In Praise of the Learning Curve

I've been listening to a number of pod-casts. And one of the constant themes is 'new bro's' - how to get them, how to keep them, etc.
Part of this monologue - (it rarely reaches the point of discussion) - is the issue of skills.

Supposedly all new players want to jump into a battleship at the earliest opportunity (or a mining barge/freighter, if they are that way inclined) - and, apparently, the way skills work in Eve prevents them from doing this: and therefore the players go off and play Farmville on their phone.

Which has an element of truth, but is equal parts total cobblers.

Coupled with this is an assumption that the 'vets' somehow know that the 'newbs' (and perhaps the noobs as well) want to be like them.

Ok leave aside for a moment one of the major problems with Eve, which is both it's major strength and weakness when compared to other MMO's - namely the way in which the security status of system doesn't really offer any indication as to the likelihood of getting attacked - or indeed of PVP occurring.

I was a little shocked, and disappointed, to see that hanging around the academy were a number of what can only be described as idiots in cruisers, battlecruisers and even a battleship, who passed the time issuing challenges to duel (and worse, dropping cans and suggesting that it was fine to open them and then shooting up the Ibis without the formality of a duel). I asked one of them why they were doing it, It seems they were required by their corp to get a certain number of kills and also to recruit a new player, (presumably someone who thought this 'cool'), in order to progress onto other duties in the corp.

And CCP aren't about to do anything about this, as this declaration from CCP Falcon makes clear.

I am not suggesting they should, even if the tone of CCP Falcon's missive is frankly a bit daft. As I agree that ganking is part of the game - even if the underlying mechanics of it make no sense what-so-ever (rather like bounties)

But as I said, if we ignore the elephant in the room - well actually we can't - because that elephant is not alone, their are a whole host of pachyderms that inform this whole question relating to new players. These include 'the community', various memes and tropes that are taken as gospel, some of the stuff on eve university, and various other bits and pieces that if you as someone coming into Eve without any real knowledge of the game will burn you up, spit you out and have you playing Farmville on your phone (or worse posthumously feeding 'the community' on reddit).

Which not to say that the conformist nature of much of this 'help' lacks any merit.

I would simply advise a new player to try things for them-self.

A massive part of this game is discovering how things work, and making your own mark on what is deeply fascinating and complex multi-verse.

Hence why the notion that new players should start with more skill points so they can get into a battleship, or fit this module to make them 'useful' is simply a reflection of CCP Falcon's ill judged comment, and perhaps a sign of how much new players are required to love their captors.

Hang on a minute.... meow meow meow.... I include this partly for the person in the rookie channel who in answer to just about any question would reply 'trust no one in Eve.'

Which is fine advice if you take it from the point-of-view of 'why are they saying/doing/offering this?' And by answering this, you may well find the answer you were looking for (or indeed realize that mining is free)

I'd suggest looking for patterns that you can exploit. This can be in the skill tree, on the market, on the map, in combat or whatever.

One pattern you could look at, is why CCP doesn't sort out the security status of systems, and the way this interacts with players and NPC's, in a logical, intuitive and rational manner: may it, perhaps, lie in the background of the devs? (Which frankly would be of more use than the pointlessly annoying opportunity thing - and would benefit the wider player base, not just new players)

I use this as an example of a possible pattern, because the one I was going to use relates to a loophole in the way practically every utube video advises playing the market.

So fellow new players let us rejoice in our lack of skills, and get a little thrill whenever the pinger informs us of a new skill trained, with the accompanying little shaft of excitement that our ship flies a little better or we can experiment in this area or that area of the game.

peace)