On May 6th 2010, EVE Online celebrated its 7th Anniversary. Quite a milestone in MMO history, especially considering that it is one of the few virtual worlds out there to see its population continually grow year after year. For some of you who’ve been here since the very beginning, EVE has evolved quite a lot since its creation. With the expansion rolling out roughly twice a year, New Eden gets renewed and improved regularly. But, how about you the player? How has you gaming style evolved through the years or months since you’ve started playing? Have you always been a carebear, or roleplayer? Have you only focused on PvP or have you given other aspects of the game a chance – say manufacturing. Let’s hear your story!
Well, I started playing this game back in 2007 with several guys I knew (as in internet knew) from a Falcon 4.0 website called Frugalsworld. Now he started a corp, which is still going strong in Eve. FW, Inc. In true MMO fashion, I complete hosed my first character Jonzac...who even now at over six million skill points can barely fly battlecruiser and has none of the support skills needed to be proficient at PvP or industry. I have that character finally straightened out, or at least headed in the right direction. After reading Halada's insightful mining guide, I started a second account as a pure miner...trained up right according to the Halada guide. As FW moved into low sec I took my limited 30M isk purse and my new Covetor and tried to mine...solo...without any idea of what awaited me...needless to say I was killed and just couldn't muster up the will to start over again.
Flash forward to 2010, I rekindle my Eve desire and start my accounts. I'm still broke but I've come to the key to Eve, one that is now easier to see. Eve is not easy. In 2007, Eve was really my first MMO and quite frankly I was unable to grasp the needed mindset and mental fortitude needed to complete in Eve.
Looking back, the game itself was not geared nor setup to facilitate the easy entry of new people even after almost four years of existence. The character setup screen gave no indication of how your attributes tied into training, nor was there any manual that even attempted to alleviate this. The lack of information was exacerbated by the predominate method of downloading the client instead of buying it in a store where you expected a manual. Unfortunately, the lack of a searchable forum and the sheer size of the Eve universe conspired to hamper the flow of information from experienced players to new players.
Now, I'm older and there are a multitude of ways newer players are assisted into the game. The tutorials themselves are a giant leap forward. I completed them with a secondary character and the step-by-step method provides a good way for people to get their feet wet. To me the biggest difference has been the availability of the community now. The EVE Blog Pack is a great example of this, a quick and plentiful area where much of the information in EVE can be accessed. Others examples include the rather large number of tutorial videos on YouTube, I can't tell you how valuable the new scanning tutorial was in starting ANY exploration of wormhole space and exploration in general.
Overall, CCP and the community as a whole have made great strides in providing information for those souls who truly have the desire to learn and survive, all the while providing the same consequence based universe that has characterized EVE from the beginning.
For me personally, there really hasn't been much change due to my recent return and still lower skill level. The biggest change is my mental attitude and ability to resist the urge to emoquit when the unexpected happens. I'm in EVE for the long haul this time and I can't wait to see what is around the corner.
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