In terms of character creation, there are so many variables that you have to consider in all MMOs, but EVE seems to have the most in my experience. From the beginning of character creation to in action game-play there are hundreds of variables that could change the outcome of any battle. Starting off in character creation there are two variables that will depict how you will play the rest of the game. Attributes and skills. It is crucial that you choose carefully and without mistakes. You have to take into consideration what exactly it is you want to do in the world of EVE. So, let's begin!

Attributes:

Attributes are one of many important factors in the game; they affect every single thing you do. Sometimes it might be indirectly, but they do. They are responsible for the time it takes for you to learn skills. These skills dictate how, what, when, and why you can or can't use a certain items, ships, implants, devices and so on. As a result, this makes attributes an important factor inside this game.

To kick it off, we will start with which attributes are most important for what you might want to do. For instance, if you want to be a master pilot, you should look into Willpower and Perception. For someone who wants to hack, manufacture, or even simply be able to operate high tech things you might want to consider Intelligence and Memory. If you want to mine and sell for a great deal of cash Charisma and Memory might serve you well).

The main importance for attributes is to help you learn new skills. Learning new skills will make you a more formidable foe anywhere. Skills will have a training time multiplier. This is a multiplier that will increase the time spent training if the correct amount of primary and secondary attributes are not present. What this means is for every attribute point you do not have, it will add to the amount of time it takes to learn a skill. For example, if I have 0 Intelligence and 0 Memory, a skill with those primary/secondary attributes will take a long time to learn. By increasing those attributes, you can ultimately decrease the time it takes to conquer the game by half a year or perhaps more!

There are a number of ways to increase attribute points. One most people should be familiar with is the Learning skill. This increases all attributes by 2% per rank and takes about 7 days (depending on your attributes) to master. Since it has 5 ranks that's a total of 10%. It seems substantial to me. But wait, there is more. Implants to the brain also help for attributes. Though they require skills to place, once they make it inside your skull, you wont regret it. But a word of caution, implants are considered expensive and they require a large amount of skill to place inside your head. So, do not go spend all your ISK on implants, more-so since if you get pod killed you won't get them back. You could though, go buy a few books and learn some attributes. The beginner ones are rather inexpensive and give 1 attribute per rank. The other ones are extremely expensive and they yield 1 per rank. A bit pricey I will admit, but worth it in the long run.

Skills:

Skills can do nearly anything aside from flying your ship for you (autopilot will do that for you, ha). Skills are what dictate what you can operate, how you operate, and what bonuses you get from skills. It is really simple. You learn a skill from a book or you start with it in the beginning of the game and you get a benefit. The only thing restricting you from learning every single skill is the amount of time it takes to learn said skill. Each skill requires an amount of points to be gained over time in order to be learned and ranked up. You start with about 800,000 skill points to 900,000 and you earn more and more progressively. These skill points are very important to progressing. They should be watched all the time and insured with a clone.

As I have said before, attributes and skills go hand-in-hand. To learn skills faster you must have both primary attributes and secondary attributes as high as you can get them. This will decrease the time it takes to learn the skill.

Skills have 5 ranks. These ranks take longer to learn and provide more benefits. Simply put the higher rank you want to learn the longer it will take and the better the benefits. Not only this but you will be able to operate different modules or ships. For instance, say you learned the skill Calidari Frigate rank one. You are now able to operate a ship related to that skill.

Though skills are fine and dandy once you learn them, losing them is not very fun. To protect yourself from losing skills, clones are there for purchase. These clones protect the amount of skill points gained once pod-killed. So, if you get attacked by a pirate and die you will have a clone there to save your skills from being punted.

Suggestions with skill monitoring:

Now I have been around MMOs for quite a bit. I always look for many things to help myself from forgetting about things. EVEmon is a program that will monitor your characters on all accounts and give details on skills and a few other things that will help a sprouting player or even a veteran eve player. It tells you when skills are done upgrading for all characters even if you are offline. This is a must for all players and can be found at http://evemon.battleclinic.com/ .

Conclusion:

Both skills and attributes contribute to overall game-play. When focused on, they can make you a deadly player. Whether it is in the market, facing NPCs, or even other players. Though there are other aspects to consider, these two key features in the game that I briefly covered will ensure that you be able to utilize all you can. Until I create a specific guide, you will have to wait for my next article! 'Till then, see you later and happy hunting!