EVE New Citizens Q&A

You are not at a disadvantage. Plenty of people use only 1 account.

The only benefit of having multiple accounts is that you can train multiple characters (but that is now also possible the PLEX-2-train) and have multiple characters logged in at the same time.

Sure, some things are easier when dual boxing. For instance miner(s) with an Orca alt. Or capital ships with your own cyno alts.

But EVE is totally possible with only 1 account or even 1 character.

This^^

There isn't a real disadvantage in things you can do or how well you can do them, but multiple accounts allow a lot of convenience over other people in many areas. Your alts are where you need them, when you need them no questions asked. Having a friend there would be better. but it's not always possible. Some jobs or roles are really unattractive for another actual person, since they're not that involving, fun or lucrative to do. Alts are perfect for them.

Logistics. Second accounts make possible things you can't do with one. These are generally support roles: hauling, scouting, information gathering. (Yes there are further niche role exceptions)

Do you need one? Probably not. Are they useful? For somethings, yes, they are, unavoidably so. For somethings you will want one. Yet as a new pilot do you need one? No, not really. When you need one, you'll know. You'll probably be better off with market hub alts on your primary account with low to no skills.

For the vast majority of my EVE-life I've only had and ever felt the need to have one account. At one point I did pay for a Power of Two promotion (heavy discount on a 2nd account for 6 months) and used it to train up a hauler/trader...who then got transferred to my main account at the end of the 6 months. Realistically, the only benefit this provided me is that I have two characters on the account rather than one that can fly a blockade runner. If I had not done that, I probably would've just made a more basic hauler alt with t1 industrials and done any dangerous hauling on my main. So, ultimately, it only provided me a small convenience...and I had been playing for years before I even did this.

And that's really what multiple accounts are - a convenience. The vast majority of EVE players are working adults (average age as of a couple years ago was ~28 or so) with enough disposable income to be able to afford an extra $15-30 a month to make a hobby slightly more enjoyable. Additionally, people who for whatever reason have tons of ISK often buy multiple accounts via PLEX if they have nothing else to spend it on.

There are a few occasions where you probably do want another character, but these are things you can generally do with a character on the same account with minimal deviation from your main's skill training.

Having only one account means you won't have a reason to upgrade to the $200 graphics card instead of the $100 card. You will also have less reason to get twelve monitors attached to your PC, and you will have more time during your play session to play rather than constantly managing the multiple accounts and learning how to use ISBoxer.

In short, if you are interested in playing EVE rather than wrangling your hardware and software to support multiboxing, you are probably better off with jut one account and a desire to meet new friends (rather than manufacturing new "friends").

I'd agree that the big win with several accounts is you can train alts in 1/N the time it would take you to do "everything" on your main. Beyond that, it's just a matter of how much convenience are you willing to buy to do things like dual-log a mission runner and salvager, or dual DPS to run missions faster, or a booster + your main, etc.

That said, you are at no disadvantage at all compared to everyone else who only runs one account. There have to be some of those people still around.

Or maybe it's just you . . .