EVE New Citizens Q&A

Heh... what you might call "hostility" we usually refer to as "bitter" and "cynical." I often muse how it's similar to the same phenomena that occurs with crotchety older people in RL.

As far as being "knowledgeable"... that's something that just "happens" when you experience numerous different playstyles and study what makes different tactics, fittings, and mechanics work. Play long enough and you too will become "knowledgeable" (pro-tip; hang out with people more experienced than you are and this process becomes accelerated).



Another pro-tip: the only thing preventing you from doing stuff or getting involved is you. Take the first step and go out to "interact" with people... for better or worse. You'll soon find companions who will help you better yourself (and if you're lucky, vice versa).



You can be a "real player" just by being taking action and keeping a good head on your shoulders.
Even in a frigate with low skillpoints you can decide a battle by being able to hold down a target (see: "tackle") long enough for your back-up to arrive.
Even with relatively little combat interest you can train yourself up to use probes and play a pivotal role in deciding the logistics ability of a corp that lives in wormholes.
If you train up skills in trading and have a very good mind you can affect entire regional markets by building up capital, buying and selling things that people need, and then using that money and those goods to crash the market for *****-n-giggles (I know a guy who does this).

Now skillpoints do play a role in all this and do limit your ability... but up to a point. It's up to you to decide WHERE and HOW you apply those skillpoints. And even then it is no guarantee of success (as many a "better-vet" can attest to).

Yes it's rather easy actually cause half the time you end up with older friends at some point or another ^^

You can catch up with older players cause all skills stop at lvl 5, so that means that when u train level 5 in a skill you are now caught up with everyone else that has ever trained that skill to 5 and they can be any better then you with that skill.

The other half though is your own skill and this comes from you actually going out and researching it and doing it.

EVE is huge and deep but it can be learned. Strive to learn all that you can about a topic so that you don't get done in by older players. Or ask some of the nicer ones for help

I'd like to get this out of the way first:

The idea that "you can never catch up" is a lie, perpetuated by people who dislike eve on other grounds.

I started playing on 07. I recently ran into another 07 player, who quit because he felt he could never catch up to the original players. The thing is, I'm now one of those players people complain they can never catch up to. The average player age in eve is 7 months. Play for more then that, and you're ahead of the curve.

More directly, eve is worth it for anyone who has the mindset for eve. Eve is a game of patience, planning and decisiveness. It rewards long term play and those with initiative find that all of new eden is their oyster. There is no other game like it, not even close, and its an intensely rewarding experience.

For example, you can't compare world of warcraft to eve. Someone hacked my old wow account and used it to mine rare ores. Once the GM's dealt with it they left the ore on my account for some reason, so I used it to monopolize the entire server. After about 2 days a GM convo'd me and told me I wasn't allowed to do that,

Its a different game, the only one of its class. If its your kind of game, the question is not "is it worth playing now?" but "how long can I avoid playing before it inevitably sucks me in?".

A 2005 vet player flies around in lowsec with his big badass battleship.

He has a bigger ship.

He has more SP than you do to fly that ship.

To get those SP to fly it to perfection, he trained for years.

You get your 10 million isk worth frigate.

Your ship is so small.

It took you a few weeks of skill training to fly it well.

You wrap scramble the big badass ship.

He tries to hit you with his big guns, but he can't. You are too small to hit.

He trained for years and yet... He can't even scratch you.

He cries in frustration as your friends come with bigger guns to finish the job.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Lesson of the day : You don't need that big bad ass ship to be a killer in eve. Every ship as it's role to play and that small frigate you can fly right now as it's own role. I have seen a 2003 Fleet commander fly that very frigate you are flying.

So is it worth it for a newbie?

If you are obsessed with flying a big titan.... No, wait for at least 2-3 years to catch up.

If you understand that even smaller ships are some of the most usefull tools in a fleet. Yes.

If you want to learn faster, i suggest tree things.

1) Join a corp of experienced players. Make sure the corp is new player friendly, that it is old (meaning that it is stable), and ask for their killboard to see if their killmails match your playing time. Having a good corp will save you a lot of learning time as they will teach you how to behave in a fleet and help you with personal things.

2) Even if you are in a corp, do not be affraid to go solo in lowsec even if that means dying. Get a cheap frigate or even a cruiser and get out there. You need to learn how to survive on your own without relying a fleet to save your ass. You can only learn so much in fleet pvp. Solo pvp will give you very little wins for a lot of losses, but believe me when i say that after a month of two of solo in lowsec you will learn how to increase your chances of survival by 10 folds. And that experience will serve you well in fleet operations. Don't stay docked in a station and wait for a fleet to get out there.

3) Do Missions. While the AI isn't good enough to simulate a pvp fight, it will be a good way to train on those reflexes you should have when engaging a target.

To sum things up. Don't stay in your CQ and wait for SP to build up. Get out there and die. Get a new ship, and die again. That's the best and quickest way to learn.

The chess analogy works well.

When I was 14 I beat my chess tutor (far less upperclass than it sounds!) in a game. He was ranked, and an all round chess badass with an ELO of whatever is really rather impressive.

I didn't beat him by straight skill. I beat him because I was wholly unpredictable and accidentallied his strategy. He moved to plan where I should move, and I didn't because I was relatively clueless.

This repeats itself in Eve, vets learn "X for Y, A for B" but you can often be a spanner in the works as a new player. I beat a 4 year old player in a 1 on 1 when I was 4 months into the game, by using a bit of random in my tactics.

tl;dr - you've probably got some skills you didn't know you had. Eve is an MMO, and people are behind the ships. Understand the people, and you can outmaneuver them with lesser in-game skills.

EDIT: trade, more so than anything else, requires "IRL" skills to work. You can absolutely do this and not engage in "combat" but all buy and sell orders will be PVP

Sounds like fun to me!

Get hostile back xD

My best advice is to find and join a corporation with like minded people. This game is so much more fun when playing in a group. That truly makes it worth it.

I was in the same position when I started (years ago) and the amount of fun took a huge leap forwards when I joined a 0.0 corporation with enthusiastic people. Note that I joined that 0.0 corp when I was only 3 weeks into the game. I was doing all sorts of fun things before I could even fly a battle cruiser.

Also, when I started at CCP and got to play on a brand new account I had my first 0.0 PVP solo kill with a 1 day old character. If you know what you are doing then character age and SP are only a part of the equation.

Note, whilst this is fun, if you're all newish to the game, you may find some unwelcome surprises in store/



This. full stop. no exceptions.


You really do need to find friends...




indeed.