January 27, 2006

My first day in EVE Online

My first day in EVE Online was uneventful, but still satisfying. We'll start out with character creation and finish with a new ship. Being a newb has never felt so good.

Race: Gallente
Bloodline: Gallente
Ancestry: Immigrants
School: Federal Navy Academy
Department: Operations
Field: Command
Specialty: Advanced Command

Int: 8, Cha: 8, Per: 10, Mem: 6, WP: 6

My adventure into the vast space of EVE Online started with a wonderful tutorial. It takes you over the basics of space flight, the UI, chat features, docking stations, and eventually into advanced space flight. Without the tutorial I doubt I would ever figure out how to play this game. It was so good that I may repeat it just to catch things I may have missed.

During the tutorial I spent a good amount of time goofing around and basically being a newb. Luckily there is a chat channel filled with helpful people that like to laugh. So far this is one of the better newb experiences I've had in a game and at the same time this is one of the toughest to learn games I've ever played in the MMORPG space.

My first combat experience was enjoyable as I fumbled accross advanced commands to just target and shoot things. It seems to be simpler than I am making it out to be, but in EVE you need to learn to fly first before you can get into heavy combat. Therefore I only encountered two combat situations and the first was the tutorial directed one.

The second combat situation had me confused. I had upgraded my newbie ship to a new and improved Gallente Frigate, Atron model. I outfitted it with two new guns filled with real ammo instead of the newb gun. Even riding high with this new bad ass strapped to a rocket I came into the fight with 5 on 1 odds. I was to destroy a Drone Silo defended by 5 drones and two stationary guns.

After a couple near death experiences that forced me to warp out of the fight I came back and barely managed to destroy the silo escaping the drones with only 1/4 of my ship still intact. I warped back to my agent (quest giver) flaming the entire way for a fat paycheck.

Next step: Find a ship buying guide for a newb!