My way into EVE online - a Newbie blog
by Tilda Evingod
July, 21st 2015 – a new Minmatar character is born
This is my start in EVE online. Wow! Is that big and overwhelming! So many options, so many things to know. Where to begin, what to do? Luckily there is Aura – helping me over the first 2 hours with direct advises and with the opportunity system.
July, 24th – missions discovered
Thanks to Aura, I have started with military and advanced military missions. Great! Now I have 4 ships, about three of them I have no idea what to do with. Let’s discover the universe, the stars are all mine! I ask for my very first security mission in Utopia in Heaven (how nice that sounds!), receiving the level one 5-missions-arc. Nice! I do it with a Rifter with three different projectile weapons and three different ammunition types loaded. My Rifter skill is at 3, my weapons skill at 4 – that´s good enough! It needs some mouse acrobatic to shoot at the NPC pirates – but that’s the game! I love it! My first nullsec experience – no clue about the meaning of the word Nullsec.
July 28th – corporations discovered
Meanwhile I have learned about ship weapons and overall performance improvement. It cost me some Mill ISK when I bought, at first, stuff I could not fit and sold stuff I could have used very well. Finally, it was time to look for a group of players with similar interests. Found and joined a small corporation with players of different experiences but almost the same skill progress. Nice fleet op’s and greatly improved income due to skill and task complementation. What a great time!
July 31st – what is a wardec?
My character is now 10 days old when I log in to read we, our corp, are wardeced. War, what? Ah, another corp declared war to us with the intention to shoot at us any time. Oh wait, we are players between 1 (one!) and 12 weeks old. They are 3 to 5 years with an impressive multipage kill list full of Ventures. At this time I thought: ‘oh my god’! Now, 2 month later, I think: ‘that’s all they ever achieved? How shabby is that?’ However, I could not stand a chance against them, they killed me as they pleased.
August 3rd – never run away
Time to read and time to theory craft. Undocking spells sudden death. One of our members caught one of the wardecers alone and killed him. They lost 45 Mill, all our losses meanwhile sum up to 12 Mill. Hmm, what is the deeper intention behind wardec against new players? It escapes me. However, I tried to fit a Thrasher for a fight, in brave intention to never run away. I was killed with less money remaining in my wallet than necessary to replace the Thrasher. Most of our members, me too, left the corp and the others made a new one, far away, at the other end of the Universe.
August 10th – The Blood Stained Stars
I decided to delay the corp application and move over to Arnon to do the epic arc mission The Blood Stained Stars. Maybe I learn how to fit a ship and how to fight. And indeed, I could do the first 26 missions of the arc in my brand new Executioner, all equipment T1. As I red the mission description in the internet (wiki.eveuniversity.org), I was a bit scared about mission 27. I trained Minmatar destroyer to level 5 before I accepted it. Maybe for good reason, finally, it was not that hard to complete it in the Artillery-Thrasher. Mission 47 was the hardest, in my opinion, all the other were almost easy to complete. Am I ready for the rumble now? With a look at my ‘must have, first priority’ skill training list: yes, I will be in about 92 days!
August 24th – back to corporation business
So I joined the new corporation now. Strong with Frigates and Destroyers and some minor experience with exploration, I’m welcome to complement the experience of the others. Nice gameplay started again.
August 26th – wardec, again!
The same wardec corporation. - they did it again! This time our corporation was left by the majority of members. The war ended with zero kills. However, our young corporation was destroyed and about a dozen players were spilled out – they stopped to see the fun in EVE online. Again, the deeper meaning of this game mechanic escapes me. I’m still playing (in NPC corporation), but CCP lost about 10 other players, 10 other monthly subscribers.
September 9th – lowsec means low security
My trial to attempt the Eden Gate failed. I was gatecamped at the entry to lowsec. A nice, but also a short experience.
September 18th – defining game goals
My primary skill plan didn’t change much during the last weeks, with minor adjustments it shrank down to 45 days. Fight and core fitting skills are all trained at levels 4 or 5, not so important skills at level 3. Training times become longer now. That gives me time to think about the game and asking questions, such as: Why do I play this game? What do I like to achieve?
From all the things I experienced so far, I liked fighting against NPC rats and producing modules and ships the most. I have not seen the far edges of New Eden, have not travelled through much low- and nullsec, have not explored cosmic signs there and did neither invent anything nor did I any planetary interaction. I like to do all these activities and see all (or most) of New Eden and decide afterwards on what I will specialise on. Sounds like a plan?
In one of the missions I acquired some Tourists (nice idea)! I think, they must go to the Eden Gate!
Yes, more things to do, more skills to learn. It’s like a journey – and the way is the goal!
(remark, Jan 2016: the Tourists arrived well at the Eden Gate, transported by an intentionally vanilla T1 fit Tormentor where all modules and parts were made by myself starting with mineral mining. This was really fun!)
October 4th – the mercenaries
I met this mercenary – or he met me. Hmm, mercenary, is this a role I can do?
I have zero PvP experience (besides being gatecamped and highsec noob-wardeced). Not the best prerequisites at all.
My character is 10 weeks old now. I feel not prepared enough. Typical noob excuse? My initial interests in Amarr and Minmatar ships – which I exploit simultaneously – turned out to be less clever than thought. I spend a lot of time to train similar skills twice, once for each faction. My progress is slow, during waiting times routine things happen all day.
I know all level 1 and 2 missions in and out, have shot at some Circadian Seekers for pure boredom (barely killed one, but had to run away from the other four), have successfully done some exploration-combat sites, have warped in (and quickly out) of self provoked 4/10 and 5/10 escalations and I know very well at which frequency rare ore anomalies appear in which regions.
I’m starting to become bored.
Besides all that, I do not feel ready for PvP. Why? Simply: I can’t afford to loose more than two ships! For sure: that’s a no-go for PvP.
When meeting the mercenary I was in hurry to install a newly bought rig blueprint and didn’t want to talk. He was on recruiting mission for his corporation. Finally, we talked. I didn’t decline his offer to join, I didn’t accept either. I’m still undecided.
Coming weekend, I start to acquire ships and modules for the Loose-10-frigates-experience … looking forward to a new experience.
Mid October I almost quit EVE online.
What I feel ready to do, exploration-combat, missions, mining, is becoming more and more boring. No challenge there, as I experience level 3 missions to be the same routine as 1 and 2 are, exploration is not much different and I start to hate mining.
October 23rd – Brand Newbros
I agreed to join, as the corp seems able to shoot back, when wardeced. I saw it as the last chance I´m willing to give to the game.
All of a sudden, things happened. They live in Nullsec (meanwhile I know what that means), in Cloud Ring and are part of a medium-sized alliance. I fit a Slasher for quick align and make my way to 9-4RP2. Cleverly planned, I flew 1 minute after downtime and arrived without any trouble. And what I saw for the very first time, namely the colourful gas cloud of Cloud Ring, changed my view on EVE online forever! At first from the outside, steadily growing with every gate-jump, but suddenly inside the ring – I almost forgot to breath.
Remark from end of 2018: Now as before, I think Cloud Ring is one of the most beautiful regions in New Eden. I still visit it from time to time, just for the sightseeing aspect.
December 31st 2015 – The year I started playing EVE online is ending
So I learned to live, travel and (barely) survive in Nullsec, I participated in some corp-fleets and in some of the very early Zarvox public fleets.
My corp moved out of Cloud Ring – and settled not far away in Syndicate. For curiosity I started to travel around New Eden and planned to visit all regions at least once. I like to travel the whole Universe to see all the beauties EVE online has ready for me.
Now I have fun again – I decided to stay a bit longer…
December 31st 2018 – looking back to 3.5 years of EVE gameplay
Meanwhile I have visited all regions, have lived in Highsec, in Lowsec, in Nullsec and in wormholes (from C1 to C5), I have done agent missions, exploration for hacking and for combat, I have mined ore and gas, have participated in several special events, have done a lot of fleets, have done a bit of solo/duo PvP (still a complete noob), have died in the Abyss, have died to many and have survived some solo attacks in wormholes. I stood up for a living place in Lowsec and participated in many sovereignty fights in Null, I was evicted twice from wormholes and successfully conquered three other. Everything is still in the flow – the final destination is not reached yet.
Within all that beauty – thank you, CCP! - and besides some minor rough edges I see one major imbalance: Highsec valid wardecs against corps with players younger than 1 EVE-month.
Remark: this blog was written at or closely after the dates given, there was no later editing (only some minor remarks added).
Edit (I forgot about): Melodysheep can say it better than me. However, go out and play in the Universe, all suns are shining!