A few months back I too handed my 30-ish million SP PvP character over to a friend (the new CEO) and left New Eden for WAR/WoTLK. The difference is I told him to sell the character for the ISK and dump that back into the corp.

Well, I *beat* WAR and have seen everything I needed to see in Wrath, so I'm back to EVE and starting over...

I'm at about 3.5 million SP now and have decided to try a slice of the EVE pie I'd not tasted yet - invention and manufacturing.

The vast number of things one can do in EVE is the biggest selling point for me. I've patrolled the little corner of space belonging to the corp in everything from zerg-frigs to my pride and joy T2 battleship - I've blown up and been blown up by just about everything in the game and it was riotous fun the whole time.

So, now I'm running courier missions in an unarmed Badger-II, no weapon skills at all, working on my standings for research agents... And running 2-3 pirate gate camps in low-sec - and winning (some times).

Yep, 3.5 million SPs and zero weapon skills, out in an unarmed cargo hauler doing blood-and-guts PvP against guys with ten times my SP count. Sure, I'll never 'catch' these guys and beat their 'SP Score', but I still get to make them feel like fools and burn a lot of ammo for either an empty hauler or I get away with my load of whatever.

And when I hit 15-20 million SPs (still with no weapon skills), they'll be refunding me all of my lost ISK when they have to buy my products to continue their gate camps.

So, there's your innability to catch up shot full of holes by an industrialist in an unarmed badger-II. ;)

Oh, and if you give them a chance, most of the guys blowing your shiny metal butt out of the sky are really decent folks - they're just playing in the sandbox their way and its nothing personal.

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Originally posted by John.A.Zoid
You can't ever catch up because the skills are time based so I'll never have as many as a veteran of 5 years and it'll take me years to even compete with his skill diversity. All new people ever find themselves doing is becoming a tackler which is boring as hell and you have to wait months and months to even do what you want and if you want capital ships its more like years.

I want to progress at my own pace and not time because I have a life and can't wait around forever, I don't really want to wait around for months for basic skills that I need to be able to play.

I say change it to like a SWG style system where you had 250 skill points and you can only specialise in certains things at any one time.

---

Classic example of someone 'not getting' EVE.
You don't have to catch up in skillpoints. And new players don't always become tacklers. Noir. is one of the top Merc outfits in the game right now and some of our best pilots are less than 1yr old. Why? Because they have loads of heart and aren't affraid to ask the 'vets' for advice on how to skill and what to fit. Most of them are already flying T2 cruisers as well due to taking advice and learning to specialize. Those that aren't certainly aren't just tacklers... some are Ewar specialists and some are battleship pilots. A few fly hacs... a few fly dictors.... just depends on what it is they chose to specialize for.

We're pretty picky about who we take... but it's not so much about how many skillpoints they have as to what their attitude in the game is. As long as they can fly some form of T2 ship (or are very close to it) we're pretty open to accepting folks with lower skillpoint totals.

enkindu....my boyfriend just joined up and was hesistant on playing because of the ILL NEVER CATCH UP SCENARIO ETC.......

Your post made me look at playing in a diff light,and i wanted to say thanx...i just signed up for the trial 21 day account.....

This thread have gotten my hype up for EVE.. I've never even looked at it once, and I cant actually say why.. heh.. There are just some games I never look at no matter how good people tell me they are..

I think I'll take a look at that trial..

Sounds cool with the problem solving, different possibilities and all that stuff :)

nice post, OP.. Made me totally interested in EVE :)

ok i read a few posts here and there from this thread and the same argument comes back on how it is game breaking that a new player will never be able to hold himself against a "vet"

the problem with this statement is that you are looking at it as a solo player.

eve is not about going solo and being 1v1 better than the other.

look at it as a "i better have a buddy watching my back in case i fall against a fleet of pirates" ( all pvp btw)

travel with your corp while in 0.0 space

eve is about unity and fleets and wars, one does not fight a war with 1 soldier. even special forces send teams of secret agents, they do not send just 1.

another good argument is that there is only so much speed anyone vet or noob can put to a missile so yes it is capped to a certain degree. the only difference is that the vet will probably have trained hybrid turets... but that wont matter if he only has missiles equiped.  and how will manufactoring help him when he is in special opps ship. how will battleship skills help him when he is flying a titan? (i think you get my point) yes he might have more skill points but there is only a limited amounts of levels for a battleship.

I was just browsing old threads and was wondering how some of the earlier posters were doing.  Did you guys really give eve a shot? If so come back and provide some feedback.  You'll find the vast majority of eve veterans are actually quite happy to help new folks get started.  We just expect people to show a little resilience and initiative.  

Originally posted by Enkindu

 We just expect people to show a little resilience and initiative.  

even less i expect from them to TALK ( reply on chat and reply on emails )

I tried it for the two weeks before Christmas. I like it but to really have fun with it will take some dedication to consistent play that will begin in a few weeks. Guess this month will be a wash for training.

Does anyone else find the Auto Pilot voice annoying after five minutes?

Is there a reason that the menus don’t all behave the same way? or am I just not positioning them right?
 

Originally posted by killertim

I tried it for the two weeks before Christmas. I like it but to really have fun with it will take some dedication to consistent play that will begin in a few weeks. Guess this month will be a wash for training.

Does anyone else find the Auto Pilot voice annoying after five minutes?

Is there a reason that the menus don’t all behave the same way? or am I just not positioning them right?
 

 

Most of us rarely use autopilot, unless moving an empty ship through empire regions or something.  Its really slow if your at the keyboard, and to  dangerous to use if your ship is actually carrying something of real value. (I lost a couple hundred million isk in datacores to a suicide ganker by being lazy)

As for sound, mines turned off actually.  It causes lag in large fleet battles, so by default I've learned to turn off anything that could remotely slow down my screen during a fight.

As to the menus, not quite sure what you mean, but they are a bit strange at times, especially if you open a fleet window which seems to push things around sometimes.

theres something very reassuring about AURA and her constant calls of "warp drive, active" and "autopilot jumping" but yeah, auto pilot is slow as hell and should only be used when not at war, flying an insured ship with nothing of value in it, and only as long as the route is highsec only.

What an epic waste of space in response to a very well writen post by the OP. Eve is one of the very few MMOs out there where the player can have a direct impact in the world. Yet all everyone troll about is skill training time and trying to achieve that pointless parrity. Its as if the game fail because you can't go 1 vs 1 with some another dude's Titan on a level playing field. Recockulous.

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Originally posted by siftified
A game where your actions really DO matter, if you annoy people there will be consequences, you might be war-dec'd, bountied or wake up to find a band of mercanaries outside your favourite station.

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It's me! I'm the mercenary outside your favorite station! :)

Great post btw op and I have to say you are not far off the mark and if people listen to you and read your posts they too will pick up things which many noobs have not and enjoy the game in 0.0 areas which are a blast.

I remeber when I beta tested Eve and it did have many issues when it went live, I even remember CCP giving the start community free isk's for their mistake and that's fantastic for a company ot admit they got some things wrong, I recently returned and made a new toon for 21 days and at no time did I feel threatened by the old time gamers because I didn't get anywhere near them but I did take part in some PvP and learnt very fast that you need a rig for PvE and a rig for Pvp. Everyone has a different goal in Eve and that's what makes the game fun for me.

Sadly I didn't sub as I had to go in hospital but will be playing this game again if DFO fails to met my expectations as I am in no state to play any MMO atm due to my spine operation, but I can not wait to get in a game for some serious Pvping soon.

Bandit.

I played EVE for a while back in it;s first year then quit when i changed jobs. SO i started playing BF2 and other games like that.

In December i decided to give EVE another try. All the other MMO's were all too simple for me. I started a trial account and had a blast from day 1. There were times that i got my ship blown up for doing stupid stuff. But you learn from all that.

I decided to re-sub my original account since i had it flying Battlecruisers when i quit. Turns out that i had almost the same amount of skill points on my 6 month account from the beginning as my new account of 2 weeks had!! Of course the new account was much better skills arrangement (they give you tons of free training now) just not as many.

I kept the old account for a bunch of reasons but i have been having a lot of fun. Mostly because I found a corp that is willing to help new players. It makes all the difference to have a group of people that want to help and encourage you and more importantly help protect you!

Every time you do something stupid and get your ship blown up, you learn from it.

Like:

"Never Leave The Station Without Full Insurance"

Or

"Just because you think you can blow up one more ship before he gets through your armor, warp away at half armor anyways!"

Or

"Never fly your fully loaded hauling ship to lowsec without a scouting escort"

Or

"When in a Fleet doing a PVP op never be the first one to warp"

Or

"BEFORE you jump into a new system when going to meet your PVP fleet, ALWAYS get a scouting report"

The best thing i learned was:

"Never fly a ship in PVP that you are not willing to lose"

So i can fly a Battle Cruiser but when doing PVP i fly a small cruiser with T1 fittings. Sure i can't beat most ships 1v1 but i can certainly help my friends and get in on a bunch of kills. Sometimes i even get lucky and have the final blow. 

If i really wanted to get kills i would turn Pirate and hunt JetCan Miners.

In the meantime we have a lot of fun down in 0.0 and Lowsec and have a decent alliance that is willing to protect members.

Make Friends!

Great Post!

I too gave up my toons a couple of years ago and have just returned to Eve as a noob.

Life as a noob is much easier the second time around. I thought I would be frustrated by not being able to fly my battleships anymore, but I'm not. They have made it to where you can fly a battle cruiser within a week now and I'm having a blast in my hurricane.  Salvaging also adds a purpose for hanging around and clenup up your mess after a mission. The missions seem to pay much better than before and then there is the salvaging  loot to boot. I currently just playing alone about one night a week. I simply no longer have the time to be an active corp member, but I can still chat with old friends on other channels.

Eve has come a long way, it's no wonder they are finally coming out with a retail box.  Although I'm not sure why anyone would buy the box when it is free to ddownload.

You'll still never catch up.

But what is catching up, really? Does it mean you have exactly the same options as the 'uber guy who started from beta', from economy and industry to PVP and all the things in between?

Or is it the ability to compete on a basically level playing field, with no great advantage or real disadvantage to any particular side?

If all you care about is total SP as 'catching up', well, then you might be in for a dissappointment. Also, if you think 'catching up' means you're as good as they are from the start-gate out, you're in for a dissappointment.

But if you think about it for a while, you'll see that the improvement curves are logarithmic, and that you can get to where the 'vets' are now, while they won't be improving as much or at all while you do. It takes a while, don't doubt that, but truth of the matter is that the final lvl 5's or even lvl4's in the high-tier skills aren't that important. Once you can use the module, the 5-10% increase in its effectiveness isn't what makes or breaks a combat situation most of the time.

However, yes, it does take time. Two-three months for options like T2-fitted battleship, six months or more for capital ships (but without a good corp to help you, setting up and running a capital isn't something you'll want to do anyways). For mining, you can be in a Hulk some 3-4 months training time from the skill tree.

What does all this come down to? Being in a T2 battleship is not the pwnbutton for PVP fights, and neither are the capitals. Every sort of ship is needed for a balanced fleet, from tacklers to jammers to logistics to DPS and finally, capitals if you intend to go POS-busting or fighting other caps. There's stuff to do for all the while you train your skills, if you aren't locked in the mindset of 'not a vet yet, can't compete'.

The biggest problem I have with this argument is that it is constantly touted out as the reason for newbies not to even think about joining or even trying out EVE, even if they might find the playstyle otherwise to their liking and think the idea intriguing. "Don't bother, the vets are all uber and just want to wtfbbqspawncamprape all newbies all the time, ever. And you won't ever catch up to them either since SP = uberness and someone with 30mil sp in industry will still wtfbbq you with just a glance when you're in a PVP ship."

It's as if there's a group of people who, for whatever reason, want to discourage other potential players from even trying out the game, and seeing if it is what they might like. Some of this must come from personal bad experiences, but it's starting to feel like there's more to it then just that. The constant antipathy from self-proclaimed 'vets' who vehemently argue that there's no equality in EVE, just a rigid hierarchy where the top dogs were there from the start sounds either self-serving excuse for not liking the game as much as they'd like, or as deliberate trolling.

Originally posted by Enkindu

Restarting EvE as a noob is like playing on "hardcore" or "insanity" mode.  It is is at times unimaginably hard, sometimes apparently impossible...

coming from a very experienced player, this part was the most discouraging of the post. How difficult would you think it would be for somebody who knows nothing of Eve, unlike somebody like yourself.

Originally posted by tvalentine

Originally posted by Enkindu

Restarting EvE as a noob is like playing on "hardcore" or "insanity" mode.  It is is at times unimaginably hard, sometimes apparently impossible...

 

coming from a very experienced player, this part was the most discouraging of the post. How difficult would you think it would be for somebody who knows nothing of Eve, unlike somebody like yourself.

Point taken, and my apologies.  Keep in mind I was thinking (and acting) like a 4 year vet... except I was flying a noob ship with no money and no skills.  In other words my brain was writing checks that my toon couldn't really cash :)

It is notable that even though I was trying stuff that most people would consider "highly inadvisable" (velator in 0.0 ftw) I was still putting money in the bank and having a blast.  In Eve, if you can dream it you can do it.. or at least explode in an entertaining and spectacular fashion while you TRY to do it.

I was trying to get the point across that Eve will pretty much let you try anything.. I still find the game just exciting these days as I did when I fired up my first cruiser.

Give the game a shot, hopefully you love it as much as many of us do : )

Better example:

Imagine you quit WoW with L80 toon with epic gear, then started again and decided to try a 10 man raid solo with a L5 character..... Eve sort of lets you try stuff like that : )

Hope my example makes sense, most people seem somewhat familiar with WoW terminology.... I only made it to L26 in that game though.