keep on space truckin' !