Eve online?

posted on July 2nd, 2012, 6:24 pm

Is anyone here playing EVE online? I'm considering to start an account there and could use some arguments for or against EVE.

posted on July 2nd, 2012, 8:16 pm

For: EVE is a huge sandbox with thousands of other players, any one of which you could potentially affect with your actions.
Against: EVE is a huge sandbox with thousands of other players, any one of which can potentially affect you with their actions.

posted on July 2nd, 2012, 8:31 pm

I was more referring to: time-to-spend or how fast I can have decent action in comparison to endless grinding of stuff, click and wait activities like boring mining etc.

posted on July 2nd, 2012, 8:40 pm

Depends greatly on what kind of action you're after. I mean, pick the right skills in your first day or two of training (your first session or two should be spent concentrating on the tutorial) and you can be merrily PvPing in the Factional Warfare areas in a Rifter, and you should be able to make enough money to keep you in them forever. If you want to make more serious cash, then yes you can mine, but there are less hands-on ways to do it (eg Planetary Interaction, station trading, margin trading and so on). It'll take a month or two to be able to start running L4 PvE missions, if PvE is more your bag.

Give some more details as to what you want to do, and I'll hopefully be able to give more detail.

posted on July 3rd, 2012, 6:31 am

I'm more referring to PvP...and my time-invest ist something between 8h a week in average. By action I meant having PvP without waiting 1h with nothing to do...(like in FO these days)

posted on July 3rd, 2012, 2:23 pm

OK, the plan of action I would advocate is:

1) Do the tutorial. I'm serious; do the tutorial. Take a look at all of the areas. Don't skip on the industrial stuff, except perhaps mining, as at the very least it'll give you a grounding in how the game's economy works. It'll also give your pilot some useful free stuff like skillbooks and a ship or two.

2) Decide early what combat ships look tasty to you. Take a note of what skills they use, then do some research into fits for them. And do some research into what skills will be necessary to achieve that fit. Start off with frigates and destroyers. Do not worry about T2 ship equipment at this time.

3) Use a nifty program called EVEMon to make a good training plan for the ship and equipment you're wanting to use. I advise aiming for level 3 in the various skills to begin with, then level 4. Level 5 skills take several days to complete, so don't worry about that for now.

4) Work out a plan to make money. Possibilities include Planetary Interaction, station trading, margin trading, PvE missions, and buying PLEX and selling them on the market. Bear in mind a single PLEX will give you a huge infusion of cash; resist the temptation to splurge with it.

5) With 24 - 48 hours of skilltraining (skillpoints accumulate whether you're online or offline) and a bit of effort, you should be able to make a stockpile of several fitted combat frigates.

6) Your easiest "in" to PvP will be through Factional Warfare. Pick the faction that matches the race of your character, join in, look for hotspots, see if there's a fleet to join, and go shoot things. Expect to lose ships. And clones. Try to learn something from every fight.

7) As a new character you will likely run into distrust. A reason for this is because throwaway alts are often used for spying for another side. Trust is a valuable commodity in EVE. Know when to cultivate it, how to take care of it, and -- if you're so inclined -- when to betray it.

Other things to look at once you've decided you like it is to look at joining a corporation. There are some, like EVE University, that have the aim of helping new players learn. Some corporations, like the various Goons, have specific out-of-game recruiting channels (and in-game recruitment by them may even be a scam).

Much of that advice probably won't make much sense until you've actually played the game. That's all right. As I said, EVE is a huge sandbox, with more tools than the most super-wizzo-deluxe Swiss Army Knife. Use your head, do a little planning, and you'll soon be pew pewing with the best of 'em.

posted on July 12th, 2012, 5:54 am

I'm also interested in this game. I found a series of introductory youtube videos about it. Here's the link: http://youtu.be/-sc97i8l9EE

posted on July 12th, 2012, 6:27 am

I tried EVE with a trial account for 14 days but besides 5h last weekend I didn't play that much. The game seems to take a lot of time to have any fun at all. But I'll try again this weekend and see how much fun it can create.

posted on July 13th, 2012, 10:41 pm

I played EVE for a few years, and only stopped because it was hurting my grades in college. It's got some amazing PVP, but you really have to invest the time to get into that.

You really won't be PVPing much your first month unless you know someone in RL who plays and can introduce you. Almost all PVP is done in groups, and as MadHatter said you need to earn peoples' trust. The absolute best PVP is in nullsec where the fleets of 500 ships clash against each other, but that requires a lot more time. The alliance I joined required that you buy a mic and be on teamspeak at all times, as well as a Jabber account so you can receive CTA's (Call To Arms). The Allance also taxed our members' incomes by 40% and offered full ship replacement if it was lost defending our space.

The thing that makes EVE harsh (and fun) is the ship death. When you die in PVP, you actually lose the ship and have to buy another one with your hard-earned ISK. And while the cheaper ships work in groups, the ships you really want to fight in will cost you a full week of normal grinding to replace. You often work long and hard to get an awesome ship, then end up PVPing in the same cheap ships as before because you don't want to lose it. Of course, if you're smart and you've been playing for a while, you can make the money roll in much faster.

I would actually recommend you NOT complete the tutorial. A human friend will be able to tell you what you need to know much better. New players in EVE are presented with a lot of different ways to make money slowly, and it distracts them from the really good ones. A two-week-old character can hit 100 million ISK if he knows how.

The trick to making crazy ISK as a new player is to know what you can do and what you can't do.

-You can't run good missions. The only good ones come from level 4 agents, and you have to earn the standings.
-You can't mine well. There is money in mining, once you can fly a Hulk. Nothing less is worth it.
-You can't produce goods for money. Production takes skills, but even if you had them it's not enough. A production player spends much more time studying the market and selling his goods than he does producing them.
-You can't deal damage. At the height of its glory, my glass-cannon pulse-laser Armageddon could deal 1200 DPS to a tackled enemy at 15km with no faction gear. Your PVP Drake will be around 300 DPS until you get T2 launchers.

Now, let's look at what you CAN do:

-You can scout. One time I introduced a friend to Eve, and on his third day he took his rifter out into the middle of nullsec, met an ancient character who wanted to move a cache of goods that would make the Mittani salivate, and helped scout the guy's freighter 13 jumps back and forth for 7 trips. He got paid $250 million ISK, and I never quite forgave him. While this may be rare, it does happen and many EVE players will be incredibly generous to new players who help them out.

-You can tackle. Get in a cheap frigate, load up a Warp Scrambler and a Stasis Web, and make sure to insure it because it's gonna die. This is the legendary new-player PVP experience that EVE players talk about, but you do need to find a group. A smaller group will be more willing to trust you, but you may have to get on at a specific time when other people are there. A larger group will have better time coverage but will probably want you to stay in their territory and participate in their ops. The best solution is to befriend one of the higher-ups in real life

-You can buy and sell stuff. EVE has a completely player-driven market based on buy and sell orders. This clashes with the fact that people don't have nearly as much time to spend on EVE as they do in real life. As a result they are willing to spend their money for time a lot more often than in real life. You can make good money by just putting up a buy order for 40k and a sell order for 50k on the same item in the same station. Or you can buy cheap combat gear in a market hub for 3000 ISK and cart it out to a dangerous nullsec station to sell it for 90,000 ISK. Nobody really cares about numbers that small if they're just buying one, but by selling a lot you can make bank.

-You can type. In a game where vast amounts of ISK can be lost in a single battle, having good friends is key. Just like Fleet Ops, the majority of PVP is actually the smaller fleet running away while the larger fleet tries to catch it. Being friendly is really the best way to increase your combat strength until you're strong enough to crush your enemies on your own. If you want to meet PVPers, you should go to a PVP hub and ask for a frigate duel in local, either to the hull or to the death. I'm sure somebody will be interested. The only Hi-sec hub I remember is the Amarr system. Or you could try Old Man Star, if you don't mind getting killed and podded or possibly tackled in your escape pod for a half hour while somebody makes ransom demands for more ISK than a new player could possibly have. All the really good EVE memories end in death anyway.

Also, I don't know if it's running right now but Red vs Blue is the best way to get into PVP in EVE. It sort of peters out and goes dormant, then restarts every 1-2 years when thousands of players jump into cheap frigates and cruisers and blow the crap out of each other all day long for weeks on end. And it's entirely player run. If you hear that it's going, that would be the best time to get into an EVE trial.