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EVE Online: EVE Survivor Guy Week 2
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
MMORPG.com's Adam Tingle sets out on his second week of exploration in EVE Online as he writes about this adventures, good and bad, coming into the game for the first time.
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Hello and welcome to Eve Online Survivor Guy. I am taking on the wilds of New Eden, once I'm out there I will have to initiate survival and it won't be easy. I don't have any experience of this game and the learning curve for me will come swift and steady. I don't want to over dramatize this but a mistake out here could prove fatal...
Week Two: Bewilderment and Cash Flow
It is my second week and already I am starting to feel like the uneducated and savage newcomer that I am. Having made frequent enquiries of various matters in the Rookie Channel it has now become apparent that Eve Online is difficult beyond comprehension. Veterans of the game tell me in mechanical terms which way I should progress, such is the benefit of hindsight, while others reply in mystical tones of "the game is how you make it". My second week in New Eden wasn't going to be easy and to survive I needed to be proactive and intelligent in my methods.
Read EVE Survivor Guy Week 2.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
Glad to see that you aren't planning on mining the entire time. While it does provide a steady low source of income, it's dreadfully bland. I would recommend giving a few level 1 missions a try pretty soon. They aren't much harder than the tutorial missions for the most part, and it would be a good way to stock up on various ship modules as you gear towards intergalactic conquest. Just watch out for the ones ending in "extravaganza" or "blockade" unless you have some people flying with you. Speaking of which, I would recommend joining a player corporation with goals similar to your own. They are extremely helpful, both with knowledge and material, and can offer an extra set of guns for that particularly troubling mission.
I play in a sandbox.
heh
Week 1 was mining
Week 2 is mission running and mining along with buying learning skills.
no player corp yet, no attempt at anything risky...
someone for the love of all that is holy please find this dude in game and show him how to salvage and scan.
He could be salvaging level 4 missions or atleast be hoping around low sec salvaging wrecks for good isk and at least he wouldnt be bored lol.
He's setting himself up to do nothing but mine and mission. a cheap t1 frig costs 25k isk, salvage skill book is free as mission reward please lol someone needs to help this guy.
Edit: atleast he understands about preplanning and having patience. most Ex-wowers would have uninstalled the game by now. Shit by week two i would be in outland already if i was playing that game. in Eve you running L1-L2 missions and trying to decide wth ur goals are lol.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
good see you actually thought about the most important question you can ask in Eve
"What do I want to do in this game?"
and then looked into how that could be achieved, most people don't 'get Eve' because they don't do that vital step.
Combat missions aren't an unachievable goal in the 1st few weeks of playing.
There's a player run channel called "Help my Mission" where assistance can often be found if you find you've bitten off more than you can deal with, this also introduces the other important part of the game -- Network and Contact building.
Another player ran endevour is Eve Univercity which runs realtime pvp training groups, which gives you access to relatively painless pvp experiences (Yes your ship will probably get blown up, and it's important to experience it at least once)
Enjoy the rest of your stay.
Said about 100 times before, Eve is a very social game and in order to have some fun in-game i highly recommand you to join a corporation. Corps are there to help you with choices, money and questions. From your week 2 story i read that you feel a bit abbandoned and lonely in this massive world full of 10+ mil SP players. This is not true. There have been a major growth of newcomers and noobs. (im one of them myself)
I''ve been playing for 1 month at the moment and i think it isnt hard to get in touch with fellow noob players. But you still didnt join a 'beginner' corp. It seems that you are trying to play it singleplayer while it is a massive multiplayer game. There are enouph players that have the same amount of skill or that are glad to help you with your problems instead of saying 'go l*ck your m*th**s p*s*y' like i hear in other games.
Do exiting battles can truly give you a high amount of money and SKILL. In order to get into these so called exiting battles you should join a corp. Ive done very well running missions only and dont need to go for (in my opinion) boring mining trips. If you like to get into action do so!
Socialise and you will become further into the game and have A LOT more fun! Playing eve is so much more than mining and doing missions.... i will never play anything else.
Although you can play Eve solo, you are missing the best part of the game, the interaction with other players. And in missing this point you are doing a disservice to your readers. Get into a corp, something like Eve university would be good, tell your readers about the possibilities that a corp like that can provide to a newcomer. You will be in battles from the let go, you will mission and mine in company with some people scouting, others protecting, others ferrying cargo, other slavaging, scanning, ... you will learn about team flying, about fleets and fittings and safes and WH space, you will lose ships but also will learn about your mates and the corp helping you to recover from your loses ...you, and your readers, will learn about eve much faster.
The corps are the soul of Eve, I know, I have played solo for a long time.
Disclaimer, I am not affiliated in any way to eve university corp.
Played: UO, SWG, TR, WoW, AoC, EvE
Playing:
Interested in: JGE, LotR, TSW
Another source of income you can look into is running courier contract missions.
You basically look in your contracts for posted courier contracts in your area. You need a ship that can hold the shipment in the contract, the collateral to backup the losses if you get blown up or don't deliver the contract (which you will get back upon delivery) and you will get paid a reward for it.
If you stick to Hi-Sec space you should be fine, and if you look at it as a way to explore around New Eden, you can make good money. You make more mining, but then you have to sell the minerals after you mine them.
If anything it is a change from mining and mission running if that gets boring
Problem the guy has is he's a newbie... and joining a player corp as a real newbie is dangerous. Very high chance of getting scammed down the line.
As evidenced by his posts, he's a cautious type, so him not joining a player corp is just fine. Especially since the newbie corp he's in will have hundreds of people (of course, half are bots, or AFK) in its channel, versus only a few or none in most corps that'll take on a true newbie (Risk for corps is that he's a spy, griefer, etc).
Someone suggested ninja salvaging level 4 missions.... not the best way to make a name for yourself in the start of your new career.
Also, you do not need to orbit asteroids as you mine them to improve mining speed. This isn't jumpgate
Just park and fire.
Courier contracts are just ripe for scamming.. some of the worst in eve.
New accounts should make money finishing every career agent (go to help screen, career agents at the bottom.) This will give you lots of noob ships and isk that you can use to buy your learning skill books and get you enough cash to get into a good frig or if you don't mind training it.. a cruiser.
With a cruiser you can do up to level 2 missions for 1 agent and you can start brining in enough cash to pay for all your ships and skills pretty easily while making some cash.
Also maybe look up EVE Uni for guidance or finding a corp you can trust that will help you along... eve is only good with friends.
You are right, Eric, you don't really have to orbit to mine, though to keep in motion assists in making yourself a little harder to hit, always a good idea.
BTW, I amost always play MMORPGS solo at the beggining and then later on, when I get a feel for the game, I enter in corporation/guilds. What must be remembered is that although the game is the same for all, we don't all play the same game. And this holds specially true for Eve.
I think we should start a collection. I'll throw 10 million ISK into the pot if the author will stop mining for the rest of the series.....
Only half-joking, but I was hoping he would have shown some attempts to explore player corps or even Eve University by now. I was surprised that he has continued to mine, much less, jetcan mining. I suppose I can see how this looks like "easy money" though.
Still anxious to see where the next week or two lead....
-mklinic
"Do something right, no one remembers.
Do something wrong, no one forgets"
-from No One Remembers by In Strict Confidence
Personally I had the most fun in the first few weeks of Eve, everything was new, so much detail and many things to learn. I love being able to read and study the game. I don't think Eve's learning curve is that hard, you only really need a few basic things which you learn in the tutorial and you are good to go.
Later on in PVP/trade/industry where it becomes more competitive you need to get involved in understanding what other players are doing but mining or missions in high sec you cant really go wrong.
The only piece of advice the game didn't give me but was invaluable was to pick a corporation such as Fed Navy and do missions with their agents (figure out how to look for corp specific agents). I was just running lvl 1 agents with various corps and getting nowhere.
Anyway glad to see you are having fun!!
News to me... and that is how I have been making ISK in EVE for years.
The only risk, as long as you are paying attention, is someone making you pay an unreasonable collateral, and then hunting you down for it. So long as the Collateral and the Reward don't seem unreasonably high and he sticks to Hi-Sec, he could go ages without seeing combat.
Also as a new player he wouldn't be able to afford the high collaterals involved in such scams.
Also you can look under a player/corps info and see their contract history to judge their trustworthiness.
I think you are thinking of auction and Item exchange contracts.
I have played eve since 2005 off and on. I've jumped through most of the hoops. So here is some observations you may or may not want to consider.
It is understandable that you want to dabble about in different professions, as I did, but my experience with Eve is the sooner you figure out what to do in "life" the better. If you are wanting to be a combat piliot then you should focus your energy, skill queue and ammunition on that goal. As a "good" PvPer you have a very long grind in the "skilz" department as well as a pretty good grind in the skills department too. So the sooner you set your queue upon the path the better and sooner you will be flying that ceptor or in the long term command ship/carrier.
So, in order to be a combat piliot my advice to you is to grind mish while training support and weapon skills till you can fly a full tech 2 fit tier three frigate. Thats the best tech 1 frig of your choosen race with a tech 2 tank, speed mod and tech 2 guns. Missiles are great for mish but if PvP is your goal then guns and drones are the accepted standard in death dealing to other players. Also, while tempting to play with other race's setups you are better off selecting a race you like and sticking with it for the first year to maximize skill, hull classes and mod progress.
Were a lot of people have problems in PvP is the flow of information through the interface. In combat you will have to contend with a large amount of data that is changing constantly and flying mish will get you use to it on a basic level. Just remember that the damage done to you by rats is a fraction of what players, especially with T2 guns, can do. So tanks and tactics used in Pve will perish quickly in pew pew. Also, real people will be flying around faster and constantly trying to control the fight through range dictation. All of this will flow through the interface to your eyeballs at a very fast pace and staring at rocks in space will not train this "skilz" set.
Don't select a mission corp willy nilly. You got to have a plan, always have a plan and that goes for pvp as well. It takes a long time for casual players to build faction/corp standing by themselves. You need that standng to run higher level mish. So, think about what you want to do when you hit level 4 agents. As your primary source of income mish is an "active" source as opposed to a "passive" one. That means if you want to make isk you got to mish. Having level 4 agents with Caldari Navy won't help if your running daily roams into Esotaria with the your corp. Conversly, having level 4 agents with Lai Dai allows you access to that corps Research and Development agents. These agents can be used as a passive form of income through datacores. So, have a plan right from the start.
"How do I know what to plan? I'm a noob." Well like in RL knowledge is power and fortunitly for you others before you have imparted this knowledge in the forms of guldies, how tos and forum posts. So it is back to school for you-start reading.
Lastly, and many have already said it, once you get your "plan" you need to find like minded players IN YOUR TIMEZONE. Eve is a social game of constant gang warfare and to enjoy all PvP has to offer you need to find a corp. Otherwise you will be stuck playing on a playground full of great toys that were designed to only be used with other kids. Bummer for you and dump cargo before you blow will ya.
Do these things and you will be well into Eve by the time you accomplish them.
One other thing...you dock safe but you should always fly deadly!
If I were him, I would join a noob friendly corp like Eve Uni. Then stick to doing missions in high sec for the first few weeks to build up money and learn the game in relative safety. After a month or so, and assuming you're in a good corp, venuture out with some friends to look for some pvp, whether its in low sec, null sec or maybe even wormhole space. Just be prepared and expect to lose a few ships in the process. As they say, only fly what you can afford to lose. This is esp. true for a new player.
Is a man not entitled to the herp of his derp?
Remember, I live in a world where juggalos and yugioh players are real things.
ive played eve now for about 5 years almost. accumulated about 40 million skill points playign casually. on my main charecter and 3 other accounts of roughly 20 mill skill points each.
as a new player the game is incredibly daunting and for the better part of a description boreing and mind numbing. you will spend the vast part of your starter life dieing learning all the does and donts in eve, once you have these essentials out the way you can propperly start progress as a street wise eve wise cadet.
ill just give you a feww ideas to play around with in regaurds to income. for starters the best one is money for nothing. no i dont mean steal it, i mean buy orders. the eve market is your best friend if you can think a little out of the box.
head for a lvl 2 mission area, you can locate this by veiwing your agent tab and locateing your nearest lvl 2 mission agent. ideally you want a command or security one. the idea is to run a few and find out what loot drops. then try to sell the loot and make notes of how much iyou will make. you will soon see that just randomly selling your crap on the open market doesnt give you a very good return. reason for this is simple. the players place the buy orders for which your filling with your looted items. and they are out their to pay as little as possible for your unwanted loot.
instead of running missions and takeing those risks why dont you place your own buy orders and match the prices of the other buy orders or just play with the market a little toi ensure you get a fair shot at the market. you dont have to be rich to start so long as you aquire some items your off to a good start.
now to make this pointless junk loot you just brought through your buy orders worth your while, your going to refine it, this will turn it into base resources like tritanium and pyrite and if your lucky some mexalon and possibly a few drops of zhydrine. once you have accumated a fair stack of these base materials check the market prices. and then sell these mats at the going rate. your return will be ten fold compaired to mining those nooby asteroids in empire space, and all you do is place buy orders. bare in mind you can also mine while your working the markets too.
last time i checked mat prices where roughly -
trit - 4.0 isk per unit
pyrite - 6.0 isk per unit
mex - 20 isk
nox - 50-80 isk
zhy -1500 -2000 isk per unit
as you can see just one or two lumps of zhydrine gives a good return, unfortunately its not in vast amounts. instead aim for the tritanium. its the base core material in eve. its used in practically everything. and it holds its price.
dont worry about moving it about you dont need to, the dedicated crafter will come collect if the price is right.
so if you pay 300isk for a crappy small rail gun, and it refines into something like say 300 trit 150 pyrite 60 mex and 2 zhydrine, and you sell it market regions average price. its fair to say your going to make almost ten fold what it cost you in the first place. maybe even more alot more. infact you will make a fortune. its what i do
those mats are just an example. it will be a bit less than that but still more valuable than the actual item you loot.
and one more thing every single new player should learn salvaging skills asap. salvaging is the best fastest income for a new player in empire space in eve. its risk free and massive proffit. salvage is used in the creation of ship rigs.
another way fo makeing money in eve, is train up your industrial skill, buy a hauler ship with a huge cargo hold. and start buying low and selling high. it means fill your hold and fly round looking for a good deal. there are bots that track market movement which are very helpfull.
stay away from the trade items. they are the consumable that the npc sell, they are usually low isk yeild and you will often loose out.
as for skills. try not to mix and match you will just make your growth into a usefull player long winded and possibly boreing, pick a direction and stick with it. dnt mix and match untill your competent in one area or another.
i.e. military or industry.
military is everything guns and missiles and killing baddies
industry can be anything from research and ship building to mining and trade. all industry players should go with mining as their primary choice to start out. as for the rest you need the base materials that mining provides.
once you hit 3-4 million skill points by your 4th month join an alliance with 0.0 space. and your income will go through the roof. just killing one single frigate class npc bad guy in 0.0 space can net you as little as 160,000 isk per kill. and as much as 1.5 million isk per kill for the bigger npc bad guys. and with 4 mill sp in combat skills namely your tank its fairly easy to do.
and the mining out in null-sec is just as rewarding.
only problem is. your game to all. you are in a giant duck shoot where every one can shoot at you. so you'll need to have your wits about you. 0.0 space might be a money pit, but its also a hell hole.
if you have to go into low sec or 0.0 for any reason while your new, dont forget to use your local chat window to full effect. treat it like a motion sensor type thing. use it to see who's around before you jump into low security space. and always scout your route before you take it. use a shuttle. or find a scout friend to go ahead and give intel on your route ahead.
there is nothing worse than looseing a cargo full of stock while tranporting it to a sales destination. its a huge kick in the teeth and only your fault.
What Adam really should be doing is buying a couple of plexes, selling them for 300k Isk each, watching/reading the various guides on how to play EVE (this is a personal favourite - http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=936500), getting himself in a Rifter strapped with a scrambler, webber, AB/MWD, a decent tank, and T2 guns and going out there and having some FUN in faction warfare or even trying a bit of solo pirating in lowsec.
He could have the skills trained for this within a month. During that time he could join EVE university to augment his own research on how to play the game. A Rifter fitted like that costs a couple of million Isk maximum so thats at least 300 to have some fun in and learn the basics of EVE PvP.
I know that some peole play EVE and do nothing but mine, mission or play the market, but to be totally honest I would rather watch paint dry. Each to their own and all that but I would find EVE dreadfully dull if I played it like that.
Also here is a little something from the AoC forums about EVE that is relevant to this:
"Too many people start EVE and think that they need to be able to fly X ship to be competative, so they mine or mission (boring) until they have the skills (not player skill) to fly it. They wait and wait and save their Isk, then buy their dream ship go into lowsec or zerosec and promtly get blown to hell! They lose their expensive ship and all its fittings and then ragequit. This is not the way to play EVE."
MMORPG History:
Playing - EVE Online.
Played (Retired) - AO, SWG, MxO, WoW, RFO, SoR, CoX, EQ2, GW, L2, Vanguard, LotRO, AoC, TCoS, Aion.
Favourite MMO - Pre-CU SWG, 3 Years, 4 Accounts, 2 Pre-CU Jedi (1 Pre-9).
Awaiting - Star Wars: The Old Republic, The Secret World, Earthrise.
The greatest cut to the chase, no kowtow or bow look at the first 2 weeks (years) of Eve gameplay. It's been posted before somewhere but here it is again for your viewing enjoyment.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/208-Eve-Online
"I'm not cheap I'm incredibly subconsciously financially optimized"
"The worst part of censorship is ------------------"
Really? really? you realize thats a comedic review and not to be taken seriously? Only people that consider that review the real Eve are brainless themepark players. These players uninstalled before the free trail was up due to a mental capacity handicap that keeps them from having the ability to set their own goals within the game.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
The guy is dead serious about the review even though his tone is comedic.
It's funny because it's true. <--------------- reality is stranger than fiction
A second job that you have to pay for haha so true it hurts.
No need to get mad people deserve to see both sides.
"I'm not cheap I'm incredibly subconsciously financially optimized"
"The worst part of censorship is ------------------"
The guy is a funny bastard but just check out the review all he did was mine,mission and play solo. most people dont even consider that playing Eve lol. How could anyone take him seriously?
Edit: honestly it feels like more of a joke on the people that are too stupid to understand eve.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
Arguing is not necessary. The game at it's core is just jumping for massive amounts of time and shooting rocks with the occasional pew pew at another ship. You can like it if you want to, but people deserve to know what it's like without wading through all the bs the fanbois paint it to be. Different strokes for different folks.
"I'm not cheap I'm incredibly subconsciously financially optimized"
"The worst part of censorship is ------------------"
If it was like this I certainly wouldn't be playing it lol.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
You are trying to simply a game thats more complex than any other on the market. EVE is more of a political simulator, market/economy simulator, combat simulator, and any other type of simulator you can think of. Fanboys like myself who stand behind EVE don't play it to "pew pew" at something.. if our imaginations were that thin we would be playing something else.
The politics alone in EVE are more interesting that reading the news or watching CNN. When there is a war in EVE and you are a die hard EVE fan its not just some faction vs another faction its as close to following a war in real life that you can get.
Some people who don't get EVE.. will never get EVE... and its not made to hold your hand and give you the best shit within a couple months of playing. You gotta earn your way in EVE.. you aren't man enough.