Real Time Strategy

First off, I would like to apologize for going almost a full week without publishing any new content. I had midterms this week(quarter system =/), and that took away most of my time. Anyhow, with that being said I would like to fill you in on what I started playing again.

EvE Online: EvE.. It is that game we have all heard about, and most of us have tried it. I, personally, played EvE for about half a year, but that ended a couple years ago. For those of you not familiar with it, EvE is a sanbox MMO game. Sandbox MMO means that, the entire game is run by you(the player). From the economy, to war declarations, everything in EvE is decided by the players. In a nutshell, it is like CCP created a world, then put us in it and said “go”–Hence the term “sandbox.” This means that basically nothing about the game is linear. The game itself revolves around Corporations. Corporations are the same in EvE as they are in the real world, you have your individual employees, officials, and then CEOs. Corporations could be considered the equivalent of a guild as in most MMO games, but Corporations are much more in depth than just a roster of names. Each player in a Corporation is recruited for a specific role, these roles can range anywhere from miners, to escorts, to the Corporation’s military force. It all depends on what the Corporation is in need for, and what role the player has specialized his character in.

New Players to EvE: Now, when I started playing EvE a couple years ago, the learning curve was extremely steep. Even after half a year of playing, I still did not understand much about the game. I basically just flew around in my ship doing missions, training random skills, with no real plan set. Now, however, a lot of things have changed. The first thing I noticed when I started a new account, was that the game felt much more “noob” friendly. One example, is now there is a training queue. Instead of having to click and train every new skill as they complete, you can create a list of skills that you wish to train for, and plug them into the training queue, which will then automatically start training a new skill once the one before it completes. And possibly the biggest thing to help new players is the Certificate system. I think the biggest problem I faced when I originally began playing, was the “wtf should I train for to fly __ ship?” CCP answered this by giving us Certificates. How they work are, say you want to fly a certain ship, but you are not sure what skills you should train for to make it effective, you can click on the ship’s info, then click the “recommended” tab. From here, you will see a list of certificates that the game recommends you having before you fly this ship. In order to find out how to attain such certificates, you can open your character sheet, and there will be a certificate tab. Once there, click the “open certificate queue” button. Now you will see different categories of certificates, when you click on one, a drop down will then list all of the certificates in said category. What you want to do is, find the certificates that the game recommended you having to fly a ship, then click on it, and see what skills are required to unlock it. For instance, any ship recommends you acquire the “Core Integrity” certificate. This one will have you train all of your basics skills that are required in the game. Once you have selected a certificate you want to acquire, you simply search the market for each skill you need, and then plug them into the training queue.

Getting Started: Now, perhaps I got a little ahead of myself in the last part. I will say this to any new player of EvE online–do not expect to play much your first week. When you first create your character, I suggest doing the tutorial, then it will lead you to your first tutorial agent. The tutorial agent will basically send you on a 10-part storyline mission that will net you many starting items you are needed in the game. Now, as you complete each mission you will receive money/ships/etc, as you receive money, I highly recommend you buy your basic learning skills first. These are: Learning, Analytical Mind, Iron Will, Instant Recall, and Spatial Awareness. These skills are relatively cheap, and I suggest you acquire them as quickly as possible. As you get them, begin plugging them into the training queue. Here comes the boring part: you want to train each of these skills to level 4. This takes about a week, and I know it sounds incredibly boring, but it is so, so important. Once you have completed your tutorial storyline mission, your agent should suggest a new agent to you. Now, this next part requires a bit of travel, but your agent should suggest to you an agent that will start the first Epic-Arc storyline. Epic-Arcs are CCPs extremely long questlines that take a ridiculously long time to do, but they are definitely worth it. Now, once you get to the Epic-Arc agent, you will find that he/she will send you all over the place. Sometimes doing courier missions, sometimes combat missions. Either way, from beginning to end, each mission gives you a hefty reward. This Epic-Arc is perfect to do while you wait for your learning skills to complete. In my first week back to EvE online, I would only log on once a day to update the training queue(Note: you can only have 24 hours worth of training queued up at a time, so you will have to plugin more skills each day), then I would do 1-2 missions from the Epic-Arc agent. Now, jump ahead about a week, once your learning skills are all level 4, you can begin using the certificate system as I stated earlier, and start planning out what you wish to specialize in. I highly recommend your first certificate be the Basic Core Integrity certificate, as it will give you the most basic skills you need to effectively fly/fit a Frigate sized ship.

What Next? I have only been playing the game for a few weeks now, and I am still flying a Frigate doing level 1 quality missions. I have been training for all of the basic certificates, and plan to make the move to a Cruiser size ship, and level 2s soon. Also, once I completed the first Core Integrity certificate, I stopped doing the Epic-Arc storyline(it eventually gets too hard for a new player to do in such a small ship), and moved on to working for a good NPC Corporation. Now, hopefully by this time you know enough about the game to know how to find an NPC Corporation to run missions far, so I will not go into major detail.

Why Play EvE? So I am sure you are asking yourself, “why should I play this game?” And so I will give you a few reasons that I started playing again.

First, the looks. This game outclasses almost any other MMO I have ever played, in terms of how amazing it looks. The level of detail put into the ships, stations, and background is just awesome. There are plenty of screenshots and videos out there showcasing how amazing the game looks, so I will not bother just linking one or two.

Second, it is perfect for a casual player. This game is extremely relaxing; the music, scenery, and the over all pace of the game makes it easy to just come home when you are tired, and still be able to have a good time playing it. I would not suggest this game for people who want something they can just jump into and start PvPing. It takes quite some time before you can effectively PvP. However, if you do stick it out and train for the right skills, PvP in this game is extremely fun.

Third, the community. EvE has one of the friendliest, or meanest communities out there–depending on how you look at it. For a new player that gets killed by a group of pirates, he would probably say the community is full of assholes. But, at the same time, there is likely a group of people hunting those pirates. So it all depends on how you see it.

Finally: I will say I have been absolutely loving my return to EvE. Sure it takes some time to get used to, but once you get started the game is really addicting, but not to the point where you feel like you have to play 8 hours a day. Anyways, if you would like to try the game, you can go ahead and click the ad I have placed over to the right and signup for a free trial. 14 days is not really enough to get a good grasp of the game, but it should give you an idea of what to expect, if you do keep playing.