EVE New Citizens Q&A

As a new player on a limited trial account trying out the game so far - The trial has been good in that:

The game didn't require a lot out of me to start a trial account. Too high a bar when I'm not sure if I will like a game and I might be inclined to go for a different games Free to Play or Trial version.

It is also good for not locking out young players that don't have their own credit cards, etc.

( I would hate to see the ability of young people to make trials get messed up because experienced adult players insist on unlimited trials being 100% gank capable but can't limit how many each person has without Real Life ID / credit card info. )

It has been good in that I could try out the basics of the game. At least enough to see that this one is a deep game with a very high learning curve – which in my case is not a turn off.

Now before ANY announcements or changes in the game occurring I quickly figured out that I wanted to try all four factions on trial before picking one account to become a subscriber on, if, the game has not turned out to be a bad experience by the time I am confident that I have an accurate grasp of each factions style and want to really develop one or two of them.

The down side of the current Trial system is that I have a limited time to learn the basic feel of each faction and that, basically, I have to do the trials consecutively. I can't do them simultaneously.

I have seen people call Eve a simulator as much as a game.

What Eve is doing for sure is simulating ecosystems.

The economic side I will not address as much because it is more complex with, I perceive, more variables. But will still have related elements.

Put bluntly most natural ecosystems have predators and prey.

These have to balance out.

If you have too many predators you wind up with prey scrambling into places they probably should not be looking for places to hide from overly high predation and you have predators starving, fighting each other over scant resources, or literally eating each other.

If you have too many prey species as compared to predators populating an ecosystem they tend to exhaust their food sources and starve.

Now you may be looking at this and say “what the heck does this have to do with Eve, there is no such thing as starvation in the game.”

Literal starvation no. But the prey and predator behavioral effects yes, it does, and it does so on two levels.

1) On the Economic level of Production vs Destruction of resources and assets.

2) On the physical level of a player can “kill” another player or be “killed” by another player.

So I'm going to apply this concept to Eve's High Sec ( supposedly relatively safer ) space for Newbie Players.

If all of these new Rookie players can change their security status, then some of them, in competing with other herbivores, may convert into predators. Combined with OMEGA CLONE account predators this could create the diss-balance where there are too many predators running around and not enough prey to economically support the financial destruction wrought on rookies.

This is not a preferable scenario. If in effect you get groups of, either newbies or experienced, players basically “King of the hill”ing other Rookie players out of High Sec, and possibly out of the game.

Why would it drive players out of the game ?

Currently with low “prey” numbers I can sit out in relatively empty sectors of space and mine away to collect money ( with little competition and even often AFK ) that will probably eventually get used to buy mid level ships and gear with a paid account.

If I'm getting ganked left and right in “safe space” before I even know how to play the game and I am constantly loosing money and perceive that I am never going to get out of being constant prey, **** it, I'll go play some other game that doesn’t have persistent skills or gear which inherently tilts Eve against me as a new player.

Now I have only visited High Sec and Worm Hole space. But in reading the musings of experienced players that rampant “Suicide Ganking” could make faction controlled nul-sec space the only relatively “safe” place in the game, it occurred to me that the new ALPHA CLONE accounts could actually pose more of a problem in nul-sec space. As in, what happens if Experienced players can create unlimited numbers of ALPHA CLONE accounts as “herbivores” AFK resourcing and then spend their time being sheep herders guarding their flocks? Or convert them more efficiently than current new accounts into skill point farms? If they succeeded in doing so with high end resources, etc. could they not affect the economy more than a flood of rookies mining Veldspar?

for gamers not old enough to have a credit card Eve is to slow for anyway.
they like playing CS and other fast phased games.

I don't know what Alpha clones are.

Unless you RP, outside of looks of your character there really isn't any difference between the races. You can fly any race's ships and you can join any militia regardless of your character's race etc... so there is no functional difference.

Other than that I checked out on the text wall pretty early on as it seemed like a lot of theoretical mumbo jumbo from someone trying to tell me what they think the game might be like before they have even tried it. The devs might care about your initial impression buy as a regular in this section of the forum I feel my job here is to answer more practical questions.

I'm not trying to deride you for posting your opinion more just pointing out that I did not see much of a question so don't be surprised if you don't see much in the way of answers. However if you did have a question that got lost in the text wall try posting just the question.

Other than that welcome to Eve and have fun.

I don't agree at all.

When I was in college I got my classmates son, who was seven to nine years old at the time, into playing Starcraft on a PC. Up to that point he had mostly played things on his Nintendo. It became his favorite game. He was a whip smart kid and intellectually challenging games really gave him something to do. And do well.

Believe in their ability and they will likely live up to your expectations.

Not that "twitch" games aren't fun. But I take credit for encouraging him to step into things that take much more thinking.

Don't assume that kids can't take to this well.

Sorry there isn't more question here. I would have liked to post directly to the Dev board but I am on a Trial account so this is what I had access to. Rookie input on the proposed ALPHA CLONE idea is something the Devs should have. It was my hope that other Rookies would put their thought on it here too.

There are so many words in so many posts, and I suppose there is a point or a question in there somewhere.

The only real advice I have at this point is not to worry about trying all four factions. Gallante/Amarr and Caldar/Minmatar have pretty similar playstyles. So doing either in each group gives you a feel for either. Shield/Missiles or Armor/Drones with gunnery available for all races. If you switch to omega, then all skills become available and your race stops mattering.

Your friend's kid is an exception. Personally I am nervous that many kids that act badly will come into EvE. I play two F2P games and the players in those are so annoying I muted all players as I don't want to hear their foolishness. I am concerned there could be many of these in EvE. Players in EvE don't care if you are 15 or 51 if you are not acting badly.

whooops, wrong subforum.