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dzones
Member UncommonPosts: 121
in EVE Online
I played a trial of Eve many many years ago and have pretty much forgotten how to do anything in the game and was wondering...
With the 75% off offers right now I am thinking about trying the Amarr Explorer due to its Solo ability.
Is this a viable option for someone pretty new to the game? Is the learning curve going to be pretty brutal jumping in at the level that package provides?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Comments
Yes, the learning curve is brutal, and no, I would not advise to play alone, as you will get frustrated / bored soon and very likely quit. That happens to a lot of people.
The good news is that there are a lot of newbie-friendly player guilds ("corporations"), some of them more worth joining than others.
You can imagine the difference between a large group of college guys and girls on one hand and a bunch of slave drivers on the other? That is how different corps in EVE can feel.
One corp I can suggest from my own experience is "Eve University" (http://wiki.eveuniversity.org); they are a pure training corp and train meanwhile all parts of EVE. Earlier they were more carebarish, now they have added training camps in the pirate pvp areas, the alliances pvp areas and the mysterious pve/pvp wormhole areas.
I was very surprised how much I liked the game, despite its complexity. The two fun factors for me is that there is a huge number of completely different things to do and that most of them are very deep, i.e. it is easy to dabble in each area, but hard to master.
While the special offers like the Amarr Explorer sound great, the are just marketing ploys to get you into the game and start paying right away. After a few days you play the same game as everyone else. And it is likely that you end up doing something completely different after two weeks, or have already joined a pirate group in that time - or the university. That is EVE.
If you want to have three weeks of time without any financial commitment, you are welcome to click on this link and start a 21 days trial: https://secure.eveonline.com/trial/?invc=958f7877-b49c-42b1-9e71-5944c6dd0a50&action=buddy
You keep those 21 free days, even if you are so blown away that you subscribe within the first few day (what happened to me). In case you like it and subscribe, I get a subscription extension, and I will be happy to share that 50/50 with you. Also, I am in the university linked above, and if you run into any problems or have questions, just send an in-game mail to me: "Chloe C Connor".
But above all, have a lot of fun!
PS: In case the Amarr Explorer package lures you in after all, the offer for advice and help still stands.
Thanks for taking the time for such a great response. I am still on the fence about what I want to do but joining the eve university corp would certainly be something I think I would should I decide to play. If I just went in via your invite how long do you think it would take to get to where I could have an Amarr explorer setup like the one in the special?
The sound of a cloaked ship just seems very "rogue" like, a role I always enjoyed in fantasy mmo's.
Thanks again
there is a sentence: you dont try eve... eve tries you
be patient, tutorial can take you a few weeks if you do the sisters of eve epic's arc and you are not a hardcore gamer.
after that you can enjoy the game and the great community... because this game requieres some patience and cognitive skill you may not find so many trolls.
The brain degradation is getting worst with games like nwn, lucky eve remains here for make people think while play. Is not a game for everyone.
How would you get a 60 day trial? Are you talking about a 60 day paid subscription? Trials are free in EVE.
About 3-5 days maybe max? Half an hour for the initial training where you learn how to press basic buttons, then a few hours of mission running in the actual tutorial. (My suggestion for the tutorials sequence: Business/Industry first, then Military, then Exploration (frustrating but useful), then Advanced Military - this sequence gives you time to train a few combat and ship skills before the hardest mission chain (Advanced Military), and lets you lose less (free) ships. At the end you will sell all the free ships you got, keep the destroyer ship and move on to the Sisters of EVE mission arc, which will get you another 10-15 million isk of income over the next one or two weeks. And latest then you should know what you like and dislike for the moment, and choose a corp to learn more.)
You asked an interesting question which I had not looked into in details yet (because it is such a (for EVE players) obvious money grab), so let me have a look at that. This is what they offer in the Steam Amarr Explorer pack - nice marketing spiel
"Sarum Magnate frigate" - worth 1.7m isk when selling it at the central trade hub, because player collectors pay more for ships with special names (better not to keep it, as there are better and cheaper ships that do the same things or better)
"Complete exploration equipment set to kit out your ship": On a non-Steam site I found this to means a few cheap standard modules, which should be worth another 1m isk or so; you can buy those on the market, once you have started the tutorial.
"A dozen critical skill books" - of which you get most in the tutorial for free anyway, the rest seems to be worth below 1m isk (Yes, these skillbooks are "critical" in the sense that you will train them soon anyway - they are also dirt cheap on the market, or free in the tutorial. As a new player you could not train any of the more expensive skills anyway, so they have to stick to cheap skillbooks.)
"Prototype Cerebral Accelerator skill booster" - which works a an all-around skill training accelerator, but only for 35 days, then it breaks. You will train about 15% faster for these 35 days, and then you will buy the same or better accelerators on the market.
"30 days of game time" - This is the actual value behind the offer, 1 month of subscription.
So, let me see - how would I rate the two "packages"?
Amarr Explorer pack (5 $): around 4 million isk of stuff, 35 days of 15% accelerated training, 30 days play time. (If you want so save a few cent, buy the pack at http://evetimecode.com/ with discount code "lostineve".)
21 days (free): about 250-300 million isk if you decide to subscribe, otherwise "only" about 10 million isk from the tutorial (same for Amarr Explorer pack), 21 days play time.
You will not be able to notice a difference between a Amarr Exülorer player and a 21 days trial player after the first 21 days, trust me. If any of the older EVE players have a different opinion, please be so kind to chime in.
I am not sure what Evgireon ment with the 60 day trial, probably a paid 60 days subscription (cheapest rate I am aware of is a discounted $ 33.20), Note that you will NOT be able to use an Amarr Explorer pack or a similar starter pack to EXTEND an EVE subscription or trial; these starter paks can only be used to create a NEW subscription, i.e. a sub with completely new characters.
All of this is SO true
How would you get a 60 day trial? Are you talking about a 60 day paid subscription? Trials are free in EVE.
EDIT: my bad, seems the 60 day trial is no longer available.You get a 60 day trial from one of the menus in account management, but you can only send one invite per month or so. The OP would need someone to send an invite to him.
I would like to add:
I just started on a 21 day trial through a invite and split the benefits if I sub style system. Here is what most people don't know. If you sub through the EVE store right now because of the odyssey expansion you can choose 1 of 4 factions packs for free. Furthermore there is no game pack cost you just go from trial to subscriber, this is different from years ago when I played.
Well now that is totally cool. good info if it checks out
I sure hope you enjoy doing other things while you're supposedly "playing" EVE. I just finished my 3rd attempt at this game and have officially given up (the first was actually the beta test I was involved in 10 years ago).
Seems pointless to play a game where 90% of your in-game work is done while you're logged off. A skill may take 4 days to train and THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO to change that regardless of missions and amount of play time invested.
I found myself getting more addicted to the Tower Defense flash games I'd keep open in the background, than I did the game itself. That's not exactly a good selling point for a game, "Spend money on me, even though a free game is more entertaining."
And for those arguing about it being a "thinking man's game" let me tell you, I've played text-based adventure games for years as a kid, I'm a decent chess player and enjoy hardcore strategy games. If you were truly thinking, you might want to put some of that thought into where your money's going for a game you spend more time not-playing, than playing.
"Nothing to do while you are training"
Guess what, I have played EVE since beta and am still playing and jeez, I am learning a skill right now!
So while you are training a skill you can:
-play the game with the skills you already have
-socialize
-do missions
-mine
-pvp
-trade
-haul
-learn the game
Yep, there is nothing to do while learning skills except playing the game, what a shame.
Yes, EVE is different then WOW where you can go from noob lvl 1 to lvl 90 geared pvp/pve uber killing machine in 2 days.
Guess this game is too difficult for you.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
Ok three things that you should always remember while playing EVE
1. Never leave an inactive skill que
2. Never fly anything you can't afford to lose
3. Find Experienced people to fly with, they will help you
Your experience will be that much better if you just do those 3 simple things
Welcome to New Eden.
Played-Everything
Playing-LoL
EVE is nothing but difficulty wrapped up in a skin of difficulty, layered with a shell of difficulty for the sake of saying it's "difficult".
"Easy to learn, difficult to master" You've heard that phrase? It's the motto of any good game. Apparently the developers of EVE haven't figured it out though. Chess, for instance is easy to learn - Pawns move straight, Bishops move diagonally, etc. Yet, mastering Chess can take a lifetime.
EVE is nothing but a bunch of menus you need to click on in the right order in order to produce the results you want. Fun? No. Difficult? Moderately. Tedious? Yes.
Then, when you get fed up with watching you ship fire a laser at an asteroid for 15 minutes at a time, or autoplioting through a bunch of stargates for 20 minutes between stations and decide to advance your character, the game gives you a huge smack upside the head when you realize you need to wait 4 days for the skills you need in order to advance, to finish training. So you get stuck doing all of that same tedious crap you did to get to where you were, for another 4 days in a row with no way to escape the tedium.
Show me where the fun is in any of this.
Mining is tedius. It is a low interaction low profit activity by design, plenty of people enjoy it that way (I don't), but you are in no way forced to do it.
As to combat - there is plenty of depth, but the actual controls are pretty simple - approach, orbit, double click into space to change direction, manage your ship mods. Simple, eh? Yet there are vast differences between individual skills (meant behind the keyboard skills) of pilots, this is a fact. "Easy to learn, difficult to master" perhaps?
As to the fun part - I can't tell you with which activity you will have fun with, you have to find that out for yourself. There are people who jumped into pvp in day one and were successful. There were people that started getting into markets on day one and now they won't have to pay for the game ever again. There is a massive number of options and the best thing about it is, you don't have to grind anything to advance your character and you can enjoy the game instead.
All you said is fun.
For example, i dont think nwn is fun... follow a path and press 2 or 3 keys... that's fun? maybe for some people it is.
I like to travel, i like explore, i like mining (yes, mining, because it allows me to chat with my corpmates... have you been in a dungeon gruop at nwn? nobody speak, when first fail someone leave the group... is that fun?)
If i'm with another pilot in a DED and we fail, we come again, and again until we finish it... because reward worth it... rewards in most of the games have a lifetime of 3 o 4 hours before you get another better.
I have fun in eve
I think you're missing a vital aspect of the game. It's not supposed to be 'fun' from the get-go. What I mean is, don't expect to start out doing tutorials and advancing into whatever scripted career the game and quests hand you on a silver platter. You have a big world out there, and it's your job to look around and find what you like doing the most and where to go. It's just that simple. This game is not supposed to appeal to the masses - it's something called a niche. Some people absolutely value the sense of freedom and interaction with other players (eve wins this by default) more than the mind numbing gameplay and linear road towards the shiny items at max level. It's very simple: you either learn how the game works, get to know other people and do something you like to find your place in the game or you don't play it at all and stop spreading your own misinformed ideals of how you want the game to be.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
I love EvE and everything that you can/cannot do, but what i find best about EvE is the community
This post is a microcosm of what EvE is about, plenty of people to help the new player and the occasional troll that will try to wreck your post/dreams
Yes eve is a harsh mistress, but master her and trust me you will struggle to look elsewhere for a game to play, Every game i try/play/buy is marked against eve.
Whilst no game to my knowledge has what eve has - the closest being perpetuum in my opinion
But I would give 3 pieces for anyone trying eve for first time
1 Be Patient - you wont be able to do what it says on tin for 3months, I would / do always tell people expect/aim to be self sufficient within 3months this is when you should be earning enough to maybe consider only buying plex for game time - so no more r/l cash subs
2 You will get bu77 hurt - At some point just when you think you love this game you will lose it all / or most of it, I remember first getting 1bill isk in my wallet within 2days i had been ganked and lost 850mill of it.... It took me 2 weeks of being out of game to get the pain/anger out of my system. This game does it like it no other
3 Use the community - by this i mean there are plenty of corps that will help, but if like me you play a lot of the game solo then just chill in a public channel, get to know players, remember one server = 1 universe, the people who you meet today will most likely be the peopel you meet in a year / 2 years etc... Example of this the guy whose corp i joined in 2008 im going out to the US to meet him next year as part of my holiday no OTHER game in world i beleive that has this sort of community
As you can tell by most of my post i cannot rate eve highly enough, If you do what some help/advice then you can always drop me a mail in game (quazal atreides) {still the only person to create pos standing corps for 0isk in eve} and i will try and help - and nope that doesn't mean ill throw isk at you
..
Fly safe, enjoy Eve and be profitable
This post is all my opinion, but I welcome debate on anything i have put, however, personal slander / name calling belongs in game
where of course you're welcome to call me names im often found lounging about in EvE online.
Use this code for 21days trial in eve online https://secure.eveonline.com/trial/?invc=d385aff2-794a-44a4-96f1-3967ccf6d720&action=buddy
It can learn ppl stuff about RL.
Ppl will be out to get your stuff, ppl can be real good friends/family or backstab you when least expected.
Playing EVE can be a good learning school for younger players about RL lol.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
Indeed you only have to look at the history of GHSC spending 2years infiltrating and become real life friends with someone only to wreck his game and basically laugh at him
Then you have the bob collapse spending years building something up for 1 person to have a man period and pull it all down, even today this has impact the eve map
This post is all my opinion, but I welcome debate on anything i have put, however, personal slander / name calling belongs in game
where of course you're welcome to call me names im often found lounging about in EvE online.
Use this code for 21days trial in eve online https://secure.eveonline.com/trial/?invc=d385aff2-794a-44a4-96f1-3967ccf6d720&action=buddy