EVE New Citizens Q&A

Looking over the thread, how it got derailed and how Ace got schooled, i got to say that it turned out pretty well in the end. I made the points i wanted to make and Ace provided an excellent example of how not to do it. That's worthwhile as well.

I added a disclaimer to my post so nobody reads Ace's post and takes it at face value. This way, everyone wins.


Thanks to everyone, i think i can use this thread in the future when i want to link to it. Op success.

For what it's worth, I think this forum could do with more advocacy of specific career choices, provided it's articulate and credible, of course; and fewer "Do whatever you want in this great big wonderful sandbox"-type posts. For the most part, new players are going to be smart enough to figure out for themselves that the former are mere opinions, and how well the advice applies to themselves. (At any rate, if they're not smart enough, neither kind of post is going to help them much with Eve. God have mercy on their souls. )

As an aside, I happen to agree with the OP that this forum could use a lot less "Look it up, n00blet." It may be the hundredth time -you've- answered the question, but it's their first time asking it. Hopefully.

It's worth noting that Evemon, Eve-survival and so on are crutches for those still figuring out how things work, and while they'll help you in the short term you really need to attempt to wean yourself off them in the long term, because if you are dependent on them as a 'full' player you're going to get out-competed in your field of expertise pretty regularly.

I mean, if that doesn't bother you that other players your 'age' will typically be better than you, that's fine, and with missions especially it doesn't matter since there's no downside to people being better than you, but if we're going with the WoW analogy think how mediocre the healers still using healbot after a month of raiding were, or how they couldn't do a goddamned thing on the frequent occasions that it was buggy. Rely on the actual in-game info and gui as much as possible.

100% This.

Both Becky and Ace posted good info but Becky ended up trolling. I think what Ace posted is more realistic and viable for new players.

Why? New players are gonna be hard pressed to find and complete exploration sites right at first, especially in high sec due to high skilled competition. Telling them to go to low sec is a death sentence. They need to learn how to operate the User Interface, do ship fitting, understand game mechanics, etc.

So for the question - What do I do after the Career Agents?

Main thing to remember is they will need ISK and some time to train up core skills right at first. While doing that, they also need to be accomplishing something in the game.

Despite which career path they might choose the obvious answer is - The level 1 Sisters Of Eve Epic Arc.

That gives them time to train up core skills, gives them some basic experience fitting and piloting ships, gives them ISK and above all else, gives them time to decide which career path they want to pursue.

After completing the SoE arc they can read various guides and train up the appropriate skills for one or more different careers :

Missions, Exploration, Manufacturing, Marketing, Hauling, Trade, Invention, Mining, Planetary Interaction, Ratting, Piracy, join Red v Blue, Factional Warfare, Sansha Incursions, etc.

After they choose a Career path, they can decide to either create or join a Player Corp or even just stay in NPC Corp.


Very well written. I totally agree 100%.


DMC

Oooh...Mr. I'm a holy saint because I started before the OP did...This is a personal attack.

And as you like to point others at the forums rules I'm not going to post them even...just reported.

I totally agree with the OP...Ace is pushing people into grinding and he tells them that's all they can do.
I have NEVER found anything in EVE grinding, I recently (last december) made an alt, and after the tutorial+career agents I went and joined RvB.

So your whole point they NEED to do the SoE so they can train Core skills before they can do anything....bunch of bullshit. If a new player wants, he can go low-sec from day one. It won't be easy, but some people like to play this game a bit harder then just carebearing in high-sec forever...

Some people start trading almost right from the start - no grinding
Some people get picked up by corps/alliances with a newbie drive, get dropped into pvp and given ships for free to get blown up - no grinding
Some people don't think in low brow silly numerical goals and simply float around doing cool stuff - no grinding
Some people use their brains instead of hard labour and figure out smart ways to make money with less time wasted - no grinding
Some become Ninja looters/salvagers - no grinding
Some people decide that they're not going to waste time ingame as their RL financial situation easily allows for selling plex for ingame income - no grinding


This game is only a grind if you want it to be, grinding is for people who lack the higher brain functions required to think outside the box or function beyond basic capacity. Telling newbies "go grind" is effectively telling them that you think they have an IQ of 70, just because they're new to this game. Newbie and noob are two entirely different things and while stating that doing some missions will help a newbie get used to the UI and basic combat makes good sense that's an entirely different stance from "thou shalt run missions till thine eyes bleed".

Hi again- this is the rookie channel and I am as noob as can be to EVE. That said I have played almost every MMO on the market to some form of its end game since they were non-graphical MUDs. Often I would devour a game in a very short period of time, dual or tri boxing multiple classes, etc.

EVE seems to me to have some unique qualities. The fact that skills progress at a more or less fixed pace where no amount of effort or grinding (beyond Implants, remaos and the strategic use of jump clones) effects them is interesting. You can't go faster or power game this portion of the game. You can create a leveraged skill architecture, but you would need some idea of where you wanted to go in order to do that. The application of a WoW type mental model to that question will lead to certain architectures and miss others altogether it seems to me.

Game theory, meta gaming, systems thinking, understanding how game mechanics work, etc. port to EVE as far as I can tell so far. It also seems to me that there are many things that WoW type experience will not assist, and might even make invisible since the WoW type player will look at the sandbox of EVE and see something similar to WoW.

The real time manipulation of your in game avatar (ship) seems much simpler in some ways, though ones market presence could be considered a much, much more complex avatar than any WoW type offers. Even WoW is simpler than many other mmo's in terms of real time manipulation. Vertical integration of your character activity seems much more complex. Perhaps that won't be the case for me later on.

What I do think is true is that the understanding about how to leverage game mechanics does port from WoW type games, as has been mentioned. What is distinctive about EVE is that it does not have a single location defined, or even gear defined end game, per se. One way this is noticeable is that expansions do not raise some level cap or proxy for that as far as I can tell. In a WoW type game the level cap gets raised with content that both makes it possible and challenging to attain. Is there anything really like that in EVE?

Another way you can see a difference is to ask "who is the best player"? Is it the person with the most kills? The best fleet commander? CEO? Most ISK? Most assets? Largest Alliance? Most territorial control? What? You can come close to saying who that person or people are in WoW type games. In EVE this question is likely to start a far more brutal flame war than the one you would get in a WoW type community... Though you would get it there as well, between classes and such usually. The reason for this is that the game goals are far more player configurable in EVE than even the best crafting systems and such in WoW type games.

A player could define or unthinkingly assume their own end game and then port WoW skills into that framework very effectively however, as has been noted.

I will say that as an utter and complete noob I feel no need to grind whatsoever. None. I spend as much time now learning out of game and configuring the game, learning to simply cross the map and such as I do 'grinding'... All the while my skills are happily ticking along according to the best plan I can come up with. I already have an alt and am attempting to create a synergistic strategy for all that to allow maximum leverage, learning and vertical integration. I am up to fitting and flying dessies and working on figuring out where I want to leverage vertically. The most fun I have been having however is with fitting Ventures to fly places I should not be able to go and mine things I should not be able to mine yet.... And the Pet class equivalent of Gallente Drones. I don't usually like Pet classes, but the Drone boats have been amazingly fun. That is another thing, I think regardless how skilled, rich, etc. I might manage to get, that continuing to optimize and fly a Tristan in many different configurations (for example) will be fun for a looong time.

If this were a WoW type I would be grinding up a storm to level and leverage multiple toons and I would consider anything not along that path a distraction. I would already be very clear about the end game possibilities in the current version of the game and have a clear idea about the route to that and trade offs, etc. Some people seem to assert that they know this for EVE and there are aspects that fit this, but it seems to me that the 'end game' is far more player determined than in WoW types. I like grinding, but I am not finding it necessary and not missing it.

I am not interested in joining a Corp in any immediate way. I do not really wish to have the game constrained by that agenda when it is not necessary. This is another huge difference. If I were interested in that I could get involved in massive 'end game' type battles from very early on. It does not seem to take long to get into a tackler role and such. At least they might appear end game from the WoW mental model. In a purely level based game that would be impossible.

Anyway, if I haven't been clear, my suspicion is that the WoW type mental training does port, but not because of deep structural similarities in the games, but rather because the open nature of EVE allows them to be usefully applied.

Didn't mean to embark upon an incoherent ramble... Interesting thread though.

I actually liked this post. Maybe because at one point i found my self in the complete opposite situation.
EVE was my first online game, my second computer game (Heroes of Might and Magic 3). I ended up playing WOW a few years ago because of a bet with my step daughter who made the claim that an EVE player would never be able to understand or advance in such a complicated game as WOW. Guess how pissed she was when i got the archivment for killing the LK after a couple of months while she had years of exsperiense and had not beaten him yet

Anyway..
There is some grinding in EVE. But not in the same way as in games as WOW. In WOW you have the constant competition for "the best gear", constantly doing quests, farming materials, raids for the gear drops and currency for even better gear.
In EVE the "grind" is more simple. You find your way to make ISK, and when you have found it and gotten decent at it you can get what you need in a few hours of game play. But just because it does not requiere daily grind, its still there. However this is one of the reasons why EVE is easier to play more casually because you dont "have to" log on every day to do your dailies, and you can do the "grind" when you feel like it, which makes it a lot more enjoyable.

I can not understand how a WOW player can come to EVE and play it like it IS WOW. I can understand them trying.. Looking for the quest givers that sends them to the new area (tutorial agents) and then feeling lost when there is no more direction or explanation on what they "should" do. Since there is no "end game" in EVE (which is very unusual with online games in my exsperiense) i can see them feeling very lost and confused.

Now you add on the normal "I want to be the best!" mentalety which works great in a game like WOW, and then quickly realizing that this is very (almost impossible) to archive in EVE unless you do something really unusual. I think for many this simply takes away their reason to play EVE because it does not appeal to their.. competetivness? Not sure if thats even a word... In EVE you can get knows, sure, but in general you get known within a smaller community (your corp, alliance, friends, allies, enemies..) while most of the EVE population will have no idea (or really care) who you are.

For your question about "raising the level cap". No EVE does not really have anything like that. Ofc sometimes they will add some new ships and skills that might requiere more training then your average ship (Titans as an example), but in general..not really. Unless you count when they up the clone limit since people are out skilling the current clones

For your closing paragraph..
Some things will be "similar" or based on the same concept in every game you play. So i should not be suprised that people look at EVE and compare it to how things are done in WOW.
But people should realize they cant go into EVE thinking they will become the best, or that they are awesome from day one because they played WOW or any other online game.(I really feel like i could just post this here; The Law of Jante) EVE is complex in ways other games cant compete with (the open world, unlimited options, consequenses for everything they do, scamming and theft and the risk you take whenever you undock). And yes i do realize WOW has PVP servers, but in those cases you still have a choise, if you dont like getting killed, transfer your character.

EVE gives you a lot of options and freedom, but EVE also forces you to accept that you don't get this freedom without having to take some risks.

(I really hope any of that made any sense, 5 in the morning and i should be sleeping, yet im sitting here reading the forums But i will say, this thread is indeed interesting, but it seems like whenever someone mentions WOW a lot of hate appears no matter what.)

Typical talks of a high-sec mission-bear that never looked further then a 0.5 system.

OK, Thread locked for a few minutes while I consider this.

----side rant
+1 to J'Poll for reporting herself. That takes some consideration and introspection to step back and say, "I may have screwed up."

That being said, I have read through this thread, and want to say, that you guys have been pretty good.....a little name calling here or there, but other than that, not bad.

I think that this thread is one of the best examples of what makes this game great and why I volunteer to be a forum moderator.
You see, this should be a simple subject.
"Exploration - Why it's the best thing to do if you don't know what... "

This would seemingly have a yes or a no answer. Nope, this is Eve. No simple answers. None.
Instead we get into a Small Flame War regarding The Best Way To Play.

Heh. I love Eve.
----end side rant

OK, back onto moderation. I am leaving this thread and the posts as is.

Everyone, put your egos away, and just try to help out the noobs.
Remember this part of the forum is for the noobs.
So check your egos at the door, keep it clean, and don't type angry.

PS. Let's lay off calling people idiots and noobs, K? We do not know who the person on the other side of the keyboard is.
Be excellent to each other.