I'll probably do another one that is more complicated.
I'll probably do another one that is more complicated.
And the original lineart.
After you finish the introductory tutorial, you get a bunch of Isk and some skill books, all handy stuff that gets you a bit of a leg up. Not that I really knew what I was doing or anything, but I had 77,000 Isk and a skill queue full of stuff I thought I ought to train.
You also get a list of career choices. Now, the hard thing to get to grips with early on is that you aren't locked into classes or anything, being able to change whatever you're doing at the drop of a hat, so long as you're skilled and equipped appropriately. Ultimately, these 'career' choices are a series of alternative tutorials that reward you with what seems like an absurd amount of money (although as it turns out, not so much), skill books helpful to that profession and also a couple of ships that reflect that path. You also get some early ship equipment which you don't need the relevant skills in, but can only be used in the starting area.
So you have the option of picking either; Military, Advanced Military (I guess combat is harder when you fight more than one Lurking Pirate?), Industry (mining), Business (trade and market fiddling), Exploration and something else. I felt like Exploration was a good fit, because Mining seemed relentlessly dull, military seemed relentlessly dull and brutal, and business is very much not my forté. I also wanted to see as much of the game as I could within my 14 day free trial.
My first task was to scan for a 'Cosmic Anomaly'. Apparently the one I was looking for would only be in the training system and near planets or something. It wasn't very clear. So I hopped around the starting area for about half an hour, scanning for this anomaly. I didn't find it, but I did find something listed as an 'abandoned research station'. I warped in to see if that was the right place, just to run straight into 5 or 6 npc ships who proceeded to wreck my ship.
Now, death in this game seems a bit strange and harsh at first, but it kind of makes sense. When your ship's destroyed, you haven't really died, you've just lost your ship and anything on board (including my turrets and that Refining skill book I couldn't learn yet). What happens is you pop out of the ship in a capsule, as above, and then get the hell out of there back to a safe station asap. If you're killed in this state you lose x amount of skill points, which at this early stage of the game would be practically tragic.
Back at the station, the game took pity on me and handed me a new ship sans refining book, and warped back over to the station trying to get a sneaky scan in, hoping it was the right place.
It wasn't.
So the game handed me another ship and I aimlessly searched around for another hour for this 'Cosmological Anomaly'. I hopped to the next system over, hoping to find it there, but despite hunting for an hour, I was unsuccessful.
I logged off here in the middle of nowhere for a bit, thinking that I was just unlucky enough to have not found a spawn for this hidden location yet.
I was beginning to wonder what was the point when I came across some guy mining in some asteroid belt. In order to get more mining done at a time, he had filled his cargo hold and then emptied it all into a container so he could just sit here and mine and then haul it all in a handful of trips, or get a buddy to do it.
This is a risky strategy, because just anyone could come along and steal from your container.
I was that anyone.
And then somehow I refined it and sold it.
It also made me get a trial account and give New Eden another shot, and in order to make it remotely bearable, I've decided to keep up a diary. I've also decided not to fret too much about 'optimal builds' or whatever and just accept that I'll make mistakes while I play.
So first things first. What race am I going to be? These days race/bloodline choice doesn't really affect your starting skills anymore, and they're all even in terms of opportunity. However, each race has their own set of ships, and as far as I know they're mirrored across all four races. So basically you pick a race based on style rather than any particular stat boost you might get. It's also worth pointing out that, even though you're picking a 'race', you're picking from a variety of human ethnicities and nations rather than a 'species'. So no aliens.
The Amarr are a mighty theocratic empire steeped in tradition that spread across the solar system conquering and enslaving legions of people. It's not the sort of ideology I endorse, but their ships are shiny and gold, so I plumped for them.
And this is my hideously ugly guy. The likeness is impeccable.
Naturally, I called him 'Chief Illustrator'.
And this is my newbie ship. I dig the eagle-ish look to it, but it's very tiny, and very weak, as I found out to my chagrin much later. Also, before we move on, I'd like to point out, that a) this is a pretty interesting looking place to start off, and b) I am instantly overwhelmed by this hud. There is so much going on that it's easy to feel lost straight away.
The tutorial does a fairly good job of introducing it to you though, and I feel like they've definately done a good job of easing you in at first over my previous experience with the game (which was very much a case of, here you are, go).
On the left is the skills window. I don't want to dwell on this too much. But skills don't work in the same way that most MMOs handle them. They don't have a talent tree and they can't be used directly as an ability. You don't necessarily unlock new skills as your train new ones, and there aren't levels, but each skill levels individually. They also train when you log off from the game, which is a great idea but can be frustrating if you just want to get on with things and just play.
But I don't have too much time to worry about that, it's time to do some combat!
The game helpfully informed me that I must destroy this ship, helpfully labelled ingame as a 'Lurking Pirate!'. Thanks Eve.
Now, combat seems incredibly unwieldy. You have to get within x amount of metres (range is defined by your current weapons), lock on, and then hit the weapons icon (centre bottom) and wait for the game to decide who won.
Sounds easy enough, but Locking On is a bit awkward to do, as you need to right click the often tiny, moving target and it brings up a sub menu which you need to scroll through to locate the 'lock on' button (which is not on top of the menu, when I would have thought, that Locking On would be clearly your main priority in this instance). Even with my awkward mouse clicking, and moving the camera so I could locate him, I won. It is the tutorial after all.
After a few more 'go here, click this, do that' tutorial missions, I was rewarded with a 'Refining' skill book. Ostensibly ingame you can mine asteroids and sell the raw materials. Or you can refine them and either sell the refined materials (for more ISK?) or use it to build stations, ships and ship parts. I understand that mining is a popular activity in game as it's an easy enough way to make money.
Unfortunately, the refining book that the game gave me is unusable without Industry 1. Also unfortunate is that Industry 1 is not a skill you start with. It is a skill you must either find or buy off another player.
I don't know if you can see this, but the game has only deigned to give me 77,000 ISK so far, and the cheapest I can find Industry 1 for on the market is 100,000 Isk.
This is more like the Eve Online I remember!
NEXT TIME >>> Picking a career. And dying. A lot.
]]>I've gone back and started colouring pages from PvC so they look nicer. It's slow going, but not too shabby if I may be so self indulgent.
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