i ve often thought about trying EVE but the thing that puts me off living in the uk is the exchange rate is terrible at the moment and the game roughly costs 2/3s more to play a month than your average mmo . I have heard that you can actually play it for free forever by buying timecards with in game currency . I cant imagine its that easy to do this and it proberbly takes significant amounts of time to make the amount requried but i d like to ask how hard is it and if you do it yourself perhaps you can pass on some tips .

thanks

FYI u can buy game time cards in dollars 

here is the list secure.eve-online.com/etc.aspx

according to official forum, 60day cards seems to go for 500-600mil. Dont think they issue 30day cards anymore.

I just checked the market in the Domain region. One 30-day plex costs 279 mil. 

It would take fresh meat a good bit to save up that much isk and they would have to be very frugal. That is, unless you become some genius trader early and don't take a more typical EVE isk-making route. A couple months maybe?

After a year, that amount seems pretty small per month if you play pretty often.

30 days are available through the in game marketplace.  They are known as PLEX, and they go for around 270-300 million ISK.

Originally posted by shinkan

according to official forum, 60day cards seems to go for 500-600mil. Dont think they issue 30day cards anymore.

Thats the forum, best to buy directly from the market.

Buying them is easy, just go to jita, or your prefered market hub of choice and simply search for plex. ATM they run between 260 - 300 million per 30 days.

A newbie could do that as a trader, or ratter in low sec ... but low sec might be hairy for a new player, I recommend reading this guide to learn how to survive there, its rather lengthy, but it will more or less show you how to cover your ass. Stay away from places like tama, and stick to systems a few jumps in from highsec, the lowsec / highsec borders are pirates favs.

As for straight running missions... you would need to do tons of level 3's or a lot of level 4's to hit that mark, and while possible for a newbie, would be rather difficult on the first month. Definitely do able by second or third month though.