Originally by: Rhast

---

Well hello new player. and welcome to the world of EVE! right this way for the
experience of a lifetime!. Please ignore the the pod wreckage, the frozen corpses
and the gibbering remnants of humanity. Boy oh boy do we have beautiful things to show you!, see the pretty videos! the grand spectacle and glorious battles! yes yes.. right this way to low sec .....

Yeah, right.

As a tabletop game tester it was my job to look at all the aspects of a game and
see how badly I could "break" the system. We had our PC called Joe Generic and took special pride in making game devs cry bitter tears as the huge holes in concept and math were exposed. But given the utter madness and complexity of a game like EVE, to evaluate and honestly look at all aspects of the system and what works and what doesn't
it was going to take time, 5 mos to be exact.

This is not a condemnation of the game, Far from it. EVE is a very complex and detailed oriented system. But complex systems are the easiest to break in most cases. and in worse cases with a PVP environment you can get taken advantage of, Or become very frustrated very quickly with this system. But I am going to lay out some facts about EVE that you, The newbie, newb or noob needs to know before you invest allot of time in the game.

First things first.. If you have seen the videos of the battles in eve, that grand
field of ships sliding through the depths of space, in coordinated attack to fight in fantastic spectacle of missles and railguns and lasers. Ships exploding in jaw dropping beauty........ well, it does not happen.

Let me rephrase that, Oh there are moments when large groups get together in a sealed off server and massive battles happen. But unless you have a fiber connection and well, if your computer does not dim the lights in your house when you turn it on. the most you will hopefully ever see is your field view zoomed out to the max and tiny dots firings at other tiny dots with occasional flashes. Any closer than that and the lag will kill you. and it will take 5 minutes to know you are dead.

Second, "Unless you are part of a large active corp you will get nowhere but dead"
this will be one of your first frustrations, trying to find a corp that has enough active members and actually care about you as a member. there are LISTS of corps but no ranking systems sadly enough. NEVER EVER PAY to become part of a corp. They are trying to scam you. simple as that. Good luck in finding a corp you can trust, NBut if you have any hope of getting anywhere in the game this is a must.

Third, Unless you have played for a year and a half and trained your ASS off or are part of a large and active pirate corp... STAY OUT OF LOW SEC. do not take missions or contracts from people you do not know. They will randsome , then pod kill you for the greifer fun of it. for GODS SAKES stay out of low security. In low sec "Unless you are part of a large active corp you will get nowhere but dead" They will call you names like "carebear" for not going into those areas. But unless you want to be squished like a kitten under a buss by a guy who has been playing for 5 (or more) years don't do it unless you have backup.

Fourth, Unless you have been playing for a year and a half forget about the gleaming battleship you want to drive. the biggest thing you can expect to drive is a frig in 5 mos. maybe a destroyer at best. If you plan PVP, Again its about the corp. you MIGHT get a chance to become a newb killing pirate if you like that sort of thing. But again , if you have not put in a solid year of TS (traning skills) forget about PVP alone.

Fifth. Fraud is RAMPANT.. there is so much trade fraud in EVE it makes Nigerian scammers blush. Unless you know the connections for trade, or your corp knows them as a good trader DON'T DO IT. nuff said. save yourself its too late for us.
to be continued...

---