Mynxee
Signal Cartel EvE-Scout Enclave
60
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Posted - 2015.02.05 01:18:45 -
[1] - Quote
Great reading all these replies. Recently I've been mentoring a lot of new players who've joined my corp. It's caused me to think a lot about my first experiences in the game--what was confusing, what was helpful, and those "Eureka!" moments.
I began playing in 2007. In those days, characters started with about 900K skill points which were distributed amongst various skills based on the choices you made about your character's background. My first character was Gallente with a leaning toward industrial skills. I knew nothing about MMOs, EVE was my first one and I chose it because it was beautiful looking and I am a life-long fan of sci-fi.
I did a little reading on the forums and elsewhere but the community back then wasn't nearly as rich in blogs, player guides, and so forth as it is now. I had the vague idea that EVE was dangerous and that I should be cautious about offerings from other players. The first day I undocked without going through the tutorials. My "Eureka!" moment that day was learning how to steer my ship around and discovering the magic of warping somewhere. Even though it was high sec, I remember being terrified to jump through a gate. Was I really allowed to go there? Were people in charge of these places? What was I allowed to to engage with? Mining seemed safe enough. So I spent time doing that and going through the new player tutorials.
On day 3, I was mining away when I received a convo request from another player. Somewhat nervously, I accepted it. He turned out to be a player from 2003 who was building an industrial corp of mostly rookies. He extended an invitation to join and again, with some nervousness (I wasn't sure how locked into the commitment I would be in terms of game mechanics!) I accepted. Turned out to be a great decision. Spent the next several weeks learning all about mining and hauling and industry and even a little skirmishing and mission running with corpmates. The more experienced players taught me how to prioritize and maximize my skill training, purpose-fit my ships, make sense of module attributes, use 3rd party tools, fly in fleets, use voice comms, and so very much more. Eventually I trained for exploration skills (back when probe scanning was a very manual and tedious process) and found an activity I loved. It was such a thrill in those days to scan down a huge ore site with giant omber rocks...oh, the memories! And even though it was all the "boring" high sec stuff that many players look down their noses at, I was having a great time because the people in my corp were funny, fun, and nice.
And then one day, I accidentally took a shortcut through Egghelende, a low sec system full of pirates. My shiny new Thorax, of which I was so proud, got ganked. I was in SHOCK. Literal shock. I must have sat there for many seconds trying to figure out what had just happened...why they didn't pod me, I'm not quite sure. While I was figuring out what to do, more ships came in and I realized I needed to get docked up quicktime. Several minutes later, someone convoed me. He was one of a group of former pirates, now anti-pirates, who had jumped to my defense. Unfortunately, they got their asses handed to them too. But we became friends. And suddenly I got a glimpse into the world of piracy and being an outlaw. And I liked it! So Mynxee was born and trained up to be a pirate. I'll never forget my first solo kill in a 1v1 frigate fight in Decon. That was my first real experience of the PvP shakes and wow, it was awesome! I felt kinda bad for the guy I killed so I convoed him, chatted a bit, and we got to be friends too.
From there, things got even more interesting but that's a story for another time. Bottom line, it really is all about the people in this game. Who you choose to fly with will have a huge impact on your time in-game. I feel really fortunate to have met up with good folks right from the get-go.
Lost in space, looking for sigs...
Blog: Outlaw Insouciant
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