The old me.

Hopefully in this post I will examine the reasons I have chosen to roll anew and see how it goes in Eve Online.

Old me.

The new me.

Why haven't I gone back to my old characters? this can probably be split into three parts.

First, starting afresh allows me to gain a newer perspective of the game itself and what its like to be the low Skill Point player once more based out of high-sec. This has been a little annoying and yet quite good at the same time. I've been mostly just updating skill queues so far on my new character, basing myself out of Hek - Boundless Creation station (aka the trade hub). Ive good access to just about everything I need at reasonable prices whilst still being able to do a little market trading to make some start-up ISK.
Having completed the new player experience I've a greater idea of what it was like starting out.

Secondly having a new character does not tie me to links and friendships and a history which my previous characters have. In Eve, your corporation history can tell a story and can limit you if you wish to move on. Starting afresh means I've none of that to really worry about. So if I choose to apply to a corporation I'm showing up as a new old player returning. In itself that's not great and I will probably have some explaining to do.

Finally I've grown and moved away from how I was in the days where I was a line member in null-sec. A veil has been drawn back and I can truly see what I was part of and to me I have come to despise it. What I'm referring to here is that null-sec is so broken now that the massive alliances and coalitions they have formed don't want to go to war for real. They would rather just thunder dome once again. No doubt your thinking that I'm yet another person who is totally against the large null-sec alliances, that perhaps I have an axe to grind against them because they picked on me or something. I don't.
What I intensely dislike is the fact that null-sec has reached a stage where it is essentially a big blue doughnut which so many other people have described. That the people at the top are the same people as years ago. That its the same alliances holding space. The same cultures, the same people, the same everything. Yes null-sec has stagnated. This is in part because of CCP, but this is also in part because of the alliances have become too good at what they do and that the people at the top have not moved on or refuse to.
I hold a great deal of respect for some of them, e.g. Shadoo, Montolio, The Mittani each for different reasons. But I also hate them to a certain extent for not moving on to the next challenge, and not allowing new people to step up to the challenges.

 Anyway that's enough of that rant for now, back to the topic at hand.

Starting afresh also allows me as I've previously stated to truly get to know ship classes that I bypassed and skipped when I rushed towards the bigger and better ships of the time, (Battle cruisers and Battleships).

At the moment I'm looking forward to giving the assault frigates and interceptors a good run around with in the future. To this end I've been focusing my skill training on fitting skills and small weaponry support skills and so on that will be needed to get the best from these ships. This will also stand me in good stead for further progression into cruisers, T2 cruisers and T3 strategic cruisers, which at the moment are my goal.

I have however made a slight detour in my skill training to be able to fly the Corax, and Oh blimey. I like the look of it a hell of a lot, CCP art department is really good at space ships now.

Media of the Week

Media of the week is a new little feature that I thought might be fun.
Each week I will be linking a video, image and possibly a music track of some sort, and commenting a little on why I like them. Some may be topical to what's happening at the time, others won't be and some might be a few years old, but pretty good nonetheless.

I'm completely rubbish when it comes to anything creative of this sort, but I absolutely love some of the stuff others create and really do respect them for taking the time to make what they make and sharing it.

So to get started,

Video of the week.

Ghost Festival - Push Eject

I first saw this a couple of years ago. And after watching it the first time had to go back and watch it another couple of times. The cool bits in it for me are the, intro where the image distortion matches up to the music. Then onto the camera following a drone fighter as it flies around and spins. The the short clips of the Caldari frigates flying around in something close to formation (or at least a pack) at high speed as well as some actual small gang fight footage being shown as well. Along with the fast pace of the footage it gives the impression of a fast moving and highly active corporation which is good at what it does. Lastly the shot of the Moros Dreadnought firing its blasters, and the balls of plasma coming straight at the camera are fantastic, and I don't think I've seen this in a video since.
Overall its fast paced, fits with the music and is visceral showing off the beauty of Eve, and the fights that can occur against other players.

its perhaps one of the best corporation recruitment video's out there for Eve Online. (note I didn't say Alliance, I may look at some of those next week.)

Image of the Week

Ship Tree UI

This is actually a series of images from a thread if you can call them that from Reddit, which I sometimes look at.

Here's some more, Linky.

According to the Reddit thread,  this was taken from one of CCP's test servers, and shows a new way of viewing the ship progression tree in Eve. I Like new stuff. I often jump from new thing to new thing, and think "Ohh Shiny". This is this week's Ooh Shiny thing for me.

Anything which makes it easier for new players to visualise and see what paths are available to them is a great improvement. Hopefully this combined with the Skills now showing what they "unlock" at each level they're trained to will make it that little bit easier for those new coming into the game.

And after all the easier it is for people to understand, the quicker they're likely to get somewhere and have fun. This is what eve needs if CCP wants to decrease the turnover of people giving eve a go and quitting because they didn't know or understand it.

But I've also got to wonder how much time and effort has been put into this which could have been spent on something else, which might be seen as more important to the playerbase.

In conclusion it looks good, its going in the right direction, but I also wonder what else they can do with it?

Music/Sound of the Week.

Mediaeval Baebes - Glass Window

If this sounds vaguely familiar to you, you might remember having heard it as the music which accompanied "The Witness" trailer which was first shown at the PlayStation reveal a couple of weeks back. The game itself looks really nice as a puzzle game, in which to lose yourself for a few hours easily, and not feel like time has been wasted. It's also being made by the team behind Braid, which you might have got and played via Steam.

Its certainly something I'm looking forward to playing in the future, lets hope for a PC version.

A quick and dirty newbies guide to Eve.

So here goes, me giving out useful advice. People in the past have told me I'm good at this, I'm not so sure.
It's likely just going to be a collection of links to useful sites and articles and 3rd party programs but I will be starting out with those golden rules of eve which get thrown around constantly, (in reality its just a list of don't do this or that).

The Golden Rules of Eve Online.

1. Have fun.

This is really overlooked compared to number 2 which is said so many times.

2. Don't fly what you can't afford to lose. 

This can't be stated enough. Its no use spending all your money, selling every ship you own for that Tengu Strategic Cruiser and then thinking you will take it for a spin on a low-sec radar sites or a mission or something and the moment you enter low-sec, you end up finding yourself surrounded by pirates who are ripping you to pieces. Seconds later your waking up in a new clone without an ISK to your name and nothing but a rookie ship.

3. Don't fly what you can't afford to lose. - Yes again.

4. Your going to lose ships and you will get podded. Its just part of the game.

It really is. its not personal and the game allows it, even in high-sec. CONCORD is there to take revenge not to protect. The only way to not lose a ship or get podded is to never undock, in which case you might as well not play.
Best thing to do is as soon as you can afford to, take some T1 frigates to low-sec and look for fights. Your going to lose a heck of alot of them and your pod often as well but you will get used to it and not lock up later with fear when your in a more expensive ship or when it matters more.

5. If something sounds too good to be true

Its a trap! People will try to scam you in this game. Keep this in mind. They will often try to come at you sideways.

6. Don't mix your weapons 

If your fitting guns they want to be all exactly the same, same with missile launchers. So no to having a couple 125mm auto cannons on your Hurricane alongside some 720 howitzer artillery cannons.

7. Don't mix missile launchers and guns, unless you know what your doing! And if your a Noob you probably don't. (A few ships used to have split weapon high slots, e.g. Of 6 high slots, 3 could take turrets and 3 could take missile launchers, though I think this has been done away with with the rebalancing.)

8. Don't trust anyone,

They all want to steal your stuff or blow you up. (Possibly an extension of 4, but if so it needs mentioning again.)

 9. You don't need faction, deadspace or officer modules to be good.

In the majority of cases T1, Meta or T2 modules are enough. Its not the ships and items that make you good in Eve is you, the player that makes you good. Sure they help but they won't stop you being surrounded by armed bastards who want you dead and to loot your stuff.
For example.
Did you really need to fit officer guns and a deadspace tank on your Vindicator? just so you can complete the mission a couple of minutes faster? Nice ship, but T2 guns would have been fine, and that tank is just overkill to the extreme. Spending some money on faction mods can be a good idea, like on Federation magnetic stabilizers.

10. Don't bling out a ship unless you know

1. What your doing,
2. It's a ship worth blinging out for a specific role.
Otherwise you end up like the guy in the link, fitting a module which cost a silly amount to a ship which shouldn't need it and doesn't benefit the role in which its used for.

And as with the pirate code these aren't laws, they're more like guidelines.

My Advice.

My advice for starting out as a new pilot would be this.

Do all of the tutorial missions even if your not interested in industry or mining.
Why?
All the tutorials give good rewards in terms of cash and ships, if you know your never going to need that Venture you can sell it on once you have done them, and make a decent profit.
Train for your races T1 frigates first, find a half decent fit somewhere. Ask around, look on the internet, in wiki's and work out what skills you need to fly it well, and what skills you need for each of the modules.
Chances are doing this will concentrate your skill training towards a quick and achievable goal which you can build from with your future training.
The Goons and TEST have it right, a frigate can change everything.

Getting used to losses.

Once you can afford a couple dozen frigates take a few out to low-sec. expect to die, don't get attached to them. Make sure its insured and your clone is up to date. Learning to accept losses early on will make it much easier later on. And remember each time you get podded and wake up in a station,

UPDATE YOUR MEDICAL CLONE! RIGHT GOD DAMN NOW! DON'T UNDOCK TILL YOU HAVE!

It can also be worthwhile to have a look who killed you. They will most likely upload your loss to a website like eve-kill.net It can give you some useful information. Also you can try convo'ing them. They might be complete dicks, they might not be and may take pity on you, a new player and explain where you went wrong, what to do better. Its all a learning experience.

Plan for the future.

Think what you want to do and begin training towards it. Set yourself goals and work towards them.

See a really cool ship fly past and think, "I want to fly one of those" look it up, work out what skills you need and train for it.

Hear a story about a fight somewhere, and think "I want to be part of something like that!" Find out more about it, what ships they were using and what kind of fight it was and come up with a plan yourself as to how to get there.

Want to build ships to sell them on the market? Start looking at your industry skills, what do you need to be able to build whatever, and begin working towards it, do a few trial runs of making small quantities of ships, get the hang of the industry side of the game and get going, and scale up your operation.

Some highly useful links.

Eve University Wikipedia perhaps the most comprehensive eve wiki out there covering allot of the details and with a good bunch of guides thrown in there.

BattleClinic This can be useful for looking for relatively good fits (loadouts). Beware not all of them are, and its worth reading the comments to see what others say about them.

Dotlan Probably the best third party map out there. It can show you pretty much everything in a manner far clearer and easier to understand than the in-game map.

ISK Guide Download it and have a look through, it gives a good overview of many of the different paths you can choose to tread and how best to begin your journey down them.

 Failheap Challenge A community forum site filled with bitter vets with nothing better to do than post all day. They do however offer some excellent suggestions on fits and ships in the "Ship Setup Hanger."

Offical Eve Online Forums. I wasn't too sure whether or not to include this. But you can find people willing to give good advice on there, but also people who will troll and give bad advice, however the latter two are relatively easy to spot.

Some blog's such as Jesters Trek which is linked to the right hand side are also quite good to look at for some information on ship fittings and other parts of eve. For example his definition of a safe undock or kick out station is well worth a read.

This is not an exhaustive list, there's far more out there and in greater detail, it just depends on what you want to do whether its any use to you.

Your experience in eve is in your hands. Put enough effort in and you can with a little luck be anywhere down the line.

Something new.

What has really impressed me so far is the number of little additions to Eve Online, and what a difference they make to my overall enjoyment of the game.

• Waypointed routes showing in space, so you can see where you will be flung by gates between the stars.
• Rounded targeting reticules. A very nice change from the boxes we had before and I guess is along the path of bringing us the interface they show in various trailers. - I can't wait to see if they do more with this.

• Agression Timers. I think this is another fantastic addition, simply being able to see it cycle down and what exactly you have timers for and against is such a big blessing and removes one of the things you have to be constantly thinking about in the back of your mind.

• Safety controls. I actually like this especially when flying in high-sec where in the past I was always so worried about automatically shooting a neutral and getting concorded as a result, just because I've an itchy trigger finger from null where its all NBSI (Not Blue Shoot It). However I've yet to try it out in low and null-sec areas where I'm wondering if it will be a hindrance.

• Info Panels. Nice to see this made far more concise.

• New camera follow, via "C" on selected target. OH MY GOD! This is awesome, there's no other way of describing it.
• New sounds. The new little sounds for all sorts of things like skills finishing, targeting, being targeted, the aggression timers finishing and probably a fair amount more I haven't noticed. Overall, pretty cool and not invasive sounding. They just fit in brilliantly.
• New mining frigate, Venture. It looks pretty damn cool. The colour scheme suits it incredibly well. In a way its a shame that its just a frigate when compared to the looks of the Exhumer's and Mining Barges, which just look shocking in comparison now.

I know there's some new destroyers as well but I've yet to get a hold of one to have a really good look at, though from what I've seen the Minmatar one looks awful in my opinion with its door wedge barbed look, whereas the Caldari one looks like a kick-ass submarine boat, and the Gallente one looks fairly classy with the mini drone bays on the side. The Amarr one I'm least sure of my opinion on, though leaning towards "Meh" its not bad but its not great. I will come to look at them another time.
If you hadn't guessed by now I like cool looking ships and judge them all.

There is one improvement that I would like to see added which perhaps only I would find helpful.
Currently you can view a mini solar system map, constellation, region and universe maps via pressing F11 which brings them up in a series of boxes as a side bar. Region and Universe aren't that helpful in my opinion and neither is constellation exactly great.

What I would propose would be to make it so you can have just the maps you want in seperate boxes you can pull around the screen, e.g. a separate solar system mini map would be invaluable when D-scanning and possibly in wormholes. a mini constellation map, or one which showed you every system within 3-5 jumps would also be helpful. Especially if the format in which they were shown was cleaned up and improved. It could just be me, but that would be a cool little change and have a direct benefit upon my style of play.
However I've no idea how much work this would take. And I do know that some things when it comes to these games which are 10 years old aren't that easy at all, as the dev's now will have to deal with code which hasn't really been touched in years, written in an incredibly outdated fashion and of which there's very little to no notes on.