I've had my eye on Eve for sometime, but as of yet I have not made the leap.The tutorial wasn't really that bad, but it failed to apply the claws that kept me logging in day after day.  On paper Eve is everything I admire in a game : deliberate, sandbox, and cerebral. So rather than allowing my extremely narrow experience (the tutorial)  to set the tone for this incredibly complex game I've come to you, the vets.

I've read the reviews ,  I've read the summations. But what I'd like to read now are your stories. What happened  in your eve career today.  What did you do and why?   Give me the real details of what its like to be beyond the learning and truly deep in the game.

It may seem a silly question, but I'm trying to see the game through a veterans eyes.

Thanks for indulging my curiousity.

edit: edited thread title as it may have mislead some

A note about the difficulty curve. I have a feeling this may have turned you off from it during the tutorial. It starts out hard but it gets better once you keep flying for a while and generate a sustainable income.

The game has no harder a learning curve than any other mmo, you are not required to learn calculations for ballistic trajectories, or the fuel required for a given mass, quantum physics, or anything else remotely challenging. It just happens to take a little longer to learn the basics, the new tutorial can be a little long for some, but it’s certainly not a difficult game to grasp. I started playing at launch where the tutorial was little more than a quick explanation of the ui and an instruction to have at it.

On to the op, I could be a little too jaded to answer this, as I have recently taken a break, having played since launch and burned out all current interest, however, I shall try to give you an idea of what to expect long term while not focusing on a single area.

Unfortunately, the answer really depends on your area of interest, but no matter what that interest is, it will involve corp politics at some level, one cannot play long term and ignore them completely. Please do not take this the wrong way, your in game life need not be dominated by others, but they will have an influence, eve's universe is a virtual world in its own right, where player corps and alliances determine the political, monetary and military landscapes. It is possible to play the game entirely as a loner should you wish, but even then, your actions would require building friendships with local corps to operate in low sec without constant harassment.

As for the game mechanics themselves, in eve, time spent, equates to more options for any given situation; where a newer player would likely be tied into a single race or ship type, established players can chop and change as the situation dictates. Also, something to think about long term, as you progress through the game and look towards larger and more formidable ships and technologies, training starts to slow to a crawl, a single level of a particular skill can take months to complete. In general, this isn't really an issue until you start to move beyond battleships or the most basic t2 skill sets for the t2 frig, cruiser and battle cruiser hulls. By this point, many players roll an alt or open a second account, so they have something more immediate to do while they wait for that single skill to finish, and can start training the skill they really want to get to.

One area where it is not possible to compete with others for a long time is t2 and now t3 production, while the recent additions of new skills like research remove the dominant affects of the old t2 bpo lottery, new corps can really struggle to find all the minerals they require, as many can only be obtained from moon mining using a pos, and pretty much all the decent and useful moons are already claimed, leaving newer corps having to rely on others for supply.

Now, instead of turning this into some sort of essay on eve, I will knock it on the head, however, if I did not answer your question or I raised others post them here and I will watch the thread for a few days and try to answer them.
 

What did i do today. Well i carebeared a lot.

At the moment i am focused on building up an industrial based corp. We are mainly focused on T2 module production, but dabble in T2 ships and are currently hammering out the details for capital ship production. This week we got some new members and it has affected the throughput (more items buy needs more input materials) so some wrinkles needed ironing out.

At this point i am starting to wonder who is may main and who is my alt. The plan is that this industrial corp will start to have lees time put into it, it will tick over and give a good return. This will allow me to spend some more time in my 'main' a pvp focused character in a 0.0 roleplaying alliance. Additionally this high sec industrial arm will covertly supply our freedom fighters in their efforts against the evil slavers.

But then i have a problem, i like this kind of game more than the adrenaline rush of PvP.

Originally posted by nurgles

What did i do today. Well i carebeared a lot.

At the moment i am focused on building up an industrial based corp. We are mainly focused on T2 module production, but dabble in T2 ships and are currently hammering out the details for capital ship production. This week we got some new members and it has affected the throughput (more items buy needs more input materials) so some wrinkles needed ironing out.

At this point i am starting to wonder who is may main and who is my alt. The plan is that this industrial corp will start to have lees time put into it, it will tick over and give a good return. This will allow me to spend some more time in my 'main' a pvp focused character in a 0.0 roleplaying alliance. Additionally this high sec industrial arm will covertly supply our freedom fighters in their efforts against the evil slavers.

But then i have a problem, i like this kind of game more than the adrenaline rush of PvP.

 

Thanks, that's the kind of response I was hoping to find.  Hearing about the tiny details that seldom receive mention in summations paints a better picture than anything else.

I'm surprised more people haven't responded tho....think I could get just a few more bites?

 EVE is so diverse you could be anything from someone who simply makes cash playing the market, to a Pilot commanding a fleet of hundreds in a massive battle over sovergnty in space.

Some simply stay industrial and manufacture ships, or fly out and form mining groups in dengerous space. I worked for some time as a combat pilot babysitting miners. Fighting off anyone trying to gank the mining ships or the NPC rats that pop in from time to time. Be a ruthless pirate roaming space, or a good citizen coming to the aid of some new pilot getting attacked by the pirate. You can even just be a solo mission runner if that's your thing, or a covert spy infultrating a enemy Corp. EVE don't have the "hooks" to direct you like other MMOs because EVE is a wide open sandbox. Like life you need to find your own direction.

I suggest looking up EVE University if your a new player looking to get into a good player corp that can help you find your direction.

i'm not asking for you to give me direction. In fact I specifically stated I was NOT looking for another overview. I'm interested in learning the details that get omitted during such summations.

Imagine this approach to fishing with a net. I'm not looking for anything specific, I just want to see what tidbits of detail get dredged up.

I actually did look at the Eve univeristy today and they had a 100% tax applied. Now, Im beyond a newbie but 100% and tax should never be seen together so I backed off until I learn a wee bit more.

 Small stuff, ok. I'm a trader.industrialist btw. I'll just write a huge post, as I've been playing for a good 4 years.

Today I've been messing with the faction item contracts market. While at first the ugly interface and the lackaof ability to update your prices without putting up a new contract is at first a putoff compared to simply trading on the open market, the volume of faction items traded through the contract market is surprisingly high. If my preliminary results scale to a bigger operation, the profits are really good, enough to fuel both of my accounts with timecards and more. I've talked to a friend and I'm planning to open an IPO with a 6% per month return, and a buyback option at my discertion. This should allow me to jumpstart operations to a bigger scale and get the ball rolling.

On the side, my research POS is making some nice profits. I've found a niche market, selling researched Rig BPO Sets for 135m a pop. These bring in 120m profit per, and I bring one out every 5 days with my 45 research slots and my alt account running the operation. I've had some issues with mercenaries trying to get my moon location, but they're easily dealt with once you get through to the client and make the point clear that I will semply send mercs in return once he takes my moon.

Passive income from datacore harvesting is also nice. This investment of grinding missions for R&D corps pays off 210m per month per account every month with 0 effort. Another nice thing is demand is rising faster than supply. The reason most people have R&D agents is from participating in the old T2 BPO lottery. With this system replaced by invention, R&D agents simply don't seem to be worth the effort, but I've found they generally pay off the time invested in a year.

My friend's living out in wormhole space with his multiple accounts. He has a class 4 system with a POS set up there for refuning. He goes in, finds a mining site using the exploration system, and mines the hell out of it, making almost 100m an hour in profit. Of course logistics is a nightmare, but through analysis of the system's behavior, he's found that new wormhole connections are reset at 0:00 eve time in his system on the dot every day, and that generally once a week a high sec connection opens up and allows him to sell his minerals and bring in new supplies. He's also sold a nearby class 5 wormhole system location that he stumbled upon for 250m to an industrial corp that wanted to settle the space. Roaming gangs have been an issue, but generally the space is fairly empty.

Um, that's it for now! I'll let the other people give combat related stuff.

Originally posted by Etype

  

I actually did look at the Eve univeristy today and they had a 100% tax applied. Now, Im beyond a newbie but 100% and tax should never be seen together so I backed off until I learn a wee bit more.

some corps put 100% tax

so ppl dont carebear when are on war

need some amount of money and need to get that really fast

some corps are  communist and have 100% tax all the time ie evolution

so 100% tax is not a bad thing

Eve University applies the 100% tax only when they are wardecced, the usual tax rate when not at war is 2.5%, though for a number of months lately it was at 0 due to donations.

Nothing to add, just wanted to say the graph was roflmao

Just a note about Eve Uni..

I don't know if all of EveU's users are gathered in one place, but killing everyones income? I don't see that as being constructive. I understand though, in case they give compensation on lost ships, but still.. Damn.

__

A vets POV?

I don't know how I see Eve.. It's a game that always draws me back, always has done, probably always will do. It's a game where I can do what I want basically when I want - based on what corp I'm in.

Originally posted by Etype

 

 

  I've had my eye on Eve for sometime, but as of yet I have not made the leap.The tutorial wasn't really that bad, but it failed to apply the claws that kept me logging in day after day.  On paper Eve is everything I admire in a game : deliberate, sandbox, and cerebral. So rather than allowing my extremely narrow experience (the tutorial)  to set the tone for this incredibly complex game I've come to you, the vets.

I've read the reviews ,  I've read the summations. But what I'd like to read now are your stories. What happened  in your eve career today.  What did you do and why?   Give me the real details of what its like to be beyond the learning and truly deep in the game.

 

It may seem a silly question, but I'm trying to see the game through a veterans eyes.

Thanks for indulging my curiousity.

If a trial can not hook you on a game then pass on it.  A trial is designed to sell you on the game.  Just move on.

 Only 2 people have been kind of enough to answer the question, and to them , I appreciate very much their time. To you others, .. I think you're presumptuous or lazy. 

FreddyNoNose If you don't want to answer a very simple question, then respect your time enough to refrain from making asinine posts.

The baby steps into most any MMO are a far cry to what the end-game player is experiencing and its obvious that this is especially the case with Eve. My question "what did you do today"  is so simple its almost child-like but if enough respond it'll paint a deeper picture then any overview I've ever read. 

Originally posted by FreddyNoNose

 

If a trial can not hook you on a game then pass on it.  A trial is designed to sell you on the game.  Just move on.

This is the one game where the trail isn't designed to hold anyone to the game.

Hell the god damn trial covers about 5-10% of the gameplay in EvE.

To the OP: 

What did I do today?

Well I didnt get to play long since today is sunday but I did take my Covert Ops Ship (Helios) and spent a couple hours scaning and probing space for a few buddies.

They wanted to check out a few wormholes and Exploration combat sites so they needed me.

I probed down three WHs and two Exploration combat sites.

This was earlier in the morning. I just logged in to find my buddies cut me a good chunk of the profit I made about 200 million isk for my troubles.

Tomorrow I plan on getting a little scouting action in im gonna hunt and scan out mission runners and ratters, locate, tackle and signal the troops for some Ownage.

I know what I do seems boring but to me its the most realistic MMo on the market, I say realistic because I actually feel like im apart of a living breathing  Sci-fi life simulation.

I returned recently after a several year break and rerolled as I had forgot how to play, so, whta did I do today...

Missions for a level 1 agent in my destroyer. Pretty simple, it may not sound exciting but there is a plan. As I need better skills than I have no, I'm just doing easier L1 missions so I can improve standing while I train useful skills. When I get enough standing to do Level 2 I can train up cruisers and convert my destroyer to a salvager. Then I'll work on my mining skills a bit so I can do the L2 kill missions, go back in my salvager and and clean up then go back in a mining cruiser to jetcan mine the mission area if there are any roids there. I already have Indy3 so I can bookmark them and go back in my Itty3 and pick up the ore. I probably won't refine anything yet but store the aore until I get good refining skills. I will probably then sell the mins. I only produce the consumables from the reprocessed mission loot so I have no plan on getting my production skills up

Long term I'd like to train up exploration skills, along with hacking, etc...

With EVE you can't really look at what you did in a day, you need to have a more long term view and a plan to get the most out of the game. If you require instant gratification EVE probably isn't the game for you.

Originally posted by mbd1968

I returned recently after a several year break and rerolled as I had forgot how to play, so, whta did I do today...

Missions for a level 1 agent in my destroyer. Pretty simple, it may not sound exciting but there is a plan. As I need better skills than I have no, I'm just doing easier L1 missions so I can improve standing while I train useful skills. When I get enough standing to do Level 2 I can train up cruisers and convert my destroyer to a salvager. Then I'll work on my mining skills a bit so I can do the L2 kill missions, go back in my salvager and and clean up then go back in a mining cruiser to jetcan mine the mission area if there are any roids there. I already have Indy3 so I can bookmark them and go back in my Itty3 and pick up the ore. I probably won't refine anything yet but store the aore until I get good refining skills. I will probably then sell the mins. I only produce the consumables from the reprocessed mission loot so I have no plan on getting my production skills up

Long term I'd like to train up exploration skills, along with hacking, etc...

With EVE you can't really look at what you did in a day, you need to have a more long term view and a plan to get the most out of the game. If you require instant gratification EVE probably isn't the game for you.

 

 I really do appreciate your information and the stuff shared by others. Its given a glimpse into the functional game play. Even these few appropriate responses have revealed quit a bit I didn't know before

P.S. Also, thanks for presuming my complete failure in realizing that Eve is a goal driven game. 

Well... What I would have done today, if my sub hadn't run out last sunday (:() .. Join a corp/ally fleet and go pew pew some people. :D

Day 3 of trial. I'm stil working on the storyline missions. I am trying to complete all 3 carreer tracks to get a feel of whcih aspect I enjoy the most before moving onto the epic arc.

I am completing the Industry track and have some missiles that are being manufactured.

Ran into a huge rat skirmish in high sec that suprised me.

Today (well, yesterday, really) I joined a small gang to move my carrier and a few combat ships into 0.0 security space to help the cause of my newly joined alliance.  This involved packing enough fuel into my carrier to make the jumps up to the jump bridge network and then using that to get to our final destination. 

Following that, I hopped into my long-range Rokh and joined a 100+ gang to help destroy a POS and remove enemy presence for a system.  After some time we moved to another system and put a couple more POSes into reinforced mode (we'll try and destroy them in a couple of days when they're not effectively invulnerable). 

After we had put the POSes in reinforced we tried to pick a fight with the enemy outside a station they own.  Some small skirmishes happend (no losses on either side) before we decided to head back to out station system nearby to re-arm ourselves.  Engaged a much larger force on the gate in which we took down one or two battleships and some support but got our asses handed to us, ultimately (probably 50% losses).  Fortunately I was one of the lucky ones, managing to leave the field when the order to retreat had been called.  After a short stop to be repaired by a gang mate I returned to our station and docked up having had a pretty good few hours' play.