Originally by: Atticus Fynch
This is my first MMO and the one thing I have had to learn is that there is no instant gratification like non-MMO games. If you want to be anyone, get anywhere or accomplish anything of significance, you MUST invest time....and that time is spent on skills.

I have an idea of where I want to go. I am mainly industry oriented and not so much into pew-pew...but I need to study, study, study.

Overall EVE is a fun game, but it's a bit like Christmas..."I cant wait until i have this skill or that skill so I can do x,y,z"

Sometimes it can be frustrating: "Man, I wish I could take out some battleships but all I have is a pea-shooter."

Then there is the diary of a courier run:"

10 Pick up stuff
20 Take nap while en route to delivery destination
30 Wake up in time to dock
40 GOTO 10

So I'm investing time....just hope it pays out.[/quote

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I can tell you one thing as a player that has been playing since '03.

Once you've passed that 100mil skillpoint mark, and you realize you have so much left to do...

THIS seems much more important than skillpoints on your character.

Right now you feel your character is useless and empty. If that were the case then why do many older players play with a second account with a lower skillpoint char?
The truth of the matter is that your meta-game needs a bit of inspiration. Knowledge and experience come after the modivation to find a useful place for yourself in eve.

For example, if you're interested in industry do some research on hauling. That IS a useful skill for beginning players. Don't do courier contracts, do research and find corps or even players that would be interested in letting you haul. Do it for free at first then use that as a way to find more useful parts for you to play. Get in an experienced corp and offer to help people with their level 5 mission salvage and hauling just for the chance to come along for the bounties and faction. Things like that get you ahead far quicker than training skills on your character.

If you're into pvp learn the basic skills to tackle and go bait/tackle for a group of pirates. A good tackle/scout is probably the most important part of a good fleet. If you get good enough at it you can bum free ships off of the corp for awhile as frigs are really cheap for most corps. In the bastards we pirate to make isk, so in time you will get better and start making isk by pirating.

If alliance 0.0 stuff is your style, get some basic info on the alliance, try to join up and if you do make yourself useful by exploring when you're not in fleets.

In all cases:
Learn to use the directional scanner fast and well.
Learn about common ships and what they're set up with, how they work etc.
Ask questions and learn history.

In eve, the single most important skillset to train is your communication and social skills for real life. Trust is the most valuable thing in eve, not isk. You can be a trustworthy eve player with zero skillpoints on your character and make billions of isk by auditing. For that matter, you can make just as much being a 'trustworthy' spy for an alliance and use meta-game skills to social engineer useful information.

So, don't let appearances be so deceiving, eve isn't like other mmos or games. The fastest way to get rich or successful isn't to play the game but to play people. Invest in that and I promise you eve is full of riches that others will continually miss day after day.
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PoX IS Eve!!! BOOM!!!