EVE question

[squirrelTactics]

...What makes this game fun?

I downloaded the trial and have been playing for 3 or 4 hours, and so far I've just been watching my ship mine, watching my ship fight, watching my ship blow up, and being poor and confused.

I just am wondering really what this game is all about, and whether I should stick with it or not.

[UWCrash]

I'll start by saying this post isn't going to answer your question, but I hope 1019 responds. I'd like to hear his take on it.

I played it for a couple months about a year ago, when the EvAv Corporation was started. My only real focus was on mining, but my schedule never really aligned with that of the corp so I didn't get involved in many ops. By the time I quit I had done enough missions to drop the ore lost during smelting pretty low, but that was my only real objective in the game. Like you, I wasn't sure what else I should be focused on so I eventually drifted away.

I also stayed away from the combat system. Every time I tried a mission that involved combat it was pretty difficult, but that may have been due to my starting skillset being so mining-heavy. I'm sure there was plenty of cool mods I couldn't throw on my ship. My only tactic was to fire off as many missles as possible before having to retreat to the nearest station, repair, and head back into the fray.

[OldeWolf]

The fun is watching your character evolve over real time into something you want (PVE or PVP fighting, mining, building stuff, controlling market, etc). In the beginning, it's always seemingly overwhelming and your empty wallet doesn't help you feel like you're even making anything. But if you keep at it for the next few months, you will find out what you want over time. I personally found out that I love mission running and been doing it ever since (made over 2.5 billion isk in 2 years just from mission running).

My advice is to spend about 1 hour looking on the market at all the ship there is on this game to fly. You can also check or uncheck that little check box to display all ships despite it not being available on the market yet in that region.

The downside is, it trains in real time, and it's not exactly as interactive as World of Warcraft in terms of instant rewards.

I currently fly an Astarte as a Command Pilot on lv 4 missions and never lost a ship. It's my little pride and joy before buying a Paladin. :D

[Ten19]

First thing, make sure that you're in the "CoG" channel in-game, that way if you have questions, the few of us that hang out there can help you. To join a channel in-game, Click on the "Channels and Mailing Lists" button, it's below the Wallet button in your left-hand dock. Make sure you're on the Channels tab and then click "Join", then type in "CoG" in the field and you'll be there. Feel free to ask any question you have there and we'll be happy to respond.

Now, with that out of the way.

EVE can be really hard to get into and stick with. Why? Because it's one of the few MMO's that doesn't really tell you what to do. It's up to you to get a grasp on what's out there and pick a direction to work on. There are a ton of resources out there to help you learn the environment of EVE and the options out there, but again in the end, it's up to you to decide what you want to get into.

Also, the real shine of EVE comes out when you join an active player corporation, this definitely is not a game to play solo (for the most part). There is a CoG corp that we've launched, but it's fairly small and really only meant for more gathering for missions, getting some starting equipment and stuff. So if you really find a part of the game that you want to get into, I'd suggest doing some research and finding an active player corp to join.

We used to have a nice big guide over at EvAv of available guides, but Evil killed the entire EVE forum before we could copy it over, so, I'll try to dig up a few that might be helpful.

Definitely start with: http://www.eve-online.com/guide/en/

[OldeWolf]

EVE's NPC Scope corp is the corp to be in! :p

[Goronmon]

It's hard to explain what's so different about EVE. Basically, when it comes down to it, EVE is all based around free-for-all PVP. Everything you do in-game has the goal of trying to gain an advantage over other players. EVE just gives you a lot of leeway to go about that task however you want. You can trade, you can mine, you can do NPC missions, or you can pirate.

EVE encourages PvP-encounters by placing most of the rewards in low-sec and 0-sec space, where it's pretty much every man for himself. Miners and traders who venture into those areas have to worry about actual players looking for targets that might be worth taking out. It's just not something you can experience in many other games at all.