I have played this game since 2009, and have never once ran out of new things to do and explore. I often take breaks and play other games, including modern MMO types. I always end up coming back to Eve because it’s the one game where I never cap out on skill or story. You are the story.
After my first few months of missions and mining I began to run player posted courier contracts out of Jita, hauling for money. It started getting boring running them in high sec, so I started taking more and more risky contracts with higher collateral requirements. Got myself into a blockade runner and got real good at sneaking through gate camp bubbles. Eventually I got so good that I would take extremely high risk/high reward contracts in low or null security space. these are usually scams. Pirates will post the contract with a juicy reward to lure you in, but with an really high collateral, then camp the route and pop you. If they catch you and pop you they get the collateral you put up, and the loot you drop.
I worked my wallet up to a billion ISK and began taking this high risk contracts knowing they were scams. I would use a scout alt to camp the campers, and wait for them to log off. “time zone tanking” as it’s called. Then I would complete the delivery and collect the scammers payout. I did this for weeks and it really made the scammers mad. they caught on to my game and set up a juicy contract I couldnt refuse, with a 1 billion collateral. They knew i was TZ tanking them so they had people online waiting for me around the clock. And boy did they smash my face lmao! I lost my ship, and all the ISK I had ever made in the game. I was completely broke and shipless.
Every time I swam through a gate camp bubble or played cat and mouse with a hunter my heart would pound so hard. I was addicted to the adrenaline rush. After that massive loss I had to take a break from the game for a while, it hurt too bad.
But then I came back a few months later and joined a corp in null sec, SI Radio. They had a podcast and were cool guys. Got involved with logistics for structures, the old POS system, before player ran stations existed. eventually I had to take a break for real life stuff.
Came back many years later and decided to try my hand at combat exploration and hacking. trained into a T3 destroyer and covert ops ships. Joined Signal Cartel for a while and tired my hand at wormhole rescues for players that got trapped in wormholes. Signal Cartel was an amazing experience. Great folks, and an entirely new type of gameplay completely player driven. I also got into Planetary resource harvesting (PI) and really enjoyed that because it allowed me to utilize all the knowledge and skills I had from my courier contract days. Hauling PI out of low sec gave me a taste of that old rush, without the collateral loss risk. And its great semi-passive income.
Then I took another break and came back, and decided to try my hand at PVP. So I joined Gallente Militia and tried my hand at faction warfare. I had an absolute blast. Staged 20 frigates and fittings for them in a high sec system bordering the warzone and flew every one of them until I lost them all, and in that process I even got a few kills and learned a ton. Moved up to destroyers once I had my head around PVP, fit up 20 of those, and started throwing them into the warzone. Got pretty damn good with a Catalyst navy, and even have a few of them with a handful of kill-marks on them still.
Participated in one of the Frigate Free for All events last year, which is a player ran event where you just spend hours in a system with a few hundred people having an all out brawl. I must have lost 20 or 30 ships that day. they even supply you with free ships for the event! That was probably the most fun I had with other people in the game. I even got off a few shots on some CCP devs!
Started flying with a popular streamer occasionally when he would do pvp roam events with his audience on stream, which was fun also. Ran both pirate interceptor epic arcs in null sec. Then I had to take another break.
Now I am back again and I am doing PI, combat exploration sites, and wormhole stuff. Finally got into a T3 cruiser and am having fun with that. Thinking about joining a merc corp to try my hand at that. Also thinking about trying my hand at gas harvesting. Check out Declarations of War podcast, its a good source of ideas for gameplay!
And to be honest with you even after playing this game off and on for 15 years I still have barely scratched the surface of what there is to see and do. I dont think I will ever do everything there is to do in EVE, its just too big. I have 5 characters, some miners, some haulers, some pvp, some just scouts. But I still consider myself a noob because every day I learn something new, or get my butt handed to me and realize I still have a lot to know.
The point of this whole novel i am writing here is twofold: to maybe give you a few ideas, and to express to you that this game is very much a sandbox. Yes there are bog standard missions and arcs, and I run level 4 missions in my Battleship sometimes still. But for the most part I am making my own story. every bit of really exciting or rewarding content in this game is driven by player interaction. Even harvesting PI or mining. Once you leave high security space in search of high value goods, even mining or harvesting planetary goods opens you up to PVP, or to the cat and mouse game with other players.
Eve isn’t a game where you get instant gratification and its not a amusement park game where you play a loop of curated story and actions (like WoW for instance).
Take a pilgrimage to the New Eden system in low sec to see the EVE Gate. One time i tried to fly into the EVE gate itself. I literally just let my ship fly at max speed towards it for a week straight. I wanted to see if i could actually fly into it and get ripped apart by it. I would set an alarm so I could log back on after server reset, and just keep it flying, cloaking up if people came in the system or if I had to leave the house or work etc. Eventually I decided to estimate the distance and did some math, and realized it was mathemeatically impossible to slow boat my way to it, and to be honest its probably jsut a skybox animation anyway so I gave up lol. That was a pretty insane thing. I was super obsessed with the EVE Gate, and still am. I often go out there just to think and see the gate, maybe hunt a few pilgrims. Maybe you will be my next kill out there? lol. It is one of the most beautiful sights in the game.
Get out of high sec. get chased, lose a ship to some pirates at a gate camp. become a spy and get involved with espionage. become a market tycoon. try your hand at market PVP. I could talk for hours and never even scratch the surface.
most importantly, join a corp, and as soon as you can fly anything remotely better than a starter ship, get out of the empire bubble and experience low sec or null. Lose some ships.
If you cant find something to do in this vast sandbox it is because you aren’t trying. Be patient, train skills, focus those skills on a ship you want to fly and max them out. I hope you find your way, and I hope this inspires you. Welcome to EVE.
. I understand it’s a sandbox game, if you want to keep sandbox style, you should lose your control of players, do not set up any guidelines, let players enjoy the chaos and freedom. If you want to lead players enjoying the game and pay for it, do it better, lead us further. For example, the mining mission: it has different agents, but the same mission again and again, then it stops there, no further spark. It’s like a super nerdy guy has a girl watching a movie with him, girls want more, but you’re doing nothing but still watching the boring movie, you won’t have a chance with this girl, or other girls, because girls are telling everybody this guy is not funny! If i would, ill tell my players there were more profits for other Ore and missions, lead them deeper and more interactions to pvp, mining, and exploration. I have more to say, but this game already waste me 6 hours straight plus this topic. please hire somebody making the game fun, or u guys will lose your job very soon. because no new generations will play this.
