I've played EVE in the past for about 3 or 4 months. I genuinely enjoyed the game, but took a break. I'm coming back, but I've always wondered why so many people have so many accounts. I've heard of people having up to 20 accounts. Thats 20 active subscriptions. I get that with the more accounts you have, you can simultaniously train skills and therefore save time. However, it seems like almost everyone in EVE at least has 2 or 3 accounts, while I only have one. I'm just wondering as a casual/weekend warrior gamer, can I still have fun and compete in this game if I simply play with one account?

20 seems a bit OTT, tbh, i can see the point of having 2 maybe,  cyno alt/hauler kind of thing, but probably only as a 'part time' kind of thing, i do know that quite a number of people do have multiple accounts, but mostly they only pay for a single account, with additional ones being paid for through in game plex's. i think personally that your better off with just one account, especially if you intend to pvp at all, hard enough concentrating on one game at a time without the distraction of trying to run several.

I have two and don't pay any money IRL for them. It's easier once you get going and stay active.

Ive never heard of anyone having 20 accounts before but most people in my corp and 2 or 3 accounts. The reason for having multiple accounts can vary. But most likely one account is primarily combat account. The second account is your minning/money making account. The third account is your crafting account.

Dont worry though, I have only one account and I make it by just fine! My account is strictly combat. When I need money I just do high lvl mission and make enough to buy a new battle cruiser when I get mine blown up. If you just focus on combat train your skill that best fit your race and starting off train your frigate skills and join a corp that does pvp. 

Ive been playing for about 5 months now and absolutely love them game. I joined a corp and have been doing some intense pvp and its just mind blowing. Im not a hardcore guy like most but i play mostly on weekends. I love that I can train all my skills throughout the week and play on the weekends! If you have a smart phone look up the eve app. You can link your account to it and keep track of your trainning que and all kinds of stuff. It is useful to know when you need to update your skill que!

If you train your skills right you can be piloting a battle ship with pretty damn good skill sets and weapons to be able to last a long time in low sec space wihtout getting blown up and make some good money too! It takes about 4-6 months to get to that lvl but is def worth the time! It is so fun once you get into the pvp aspect of the game!

GL on your travels through space!

The average of accounts per player is 1.4

You don't need several accounts, it'd be enough to co-operate with other players. If you're a solo tipe of players, 2 accounts would be convenient.

Not everyone uses 2 accounts. According to the last numbers i've seen, 80% of all subscriptions are one player per account, with the remaining 20% of subscriptions having more accounts per player. Some people do have 40 accounts or so but those are lunatics or botters ;p

Second account can be useful, but you can operate just fine with a single one. i think alot of the people with two accounts use them a good portion of the time to assist with mining or hauling, though some people might be able to handle multi-tasking enough to maintain them for pirating or something similar.

It's not required if you have only one main interest, lots of patience, and very little time to play the game.

Otherwise you'll be paying with plex for any extra accounts (and probably your main) so you'll be playing for free.

I've been playing on and off since 2009, and never felt the need of geting another account. I find more fun to play with other people and cooperate to achieve your goals than running multiple accounts and do it by your own.

I always have two when I play.  One is pure pvp specced combat and some capital ships, and the other is almost pure mission/exploration/ratting.  But each account also has alts of varying skills.  In a pinch I can do both on one, just more effiecient to use the characters for what they were made for.  Once you can make decent isk, they are free, except for the time you put into making that isk.  I also have a third account that is a jump freighter account, not always active.  It's just nice to have these things, I am not necessarily a solo player though. 

I didn't open a second account unitl almost a year after I started.  It's not necessary, just opens up more options and allows you to specialize a character more. 

I use 2. One mines and the other hauls the ore back - I can keep the hulk out there longer and any jetcans are only around for a minute or 2.

I do believe there are some who have a "spy" account so that they can join a corp and give info to pirates and such. Have seen it done, but don't know how common it is.

oh, in answer to the question - nope not required. I just got tired of risking jetcans to looters or mining  till my hold was full then docking/dumping and returning.  Just my preference and My haluer has an alt on the account that I can rat with if I want some combat.

I have 3 accounts

1 - for industry mining manufacturing research and the like

2 - PvP

3 - Trading and transporting

And no you can still have a great time on one account only but making isk is easier with multiple accounts

I've always found it funny that despite not being able to train multiple characters on the same account at once, thereby forcing people to run multiple accounts, nobody has (rightfully) accused CCP of being greedy. Yet if it were say, EA who pulled something like this, there would be no end to the whining, complaining, etc. about 'how greedy these bastards are'. I guess CCP has successfully played the 'We're a poor little indie company!' card. Just a thought. And yes, I'm aware that many multiple account holders pay for their secondary/tertiary accounts with PLEX they bought with in-game money. The point still stands though, as PLEX certainly hasn't been around forever.

Anyway on topic, you don't need multiple accounts to succeed in EVE, it just makes certain activities easier, especially mining. Having the most trustworthy hauler in the galaxy (yourself) on hand to safely deposit your ore must be pretty damned nice. I've lost many a jetcan to a dirty ore thief. Most of them got blown into space dust afterward, but it's stil a huge inconvenience, especially when they're smart enough to run away.

Dammit, now I want to play EVE again...

I had two accounts.  The main account was my pirate, the second was my scout / hauler.

Yes you can. Having two accounts can make things nicer but it depends on what type of player you are. If you play allot, like say more than 20 hours a month you can esily pay with plex and never pay antying. Some people use that as an ok to get the other account. 

This is the main reason why I don't play anymore, I wanted PVP that requried skill but you just get multiple people with multiple accounts that will gank you and it isn't fun. The comabt system in EVE makes it possible to do this because it is very easy to controll multiple ships, the more ships = who wins unless they really suck. So now you need more than one account to be competitive and I just don't have the money for that, I wish they IP limited it to one on at a time. CCP knows that if they did that their subscription count would half because 50% of the subscriptions are ALT accounts.

It neevr used to be like this back in 2003 and 2004, you used to be able to solo PVP and it was so much fun. Now the game is a shell of it's former self where it just promotes zerging and is basically Capital Ships online which are no fun to pilot. 

The space game is a mess but CCP have been focusing too much on other things no one wants to care.

Originally posted by tixylix

This is the main reason why I don't play anymore, I wanted PVP that requried skill but you just get multiple people with multiple accounts that will gank you and it isn't fun. The comabt system in EVE makes it possible to do this because it is very easy to controll multiple ships, the more ships = who wins unless they really suck. So now you need more than one account to be competitive and I just don't have the money for that, I wish they IP limited it to one on at a time. CCP knows that if they did that their subscription count would half because 50% of the subscriptions are ALT accounts.

It neevr used to be like this back in 2003 and 2004, you used to be able to solo PVP and it was so much fun. Now the game is a shell of it's former self where it just promotes zerging and is basically Capital Ships online which are no fun to pilot. 

The space game is a mess but CCP have been focusing too much on other things no one wants to care.

Most alt's are not direct combat alts. The ones that are, are scouts. You should join RvB. Red versues Blue. They created these corps just for the reasons you mention. They pvp day and night against each other in High sec and don't involve themselfs with the null sec corp drama. They have rules that try and keep the pvp as balanced as possible. 

Originally posted by xr00t3dx

Originally posted by tixylix

This is the main reason why I don't play anymore, I wanted PVP that requried skill but you just get multiple people with multiple accounts that will gank you and it isn't fun. The comabt system in EVE makes it possible to do this because it is very easy to controll multiple ships, the more ships = who wins unless they really suck. So now you need more than one account to be competitive and I just don't have the money for that, I wish they IP limited it to one on at a time. CCP knows that if they did that their subscription count would half because 50% of the subscriptions are ALT accounts.

It neevr used to be like this back in 2003 and 2004, you used to be able to solo PVP and it was so much fun. Now the game is a shell of it's former self where it just promotes zerging and is basically Capital Ships online which are no fun to pilot. 

The space game is a mess but CCP have been focusing too much on other things no one wants to care.

Most alt's are not direct combat alts. The ones that are, are scouts. You should join RvB. Red versues Blue. They created these corps just for the reasons you mention. They pvp day and night against each other in High sec and don't involve themselfs with the null sec corp drama. They have rules that try and keep the pvp as balanced as possible. 

In my experience this is true.  I knew a lot of people who had multiple accounts but only a very small handful dedicated them all to combat.  Multiple account benefit you most when you use them to diversify yourself.  You can't even count a scout as a combat character since most people use a covops so they can probe too.