Heyas.

I'm thinking about getting into the game by next month. I've done some research (basically reading through forums, guides, recommended urls, etc.) but still, there are two questions that are left unanswered/answered vaguely. I hope you can help me out here.

1.) Is this game casualty...err...casual-friendly? To be more specific: regarding income.

I plan to be a combat pilot(PvE/PvP). How much time do you have to spend per day to have a healthy spent-time:income-ratio (whether through ratting/missions/PvP)? I will have about 3 - 4h of game-time per day. Will that be enough to be self-sufficient (including balancing out losses/replacements)?

2.) Newb-friendly corps and my timezone.

I've read that a good start would be by joining EVE-University. I've visited their site( +forum), but I couldn't find out what time-zone they primarily play/teach. I'm located in Germany (GMT +1). Do they have a branch for European-based players or are there other newb-friendly corps using my timezone that are willing to show me the ropes?

I apologize in advance for grammatical/punctuational errors (English's not my mother tongue) and thanks for your time.
 

I would like to know these answers as well- PLUS, if I were to get involved with EVE now could I honestly catch the "Veteran" players (its my understanding that their toons gain skills constantly- even if offline) so is it impossible to "catch up"?

Eve is looking better and better by the day and I am considering taking the jump.

3-4 hours should be pretty good for making money, but as for joining a newb friendly corp I don't really care for the Eve University just go to the recruitment channel in-game and say that you are a new player looking for a mainly German corp to show you the ropes and see how many convo's you get, I used to recruit for the newb corp I was in when I first started playing so I'm sure there's some corps out there that might be a little more personally helpful and you might make some good connections/friendships along the way.

Originally posted by bluegrazz

I would like to know these answers as well- PLUS, if I were to get involved with EVE now could I honestly catch the "Veteran" players (its my understanding that their toons gain skills constantly- even if offline) so is it impossible to "catch up"?

 

Eve is looking better and better by the day and I am considering taking the jump.

A new player could specialize in a Certain ship type and overtime train into it and be equal to a vet.

Only difference between a new player and vet is the amount of ships a vet could fly compared to a newbie.

The scenario:

Newish player enters belt in a HAC, Sees vet in another HAC they begin fighting.

Newish player has poured all 10 million of his Skill points into his HAC, Vet has also put his 10 million in HAC skills but also has 40-50 million skills in other ships. Those 40-50 million other skill points mean nothing at that moment and the fight is competitive.

kinda get an idea of how Eve works now?

1.) The game can be casual friendly, if you don't involve yourself with 0.4 and below security status systems.  Once you are able to fit the gear needed to fight high level NPCs/Missions, you can make money reall quickly in a short amount of time.  I can't give you an exact ratio, but as long as you don't make stupid mistakes, you can generate nothing but pure profit.  It isn't until you head out to 0.4 and lower, or do stupid crap that you have to worry about replacing ships.

2.) I can not answer this question.

2nd Post.) No, you will never "catch" the veterans.  They will always have more skill points than you.  However, you can only go so high in certain skills, so yes, you can in effect catch veterans, in that sense.  You can grind up the same skills they have in battleships and lasers.  However, while you are doing that, they are also training skills, but in other fields.

Awesome- thanks for the answers. I'm gunna check it out (downloading now) and really put some time into it to get a good opinion. I hear really good things, just never was really interested in a "space MMO"- At this point however- I just need a good sandbox game with a decent population and EVE is looking like it might be what I am looking for.

If you get the 14 day trial and go through the tutorials you should come out the other side with a reasonably well trained pilot, a few ships to play around with and a couple of million in ISK which should get you around a bit until you can find yourself a nice corps that matches your interests.

Is it a casual friendly game? Sort of yes and sort of no. It can be extremely friendly to casuals as long as you stay out of low security areas and just stay up in high-sec. You can drop in and pick up where you left off quite easily. The problem is that Eve corps and alliances are all quite social and if you join one they will want to see you around and see that you are taking part in their activities. Not a big deal but some corps can be quite demanding so take your time in deciding which one to join.

Good luck.

Originally posted by Transmet .

1.) Is this game casualty...err...casual-friendly? To be more specific: regarding income.

2.) Newb-friendly corps and my timezone.

1.) I think that it can be. I think it's easy to get discouraged at first while you are grinding up corp rating to get higher level missions, but once you hit Level III and Level IV missions, the income from bounties and salvaging can be pretty healthy. For me, salvaging has been a great source of income and I would recommend you train it or make friends with someone who has it trained.

Another point to the time -vs- income is that it might go quicker with a buddy, or group of buddies. Sure you will be splitting the income, but you'll be burning through missions quicker and you will open up other options (Wormholes, exploration sites, etc).

2.) Sure though I can't speak specifically for EvE university. Might be a good idea to look at the EvE forums and check the recruitment channel in game.

Another thing to do, if you haven't already, is post in the 21-day trial thread in these forums. This will give you a longer trial and a lot of people who hand out invites in that thread will also help you get started (as they are rewarded as well if you subscribe).

Others have kind of covered it, but I will chime in:

How "casual" friendly EVE is depends on intangibles like your loss rates and what you want to do. If you are at all clever and choose to play it safe, mission running in hi-sec: You will have a very positive cash flow, anyone competent won't (okay, will very very rarely and usually due to other factors) lose a ship missioning after they know how to set-up and fly their race. On the other hand, a not particularly good pilot focused on PvPing can lose weeks worth of income in a night.

Time zones: EVE has *tons* of euro-zone players. The only "dead" time zone I have ever found in EVE is very very late US/very early Euro...the only real "gap" in EVE players is the East Asian/Pac Island timezones. You should easily be able to find a corp in timezone, probably even a language specific one if you prefer it.

Skill points: You will *never* catch an actively playing Vet, it is impossible. However, as others have said; after a point more SP pays off in diversity, not performance. If you intend to "compete", then do the research, plan carefully and specialize. There are some significant break points though, so don't expect to do so well until you achieve them - fully t2+ fittings, support skills etc.

My universal EVE caveats: EVE is a great game, it has the best PvP I have ever enjoyed in a game. Also, the best merchanting system, complex politics and markets etc..."crafting" is boring and cookie-cutter, but economically viable. However, it has the most boring PvE of any major title out there. Running even a few missions makes me think back fondly of killing rats in the Commonlands on the excitement scale. Yeah yeah, they've tried to fix it and will try again...but they really don't know how to make the missioning/ratting systems less boring.

Thanks for the answers. One more thing I'm curious about is, what are the general differences between the races' ships? For example, from what I read, Minmatar ships tend to be  faster and/or more agile compared to other races' ships? 

Thanks in advance.

---

Originally posted by Transmet
Heyas.
I'm thinking about getting into the game by next month. I've done some research (basically reading through forums, guides, recommended urls, etc.) but still, there are two questions that are left unanswered/answered vaguely. I hope you can help me out here.
1.) Is this game casualty...err...casual-friendly? To be more specific: regarding income.
I plan to be a combat pilot(PvE/PvP). How much time do you have to spend per day to have a healthy spent-time:income-ratio (whether through ratting/missions/PvP)? I will have about 3 - 4h of game-time per day. Will that be enough to be self-sufficient (including balancing out losses/replacements)?
2.) Newb-friendly corps and my timezone.
I've read that a good start would be by joining EVE-University. I've visited their site( +forum), but I couldn't find out what time-zone they primarily play/teach. I'm located in Germany (GMT +1). Do they have a branch for European-based players or are there other newb-friendly corps using my timezone that are willing to show me the ropes?

I apologize in advance for grammatical/punctuational errors (English's not my mother tongue) and thanks for your time.
 

---

1) Your income depends a lot on your expenses and occupation.
EVE got complex, working economy thus there are many opportunities to actualy make money, not to grind them.

2) Nothing is easier than joining public channel E-Uni and ask EVE University representatives directly.

Originally posted by Transmet

Thanks for the answers. One more thing I'm curious about is, what are the general differences between the races' ships? For example, from what I read, Minmatar ships tend to be  faster and/or more agile compared to other races' ships? 

Thanks in advance.

Minmatar: fast, agile, moderate DPS, take a lot of piloting skill and probably the most SP-intensive race due to the variety of weapons they use. "EvE on hard mode". They have the best T1 PvP frigate in the Rifter

Caldari: Slow, tough shields, they specialise in missiles which are easy to use, so their ships tend to need less piloting skill. The early T1 ships are pretty poor for PvP, but they have some excellent PvP ships once you've trained up for them. Their PvP ships tend to be highly specialised; they do one role in a gang really well, and all others rather poorly. Caldari ships have a poor reputation in PvP partly because they do PvE very well indeed, and people try to use their PvE fits for PvP, which always fails miserably.

Amarr: hulking big lumps of armour with big lasers. Rather predictable ship roles, but they do the job of melting faces very well. Currently Amarr are flavour of the month because they have a weapon range that ideally matches current combat conditions.

Gallante: heavily armoured ships with wtfpwn blaster cannon and awesome drone bays. The Gallante style is to get right up cllose and personal and hurt people. They are great for small scale engagements, and back in the day they used to own the PvP field, but now less effective in the larger gangs and fleets seen these days, especially since the speed nerf, because until they can get very close, their weapons dont really do much. However, they do have the most versatile T2 cruiser (Ishtar) and the most versatile battleship (Dominix) - both of these sport a massive array of drones for their primary DPS, allowing a huge variety of ship fittings.

 Best brief and to the point description of the races I have ever seen......I bow to you.

Originally posted by Malcanis

Minmatar: fast, agile, moderate DPS, take a lot of piloting skill and probably the most SP-intensive race due to the variety of weapons they use. "EvE on hard mode". They have the best T1 PvP frigate in the Rifter

Caldari: Slow, tough shields, they specialise in missiles which are easy to use, so their ships tend to need less piloting skill. The early T1 ships are pretty poor for PvP, but they have some excellent PvP ships once you've trained up for them. Their PvP ships tend to be highly specialised; they do one role in a gang really well, and all others rather poorly. Caldari ships have a poor reputation in PvP partly because they do PvE very well indeed, and people try to use their PvE fits for PvP, which always fails miserably.

Amarr: hulking big lumps of armour with big lasers. Rather predictable ship roles, but they do the job of melting faces very well. Currently Amarr are flavour of the month because they have a weapon range that ideally matches current combat conditions.

Gallante: heavily armoured ships with wtfpwn blaster cannon and awesome drone bays. The Gallante style is to get right up cllose and personal and hurt people. They are great for small scale engagements, and back in the day they used to own the PvP field, but now less effective in the larger gangs and fleets seen these days, especially since the speed nerf, because until they can get very close, their weapons dont really do much. However, they do have the most versatile T2 cruiser (Ishtar) and the most versatile battleship (Dominix) - both of these sport a massive array of drones for their primary DPS, allowing a huge variety of ship fittings.

Thanks for the info, Malcanis.  I think I'll try my hands first on Gallente ships.

Originally posted by bluegrazz

so is it impossible to "catch up"?

 

 

let me put a automated reply to this ehhe

Originally posted by Transmet

Heyas.

I'm thinking about getting into the game by next month. I've done some research (basically reading through forums, guides, recommended urls, etc.) but still, there are two questions that are left unanswered/answered vaguely. I hope you can help me out here.

1.) Is this game casualty...err...casual-friendly? To be more specific: regarding income.

The game is casual friendly. The income will come slow at 1st and then takes off after a short time. Missions mining can get you started, but Missioning lvl 4 will get you alot of cash.

I plan to be a combat pilot(PvE/PvP). How much time do you have to spend per day to have a healthy spent-time:income-ratio (whether through ratting/missions/PvP)? I will have about 3 - 4h of game-time per day. Will that be enough to be self-sufficient (including balancing out losses/replacements)?

Your skills may keep you back for a short time while they train, but try to spend about 4-6 hours a day if you can in what you want to do in the game.

2.) Newb-friendly corps and my timezone.

Lots of them!

I've read that a good start would be by joining EVE-University. I've visited their site( +forum), but I couldn't find out what time-zone they primarily play/teach. I'm located in Germany (GMT +1). Do they have a branch for European-based players or are there other newb-friendly corps using my timezone that are willing to show me the ropes?

I believe they have officers in all time zones if im not mistaken to give instruction and advice. I know they have alot of instructors.

I apologize in advance for grammatical/punctuational errors (English's not my mother tongue) and thanks for your time.

Forgiven!