EVE New Citizens Q&A

I'd like to pose a couple of questions to the new citizens. I hope you'll humor an oldie who's been around for as long as EVE herself.

Assuming you are a new player who recently subscribed from a trial, what was it that convinced you to take that step? And what, if anything, that you experienced would have been most likely to prevent you in taking that step?

Thanks!

p.s. Fellow oldies can comment too :)

I'd consider myself a 'seasoned newbie'

For me, it was how unique and open the game is compared to other mmo's, not to mention the depth. IMHO, the most unique thing about it is that you essentially start at end-game. There's nothing you HAVE to do to get there (i.e. level up, grind, etc.), you're there already. Now what will hold you back is once you find out what direction you want to go, you'll need to train some skills of course (and get some isk), but you shouldn't be able to get things too easily or the accomplishment is diminished, there should be effort involved.

Overall, I'm quite happy in New Eden. I should be here a while.

After three years of juggling with real life duties and important internet spaceship responsibilities, I sadly cannot call myself a newby anymore. Still, I can still remember the humongous battleships (one of them was a Kronos!) floating all around my tiny velator at the gates, the chilling sensation I got whenever I warped in to some combat mission bookmark, the sense of sheer power when I warped away from the wreck-filled site of the battle. It was all huge, it was all new and it was all wild.

Some context: EVE was and still is, with one exception (an FPS shooter), the only multiplayer game I've played long term. Except a month or so of Lineage II, I haven't played any other MMORPGs either. What got me into EVE, though, was the insanely annoying ad campaign from all across the interwebs and the fact that my Sci-Fi geek self longed for a Sci-Fi spaceship themed video game that wasn't crap. So I signed up for a trial account and got blown away. To this day, 30% of all EVE-related stuff I can easily recall happened during those two weeks of mystery and wonder.

What nearly made me not activate the trial, though, was the subscription. Not because it was expensive, but because I had to rely on my parents credit card to pay it.

Overall, I cannot see any downsides to EVE that would make me want to unsub, except maybe CCPs occasional apparent lack of interest in its playerbase and the fact that EVE is a demanding mistress - you either live your real life to the fullest, or your spacelife, but never both. And I'm dead busy these days.

So, what do I have to do for you guys to hire me?

No grand story here I'm afraid.

To answer the questions however:

1. What was the straw that pulled out the CC?
The Tutorial scope sold me and I knew I would activate. The exploration tutorial gave the impression of a grand, big and unknown world that was out there for us to play in in particular. The sheer volume of possibilites blew me away.

My CC actually came out when I wanted to move stuff and couldn't inject that industrial skill yet. You got me.

2. What would have stopped it?
If the exploration tutorial was more like the others. The others were functional but did not get me thinking about 'endless possibilities' in the same way.

The sheer scale of the game blew me away, big ships, big battles, multiple game carreer options, limitless growth etc. If I hadn't caught that scent early in the tutorials I may not have ponied up the dough.

My first few days were spent on the undock gawking at the size difference between my little nub ship and the massive freightors and battleships floating about.

I think I can answer that as I've tried EVE before and it didn't work out. First things first, my reason to actually move away from my old MMO (WOW) was that the grinding and "carrot on a stick" became so painfully obvious and silly I just couldn't do it any more. I've tried several other MMOs since then but they could all be summed up as "trying too hard to be like WOW" which I'm not interested in anymore because if i were I'd be playing... WOW. So the reason for checking EVE out in the first place is that it ISN'T trying to mimic World of Warcraft.

What got me interested was the vastness of it and it seemingly being an open ended sandbox. First time I tried EVE was about a year ago and I was kinda pushed into mining (the majority of players in help chat back then said "go mine"). Mining drove me crazy, i just couldn't do it and I didn't make it past the trial, i didn't even complete the 14 days.

This time I'm doing it differently; I've put in effort to find answers, ask questions and try to learn as much as possible and try to avoid grinding alltogether while doing stuff that taxes me and forces me to learn and interact. I'm on a full account right now. I do have some dull moments because of training "boring" electronics and engineering skills so I'm not actually advancing much atm but I can think long term :)

For a more elaborate answer, check my blog; the first entry explains it exactly (shameless plug, I know).

Relatively recent, but not new, per se.

EVE attracted me because it sounded interesting. Spaceships! Complexity! Capitalism! I've constantly been bugged by friends to join, ever since release.
Having finally gotten to a point where I COULD try it out, I did. And it was incredible. I could do whatever I wanted, there was no nannying rules or harassment from staff for not doing things exactly right. Then, once I'd finished the tutorials, I got a new ship I couldn't train up to fly, and was told I needed to put up or pay up.

I ragequit, and thought about it for a while.

Half an hour later, I subscribed.


Of course, with the new emphasis on walking in stations rather than flying in space, I'm reconsidering that decision. Captain's Quarters is laggy and takes ages to load, I want to LOOK at my ships before I undock them, and I don't like the screens and the new icons and all sorts of controls. It breaks immersion. And, frankly, I don't like leaving my pod. I preferred it when the closest thing I had to an in-game avatar was a capsule.

I've been here awhile but I'll post why I came to EVE after Planetside.

Both games have massive PVP arenas. PS at one time could have 450 people in an arena - EVE can have more than that.

The thing about warfare that is really impressive - is scale. To see hundreds of other players all working together in teams that are fighting against each other - is impressive.


Now ... what I didn't care for - was the Quests I was sent on - and I use that term to make a point. There is not a substantial difference between an EQ Quest and an Agent Mission in EVE. You've got Non-Player Characters telling you what to do. Coming from Planetside and WWII Online - where there were no NPC's - the idea of having some snarky NPC telling me to go fetch something wasn't anything I cared for.

So - I spent my first few months in EVE mining, ratting and getting my first taste of PVP. I was completely in charge of my in game experience and not the servant of some NPC.


Now ... since then ... I've run a lot of missions to gain standing for my characters for various reasons - but I'm still running missions to gain standing - not as a preferred part of my game play.


.

I joined Eve in May, 2009, so not a newbie although there are days I still feel like one

One late restless night shortly after Apocrypha was released, I saw an ad for Eve Online. Honestly, I don't quite know why I choose to click the ad and download it, but I did. Within hours, I knew I was nearly hooked but resisted subscribing.

Older characters in my starter corp kept warning me about this scam, don't trust anyone, avoid doing that, stay away from there... all good advice, but it also turned me off a bit... ships getting ganked, people getting ripped off, jet cans flipped, the usual stuff. I was amazed and impressed by the game, but I wasn't sure it was for me.

On my 11th day in game, not knowing any better, I decided to try and scan out one of these wormhole things everyone was chatting about, exploration was all the rage. Using almost all the iskies I had, I fitted out my by-then trusty little Catylst with a probe launcher and 5 core probes, and following a video someone linked to me, I started scanning. I was so thrilled with myself when I found a wormhole on my very first scan!

I jumped on in and started flying around. Actually wondered what the fuss was about, cause honestly, I didn't see anything, just some planets. I hit the ship scanner and found some odd things called Frontier Fortifications and Solar Cells, so I warped to one of them.

Nearly died on landing, but managed to warp away, flames flying out of the back of my poor little ship, barely half my hull intact. Had no idea anything could hit that hard... OMG my heart was racing so much! I could not believe I actually escaped!

I look at the overview for the gate to get back out... and it is not there. I *swear* I saw the wormhole on the overview when I jumped in, why don't I see it now? With confusion, I asked in the npc corp chat.

"Didn't you bookmark it when you jumped in?"

Um... Bookmark? What's that? Seriously, I didn't know. "Um, no, I didn't bookmark it, I didn't know I had to do that. I thought I could just warp back to it like any gate..."

Wormholes were still new, and as it turned out, nobody in the chat at the time had actually been in a wormhole yet. But despite what I am sure was much laughter, came advice to scan it out again.

And that is when I realized I had no probes. I left them outside, in my rush and excitement to see the wonders of this wormhole I'd so painstakingly scanned out. There was no warning pop-up about leaving probes behind back then.

"Um... I left my probes outside..."

And at that moment, I leaned back in my chair and realized that I was truly lost in space, something that simply could not and did not happen in *any* other game. I got up and started pacing, amazed, I'm STUCK! There's no game mechanic or NPC rescue squad to save me! How the heck do I get out of this place?

Sitting back at my desk, I started flying around the planets, in that vast and empty space... I was truly alone.

It was real.

Meanwhile, the people in my npc starter corp chat were brainstorming, trying to figure out how I could get out. One person finally spoke up and asked me what system I found the wormhole in. I did happen to remember that - so I told him, and he said he'd come scan it out and try to find me. Everyone else in chat warned me not to trust him, "He'll just blow you up in there," "Just self destruct, it's better than risking your ship on a stranger..."

He scanned out the wormhole, jumped in then sent me a fleet invite, which I accepted with trepidation, all those warnings of never fleeting with strangers ringing in my head. Hands shaking and heart pumping, just *knowing* I was warping to a trap, that I was about to die with no glory, flames still pouring out of my ship, I warped to him, and what do you know, there's the wormhole right there in front of me!

I was rescued! It wasn't a trap! I was FREE! I wanted to hug my knight in shining armor right then and there!

Exhilarated, ecstatic, I jumped into hisec, and offered him all the measly few iskies I had for his time and effort as thanks. He refused and simply said, "Just help someone else stuck like you, if you ever get the chance."

I jumped from my chair shouting, cheering, knocked over my soda can then ran into my kitchen, grabbed my purse, dug my credit card out of my wallet and subsribed right then and there, my hands still shaking from the adrenaline of it all.

My hero's name was Aarthen. Although I've never flown with him since, I'll never forget him.

Three days later, I proudly paid the favor forward and scanned another newbie out of a wormhole they found themselves stuck in. A few weeks later, I joined Sephray Industries corporation, eventually joining the "inner circle" of the corp inside a class 3 wormhole that they colonized, as it turns out, three days after Apocrapha was released...a wormhole we named The Zoo. We lived in The Zoo for over two years, until May of this year when we lost it in an epic six-day seige to Russians. A major loss that had an emotional impact unlike any I've ever experienced in any game, and rarely in real life.

I was promoted to Director last year, led the formation of our own Alliance, and am currently the acting CEO of both while our real CEO is taking a break. We still maintain a small presence in wormhole space but we all feel like wormhole space has become too predictible and crowded now. While we miss our Zoo, our "home" as we felt it to be, we're desiring new challenges now, we'd really like to head to null sec but don't want to pay billions as renters or cow-tow to Napoleonic egoists ... we want to make our own way in null sec but are just too small right now to defend any space we could claim.

So we wait with bated breath for the great Null Sec Revamp, hoping for changes that make Null Sec feasible for small alliances like mine ... hoping there's a new place for us to call Home.

I'd have to say the number 1 reason I subscribed to Eve Online was its depth of game mechanics.

I knew, after play Eve for a very short time, and reading about on forums/internet, that it would satisfy my cravings for a vast in-depth game for years to come. The depth in player driven content, and depth in game mechanics.

Learning curves do not trouble me. So long as it is reasonable to get into, I can persevere, and I think the main personality types who are attracted to this game can as well.

I lost a destroyer a couple days into the game. The lossmail, which I look at now and then for a laugh, is only valued at 1.2 million, but at that time was everything I owned in Eve. This introduction to pvp got me hooked on Eve. I knew that soon I would be the one blowing up a players every possession, and I focused my skills on that path ever since.

Had Eve not been the cold hard, deep, unforgiving world it is, I would never had subscribed.

Whatever is done with FiS, WiS, and beyond, be sure to maintain that massive sense of depth, and a cold harsh world that never rewards stupidity, nor holds your hand.

I had been lurking around eve sites for a while, reading everything I could find about the game and the drama it generates, when I finally decided to enter trial. The setting, depth, complexity and the open possibilities seemed a dream come true. Still in trial, I was invited to a very nice noob corp where I made friends, wich made subscribing the obvious choice. The following half year was probably the most fun period in eve, a time mostly filled with the joy of discovery and small and big achievements.

I would not have subscribed had I known how often and badly I'd be disappointed in CCP. As a 2008 player I'm a precocious bittervet. It's not terminal illness tho, or I wouldn't be posting here.