Possible to Play Casual?

PimpDaddyG

Is it possible to play this game and advance reasonably (relative to average players) by playing only on weekends, and holiday breaks (summer, too)?



Also, I am very easily addicted (definition of addicted meaning "continuing to do it despite consequences,) so will I get my life sucked away like WoW or Starcraft did to me?



I'm trying my best to become a casual gamer, and the sandbox, hard gameplay (WoW was too easy, I like a good challenge), and of course, space.  I love space and spaceships.

Graanok

Casual?  Yes and no. 



Yes, because your skills advance offline, so as long as you're able to come on for a minute to switch your skills over, you will be fine that way. 



No, because you will need to make money and that can take time.  You can always buy isk (the currency in EVE) legally from CCP although it's arguably not worth it.  If you can find a good way to make cash during your play time you should be absolutely fine.



As far as addictive, if you are the type who can get into this game and really enjoy it (and it may take a month or so to really see it for what it is) then this can be the most addictive game you ever play.  It all depends on what you do and how you do it.  If you just want to solo mine in secure space then it will get boring quick, but if you do other stuff like high cash trading or Alliance war fighting, this can be the most nerve wracking, stressful, intense, awesomely awesome game ever.



IF you like it.  And not everyone does.

adriaans

can you play casual? Absolutely

skillwise: no difference

Money: you'll be making less of course

Fun: i've played this game both on casual basis (when i had my exams) and quite active, both ways worked fine for me



try it out, see if you like, Welcome to EvE

iCeh

I think Graanok answered your questions. Skills are time based, and not a "grind" to level up, rather you simply see something you want look at the required skills, and train up for it.



I'd recommend training your learning skills as soon as you can, as the higher attributes you have, the quicker skills take to train.



Try the trail, nothing to lose, no credit card required (so you don't have to worry about canceling if you feel it's not for you ^^), and have a look through the FAQ and knowledge database on the EVE site.

blackcat35

the definition of "grind" is that its time consuming & boring....you can play this game casually, but you do not have a queu in this game, and it lamely requires you to log in to change any skill over.......if the skill takes you 20 minutes to learn, you need to be there 20 minutes later to change to something else, it does get very time intensive to be constantly training skills over and over........

Also because of how lame the learning system is you have some of the tougher skills taking 30 days or longer, at the higher levels, which effectively you can choose not to pay and not play the game and yet still advance your char until the skill is learned, by choosing the skill before your account becomes inactive....

your base stats are pretty important in this game as it reduces time to learn , but to increase stats it is pretty time intensive, more grinding, to get isk for implants, etc......

Anything is this game is grinding, whether your just changing skills constantly, grinding missions out, pvp grinding, gate camp grinding, mine grinding, or hmm.....actually I cannot thing of many other things to do in this game....this is generally a pretty boring game....oh, another grind......salvage grinding.....- even their new content is time sinks/ grinding.......

 

binjuice

*adds another cross to blackcat's eve-o new player thread trolling*



Its a pity since you do state the truth about the grinding of everything (but thats the same with every other game in the planet, theres no way to get better at something, or to gain something without some form of "grind") but deters any confidence in his post by stating the word "lame" a term used by youth who do not understand or know how to use proper words in its place, but good effort.



Casual play in eve is possible, you will be able to fly ship "x" with gun "y" at the same time someone who actively plays can, just you will most likely lack the funds to own said ship or gun. Eve-O's single biggest grind is isk, so when you do play when in casual mode, you better be ready to just do money grabbing, and a lot of it. Remember though, when you you start dedicate a few hours to the tut and a few starter missions, let alone anything else.



Eve is possible to be addicted to - as in you go to work and think about how your going to kill "z" corporation/alliance members because they are in your space, you are in theres, they war dec'd you in empire - vice versa, to thinking about making the trade of the week, scoring millions or building that BC and using it in a mission for the first time.



Eve is the single easiest casual player game out there, whilst being the single hardest casual game at the same time, you might be able to shoot stuff skillwise, but you will definantly lack the guns to shoot with.

shilak

Blackcat's post is overly negative, unlike most other MMOs you dont actually have to grind to achieve something. Grinding is pretty much a choice in EVE ... unlike in WoW and many other MMOs where you must grind instances, faction standings or PvP to keep up with everyone else.

EVE can be played fairly casually as your skills will continue to train even when you arent logged in. I found it best to do the short skills when I was actually logged in playing and then pop a long skill that would last at least until I am next able to play. One popular option is to spend the first month training learning skills to save time in the long run, personally I found my gaming experience was better when I didnt do this and instead spread the learning skills out, this might have cost me some time in the long run but it meant I was able to progress to the things I wanted to be doing sooner. The only real downside with the skill system is that you will never catch up a long term player when it comes to skill points, you can however compete by focusing on one or two specific areas.

Back the the subject of grinding, whilst you can choose to grind one specific thing there are plenty of different things to do in the game which mean you dont actually need to, i.e. mining, production, trading, mission running, belt ratting, complex running, exploration sites, pirating, pirate hunting, etc. Pretty much the only limitation is your own capabilities, be it combat skills or ability to find some niche in the market to exploit.

The best thing to do is read up on what you would like to do in the game, then pickup the trail and try those things. Give it more than 5 minutes though as the various subsystems within the game are fairly complicated and make take a little while to work out. Dont be surprised if you feel like you have still only scratched the surface when your trail period is coming to an end.

iCeh

FYI: blackcat35 was scammed by someone in the game (scamming is allowed, as long as it's not done through an exploit), quit the game because of it, and now makes it his life's purpose to troll these forums. Some call him sad... others do too, but he doesn't get the hint.

PimpDaddyG

Thanks everyone for your answers.  I'll definetly get the get the trial this spring break.

Nicoli

I would like to add something to what Blackcat said in his post, something that is not always noticed or mentioned. Skilling does take X amount of time per skill which is based off of a equation that I won't post here as. The nice thing is if you have 15min to play and 20min skill you want to learn, you can train that skill for 15minutes switch to a long skill that will last untill you are free to log on again, then finish the remaining 5min of the skill at a later time. You never lose SP because of switching training, you may lose it for not having a up to date clone and dying but that's an other thing.

Jowen

I played EVE casual for 2½ year, never left rookie corp and I enjoyed it.



And thanks to the wonders of the tech 2 lottery even casual people like me could get their hands into the tech 2 pot of gold, no grinding required.



For a creative minded guy like me there were in fact plenty of stuff to do in EVE that required no grinding at all.

Moghidin

Of course you can play casual. There's no need to be online a lot and grind.... unless you need to earn ISK. You can train pretty much anything and that is a plus, PvP in Eve is the best aspect of the game. After all, Eve is a very social game, if you join a good corporation with nice and helpful ppl, you will enjoy the game. If your corp-mates are crap or you are playing alone, Eve will become the kingdom of boredom very fast. Everything will look nice and interesting for you if you like Eve game-style of putting effort and no instant gratification in game. But there's a bomb ticking, waiting to explode in your face if you stay with the game long enough. This bomb is called Tech 2. When you train your skills, eventually you will be able to use T2 modules and ships, you would also prefer to fly them as they are better than T1 and allow you to maximize the use of your already trained skills.



 Here the bomb explodes. T2 is expensive, good T2 is ungodly expensive. Yes, even casual player can be free of all ISK worries IF he gets a T2 BPO - a license to produce T2 staff. Not all T2 BPOs are good, but those that are (and they are distributed based on pure luck) are actually legal money trainers for Eve. If you are unlucky and you don't have T2 BPO or several other characters for mining, prepare for the GRIND. You will either have to fly cheap ships and use cheap modules, which will get boring and frustrating sooner rather than later when you have all nice skills for T2 ready available, OR you will have to grind A LOT. Forget about casual play then, you will log in and sit in front of your screen for hours to kill NPC ships or mine. Earning enough ISK to use and replace T2 ships and modules in PvP will demand horrendous amounts of time; take into account that you can actually lose your staff, unlike in WoW you do not reappear at some magic portal with your staff intact, here you lose your ship and modules. So, welcome to grinddom again. Bottom line is - you can enjoy Eve as a casual player, but Eve will get boring repetitive and fruitless experience if you KEEP playing as a casual player. You will either have to escalate, be happy with flying crap forever or quit.

Graanok

Bah, don't listen to Moghidin, it's perfectly possible to replace T2 stuff with ease.



It's just a matter of finding a good way of making money.  Killing high end "rats" (NPC pirates) can yeild millions of ISK in minutes if you have the ability to take them down.  There's mining, trading (many people use this, as it's an easy and fairly safe way to make a LOT of money quickly), missions, manufacturing (and no, you don't need T2 BPOs to make money with manufacturing), etc.  Most corps pay their PvPers to run protection during mining ops.  You can become a pirate and extort money and items out of fellow players.  You can be a bounty hunter and kill for cash.  You can get a group together and run complexes.  You can become a mercenary or join a mercenary corp and get paid to kill people for other people.  There's tons of ways to make lots of money quick, and most of which are fine for casual players to do (except maybe mercenary work, that tends to require a larger time commitment especially for protection ops).



Anyway, don't let any of us sway you one way or the other.  Just get a trial account, try to find a good corp that will train you for what you want to do, and see if you like it.  The bottom line is that you have to make up your own mind.  Grind or not grind, it's really up to you and how you want to play.

rebal88

Casual is very possible...making money is hard...or have rich friends willing to help..

pihlssite

casual gamer sure its very good as you can start skills then be offline during the skill period.

Tulisin

Originally posted by rebal88

Casual is very possible...making money is hard...or have rich friends willing to help..

PvE is easy solo with the right ship, you can always just run level 4s until your eyes fall out, 5 - 25 million per mission + a possible 50 million every storyline + 1 billion once you get enough LP for a faction ship.

PimpDaddyG

I'm trying out the EVE trial (just finished the tutorial, whew!) and mining looks BORING.  Is pirate hunting a good way for a casual player?  I'm looking for fun, not becoming the best of the best.

darkfish0

EVE is beter than most MMOs for playing casually, due to the skill training, but as with any MMO the amount you play increases the amount you advance.



To start with, run the easy missions, especially the ones you get directed too, as they can yield a nice implant to sell. If you wont be on much, try to look into some of the less time consuming ways to make isk. Trading can be profitable, have a look at http://eve-central.com/home to help you with trading across regions. Otherwise, attempt to discover a little used low sec system. By ratting(killing NPCs: 'rats') or mining here you can make a lot more isk in a shorter time.



If you think you are able to play enough, or even if you dont(!), getting into a corp as soon as you are off the trial is highly recommended. EVE has a brilliant community and it is the easiest way to get there and discover it. They may also be able to help you out with any questions(or isk!) and it is likely they will be able to provide you free modules or even ships, saving some isk. A bigger corp is less likely to be affected if you are not so active.



If you need any help give me a shout in game!

PimpDaddyG

Thank you, darkfish, you were very helpful.

Taram

Originally posted by rebal88

Casual is very possible...making money is hard...or have rich friends willing to help..

Making money is NOT hard.



I can make 30-40 million a day and spend a grand total of 5 minutes at the keyboard to do it.  And it doesn't even involve macro mining, macro ratting or macro anything.  It's just a matter of knowing where to go to get good deals and where you can unload them for the greatest ammount of income.



Furthermore It takes all of 30 days to get the skills to do this.  No major investment in time.  And after that you're pretty much set in life as you'll be making isk faster than you can find things to spend it on.  Granted 30mil a day doesn't sound like much to some.... but then consider it's 30 mil most of which time is spent off doing RL things and only 5-10 minutes actually at the keyboard.



Then when I DO have time to play I make even more and have a load of fun because I don't have any money concerns.



I have to remember to thank the former corp-mate who tipped me off to how easy it is to make isk

DalcarCarosu

BTW never played a mmorpg that you can play more casual then this

I have around 5m SP atm my char is speced Pve/trader/hauling. As I trader all I have to do is go to a trade hub buy stuff then haul it and put up sell orders thats it.. Then if I feel like it logg in cupple of times a day to correct the PC on the items. Then after I will I will get better sp and I can start to PvP or Pve when I feel like it as I have the isk for it

timmy2shoes

I've played a few MMOs, mainly just to try them out and find one I liked. As a college student casual play was my biggest consideration when looking for an MMO and eve is great for it. Yes you won't be making millions like many of the other players but join a good corp and you'll find people are willing to help you out all the time.

Eve, guildwars and WoW are best for casual play. IMO

damian7

Originally posted by blackcat35


the definition of "grind" is that its time consuming & boring....you can play this game casually, but you do not have a queu in this game, and it lamely requires you to log in to change any skill over.......if the skill takes you 20 minutes to learn, you need to be there 20 minutes later to change to something else, it does get very time intensive to be constantly training skills over and over........
Also because of how lame the learning system is you have some of the tougher skills taking 30 days or longer, at the higher levels, which effectively you can choose not to pay and not play the game and yet still advance your char until the skill is learned, by choosing the skill before your account becomes inactive....
your base stats are pretty important in this game as it reduces time to learn , but to increase stats it is pretty time intensive, more grinding, to get isk for implants, etc......
Anything is this game is grinding, whether your just changing skills constantly, grinding missions out, pvp grinding, gate camp grinding, mine grinding, or hmm.....actually I cannot thing of many other things to do in this game....this is generally a pretty boring game....oh, another grind......salvage grinding.....- even their new content is time sinks/ grinding.......
 

i highlighted a bit of your post.  hope you don't mind.

so, i want to understand you here.  you don't like the skills that take a short amount of time to learn, because you have to log on a lot (or maybe actually be playing the game for 20 minutes??); but you don't like the skills that take a long time to learn either.  i'm seeing a glaring contradiction here.

to increase stats, you could... ooooo train LEARNING skills perhaps?  10 points per stat there.  8 if you do it the short way.  you realize that if you do missions, you get implants as storyline rewards based upon the mission level, right?  +1s for lvl 1s and +4s for lvl 4s.  yes, playing the game is very time intensive, you have to actually LOG IN to make iskies (sometimes, sometimes not).

i'm curious, what EXACTLY is pvp grinding?  WoW has pvp grind - you collect honor points and tokens to get better and better gear, because wow is gear-centric, hence a pvp GRIND.  beating the hell out of other players is simply PVP.  do you know what a grind actually is?

mine grinding.  because other games have automated mining?  oh wait, you CAN afk-mine in eve.  not approved of, but you CAN do it.

i'm curious, how exactly is it that you'd be constantly changing skills out?  do you only get to level 1 or 2 in each skill?  if so, you should've run out of skills real fast.

i'm re-reading your post... you realize that there's not a way to actually "just" grind salvage, right?

 

 and a

Eiae

I suppose the PvP might be fun, but the rest is way too boring after a while. Don't play this game if you are not into PvP and if you are, expect to spend a loooong time getting there.

Honestly, a space game without a real exploration scheme? Gah

Skilling up without doing anything ingame? What is the point? (Apart from paying subscription)

 

 

Primitive and over hyped game

pihlssite

PimpDaddyG well casual "pirate hunting is alot of people who play eve online in that way ..

Think like this Im a Parent and I have time playing eve online

Ciredric

Forget the naysayers, you can play as casual as you like.  Once you get a month or two under your belt, training will start getting into days and you log in when you need to schedule new training. 

You can play pvp or do the industrial stuff too.