EVE New Citizens Q&A

Hey!

Basically, I started the game about half-a-year ago and played it for a month or two. I liked the complexity and the presentation of the game, but I had no time and RL took over.

Now I have some free time on my hands and I am thinking that I might spend it on EVE. The thing is - I am rather quiet type and I have a hard time making friends online. I am not complaining about it, but I kinda see it hindering my game experience. Is the regular chit-chat necessary to actually do something in this game, or joining a corporation doesn't incline the small talk. Is the game still enjoyable without having in game friends? :D

And also, is it worth playing if I can devote only couple of hours every week. I mean, wont I have extremely slow progress trough out the game - with resources, ISK and such?

Thanks!

EVE is a sandbox game; there are no quest arcs to move you from zone to zone as you level up. Instead, after a brief tutorial, you can go anywhere and do whatever you want. In practice, this means you have two options:

1. Come up with your own plans and goals, and achieve them. I found this to be similar to kids playing, where they can build a whole universe with a single doll or toy, and unfortunately as an adult, plots and goals that I may come up with are spoiled for me; I get bored.

2. Participate in someone else's plots, plans, and goals. Much more enjoyable, for me. This means, however, that you have to join a corp, so that you can participate in their corp goals and organized events. Finding a good corp is probably the hardest thing to do in EVE, but a good corp really makes the game awesome.

EVE corps aren't about chatting, they're more about doing. High-sec doesn't have much that can't be achieved solo, and with less taxes or donations than in a corp, so most high-sec corps tend to suck, as they don't have anything that would convince members to stay. If you look at "dangerous" space (lowsec, null, wormhole space), that's where there are enemies and friends, as well as things that a corp can provide that you can't really do solo. So corps that operate in these regions of space are generally better quality.

Otherwise, you should be able to find a corp that accepts "casual" players; after all, most of us have kids and jobs and time constraints much like you do.

The game is a PVP game; the PVE aspects of it are years behind what you can find in other MMO's with their quest lines and advanced AI boss encounters. You'll get bored relatively fast with the randomized repeatable missions, and nothing beats the unexpected interaction you'll get from other players.

Your skill points accumulate by themselves, whether you're logged in or not. So you don't need to "grind" for "xp" or "levels". You could grind for money, but it's a lot more convenient to pay "double" subscription for a month here and there, basically pay your subscription + get 500 PLEX, and sell the PLEX in-game for 1.5B ISK, which will set you up with hundreds of ships to lose to PVP or PVE for fun.

But, again, with no grind for "xp" and possibly no grind for money, your enjoyment will really depend on finding goals to attain and things to do.

Good corps put very little demands on you.

Most of my toons are in a corp with a 0% tax rate in null that has no mandatory corp ops (though does run some fun ones... not for corp profit but just for kicks).

So what do they get from having members?

1. They own POCO's (player owned customs offices) in the system we are based in and some nearby ones. They collect tax revenue from people located in those systems doing PI... so by drawing more people to those systems (corp members), the corp gets more income.

2. The corp is heavily into manufacturing... and they control the local moon mining. So the materials needed for creating T2 items are generally bought locally from the corp... which makes them profit.

3. The corp offers JF transportation for a price to corp members.

4. The corp has a buyback program for loot and PI for lazy folks like me. We sell our stuff at an amount slightly below Jita Buy and they get to JF it to Jita and either sell it immediately at the buy price for a small profit or the sell price for a larger (delayed) profit.

There are plenty of other things that corps do as well which both provide benefit for their members (in terms of not having to worry about stuff) that also bring profit to the corporation.

I'm mostly a solo industrialist (started Feb 2009), but I like having the ability to do everything whenever I'm in the mood to do it.

I earn roughly 30-50 million ISK per day doing PI in nulsec with one character. It takes me roughly 10 minutes per evening to pick-up, and maybe 15 minutes every two days to restart extraction.

Running a NPC site like a Haven takes roughly 20 minutes or so in my lame little cruiser (Gila, a medium-drone boat). There are faster ships to clear the sites, even carriers, but I'm happy doing it slow. A site is worth roughly 30 million ISK. If you get a 10/10 escalation, you can sell the bookmark to the acceleration gate for 130m.

On the weekend, I was mining with a Mackinaw in a small corp fleet of 6 Rorquals, so I had max boosts. I harvested over 100 million ISK of ore, and I was purposely mining the "garbage" asteroids when I could (small asteroids, so annoying for Rorquals).

My corp is mostly in EU timezone, but I am not. Still, it works for me.

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=6995078#post6995078

no the social is only as important as you want it to be.

I'm an alpha in a small Indy mining corp in a low population system, 5 or 6 people twice as many alts. I hardly catch them on more than once a week.

I stay in the corp because I like going on mining fleet when I do catch them on, they do all my refining for free, and sometime they go to Jita in a freighter and I give them a shopping list, and they keep me up to date on the local gank crews passing through.

I know a few guys on local, if I get board, or mining fleet up if someone is boosting.

For the rest, I hardly see anyone, I mine, bash small combat sites, and run the hack and relic sites all alone.

Sometimes you can find small fun corps that mostly let you do whatever and don't require you to be there 24/7.


KEK for example is run by a cool CEO who found me by chance and helped me get up to speed.

I've been to a wormhole and went from selling Veldspar to Pyroxers on top of mining rare ores and even salvaged some sleeper loot.


This is in a tiny Venture (Which was gifted to me by the corp Thanks guys!)


Now, I'm making enough per full hold to pay for decently fitted frigates.





Now....newbies.

If you adventure in lowsec, expect to die but be nice.

I once went exploring lowsec in another Venture after having gotten greedy with the sucess mining in 0.5 security space I had at one point.


I got podded in short order in the asteroid field.


The guy who podded me (Behemoth or something?) talked to me asking if I was new. I confirmed it and we ended up having a lengthy conversation which somehow turned into a sort of 'newbie help' conversation. He was a decent guy for a pirate. Even gave me isk to pay for a new Venture and its fittings.


The important part of the discussion was the reasons for the isk donation.

According to him, many new players or explorers of low sec tend to get a bit rude and whiny that they got shot. But, occasionally reasonable folk show up and actually don't hold much of a grudge because this is EVE, ships get wrecked every second.

Being reasonable and nice enough to more experienced players can give you bits of knowledge the tutorial doesn't teach you. If you're lucky, you may even get a little isk to really get started with the game.

Awesome!

Thank you all for the replies! I guess I shouldn't be overthinking this and just get right on it. Sounds like everyone should be able to find something to do in EvE!

I am going to try to learn from your stories and advices!

Safe Flying!

Don't feel overcommited to the corp, they are not used to 24/7 employees And make sure if you work hard for a corp to earn hard as well.
Just fun, joining a corp is not an employment, but more like joining a club. Some clubs have stricter rules than others, but all of them have a mass of members who don't work anything (because they're offline or enjoy their lifes in WH or have other exciting projects).
The nice point of a club is meeting members and vets with quick advice and unusual tasks which make you learn about the human part of EVE.