Newbie Woes: Finding a Corporation

Being a newbie in an MMO sometimes sucks. Compared to senior players, you lack resources and your character lacks the measures of power; whether it's "skillpoints" or "level". There are many items you can't use, and you don't know your way around the world yet. To top it off, there are other players who specifically prey on newbies, and most others have an apathetic, if somewhat slightly annoyed, attitude towards new players. But game mechanics can be learned, and characters can't help but grow in strength over time. Truly, the worst part about being a newbie is feeling like an outcast. But being a newbie confers a strength on those players who make it through the experience: The ability to tolerate frustration and disappointment.

When I was reading about joining EVE Online's community the most prominent themes were that Factional Warfare and Red vs Blue (RvB) are good places for newbies to learn how to PvP - but that FW is the best way for a new player to earn ISK. You also read that

So I wasted no time enlisting in the Caldari Militia and setting out to find a corporation that I could call my home. When reading about EVE Online, the importance of joining a good corporation as quickly as possible is stressed; this is because EVE Online is, after all, a social game. Most activities when done solo are dreadfully boring. The game is, I think, deliberately designed that way. I had read a lot of positive things about newbies in EVE Online - "newbies are the life blood of the game", "even a week old player can make a positive contribution". I thought that, as a new player, I would be welcomed. While some corporations wanted only experienced players, the majority seemed either neutral about newbies or accepting.

This has not been the reality in the Caldari militia. I found several candidates and weighed them against eachother, and settled on one militia corporation in particular. They seemed to be just what I needed; they had a free ship program, a free hauling service, lots of experience, and what's more, they listed themselves as newbie friendly and offered training. So I filled out their questionnaire, figured out what an "API key" was, and sent all the information to them.

Over the next couple of days, I didn't hear back from them. But I hung out in their public channel and tried to get to know everyone, learn what I could, and possibly join fleets. The channel was usually dead quiet, but when I did speak to someone, they were friendly. At first, many were apprehensive that I was a spy or an alt, but eventually they accepted that I really was a new player just seeking a corporation. Finally I received a convo from their CEO:

XXXXX > o/
Lysander Fairewell > Hello!
XXXXX > Thanks for applying.  This is your only account?
Lysander Fairewell > Yes. I may start an alt account later, but I'd like to keep to 1 account for as long as possible.
Lysander Fairewell > Although I may already have to start an alt to move things. =\
XXXXX > You will want to build up some certificates.  It will be a liability for you in FW if you dont focus on Core Standard first and get a T2 Weapon like Small Guns or Missiles (Rockets are quick).
XXXXX > You can forgo the Level 5 Targeting unless you decide to get into Logistics.
Lysander Fairewell > Currently training Engineering 4
XXXXX > Its a comprehensive package.  Several skills brought to level 4 or 5 to earn the certificate.
XXXXX > I will have to pass on your application until you have more time in the game.  I dont care about your FW experience.  That comes with time but no skills and you will leave the field in a pod frustrated often.  Give it 30 days and re-apply if you want.
Lysander Fairewell > I thought your corporation was newbie friendly? You may want to change your advertisement.
XXXXX > You are welcome to hang out in the pub channel and get to know the team and ask questions.  Would make your application easier to process.
XXXXX > We are.
Lysander Fairewell > Your page listed no skillpoint requirement.
XXXXX > No.  It does however list a core standard.  I have updated it to show 60 days as a toon.
XXXXX > Dont be mad.  You will hate FW without any base skills.
Lysander Fairewell > So then there is a skillpoint requirement.
Lysander Fairewell > I'm not mad, just a bit annoyed that you've wasted my time is all.
XXXXX > Best of luck to you.
Lysander Fairewell > Yep.

Understandably this was an irritating conversation to have. Everywhere I turned in the militia I ran into skillpoint requirements, killboard requirements, and other miscellanea that I did not meet. This corporation was just what I was looking for it seemed... but in response to my application, they changed their recruitment policy to include a skillpoint requirement that excluded me. I have to admit that it's somewhat confusing; why list yourself as newbie friendly, but then put up a wall between yourself and the newbies when a newbie actually applies?

This person made a lot of assumptions about me, and about a newbies in general. I have already left the field in a pod several times - and once or twice with even less than that. Is it frustrating? Yes. Yes it is, especially since most of the people who killed me were fellow Caldari militia. I'm a little fish in an ocean full of sharks. But every hour that ticks by, I have more skillpoints, and every time I explode, that's more experience that I gain. I will fail a lot, and become frustrated and angry. But I am going to succeed anyway. And no, I will not be reapplying to your corporation in 30 days. If you view new players as a "liability" who are just going to get "frustrated" when they explode, then you definitely do not have the right mindset for me.

Speaking of mindsets, I found this video on Youtube today. I found it to be very inspirational. If I'd been a member of reddit longer, and a bit more active, I would seriously considering breaking character and joining TEST Alliance. In the meantime, my search continues.

Loss and Gain in EVE Online

Easy come - easy go!

This post is going to be about my experience with loss in the world of EVE Online. When you "die" in EVE Online (or rather, when your ship explodes), it does not respawn in a "galactic graveyard" where you are then free to warp out and continue your travels in New Eden. Instead, your ship is gone - forever. What's left behind is a little white triangle signifying the wreck, which other players can loot to acquire whatever modules and cargo you dropped. I've also learned that wrecks can be salvaged with the use of a special module which yields materials that are needed to build special starship components called "rigs". (If you play WoW or similar games, these are akin to "gems").

I'm new, and don't really have much to lose at this point. In my first days as a newbie, a player from reddit donated a full set of learning implants to me, + some skillbooks. I was really grateful - but I didn't appreciate what I had, because I didn't know it's value. Then I joined Factional Warfare and, while traveling in what I thought was the safety of HiSec, and lost those implants - but gained a bit of knowledge and experience.

I warped to dock to Jita to pick up a new ship after being destroyed by a fellow militia member. My pod came out of warp just outside of dock range, and while I was waiting to dock, boom. "Clone Activated", and there went all of my implants. The loss itself was frustrating, and I was really annoyed. Even more so when I discovered that this particular group of pilots regularly "camps" undocks and Stargates to catch easy targets. (I imagine people in other MMOs who camp spawn points all day, griefing newbies - much like the player I destroyed in an earlier blog. I'll never understand the mindset of these people, but it's a part of the game we have to live with.)

I didn't really understand the "loss" of it until I went to cash out the LP I had earned. An hour of farming Gallente plexes provided me with about 65 million ISK. Subtract the 45 million ISK my implants cost (even though they were free), and that leaves me with 20 million ISK. These implants are gone from the game forever - there is no way to ever get them back, and they must be replaced at a later date. It really put loss and gain in EVE Online into perspective. And it's a frustrating, terrible experience.

Understandably, many players in EVE Online become what is known as "carebears": Players who do everything they can to avoid any risk of losing their ships. They avoid LowSec, stay docked during declarations of war, and prefer to inhabit high security space where they are relatively safe from harm due to the actions of CONCORD; the omnipotent and omniscient NPC police forces. Loss in EVE Online is a very real thing, and for some players it can have strong psychological impacts. When a ship is destroyed, all the work that went into it is gone forever. As an example: One class of ships in particular, known as "Titans", take months of harvesting minerals and weeks of manufacturing components in order to build. They cost over 60 billion ISK at a minimum, just for the hull. To put 60 billion ISK in understandable terms: A PLEX (30 days of game time) sells for 500 million +/- on the market. A PLEX costs 19.95 USD. So a Titan hull is an investment of thousands of manhours and months of effort, representing a value of almost 2400 USD. And when a Titan is destroyed, that's it: It's all gone.

That some players would become terrified of loss is a natural consequence and on some level, forgivable. Some people are "Master Mouses". Many people are not; instead, they allow their environment to act upon them rather than bending the world around them to their will. As a new player, however, I feel that the risk of loss is what makes EVE Online so fun. It adds a new dimension of challenge and forces us to adapt and find new ways of doing things. It teaches us to value what we have and the work that went into it, but at that same time, not to become overly invested in our material possessions. It teaches us to take calculated risks, which is a very real skill with real world application. Loss and gain is what keeps the economy of EVE Online turning; it's what keeps the game healthy, and keeps us striving for more.

EVE Online is nothing short of an adventure, and should be played as thus: everything we do in the game is an enterprise.

The Cycle Continues

: : - I didn't know who she was - I had never met her before or heard of her name. But I knew two things: She was Gallente and she was firing upon citizens of the Caldari Sate. Though the majority of the students leaving the State War Academy station would most likely abandon the State and go on to become pilots in the great capsuleer alliances, some would stay true to Caldari patriotism and become fighters in the State Protectorate and Caldari Navy. Regardless, these were all Citizens, and it is my sworn duty to protect them from all threats.

: : - She sat there on the undock in an Incursus class combat frigate, using a loophole in CONCORD laws to open fire upon unsuspecting, unseasoned pilots. She herself had only been cloned weeks prior. Still, I had no idea what she was capable of, or what tricks she had up her sleeve. For all I knew, she had allies ready to spring to her defense. I would have to play this smart. I lured her into opening fire upon my Ibis. CONCORD cleared me to return fire for several minutes. Docking up and swapping my pod into a Corax class destroyer, I undocked, locked my target, and opened fire, hoping for the best...

: : - I webbed her at 10km, my twin webs slowing her frigate down to a crawl, my rockets slamming into her shields and armor from 8km, far outside the range of her blasters. She never got close enough to deal damage to me... When it was all over, her pod floated, lonely and vulnerable in space. It was then that I opened fire again and sent her on to her new clone. It was my second day as a capsuleer and I had scored my first kill against another demigod.

: : - YC114.13.05 Journal of Lysander Fairewell, Capsuleer

EVE Online is a game of the hunter and the hunted, the sinner and the saint - roles often played simultaneously by the same person. Today I encountered two players - one of which was griefing HiSec newbies, the other of which was willing to share his experience and knowledge with me in a private conversation.

The griefer, who was taking advantage of game "aggro mechanics" and the naivete of new players in order to score easy kills, became the target of my own guns, and my first ever kill in EVE Online. Her strategy was to drop "cans" on the undock of the station. When a newbie undocked and took something from the can, they would flag as a "suspect", allowing GiftSky to open fire legally, and score an easy kill. As you can see, her plans backfired upon her. I was really nervous going into this fight. I don't have a full grasp on ship fitting yet, or how PvP mechanics really work. All I knew was that she was in a frigate, and I had a destroyer, which normally counters frigates. She actually melted pretty fast, and I was surprised at how much her clone cost.

My 2nd day of EVE, my 1st PvP encounter. I have to admit it was really exciting, and I look forward to doing this more. In fact... I may just have to look into Factional Warfare. It seems to be a good way to make money and whet your appetite for destruction and killing other capsuleers.

The Cycle of Life and Death

The cycle of life and death was supposed to end with us. We were to be the start of a new age. A destiny of light. An Empyrean Age.

: : - On the last day of my human life, the class of YC114-2nd Quarter was lined up single file in front of a photo booth to have our last pictures taken. We were not a large class; only 12 of us, mostly Deitis and Civre. It was explained to us the day before to dress our best, as this would be the final photograph of ourselves put on file for the remainder of our existence. One by one we each entered the photo booth, had our picture placed on file, and exited out the other side of the booth into the Transference Bay. I wonder if it also crossed the minds of the others' that, after leaving this place, we could fast find ourselves enemies on distant battlefields.

: : - The Transference Bay was a cold, metallic room; dimly lit and lined with about two dozen transfer tables. At the head of each table, upright and with arms clasped like mummies, stood our clones, bathed in the same ectoplasmic "pod goo" of hydrostatic capsules. The memory of the transfer, and the moment of death, still haunts me. I hope in time that I will be able to shake this feeling. I hope, also, to become more acquainted with my new body. It's me, but not me. Slender and lacking the muscle tone and scars of my old body; instead, baby soft skin and a bald scalp stare back at me from the mirror. I wonder how long I will inhabit this body before a podbreach necessitates another transfer.

: : - In my first day as a capsuleer, I died for the first time, and returned as a clone to slay over one thousand human beings barely hours later. Crews that had much more experience than myself at operating spacecraft fell effortlessly to my guns. My ship was no more powerful than their own, but such is the advantage of capsuleer technology which allows direct interfacing with ship systems. They were enemies of the State, and as a man of Caldari birth, it is my sworn duty to vanquish them from our skies. I will mourn their loss of their lives no more than I mourn the loss of my own.

: : - YC114.11.05 Journal of Lysander Fairewell, Capsuleer

This is EVE Online, a dark, morbid world focused on the cycle of creation and destruction. I first learned about this game over a year ago when one of the player alliances, "GoonSwarm Federation", committed a huge heist from Factional Warfare, totalling many tens of trillions of ISK. They not only got away with this, but they were rewarded with free game time from CCP. Since then I have been fascinated with EVE Online and wanted to try it, but thought it would be too challenging for me with my school schedule. Summer is here, and this week I accepted an invitation for a 21-day trial and took the plunge.

So join me, Lysander Fairewell, as I navigate through this sordid realm of exotic dancers and space gods to my ultimate goal: Wormhole space, that intractable realm of uncharted territory where the Starmap reads Location: Unknown. I'll keep weekly logs of my triumphs and tribulations, my successes and failures, and my interactions with the other inhabitants of New Eden; villain and valiant alike. The distant light of the stars will be my ever-present reminder that there is hope in this dark world of treachery and deceit.