EVE New Citizens Q&A

It's definitely still worth it to start. EVE has a promising future with expansions that are planned and some merging with other styles of gaming (Dust514). It's not dying, people say that about every game they play. You're living evidence that EVE is getting new people all the time. So are dozens or hundreds of other people. For every 1 person that whines and says EVE is dying, 10 join up happily without running and making a public statement.

The best advice I can give is don't live with the notion that you can't do everything right away. There's only a few things you are limited to as a new player. Within a month you can do exploration, fly everything up to and including a battleship, pvp, militia, pirate, wormhole, industry. Really the only thing off the top of my head you can't do is fly capitals, and maybe incursions and super high complexes/level 5 missions. That's it. Aside from capitals, the rest is doable within a few months, although you won't be 100% effective at it all. The key is specializing in a few things you do like.

Every forum is filled with whining and crying and empty threats stating that (insert any game here) is dead. If you live your life suffering those trolls, you'll never be happy as a gamer.

Well I've always enjoyed PvP and play most MMOs for the PVP interaction. But thats something you can't just jump into as a new player. From everything I've read here it seems like PvP normally starts around your 2nd to 3rd month after a solid set of core skills are finished and your into a decent setup. And thats just to start, it seems to be effective the time investment beyond that is pretty deep.


Edit: I'm definately staying but I'm easily discouraged from my past experiences with MMOs. I guess its just something I will have to deal with :)

Try finding a PvP corp that not only will take you under the wing, but help you get the basics of a good PvP battle. With others, you can participate in group combat and not necessarily be the target because you're young.

Suggestion if you want to get into some PvP, join Red vs Blue. That are to alliances who are constant in war with eachother just to benefit from being able to PvP in high-sec.

Also, don't take all whining persons on the forums to serious. There are a lot of people complaining and saying "I'm leaving" and they are still here or return within a couple of weeks/months. Usually people who fly let's say ship A start complaining when ship A is nerfed as it's way to powerful.

I'm now just over 1 year old in EVE and still like it and only start to like it more each day. So look through all whiners in the forums, they are only a really small percentage of the EVE community, the majority likes (or even loves) EVE Online.

To the DEVs, good idea to nerf some of the over powered ships in the winter expension, but when are those minmatar slaves ready with cleaning my station so I can open my door to see other people.

J'Poll

No problem, we all were new players once, so we know how those first days in EVE feel.

Suggestion: Do the tutorials and career agents first, they will get you around EVE and as a benefit give you some ships / ISK to start with.

Also, though it's not PvP but PvE, I suggest the Sisters of EVE (SoE) Epic Arc missions. Those will give you even more ISK to start with and that is always nice as a PvP player, as the questions isn't IF you loose a ship but WHEN you will loose a ship

Wonder why it is me and my slave brothers are so popular with the stations female population.. Guesse amaar men aren't cutting it these days with their funny hats and silly beliefs...

- Do you have to wait 2 or 3 months to fly a bigger ship? Yes

- Do you have to fly a bigger ship to go out there? No, smaller ships are crucial in a fleet. And you can fly one well in less than a week.

- Do you have to wait 2 or 3 months to enjoy the game? No, just fly what you can fly. I have seen FC's flying that same frigate you are flying. It's not a matter of ship size.

Regarding the evolution of eve. It's NOT broken, so the good things about eve are still there. What vets are complaining about are very old issues that havn't been adressed. While real issues like large fleet lags, empty nullsec, useless caps are still there, we get a barbie closet to toy with in incarna. As a new player, those will not change your appreciation of eve. These are mainly issues with old players that want old problems to be solved rather than having new features that don't bring much to the table (Planet interaction, nullsec, CQ,...)

So don't worry, the game is as good as it was, but eve carried some problems that still havn't been properly adressed to this day. The biggest problem in my book being lag on large fleet operations.

What enjoyable parts require you to have played a long time? In my opinion, when you start, you have access to the most enjoyable part: flying around in a frigate, popping stuff without needing to worry about millions of ISK lost when your ship blows up. I personally find a Frigate to be about 50 times more fun to fly than a Battlecruiser or Battleship (and don't get me started on T3 Cruisers. I have no intentions of ever flying one of those ugly abominations). And why are frigates more awesome than bigger ships? Because they require more skill. And they often excel at what they do, when compared to a bigger ship. For example, Griffins are excellent small Jamming-boats, that are better at it than bigger ships (exception here being Scorpion), Slashers and Vigils are great throw-away Interceptors, Rifters, Kestrels and Punishers are amazing DPS-boats. As a new player, you actually have access to everything you want to try. You can even try taking down a Titan in a bunch of rookie-piloted Rifters. I can't guarantee you'll succeed, but it'll be worth it if you manage to do it.

Now that i think about it, we are talking about the SP barrier here.

I guess we should also think about the game functions and survival reflexes. The fact is that even if you can start right away, you will make a lot of mistake at first that will result in you loosing a lot of ships. Learning how to use all the tools you need (overview, directional scanners, drones, align, safespotting ect...), and how to lower the risks to get killed does take a fair amount of time. This might cause some frustration at first, so it's best that you really start with cheap ships at first so that loosing a ship isn't that much of a deal for you.

If you go solo, yes it will take a few weeks or months (depending on how fast you learn and adapt) to actually start getting the hang out of it. If you join a corp, things are easier and since you will be able to participate in fleet operation, you won't die often as you will not be the primary target (while still helping your fleet a great deal, which brings it's load of satisfaction).

I can't stress you enough on how easier life as a new player is when you are part of a friendly corporation (even and specialy a small one), and if solo os the thing you want to do on the long run, nothing is stopping from doing it while in that corp. Just make sure that the corp pvp and tex policies follow what you are looking for. If you want to be a pirate, joining a corp that as a red and can thieves only policy isn't the best idea.

One thing you can do as a noob is to team up with a veteran mission runner and be his wingman.

Veteran mission runners often fly large ships, on missions, fitted with large weapons. Large weapons are excellent against large targets, such as NPC battleships, but they don't work well against smal targets such as NPC frigates. That's why a wingman is so useful: It's his job to deal with the small ships, especially dangerous small ship that can ECM jam or warp jam the big expensive ship flown by the veteran mission runner.

You need a ship with a lot of gank and a little tank. It has ti fit small weapons, so it's good against small NPCs, and usually it is the small hulls, such as frigate and destroyer hulls, that are optimal for fitting small weapons into. As a bonus, T1 small hulls are very cheap, which means you can afford to take risks in them, especially once you've raked in your half of the bounties for a couple of level 4 missions.