Originally posted by Crichton

Will I at least be able to make a decent amount of progress daily? I can only put in maybe 4 hours a night cause I work full time, a lot more on weekends.

That should be fine. Just do some research on what you want to do. As I said, Eve is pretty much what you make of it.

I played the trial, and was so intrigued, I paid for a month as well. Definitely a unique game, and it was fun for the most part. I actually was piloting a battlecruiser (very fun), and was about to upgrade to a battleship but the subscription ran out just before I could.

I would agree that it’s a slower pace than other MMOs, but I don’t think that’s so much a negative. It’s true what they say about getting into a good outfit. Much was learned in my case from joining one. They were all really helpful. For good or bad, they actually discouraged me from doing PvP until I got a bit more experience. I could certainly afford to lose frigates and even a few cruisers with no problem, but I didn’t have my skills for tech2 ships yet and was just short of microwarpdrives, which they said would help a bit more as well.

Another thing…it has a steep learning curve. However, once I got the gist of it, it was very good. It was like a light bulb went off in my head once I figured out the workings of it. Without a doubt the most complex and interesting character development I have seen in any MMO. I mostly thought it was a really nice design.

So why am I not playing it? Not sure if this is the way to say it or not, but it was a bit too involved for me. In my opinion it’s not a very casual game, and I was looking for something a bit easier on my time constraints. You can certainly make it casual by just mining or running missions all day long, but the game started to wear on me from constantly doing that. I was doing level 3 missions in my sleep, and most level 4 missions were impossible to do until I got my battleship (however, they were pretty fun in a group). To the best of my recollection, I was doing all Navy missions in Gallente space, so most of them were fighting missions which I would recommend if you chose that faction, and PvE fighting is your thing.

At the very least I would highly recommend you try it. It’s not the “messiah of all MMOs” as some people claim, but it really is much different from what’s out there now, and could be the one that suits you. However, I would recommend at least giving it a couple weeks before you really make a decision, yes there is quite a bit to learn before you make your decision to stay or go.
 

Originally posted by Crichton

Will my character/ship(s) ever be as good as someone who has been playing from the start?

let me explain you using logic for kids :P

player A in 2003 train 5 skills (a b c d e) for a ship X for 2 weeks

player B in 2009 train 5 skills (a b c d e)  for a ship X for 2 weeks

will be the the player B competitive VS player A in the ship X ? yes

where is the difference between players  A and B ?

player B fly X ship because is new in game

player A spend years training skills for ships like X,Z,D,F,G,T,U,J etc

do a player from 2009 have any advantage VS a player from 2003 ?

yes because player only can fly a ship on the same time so in a pvp situation the player A can have a similar ship to player B

will be the player from 2009 WTf pwned all the time ? dunno that depend on player knowledge, but the  player from 2009 need to know that until 2006 fanfest eve dint have 100 000 subscribers   so the player from 2009 is more likely to be wtf pwned by recent characters

What cosy kinda failed to explain is, that after a certain time skill progress in Eve becomes purely horizontal, since there's a limit for vertical progression.

Besides, skillpoints and equipment are less than half of what's needed for success.

If you can't handle the slow pace then save your time and money and play something else. I haven't found a game around yet that's slower than EVE.
Skills level up while your offline doing something else.
Mining; which is the primary way to make money in this game, can be done with you only touching 1 button every few minutes.
Most of the combat takes little to no skill or strategy and is basically just spreadsheet based. You use X weapon/utility vs Y defenses, while they use Z weapon/utility vs W defenses. you win/lose depending on those variables. Unlike other MMOGs, in EVE positioning means nothing, only the distance from the target matters. Unlike other space sims, in EVE the side of the target that you attack means nothing.

Originally posted by decoy26517

If you can't handle the slow pace then save your time and money and play something else. I haven't found a game around yet that's slower than EVE.
Skills level up while your offline doing something else.
Mining; which is the primary way to make money in this game, can be done with you only touching 1 button every few minutes.
Most of the combat takes little to no skill or strategy and is basically just spreadsheet based. You use X weapon/utility vs Y defenses, while they use Z weapon/utility vs W defenses. you win/lose depending on those variables. Unlike other MMOGs, in EVE positioning means nothing, only the distance from the target matters. Unlike other space sims, in EVE the side of the target that you attack means nothing.

"mining is the primary way to make money"?

"most of the combat is spreadsheet based"?

LOL. You haven't actually played EvE. You're just scraping together catchphrases from posts you've seen other people make and trolling EvE forums. Only someone who had never PvPd could believe for a moment that positioning means nothing, or that it takes no skill or strategy; when in fact those factors are everything in PvP. At best you have run a couple of missions or killed a belt rat or two, and maybe got podkilled in Rancer. So now you're bitter because you failed, and you're determined to make sure as many people as possible are put off from even trying, because every new player who doesn't fail like you did makes it ever harder for you to blame the game instead of yourself.

For the love of God, get over it. Spend your time talking about games you enjoy, and leave this forum to the people who can understand and enjoy the game, and those who wish to. Every post you make here is a waste of  precious, irreplaceable minutes of your life.

That's a lot of tears from you, decoy26517.
I wonder what horrible, unspeakable things Eve has done to you that you feel the need to share your angst with others.

Originally posted by decoy26517

If you can't handle the slow pace then save your time and money and play something else. I haven't found a game around yet that's slower than EVE.
Skills level up while your offline doing something else.
Mining; which is the primary way to make money in this game, can be done with you only touching 1 button every few minutes.
Most of the combat takes little to no skill or strategy and is basically just spreadsheet based. You use X weapon/utility vs Y defenses, while they use Z weapon/utility vs W defenses. you win/lose depending on those variables. Unlike other MMOGs, in EVE positioning means nothing, only the distance from the target matters. Unlike other space sims, in EVE the side of the target that you attack means nothing.

because velocity, transversal velocity and angular velocity are there in the overview to look pretty. and im sure your ship's innertia modifier is also there to add more numbers to the attributes of the ship that could not possibly have nothing to do with the game....

/end sarcasm

 edit: fixed spelling

Originally posted by batolemaeus

That's a lot of tears from you, decoy26517.
I wonder what horrible, unspeakable things Eve has done to you that you feel the need to share your angst with others.

Hmmm... I doubt it was the game. The Goonies on the other hand... I quite enjoy Eve. But then I stay in high sec, I'm still in SWA after almost 4 years, and I just run L4 missions. So I know little about the PvP aspects. But I do know that the combat system is more complex than he appears to realize.

mining is the primary way to make money? in 8 hours mining i could perhaps make 120 million isk, whereas the true sansha large armour rep i picked up last week from an exploration site will probably sell for 140 million isk.

you should be fine in a month or so. just stay focused on you skills.  dont get missiles if you running a lazer ship and dont skill up armor if your shield tanking

Also, this is a very unforgiving PVP game.  make sure you know were your going and what the security level is before you go there.  Unfortunately the pvp for me was the killer.  beautiful and complex game, just didnt like that others could effect my play time so drastically.

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Originally posted by godzilr1
you should be fine in a month or so. just stay focused on you skills.  dont get missiles if you running a lazer ship and dont skill up armor if your shield tanking
Also, this is a very unforgiving PVP game.  make sure you know were your going and what the security level is before you go there.  Unfortunately the pvp for me was the killer.  beautiful and complex game, just didnt like that others could effect my play time so drastically.

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the pvp is the thing that drew my attention

i come from UO, Shadowbane, Neocron, etc

i'm used to no safe zones, no carebears, etc. i like an open range kill or be killed game, so that part is great

im just trying to cope with the slower pace

im shifting away from minning and starting to build a ship for missions/pvp. i have no clue what im doing but who knows, might work, im relying on my extensive star trek knowledge lol.. (yes, i know, that wont help here)

Okay, you say you want to "run with the big dogs".  So in my interpretation, that means in a PvP sense.  But you could very much mean with the "big dogs" in terms of PvE or Mining or whatever.  You'll have to clarify that.  Now, all you have to do to "run with the big dogs" in terms of PVP, its quite simple really.  You start the game with frigates training of your chosen race.  Just train up real fast to get access to Micro-Warp Drives and Warp Scramblers.  Bang! With those three items... Frigates, MWDs and Scramblers, you can now run with the big dogs and provide a VITAL part to PvP combat, tackling.  And it will take you nary a couple weeks to get that, TOPS.

Yes, this is the job you will be confined to for a while in PvP until you train the skills needed to fly the better ships with a more precise roll.  However, doing this job will teach you VALUABLE experience in the PvP aspects of the game.  Which will be a huge boon to you once you can strap on the bigger guns and fly the bigger boats.  Money will be slow in the begining, unless you have a nice benefactor.  Mining is slow $$$ until you get into the bigger barges with the bigger cutters.  PvEing aka "Ratting" or Mission Running will be slow in the begining, until you get access to better agents, which require better ships, which requires training.  So yes, EvE is slow to progress, but its not like you can't be doing at least something in nearly ANY chosen field, from day 1.

My character, just reactived a week or two ago, has 11 million skill points.  A paltry amount in comparison to the highest of the high out there.  However, she provides an INVALUABLE service to my 0.0 corp and alliance by flying Covert Ops recon for hunting parties.  Put her into a combat ship of ANY kind and she is about as useful as a pilot running around in his pod.  But thankfully, I took the short time to train up at least one vital skill in each of the major activity fields.  Meaning, it doesn't matter what I want to do on any given day, I can do something that will be of vast importance the corp and/or alliance.