EVE New Citizens Q&A

You can be the good guy in this game, it just depends on your definition of "good".

I would say play the game first do some tutorial, get basic skills and once you have topped the learning curve set your self a goal and go for it.

If you want be all that you mentioned in the first post then go for and try it, you may not succeed or even get any isk from it but if it gives you the kicks then go for it.
As for being a good guy mercenary, the only way is to role play it, providence with it's NRDS policy fits the bill though it means you have to play with the rules of the provi block but they do have clear rules of who is the bad guy and who isn't.

Yep, it's a sandbox. Infinite possibilities for role-play, but not an infinite choice in skills. Though I've always preferred it over other types of mmo's that handhold, and I've enjoyed sandbox mmo's for over 15 years now. EVE replace SWG for me, where I had five master characters, though my primary favorite character had master bounty hunter skills. When I first got an EVE trial, the first thing I did was look for bounty hunter skills, and I found them seriously lacking compared to SWG (and still are). I didn't sub, but then I didn't look too deeply the first two weeks beyond what I wanted to do. That was some six years ago.

After NGE released on SWG, I got another trial here. Unfortunately it was right after a major upgrade/expansion, and the tutorials were quite broken. I was still wanting those BH skills, but willing to look deeper, however not possible with the broken tutorials, so didn't sub.

Finally came back in 2010, ran another trial, got interested in cov-ops stuff as much as I could study in a couple weeks. I've always have had at least two MMO subs going but one since leaving SWG after NGE. After the trial ran out I bought the officer box edition with the bonus items and started this account. Though there isn't a good BH system, it still has many of the skill types I'm used to from a number of games I've played, especially sandbox games.

So like stealth, surprise attacks, treasure hunting of sorts, commerce/trade, a bit of danger mixed in, combat against other players, stuff I was used to and that EVE did well. And even knowing generally that I wanted to do things mainly involving cov-ops, my original 1 year plan changed the first 90 days quite a bit. hah mostly realizing black-ops wasn't going to work for me, but I found better with focusing on cruisers and even frigs. I still want an SWG like BH system still though (long-range tracking), but there is enough to keep me going for some time to come, until I die or find better, and sadly I don;t see "better" coming out of the mmo market any longer, not for my play-style at least.

So maybe with a little experience can I say, just explore and see what clicks for you. Don't be afraid to look deeply into the various things to do here, you may be surprised. And EVE isn't going away anytime soon... as most new games just seem to be headed to failure followed by closure.

Don't have time atm to scan through all the replies (leaving for work in 5 minutes), but here something vital from a player who was in your shoes 3 months ago.

Typically in RPGs, or in any game for that matter, you can be really good at what you do and rush through the game to get to what you want (i.e. leveling up, crafting trade skills, etc). EvE isn't really like that, but that's always why I've enjoyed my short time here so far. You CAN make things quicker by using the EvEMon program and reducing training time significantly, but even then you're looking at months of training time. You do not play this game for the short term, although it's still fun right out of the gates.