[quote=Amber Harrington][quote=Azazil Amatin]When I first started playing Eve about a month ago, just like any other MMORPG player I was under the impression that running security mission was a legit way to climb the ship ladder.

The reason for all of us new players to climb ship ladder is pvp. We need to make enouigh ISK to be able to comfortably welp around 500 mil worth of ships every 2nd day or so. Flying T1s in FW and low sec gets real boring real fast, its kinda pointless beyond the 1st month.

The realization hits that the only things that matter in this game is ships you can fly, mods you can have on them, and your group numbers when going up against other fleets. Sure you can bring countless exceptions to that, but those are just that, exceptions, all of them.

Don't believe me ? go ahead and get together with your corp, make 1-2 month old alts, get them all into T1 frigs and go up against even numbers or larger then your own group numbers (which is more likely) pilots flying T2s and T3s, see the results, repeat a few hundred times, record results, make some graphs. Realize that many of us are very experienced gamers, though not from Eve, and have the capability to extrapolate such graphs (or conclusions if you will) within our minds based on observation of the available game mechanics. And it is that which drives us towards a "ship ladder".

if the game doesn't want players to jump for a ship ladder, then it needs to provide valid alternatives, for example, provide a way for a group of 5-10 2-3 month old pilots in T1 frigates, to be somewhat effective vs a group of 200-500 goons. Until that is in place, then ship ladder it is.