Limited play time this week in EVE. My home space is STILL under construction. Life lesson to all would be DIY folks. Polyurethane and sub freezing temps (shed is mighty cold in March) lends to some poor drying times and surface results. Needless to say my custom desk that will be my new home for both EVE and work is sticky and un-usable right now. I did move it in from the shed, and place it in my office. It's getting there in terms of setting with the help of a small room and a big heater. It does have a nice set of kitty prints across one of the sections now. I cannot hate Wolfwood for his curious nature and deep sadness that I am not playing EVE at night much with him.
I have been able to set up one of my gaming rigs and get some high sec work done. I had lost a drake last week to a super annoying situation where it got stuck in a collidable structure and invariably tanked DPS to a slow death while I clicked around trying to find a way out of said structure. That was the last time I played on the 100" front projection system.
I broke down and bought a hulk despite my lack of justification that one is needed for highsec mining. It does yield more rocks per cycle based on ship skills bonus etc. It can fit a tank that is more than a wet paper bag with "tank" scribbled in pencil. However it's still a steep jump in cost. I could fit and loose 5 covetors for the cost of one hulk. Still a long order for a few more % yield, bigger rock hopper, and some tank. yet I now field one to crush rocks a few % faster. Not mining much these days, might as well do all I can to limit the time invested,
I've been running level 3 Q 15+ missions as well. They don't quite offer the bounty perks of the Level 4 Q-10 missions. I can rip through them like a gang of destroyers through a retriever during hulkageddon though. I can also fall to sleep, go AFK and feed the cats while I run them with my myrmidon. It's not a bad alternative while the polyurethane dries and my offensive skills catch up. right now if I have to pick my repetitive tasks in EVE, I choose missions.
Right now I am having some good luck with incursus production runs. I find a little mining goes a long way towards these fun little frigates. I keep 10% of what I am making for future fun. They sell quite well too.
I was reading a post over on denseveldspar. I have a lot of respect for Ahnog. He is a wonderful gamer and gives some great advice. His willingness to help new folks is admirable as well. However I am not so sure his cut and dry response at the end of his post is spot on. It definatly is one from a die hard EVE player who has been at it for a while. All be it one who also has blooged a good chunk about why we loose new players.
I played WoW for 4 long years. I ran a guild and played the Horde side for the most part. For a new player in WoW the first 80 levels and all the quests tend to steadily and deliberately shove you along the path towards endgame. It entertains along the way. I enjoyed the path from level 1-80 in WoW so much I did it half a dozen times or more. It was the end game that became VERY dull, filled with repetition and the endless dungeon grinds for the chance of a drop.This lead me to lay down my two accounts and search for something else. Goodbye WoW, hello EVE.
Now before you go "Oh he is one of those!" and rate me off as a carebear who wants EVE to be more like WoW, Stop that shit. I like EVE for what it is. I like the sandbox, I like the harshness, and I plan to do the time. I'll bore you all to death (all 3 of you) with my accounts of me doing my time.
What I will say is EVE brings the repetition out of the box early. After the tutorials in all there short and sweet glory. As a new player you have a million options in the long term. In the short term however you need ISK and time to build skills. Lets take a moment to reflect on our options here:
1: PvP. Sure you can dive in and start getting the living snot kicked out of you in noob ships. You will die over and over and over until your skills catch up. Not sure how this helps with getting ISK. Sure you could join a corp, and get free T1 ships and learn the ropes. It still takes ISK and time and repetition.
2: Mining. The king of repetition. I mean folks talk in yields per cycle for Christ sake. You can make money while your skills cook. It leads to industrialism, which requires jobs and lab time. Nuff said.
3: Mission running. I've ran the SAME level 2 mission 4 times in a single day. Letter for letter, rat by rat. So close together that I expected to see wrecks from the last run still out there. I did this while doing Cladari navy security missions trying to get that last 0.1 rep to tick to unlock level 3's. Much more exciting than mining, and perhaps a little more confidence boosting than a million flaming deaths in a noon ship.
It's Number 3 where I can see EVE could improve (not change). A little more writing, a few more chain quests, some new epics arcs, perhaps some kind of career towards NPC bounty hunting to whittle away those days when your wallet is low and your skill points are not in the 10's of millions.
I know half a dozen players who are geeks and gamers to the death. Who play MMOs for years on end who have tried EVE and checked out early based on mission content repetition and/or frustration over getting constantly dacked (pansed) by folks who simply just have more skills than they do. HTFU for sure, but hey they kind of have a point.
So I ask all you 2-4 year vets to stop a moment and think back to the first 6 months of your EVE life. Ratting for sec rating. OH how many pirates and long term EVE players bitch of the drone that is. It might have been very different than today's new pilots. I am sure things have improved. Stop and think about what your options are today as a new pilot or a returning pilot. No matter how much you love EVE and it's potential you kind of have to say "Yeah, I cannot wait to get past that!". It's my opinion and yes I am working hard to get past this stage. ;)
Cheers
EVE SOB
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