FoH guide to EVE Online

[Badass]

One of the wonderful things about Eve is its skill training system. I do not feel compelled to play and grind every night to get better. I can not log on for two weeks and when I come back I will have a much more powerful character due to its offline skill training system. Its innovative and it works.

I can and have blown up guys with millions more SP than I have. Eve Is a thinking mans game for people who cant spend 4 hours a night everynight grinding xp. I read the average age of Eve players is 27.

The skill training system is the single biggest draw among many others that will keep me playing the game for years to come.

[Draegan]

Can someone explain to me what gameplay is like during a normal 2-4 hour session for average player with average skills? What are you trying to accomplish etc?

[Brando]

After reading all this I'm going to give it a 2nd shot, just the 7 day trial again though as I don't really think I'll like it more than I did the first time but we'll see. Anyway, is the server stable enough currently to where my first day or two of the seven days isn't wasted by downtime??

[Eomer]

Can someone explain to me what gameplay is like during a normal 2-4 hour session for average player with average skills? What are you trying to accomplish etc?

You could grind missions for that time. Or hunt NPC rats. Or mine. Or trade. Or do some production. Or go grief some people in lower security space. And this is just in empire space, not 0.0

For the millionth time, Eve is not a game that will come at you with gameplay. You have to go looking for it. And if you're lazy or wimpy about it, you'll just end up taking the path of least resistance and doing the boring stuff like ratting, mining, or missions in Empire.

[Kazgrim]

After reading all this I'm going to give it a 2nd shot, just the 7 day trial again though as I don't really think I'll like it more than I did the first time but we'll see. Anyway, is the server stable enough currently to where my first day or two of the seven days isn't wasted by downtime??

There's a 14 day trial you should use instead of the 7. I was in the same boat, back in like July or whatever when the "Whoa" thread started, I fired up the free trial, went through the tutorial, was completely lost, and just uninstalled. I fired up another 14 day trial again about 7 weeks ago and didn't really think i'd get into it, but was sucked in almost immediately. I had a different mindset going in, and had just a bit more experience with what to expect, and i've been having a blast ever since (although I haven't been on in about a week due to getting a Wii, <3 offline skill system). So now i'm playing Twlight Princess while my character finishes off his learning skills.

Can someone explain to me what gameplay is like during a normal 2-4 hour session for average player with average skills? What are you trying to accomplish etc?

Eve is a sandbox, you have to take initiative to decide what is fun for you. I despise mining, only done it once, in the tutorial. Missioning/ratting for me is meh, something to fallback on for ISK when nothing else is going on. I love pvp, especially small scale/small fleet op pvp. (i'm not normally a pvp person, played on blue servers in EQ and WoW) I joined an alliance (anti-pirate) a few days after my free trial was over, operating in low sec space. my average gameplay goes like this:

-Log on ventrilo / log on eve
-check eve-mail/vent channel/alliance for war'decs
-if not at war, check alliance channel/vent for various pvp ops. These range from roving gangs (3-10 pilots) hunting down pirates, flying overwatch for mining ops, overwatch for putting up/taking down POS's, "traffic" control/gate scouting, or just generally enforcing the peace in our region of lowsec.
-depending on the op, i'm either defending against being attacked by players or hunting down players and killing them.

Our alliance has a solid core of both pvp and industrial types. The carebears/miners whatever like to be able to mine in peace in juicy (juicier) belts than empire, and they like for others (non-pirates) to traffic in our system and use our markets, to buy/sell at. Our pvp arm just likes to kill people. There's politics and logistics and all those other sort of roles for people who like that sorta thing, I only need those guys to a: get me my ships/mods, and b: tell me who to pew pew.

A friend of mine who started at the same time as me is big into industry, runs a mining account and hauler/research/science type. His overview of 3 hours of gameplay are going to be vastly different than mine.

[Lorrac]

Originally Posted by Draegan

Can someone explain to me what gameplay is like during a normal 2-4 hour session for average player with average skills? What are you trying to accomplish etc?

Pick the ship I'm in the mood for.
Grab some corpmates
Travel through low-sec looking for targets
YARRR!
Split the bounty

[Brando]

Originally Posted by Kazgrim

There's a 14 day trial you should use instead of the 7. I was in the same boat, back in like July or whatever when the "Whoa" thread started, I fired up the free trial, went through the tutorial, was completely lost, and just uninstalled. I fired up another 14 day trial again about 7 weeks ago and didn't really think i'd get into it, but was sucked in almost immediately. I had a different mindset going in, and had just a bit more experience with what to expect, and i've been having a blast ever since (although I haven't been on in about a week due to getting a Wii, <3 offline skill system). So now i'm playing Twlight Princess while my character finishes off his learning skills.

In looking through this thread I just see references to the 7 day trial or am I blind?? I would definately like the 14 day one if possible

[Tirinal]

I think he might be talking about the buddy program trial thing. Send me a PM with your email and I'll shoot you a code.

[Wildstone]

Alternatively, you can go to this link.

Eve 14 Day Trial

[Xequecal]

BTW, the creator might want to edit out the top third of the first post, as it's pretty irrelevant now.

[Draegan]

I played EVE for about 5 days doing a little bit of everything. The one thing I think that made me leave was that it was lonely out there in space. If I ever tried this game again, I think I would have to find a corp to play with, not just the newbie one. That could make the difference. What you guys are explaining seems fun.

[Celebrindal]

Yeah, I've gotten bogged down in work. I am going to re-write the first part of the guide once I check out all of the creation stats.

[Laek]

Originally Posted by Draegan

Can someone explain to me what gameplay is like during a normal 2-4 hour session for average player with average skills? What are you trying to accomplish etc?

People talk about this being a pvp game but I found it had all the same problems that DAoC did. That problem is the amount of time you spend doing nothing while looking for or waiting for a pvp fight. The % of time that you end up spending in good/fun fights is so small that its not worth playing. The rest of the time you are just flying around, waiting for others, getting ganked, or ganking someone.

Its still a great game though that anyone into mmorpg should play for a few months. It and EQ2 constantly pull me back in for a month or so at a time.

[Taranatar]

Originally Posted by Laek

People talk about this being a pvp game but I found it had all the same problems that DAoC did. That problem is the amount of time you spend doing nothing while looking for or waiting for a pvp fight. The % of time that you end up spending in good/fun fights is so small that its not worth playing. The rest of the time you are just flying around, waiting for others, getting ganked, or ganking someone.

Its still a great game though that anyone into mmorpg should play for a few months. It and EQ2 constantly pull me back in for a month or so at a time.

In all honesty EVE has a ton of seperate pvp games, from one on ones, 1v2's (uneven fights) and fromt here to small gangs, mismatched ship fights, multiple gangs, then small fleets. The list goes on of course, probably the best and most frequent pvp being medium sized alliances sending small to mid sized gangs at each other constantly.

[mek]

Originally Posted by Draegan

I played EVE for about 5 days doing a little bit of everything. The one thing I think that made me leave was that it was lonely out there in space. If I ever tried this game again, I think I would have to find a corp to play with, not just the newbie one. That could make the difference. What you guys are explaining seems fun.

being in a corp makes a huge difference - not only will it provide you with a social vector, but an alliance will have CONSTANT demands for group members to deal with hostiles in nearby space, etc, etc - there is pretty much always something to do, as people need help. Best of all, crappy frigate pilots can actually help people in 0.0, as a good tackler is a great help.