It's Not Your Grandma's MMO

If you’re coming from another MMO and considering trying EvE for the first time, you should be prepared. There are some major differences between internet spaceships and whatever MMO you may have been playing previously. This article will give you some ideas of what to expect when you log in for the first time, as well as some tips to help you start off strong.

Your EvE Persona

In EvE, you fufill the role of a Capsuleer. Cloning is a commonplace in this era, and though rather uncomfortable, your conciousness may be easily transferred into a new body at will. This technically makes you immortal, a fact which is rather handy when you are inadvertantly turned into indiscernable gooey bits of space debris. (Not everyone in the EvE Universe is an immortal capsuleer, mind you, so when things go wrong you should remember to say a kind word for all the fine crewpersons on your ship who were just vaporized because of your “little mistake”.)

You begin the game by creating an in-game persona. Customizing your character’s appearance is fun but not of terrible importance, as you spend all your time in eve inside a ship or capsule. Race selection has some effect on what ships you can fly starting out, but any pilot can eventually learn to fly anything. Pre-Apocrypha, poor choices during character selection were a very bad thing, but these days it’s impossible to make a mistake. If you don’t have an idea about what to pick, feel free to choose whatever you like.

Character Development

Your character in EvE does not have a level. All skills and abilities are based on a real-time training system. To learn a new skill, you purchase the corresponding skill book and add the skill to your training queue. After a particular amount of time, you will become proficient in the first level of that skill. Each skill has five levels of potency, and many skills require prerequisite skills to be trained first. Skills continue to train even when you’re offline, which makes EvE great for people with unpredictible schedules and varying amounts of free time. It only takes 5 minutes a day to log in and update your skill queue, after which point you can go back to dealing with real life without losing any progress. While level 1 skills only take a few minutes to learn, to max out all skills at level 5 would take years.

The most commonly cited downside to this system is the fact that you will never be able to match the skills of a player who has been around longer than you. This may sound alarming to a person joining the game for the first time now, but the disadvantage is not as severe as you might think. An experienced player in a battleship gains very little benefit from all that time they spent training to fly frigates and cruisers, or learning to mine and manufacture and trade. In fact, a new player who specializes in a particular role can become quite a threat to a seasoned pilot in a relatively short period of time.

Space is Full of Sand

EvE is an extremely open-ended game. It is driven by what can be regarded as one of the best player driven economies in any game, with a near-limitless array of activities and professions which a player can take part in. Joining a player corporation will also expose you to a very rich political landscape and add immesurably to your experience. There is no set path, and there is no right or wrong way to go. You can not be pidgeon-holed into one particular role or sphere of gameplay. As your skills grow, so do your options.

This is a bit of a jump for players who are accustomed to MMOs on rails, who may initially feel like there isn’t much for them to do just because nobody is telling you how to do it. My advice for all players in this situation (and all new players, period, for that matter) is to complete all 3 profession tutorials you’ll be guided to when you begin playing. They will begin to open your eyes to the endless possibilities presented to you, as well as give you lots of free loot, skills, and knowledge that will help you later on.

Eve is Complex

There is admittedly a gigantic learning curve to EvE. The revamped tutorials which arrived with the Apocrypha expansion do an excellent job of providing you with the essential information to get started without overloading you with mind numbing details. Still, you will be left with lots of questions. Thankfully, there are a huge number of resources out there to help you make sense of it all, and a playerbase which tends to be far more mature and helpful to get new players on their feet. There are even entire player-run corporations who exist specifically to teach and train new pilots. I personally spent some time in Eve University, and emerged smarter and far more confident in my abilities than I would have been without their help.

You should also check out the applications EveMon and Eve Fitting Tool, both of which are indispensible when trying to figure out what skills to train and how to outfit a new ship.

Most of all, don’t be afraid to use google and do some reading. Learning the intracacies of EvE is a rewarding endeavour in and of itself.

Be Prepared to Lose Your Ship

Oh, relax… It’s not the end of the world!

In comparison to today’s garden variety MMO, EvE can be considered quite harsh. There are both NPC- policed high security areas of space as well as free-for-all low security areas, but the only truly safe place for your ship is docked inside a station. Any player can fire upon your ship, even in hi-sec. Suicide ganking is not unheard of, and you should keep your eyes peeled in high-security space, especially when carrying valuable cargo.

Death in EvE comes in two parts, and both of them are quite a bit more serious than a corpse run. The first is the destruction of your ship. You’ll start out in small frigates which are dirt cheap in the grand scheme of things, but as you graduate to larger ships, a loss could end up costing you millions of ISK, if not billions. Even worse, after your ship disintegrates around you, you are NOT magically whisked away to some safe haven. You’ll still be there in the middle of the firefight in your escape capsule (commonly called a pod). The second and most serious form of death is being podkilled. If your pod (and you) are destroyed, you lose any implants you have installed (MAJOR $$$) and you might even lose trained skills if your medical clone is not up to date.

The aformentioned events can and do happen to all pilots. A good rule of thumb is to never fly a ship you can’t afford to replace, and always be prepared to lose your ship.

Trust Noone

EvE is pretty unique in the MMO industry in that CCP could care less if you try to scam or steal from other players. Be sure to read carefully before accepting public contracts, and be very wary of anyone who wants to know your location. If you’re a miner in hi-sec, be prepared for people to steal from you in hopes that you’ll open fire, thereby allowing them to shoot back. Corporate espionage is common. The fact that someone is in your corporation is not a guarantee that they are your friend. The social and political implications arising from this behavior make the game very dynamic and extremely interesting to follow and be a part of.

Now Hold On A Minute…

I know what you’re thinking: “Yeah, this started off sounding pretty good, but losing my ships? People trying to scam me? I worked hard for my purples and I’d be pretty damn upset if I lost what I worked so hard for!” First off, let me say that hi-sec is pretty tame as long as you’re not hauling around millions of ISK worth of goods. Yes, the game is tough compared to today’s other popular MMOs but it turns out the risk vs. reward aspect is a huge part of what sets EvE apart and makes it exciting to play. You have to stay on your toes, because you never know what you’ll find on the other side of the next jump gate. Just as everything you have can be lost, everything you lose can be replaced. It all boils down to ISK, and it is the reason why EvE has such a sweet economy!

If you’re not convinced and you’d still rather not deal with PvP, the good news is you can avoid it for the most part. A player can have a very successful and rewarding experience in EvE without ever leaving hi-sec space. Just the same, all you cold-hearted killers can make a home in low-sec and find both solo and group pvp on a scale that is unheard of in other games.

In the end, the best way to learn what EvE is about is to try it out. CCP offers free trials on their website which can be converted to subscription accounts later if you desire. If you have a friend who plays, they can even send you an invite for an extended trial to give you even more time to evaluate the game.

Comments, criticisms, and corrections are always appreciated!

~ by aetrix on June 22, 2009.