EVE New Citizens Q&A

Lots of folk do exactly that.

PvP focused players will use the PLEX to fund their adventures without having to partake in the PVE activity in the game that many see as an obstacle to their next PvP encounter.

So if this is what your shooting for, and you got the dough, go nuts.

Why not?

Some players who enjoy the market aspect of the game have emphasised the importance of the 'little numbers' that you become familier with when your new and poor.

I think they are refering to squeezing the most out of every little ISK, and that it applies to the larger trades you would undertake when your become space rich.

If you are looking at industry / mining etc, I'm not really sure what that much more ISK buys you as far as capability, unless you sell multiple PLEX and buy a character with good skills. Others may / will correct me on that.

Depends on your personality. For me it would make me bored in about 2 minutes and I would probably quit. Without goals why play? Without something to work towards I don't enjoy myself.

If that sort of thing doesn't bother you then by all means go right ahead.

Some of this has been said before, but as a new player with the same considerations, I'll offer the following:

The things you can do in EVE are usually more limited by your skills than by your money. For example, I could buy a battlecruiser right now (~10 day old char) but I couldn't fly it. Even if I had the related ship skills to step into the pilot's chair, I wouldn't have the support/gunnery skills to make it effective at anything. Flying ships you're not skilled for or ready for will only lead to the loss of your new shiny.

The progression of skills and income actually go really well in this game. By the time you're ready to fly something, you can afford it. If you can't afford it, you probably can't fly it anyway. By the time I had the standings for Level 2 missions, I could afford to buy and fit a cruiser, as well as fly one with decent skills. By the time I have the standings for 3s and the skills to fly a battlecruiser, I will be able to afford and fit one.

Granted, this is largely from a PvE perspective. PvP is a bit different inasmuch as you will lose ships. In PvE, if you're doinitrite, you won't have those losses. Marketing, I just can't comment on.

There is one argument for buying a PLEX from the start, though, and that is implants. Attribute boosting implants can significantly cut down on your training times. With skills being your main limiting factor, selling a PLEX, training up Cybernetics, and grabbing some good implants early can be a great boost to some careers. This should be read as "safer" careers (no career is truly safe, ask the high sec ice miners). If you grab a full set of implants and run out to PvP, your investment can vanish quickly if you're podded.

No reason at all - EXCEPT that you'd be cheating yourself out of a more immersive experience.

If you're a newbie it's worth doing stuff "the hard way" for a while. After a certain period of time, when you're a bit more familiar with the game, then the occasional PLEX injection is good for those times when you just can't be bothered grinding back whatever you lost, or you really want that new ship NAAOOW.

But yea, I'd say as a newbie, try and hold off on PLEX buying, try to get immersed in having to work for a living in-game, experience the game as it was intended, with your skills growing apace with your income, get the real flavour of that.

I'd learn to make ISK first and then choose to buy PLEX to sell for ISK. You'll have a much better game experience this way, as other posters have already implied.

In PvE terms, this would translate to getting the ISK, SP and experience to be able to do Level 4s competently.

In PvP terms this would be spending a couple of months in a PvP environment (0.0, FW, RvB, etc) until you are comfortable with your abilities.

In Industrial terms this would be knowing how to research BPOs, do Invention/manufacture and run a POS, if required, etc.

Once you've mastered the basics you can use the extra ISK to improve on what you already do. Faction mods, T2 ships, bigger BPOs etc. If you use PLEX ISK to learn to play you won't learn as well and you'll get bored and leave.

Being new is a special time in your EVE career. It is when you are learning the game. There is no way to buy that. You just have to do it.

As a new person - you WILL make mistakes costing you ships and money. As a new person they're the same mistakes - whether you're making them with frigates or battleships. So just trying to buy your way to success doesn't work. All you do is make more expensive mistakes.

Part of the fun of playing a game - is achieving things. Part of that is learning how to earn you own money. By buying your way into bigger things you deprive yourself of the fun of earning them.


Whether it's buying an established character - which you can do - or just buying in game money - it is a mistake for a new person to start off with to much. We just had a recent post from someone who had been given 150 million by a buddy to start - that buddy didn't do this person any favors.



Now - for a veteran player to deal in plex or buy a character with certain skills - that doesn't matter. The veteran player understands the game and what they're accomplishing. So for veteran players to do this - is up to them. For new players - it is almost universally a mistake.

The game is designed to allow you to progress at a steady pace. Your Skills, your Experience and your Money all proceed about apace when you are new. That is to say - that no one NEEDS to buy their way into anything to play the game.

So - don't do it.

There is a short cut to having money.

There is a short cut to having skill points.

There is NO short cut to experience.

Without the experience to know what the hell you're doing - Money and Skill points aren't going to help you that much.



Oh and one more thing - even people who are veterans of one area of the game - have the same problem (to a degree) if they go into another area of the game. You may well be an Ace Mission Runner with a pimped out Mission ship that can pull in ISK by the ton ... but when you go to PVP - it's best to start out with small ships - whether you can fly the big ones or not. That way - you're learning what small ships can do (which will help when you're in a big one and they're attacking you) and the mistakes you make that get your ships blown up - will be cheaper - which means it's that much longer before you have to take a break from your PVPing to fund more ships.



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tl;dr If you have the real-life time to be online and set a good training plan for progressing: Earning it feels better and a PLEX really wouldn't be needed. If you don't have the time to invest, it can be appreciated by those who buy PLEX to see someone take an easier/safer path.

I do find it humorous seeing many wanting PLEX to pay for their accounts, then invest such effort in telling players not to buy GTC's and put PLEX on the market. They must figure those plex are all placed there by CCP.

As for what it gets you - a good head start on your skillbooks and implants.

Don't go nuts and spend a mint on faction ships and expensive weapons - that would be wasteful with low-end skills but building up training... It can ease getting into PvP being as you can afford any "cheap ship losses" early on and you won't worry much about any more advanced ships that open up (like exhumers) if you don't have much play time.

With a decently focused plan, it's quite possible to spend over 20 million on skillbooks within the first couple months of starting the game. Drone spec books, Gun Spec books... So on and so forth - some paths are cheaper than others to train towards but it can be expensive - especially if you don't have much gaming time due to work/school/family.

Cheapening the starting experience? No.

Being broke, unable to afford implants, feeling you have to log in 7 days a week, 4-6 hours each day just to build up income. Losing a fully loaded industrial with your life savings in it due to the lulz of a ganker? Able to afford it can take the sting out of it as well as keep some folks in the game that experience such 'introductions to EVE' and go "I just can't get a good start, I'm done".

So - it's your call. There's nothing really right about it nor wrong with the idea. It simply takes some pressure off at the start and makes losses easier to deal with.