ME ME: Newbie Mistakes.

So Dense Veldspar linked a great TenTon Hammer post on Top Ten Mistakes that Newbies make which in turn inspired Eveoganda posted some thoughts.

As my current focus in EVE is to hire Newbie pilots and help they make lass mistakes. I figured it was a good time to list some of my own views on the matter.

Ø Battlecruisers are not invincible.

Flash back 8 months and my single goal in EVE was to be able to fly a drake to run missions with. It was that ship a corp. mate had that we just could not kill with a mess of frigates. The Brutix was death by drone and blasters as well. I put myself in the poor house so many times replacing battle cruisers as a result of the silly losses that taking fire will teach you. I’ve since gone back and ran level 2’s in rifters and run level 3’s and some level 4’s in an Assault frigate now. I took one of the new corp. members out with me on some level 2’s in rifters. Showed him that he can speed tank and take down the frigates faster in a 2M ISK rifter better than a 40M ISK drake. I also dropped 5 fit rifters in his bay and said I’d rather see him loose all 5 of them trying stuff than any other ship for now.

Ø Really don’t fly anything that will ruin you if lost.

I recently lost 2 T2 fit hulks in one day through stupid actions on my behalf. While it was a solid slap in the face I had the ISK to absorb those losses. I could replace the ship many times over with my current passive ISK income. Six months ago, I would have been majorly emo rage log if I lost a retriever. Loss happens, learn it with something you can buy 10 of at a time.

Ø Join a corporation that is dedicated to new players, not run by them.

The concept of learning something together is great for cub scouts and kindergarten. In EVE it is like a mob of sheep learning survival skills in a den of really big bad hungry wolves. While I’ve done my share of trail blazing with my trusty Google search engine. I’ve also done a fair share of blundering around under the guide of noob CEOs. Even more so I’ve been in corps where the CEO is too busy to help, and the rest of the corporation is figuring it out together. If the CEO is 3 months old, chances are he is also figuring stuff out. Ask lots of questions during the interview as well. HCSH is recruiting and I hear the CEO is very involved and has a clue about what he is trying to do. ;)

Ø Really try something before you move on.

While it’s true that you can do anything in EVE it’s far too easy to spread yourself thin and not fully understand the whole picture of a given profession. I hated scanning when I first tried it because I went in with really bad skills and equipment and tried to find high end sites. Now with the right skills and ship I can hit pretty much anything site wise quickly and enjoy the rewards of finding something tasty. When I first tried ICE mining I had the wrong ship, crappy fitting on it, and poor skills. Now with the right ship, great skills and a correctly implanted Jump Clone. I can mine enough ICE semi AFK while I tinker about with P.I., trading, and Industry jobs.

Ø Do what is FUN.

Big huge rule mistake. If you don’t like to mine don’t join a corporation looking for miners. If you hate getting your ship popped and being ransomed don’t do PvP. If spreadsheets, price margins, and profit analysis put you in an insta-coma chances are trading is not for you. Yes this contradicts the really try something ideal, honestly you kind of know early on if you hate mining or if you don’t like to die.

Ø ISK is like Money, it comes in time.

In life most of us are not born with a billion ISK to spend. In fact most of us spend 7-10 years of our life not really understanding what money is. The same is true in EVE. If you spend every moment online making ISK, when are you going to spend it and have some fun? ISK is important but well having a trillion ISK in the bank is not going to fly your ships for you. The day I stopped worrying about making ISK, and started enjoying the ISK I had was the day my wallet started to organically grow on its own. I’ve invested over a billion ISK back into my characters and Corporation and reached a point where I don’t so much worry about ISK. I am not wealthy by EVE standards, but I am not broke either. Invest in yourself and enjoy what you are doing and ISK will come.

There are many more mistakes we all make and so many different areas of knowledge in EVE that no one list can truly cover them all. There was a debate over at eveoganda about solo PvP and flying alone. Honestly I’ve not killed a think flying solo, but I’ve learned a heck of a lot about how to survive while moving through LowSec. I fly through LowSec daily now and unless I am flying a mining fit hulk without scouting most days I never even see a yellow box. So sure get your clone updated and jump into a T1 frigate and go fly alone in lowsec spaces. You will die for sure, but man you will learn a ton about not getting killed while you do. That reminds me, time to teach one of the new guys about books marks and warping about in LowSec.

Cheers

EVE SOB

The Grind: A MEME of sorts

Tobold, Ecliptic Rift, and Morphisat have all posted a bit about “The Grind” as it relates to EVE. Reading a few recent blogs about plateaus and reformed pirates rebuilding security Status there are some aspects of EVE that can be considered a Grind I guess.

Having spent 4 long years in WoW grinding not only one of each class of character to max level, but also grinding out gold for this, standings for that, and Tier gear sets. I look at EVE and the many measures in a slightly different light. You see in EVE there is no path to follow. No ultimate NPC bad guy of the month to slay for your sparklies. If you don’t have faction with a corporation the world does not end. Even if you are so hard of luck (or brain dead) that you end up with NO ISK and NO SHIP. EVE gives you both as many times as you choose to bounce your head of the bottom of the barrel.

Progression in EVE is pretty much based on self created goals. That’s right you fail at EVE because YOU decide to do something that you are not ready to do. Did the game tell you that you HAD to fly out to that gate camp in providence where you lost your ship? Was the pirate who is now ransoming your pod required to do it by EVE? Did EVE make you mine veldspar for 3945678 Hours of your life? The answer to all is a resounding NO!

What EVE does demand is patience and a might bit of imagination. The patience is so you can build skills which in this game are accrued via real life hours spent training for them realized as Skill Points. They tick away indefinitely so long as you have a skill set to train in your skill queue. Sure you can speed up the rate at which they tick, but at some point all skill training requires patience. This is not so much what we can call a grind; as well you personally are not being forced to repeat a process over and over. The imagination part comes into play when deciding what to do while you wait for the skills to tick. Sure you might want to be the next pirate or 0.0 evangelists but you cannot fly for a damn and you surly will die. Finding things to do with what you can fly that make ISK is where imagination shines.

OK now let’s talk of ISK shall we in the realm of grinds. Yes it is true that in EVE ISK is the catalyst for greater things when mixed with skills. I’d also say it takes some ISK to make some ISK and by this I mean the more ISK you have to invest into your EVE pilots. The more earning potential these pilots have. An example of this might be trading. Where with limited skills and ISK you can make money buying goods on one side of the universe and trucking them to better markets to sell them for profit. As skills and ISK increase you truck less and manipulate the market more to gain profits. The bottom line is making ISK can become passive in that you don’t need to do much more than buy and sell, or harvest and sell items to acquire ISK. I recently posted some very low level ideas on making free ISK that are just the tip of the iceberg in each area.

So really there is no grind in EVE. The game is about using ones imagination to create cause and effect with the twist of how other player’s actions impact you. SANDBOX BABY, there is no bad guy you must kill to reach the next level. You decide what the next level is…

Cheers

EVE SOB

Dream Ships - Me Me

So Astral posted this MeMe over on his blog. So I thought I would take a moment to reply what each of my avatars would dream about if they could have any ship based on their place in the grand scheme of it all. So here goes:

SonOfBraben:

As a self respected carebear and space hermit. The ultimate ship would be the roquel. It's a home away from home where this grumpy old bugger can be at peace. I can also fit clones vat bays meaning he would NEVER have to set foot in another crowded station again.

Sister Janice:

One of the nuns that work on the carebear ranch she is a proud woman who considers her work above anything else. As a result a Rhea is her dream ship as it represents the ultimate in all she does as a hauler pilot.

Sister Juliette:

The second nun employed by the carebear ranch. This girl is a nun only in name and likes all things to be cheap and disposable. When it comes to men she likes them drunk, easy, and never at her place. The less she has to do with the after the "job" is done the better. So her dream ship is am IBIS. They are free and get whatever job done that she needs.

ZombiNutz:

The fine young Caldari pilot of war has a thrill for blowing stuff up. He has many passions on the battle field from extreme speed to pretty big explosions. Hence his dream ship is the Ragnarok as it's the fastest of the biggest and packs a mighty large explosion. It HAS to be the one for ZombiNutz.

Of course all this could be taken as a bit of fun, or I might be serious.

Cheers

EVE SOB