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Thinking about picking it up...
lemuiexm
Member Posts: 24
Okay so I played UO, Shadowbane, SWG, EQ2, CoH and while I wont drop my CoH account Im looking for something new. (cant beat being a superhero ROFL)
Anyway Im a casual player I get a few hours a few nights a week and sometimes a weekend day. Ive read a lot of the opinion based material and it seems good so far. I do have a few questions and Im sure Ive seen the answers but its easier if I ask and have them all in one place. Im just looking for opinions until I have time to read the manual on the official site.
easiest way to start up and get the flavor of the game?
What's the point? or to rephrase it what are the options?
Can a casual player coexist with the corporations? i.e. does the political arena shift so often you are SOL if your gone for a week? Shadowbane would roll over every three days which made it very hard for me.
Can you play solo vs. being in a corp? I play with a tight group of 4-6 people and we typically shift games after one of us reviews it. While we wouldnt have any problems being in a corp we very often go it as a group until we have had a chance to review what we call "guild personality".
Can you draw rough comparisons to this game? i.e. match up the following? Obviously this is a different world but these are the four basic groups in most games.
Tanks
Damage dealers
Healer
Crafter
Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions.
Comments
Hey lemuiexm!
I play save EVE since beta, so here's sound advice and answers on your questions.
The easiest way to start up is doing the initial missions. Then you can either continue doing missions or you can start to mine. Missions come in two main flavours: transport and fighting. I'd suggest you start by doing some initial mining to get some money, then see to it that you get into a decent fighting frigate and start doing kill missions. Stick with missions as long as you feel like it. (mission = quests)
The options you have are many and can not be decided in one post. Agent running (see above), mining, NPC hunting (combined with agent running), construction (requires a good capital to start with and lots of market analysis), pirating (difficult in the beginning) etc. (these were the main options)
Casual players can coexist very well with corporations. A corp is mostly interesting in the beginning to help you out, and later because you have most of the low to mid grade equipment in the corporation storages, which saves you time trying to buy it all and allows for some quick outfits. Political concerns are only valid in 0.0 space (full PvP, edges), where the territory is player controlled and influeced. There, you might find that your old allies are your new enemies when you wake up indeed. In the empire controlled spaces however (some to none PvP), you are pretty safe.
A group of 4-6 people is really fine. Going solo is also fine. However, the top-notch missions (lvl 4 atm) are intended for groups. Also, many ships = more dps = faster money (even though you split the money), respectively (when mining) one hauls while the others mine. This game plays very well solo (especially a bit later on), but draws beauty and style from co-op imo.
Now, for your matches. There is nothing as such in this game. It will all depend on the skills you train, and everyone can train everyting. And you will have to tank and deal damaga at the same time, while you also heal yourself. There is not any role distribution until late in the game (~ 6 month +).
Tanks
-> Amarr ships with armour hardeners etc.
-> Caldari ships with shield hardeners
-> Minmatar HACs
In general, a good tank requires lots of skills to make it effective. Raising your resistances is very important on one hand, but more important is your ability to self heal the damage caused to you by others. Tanking also includes being so fast that others don't hit you (e.g. Minmatar ships).
Damage dealers
-> Gallente with hybrid weapons for low to mid game
-> Amarr Gankageddon with about 1000 dps (lasers) as top-notch for normal ships
-> Gallente Navy Issue Megathron w/ blasters as top-notch elite ship
-> Minmatar ships for frigs ain't bad
Healer
There is no such concept as a healer in this game. While you can transfer shield, remote armour repair etc., it is underused and not sought by parties. You can do that if you play with a regular group, but unlike in other MMORPGs, there is no call for healers. All races equal in their capabilities (slight bonus for Caldari maybe).
Crafter
Only depends on your skills. No good / bad choice here.
okay Im convinced that I need to play this game. Based on my reading Amarr seems to be easy to start out with. I was reading the manual of the OS and its almost an overload of information.
I guess Ill be better off once I go through the tutorial... I think I will look to join a corp once I get in game just so I have someone to work with.
thanks for the breakdown.
Learning curve in EVE is very very steep, there's really no way to make it 'easy'
. If you plan to do mining the best race for an early start is Caldari as the Osprey is easilly the best mining ship asside from the mining barges. I don't think Amarr has an equivalent. Other than that any ship with a decent number of turret mounts will work till you can get a barge.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
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MMOs Retired From: Earth and Beyond, Project Entropia, There, A Tale in the Desert, Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft, Eve Online, City of Heroes/Villains.
MMOs Currently (worth) Playing: None.
MMO hopefuls: Age of Conan.
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If I where to start all over I would first:
Train learningskills, first to lvl 3 or lvl 4 that should take a few weeks of training (don't let this scare you, in the end if you are a long term player you will save time).
Then while you train learningskills do some mining or the beginner missions you get just to get some iskies...
When you are done training learningskills go for some miningskills okey mining can be very very boring in this game, again ... more fun in groups.
.
BUT ... like in my case if I loose a battleship I can with some powermining get it back within like a few days, so for me mining is my insurance too
If you don't want to do mining that is quite possible, a friend of mine who play's eve have hardly ever done any mining, only in the beginning he did some mining (in groups with us) to get him a battleship and so on.
His main doing is NPC rat hunting in low sec and missions from time to time, but mostly Rat hunting in low sec where he fights officerspawns (they can drop good loot).
Me I like to mine from time to time because I like to produce stuff, and honestly ... when you sell an item or ship it gives me some sort of gratitude that hey someone actually needed that stuff
But I also do alot of missions and well because I do Solo them for the most part I do loose ships.
What I basicly trying to say is: Train learningskills, train skills after what you want to do... if you want to do mining then go for industrial skills... (Mining, industry (to refine your ore into Minerals) and industrial ships (to haul your ore and minerals to the market and refineries.)
If you want to do fighting (NPC, Player or missions) then train your fighting skills up... I would suggest go for a frigate first, learn to use it good, then move on to cruiser and so on... Don't worry you can still beat older players if you specialize.
Me for example... I am a older character with 1 year and 6 months (or so) and even that I sit on 19 million skillpoints I would only use a small prosentage of them in combat, it only means I can use more type of ships and weapons.
I wouldn't reccomend picking which race of ship to pilot depending on whether or not its easy to train for. You have to remember Eve is a long term game so go for the ships you like visually, and the ones that you can see fitting your piloting style and desires. Its alot more rewarding to train up skills for ships you really love to fly than ones you are training for because you can "master" them more quickly (and understand its not quicker by a huge amount, to "master" any ship type in Eve, skillpoint wise, takes a fairly substantial amount of time (apart from maybe T1 frigs)).
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I would go with the others, learning skills first, the higher they go, the faster you train other skills, for short term it helps a little, but when you start getting to skills like Frigate lvl 5 or Cruiser lvl 5, high learning helps a lot !!
Also after learning, I would suggest Frigate and Spaceship Command skill, then start on mining. This then allows you to get a larger Frigate with a bigger cargo hold for mining. Of course you could just get an Industrial ship, mine in 0.9 or 1.0 with that by sitting it in front or a roid while you watch a movie with the wife/girlfriend etc.
The main point is, while your learning these skills, it gives you time to study the game and decide what "you" would like to do in it. Look at the different ships for your race or even the others, what skills are needed for them and make that a target/goal to aim for. If I started from scratch and had the same advice, I would have trained up for Assault Ships and Heavy Assault Ships, but I was all over the place with skills, mining, hauling, and now I fly a battleship.
I am catching up on my learning skills to drop the time off cruisers. It was at 42 days to train to lvl 5, with the right learning, I have now got it down to 33Days with still more time to come off it. So if you look at it like I am now, take the time, learn the right skills and have a set goal you want to achive
SlyPanther
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As the man said, learning skills are godly. I'd probably have two or three million more skill points if I'd trained them early, as opposed to a couple months in.
As for roles in the game, the answer is basically "yes".
You can be just about anything, do just about anything - all with the same character. You'll be more effective if you specialize, but there are generalists, too.
Here are just a few of the things people do or become in EVE:
Miner - you mine asteroids for minerals that can be used to make ships and modules or sold to someone else who needs them for the same purpose. (Often combined with manufacturer.)
Manufacturer - you make stuff. Almost every ship and module in the game is player crafted, and a manufacturer with the right blueprints is in the position to make millions. (Often combined with miner.)
Researcher - you buy BPOs (blueprint originals) improve them, and sell copies of the improved blueprint (known as BPCs) on the market; these copies have a certain number of licensed production runs after which the person using them must go and get a new blueprint to continue manufacturing the item. BPOs never run out.
Trader - buy low, transport to a different system, constellation, or region, and sell high.
Bounty Hunter - you hunt NPC pirates (known as 'rats) to collect their bounties.
Mission Runner - you do missions for agents of the various factions (these are basically quests). There are three primary agent types: courier agents, kill agents, and those who give both mission types. Courier missions require you to move something from one place to another, while kill missions require you to destroy NPCs that are harming the faction you're working for. These two give out missions of the opposite type on rare occasions. The in-between agents frequently give both.
Politician - you're involved in the politics of the game, which generally revolve around control of regions of 0.0 space. You're part of the governing body of a large alliance and guide the actions of your alliance's members.
Pirate - you kill other players and sell the modules and items that weren't destroyed with their ship. Alternately, you could go old school and warp scramble them and hold off on killing them to demand a ransom - sadly, this latter type is in scant supply these days as it is much easier just to kill someone and take their stuff.
PvPer - you enjoy shooting at other players and being shot back at them in turn. It's a test of skill, wits, strategy, and often a large dose of luck. EVE does PvP better than just about any other MMORPG out there - since a destroyed ship is gone, winning a fight actually means something in this game. There's loss involved, so PvPers generally have another "profession" they follow to make money and buy new ships and modules with, such as mining, ratting (killing 'rats), mission-whoring, etc. A PvPer doesn't always go for the sure thing, so loot from downed opponents doesn't necessarily cover losses.
Mercenary - you're a PvPer who sells his/her services to the highest bidder. Have someone invading your territory but don't have the pilots to stop them (but you do have a hefty bank account)? Did someone steal from your corporation and use his ill-gotten gains to create his own corp, but you don't have the time to chase him down and render suitable chastisement? This is where mercenaries come in - and EVE definitely has a thriving market for them.
Personally, I'm a PvPer who rats for his money, though I'm starting to get back into mission running on a small scale. I haven't mined in almost a year since I consider mining to be extremely boring (YMMV, though).
I'm specialized to fly Caldari battleships, working on specializing Minmatar battleships (another month of training before my large projectile turret skills are where I want them - these are extremely high end skills and take quite a while to train), am able to fly Amarr battleships (discovered they're not to my taste, though many people like them a lot), can half-assedly mine, can half-assedly manufacture, have no trade skills (you can trade without them, but not anywhere near as effectively), and have extremely limited research skills.
My advice for playing EVE: find a role you like and specialize. The more you specialize your skills, the more quickly you'll catch up to veteran players in that one area. Once you've started to get your specialization to a level that is satisfactory to you, then it's time to branch out.
One final thing: join a player corporation as soon as possible. Without the support and guidance a player corporation offers, the vastness of options that is EVE can be extremely confusing - EVE's all about giving the power to choose who to be and what to do to the players, and those new to the game often have trouble deciding on their own since there are so many possibilities.
-Wrayeth
"Look, pa! I just contributed absolutely nothing to this thread!"