Welcome to the sixteenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!
The third Blog Banter of 2010 comes to us from ChainTrap of the Into the unknown with gun and camera EVE Blog. He asks us: “Eve University turns six years old on March 15th; six years spent helping the new pilots of New Eden gain experience and understanding in a supportive environment. Eve is clearly a complicated game, with a ton to learn, so much that you never stop learning. So, the question is; What do you wish that someone had taken the time to tell you when you were first starting out? Or what have you learned in the interim that you’d like to share with the wider Eve community?”
I admit, this is the first I'm hearing about Eve University. But from reading about it, it sounds like a great place to start your Eve career, anything that can help the novice player learn and function within Eve is something to be applauded. So kudos to those folks.
I started playing Eve a little over 18 months ago on the spur of the moment. I hadn't read about the game, I hadn't studied the game, I only knew what I saw and what I saw meant that I needed to be playing. Whoa. Internet spaceships?! Sign me up. I've talked about the problems I experienced as a result, so I won't repeat those here. I certainly don't recommend the "plunge in" method for playing Eve. But on with the show.
What do you wish someone had taken the time to tell you when you were first starting out?
Relax. Eve is not a video game. You can't just turn it on and start playing your way through levels. It doesn't work like that at all. Eve is a commitment, especially at first. Eve unfolds on you and nothing happens quickly, unless you count being podded for flying your Noob ship into low-sec. That happens very quickly.
Take your time and learn, learn the game mechanics well. While your character is learning skills, you need to be learning some as well. The most important in my opinion, no matter what career you choose to pursue, is understanding Eve game mechanics. They can be tricky, they can be frustrating, but knowing them like the back of your hand will come in extremely handy extremely quickly.
So relax, take your time and don't try to conquer the universe all at once. It is amazing to me how many players that have been playing a long time, still don't understand the basics. We can be in a gang way out in zero space and someone will ask how gate timers work? Or low-sec station guns? Or why they can't jump that 127 AU warp all at once? Or what Nanite Paste is for? The list is long and continues to get longer as they add more and more to our plate, I'm sure a whole new set of game mechanics will be introduced with Planetary Interaction. It seemingly never ends.
Which is good news. Eve continues to grow. So grasping the fundamentals is important. And realizing that the learning never ends, and that Eve is a process not a destination. So relax and enjoy the journey. I learned that eventually on my own. Honestly, even if someone had explained that to me back in the beginning, I'm not sure I would've listened. Some things are best learned on your own.
If I could give one piece of advice it would be simply this, find a good group of people that share your interests and hang out with them. Join a good Corp. That can be hard to find, but it is worth finding the right one. That'll make your journey so much more enjoyable and rewarding.