So you've decided to try the world's greatest virtual spaceship universe "not-a-game" social experience. Maybe you've run the Tutorials, or some of them, or none of them. Maybe you've undocked and stared blankly at the inky darkness and wondered, so now what?
After all, there are 5,000 star systems out there just waiting for you to ply them. Huge Alliances and monstrous Corporations awaiting your command. For goodness sake, this is a sandbox, ain't it?!?
Slow down Hombre. Narrow the focus just a tad and stop thinking so damn big, cause you have bigger problems to deal with. Primarily, as you will soon learn the hard way, you kinda suck. You are terrible. Inexperienced. A newbie type person just getting their virtual boots wet. You are so soggy behind the ears you could grow veggies back there.
Let's be realistic. You ain't conquering anything until you get your act together. So relax, take a deep breath and let's focus on living long enough to achieve those lofty dreams. Take stock of what you have... ok, you have nothing. That's good. Believe me. At this point most advice column people will tell you to start setting small goals for yourself. Get to the next star system, mine an asteroid, talk to someone, etc. I ain't going to do that.
What I am going to do is give you some actual real advice. Get your sorry butt in a Corporation RIGHT NOW! Do it. It doesn't even matter which one, what they do, or anything to be honest. Find one that will take your Newbie butt and join up. There are a lot of young player friendly corporations out there in the universe and being in one is the best choice to get started in Eve. They will help you. They will talk to you. They will have guides, links, forums, advice, help, assistance, joint operations, learning guides, blah blah blah. Most importantly they are full of people. And meeting other people is the key to ultimate success in Eve. Trust me.
Here are some links to Young Player friendly Corporations:
Eve University
Brave Newbies
Faction Warfare (Although pfft!)
Also, use Google.
If you want to have a good experience in Eve it is critical that you meet people, fly with people and otherwise hang out with people. Even if you want to be solo for the rest of your life, you can still meet people. And even if that first Corporation sucks, you can always join another one.
Those people you meet? Yes, it is just like High School, they will follow you the rest of your Eve career. The people I met during my first six months in Eve? Two of them are on the CSM, one of them was responsible for that huge fight last week in B-R that made all the news, one runs one of the largest Alliances in the game, another one runs Stay Frosty's digital platform, etc etc. And the rest hate me in one way or another, lol.
Point = People. All the techno babble in the world boils down to nothing compared to getting out there and building that gosh darn community you hear so much about.
Trust me. You can't go wrong. It's called an adventure for a reason.