I was doing my accounts, and noticed that I have passed a rather significant milestone.
As I now have corp assets totaling more than a billion ISK (not including ships, or cash and assets owned by the characters)
This am am told is hard for a newb, and given that it has taken two and half months there is some truth in this truism. However, had I stayed in one place, and focused on a project, I suspect I would have got there sooner (the current position has been built up over @3weeks from a starting capital of about 30million isk (not inclusding ships). But this is quibbling, since finding a place, and organizing yourself to do business is one of the key skills in Eve, that is rarely, if ever, acknowledged.
I mention accounts, as this has been the key factor in growth. Simply allowing me to see how much I have, which parts of the business need to be focused, and which part dropped, has been invaluable.
Learning to use the divisions of the corporate wallet has also been invaluable - and one of the key changes I would suggest is allowing players not holding corp responsibility to have two or three wallet divisions to allow them to set money aside, or as a trading account, to pay bills, etc
Which brings me to the issue of skills
Finding a place in the universe to establish a base is a skill. Setting up a spreadsheet (back of a fag packet or whatever) to keep track of what part of your activity is making the most money, is a skill. Managing your money is a skill.
Yet none of them are in the skill queue and cannot be trained.
There are countless over skills within the game that are important but not in the skill queue - knowing the rules of combat is one, learning to use bookmarks another, not allowing yourself to be provoked by thieves, or griefers, or gankers etc
All of these are skills far more important than whether you have tactical shield management at 2 or 4.
But they are not something CCP can specifically teach you, and often they are something you can only learn if you get your ship blown up - which has happened to me a number of times (mainly because I didn't bother to learn the skill of not going into the faction space of factions I have run missions killing - oh and the proper use of auto-pilot - and some other things I am embarrassed to mention for fear of revealing my noobness)
Which is partly why the idea that new players need accelerated learning, or can't do anything if they don't have 5million skill points, is rather simplistic.
In two and a half months, I have acquired something like 3 1/2 million skill points, across the three characters - the actual figure is slightly more, because I got given some for various reasons by CCP - reporting bugs etc
As they are shared the points across the the characters none of them are even close to the 5million figure that supposedly makes them viable. Yet because I have focused the training - I have one that handles business and diplomacy, a miner/industrial character who is about to start getting into research, and a fighty type (they all have good PI skills (if I can be bothered to get back into that)) - they all do far more than they would had I attempted to combine the same attributes into a single 'main' - and none of them fly around in blingy ships, because I am in no hurry to 'upgrade' - preferring to keep them in ships I don't care if I lose, and don't have a particular e-peen attachment to.
Had I done so, I would no doubt have a main that would be on something like 4million skill points - mostly combat - would be flying a battleship, running level 4 missions, and plagued by an over-inflated opinion of herself/himself. What he/she wouldn't have, is anything like a billion ISK.
I know this, because this is precisely the situation I got myself into on every other occasion I have played Eve,
And it's a position that can be easily be painted into a a corner... by for instance a war-dec.... which in turn can easily lead to saying 'fuck this stoopid game.' and quitting.
Speeding the training time, only speeds up this inevitable position, where you are sort of, kind of, on the brink of getting into Tech 2 ships, and you are sort of kind of this or sort of kind of that... but what you are not is in any real position to start effectively producing improved products via research, using a good supply of BPO's maximized for time and material efficiencies, or building a firm understanding of the market, or indeed what and from where you should be sourcing products to get the best returns, etc
Because the chances are you will be in a battleship, running level 4 missions and telling anyone who will listen how you are looking to move into PVP as soon as you gt a Tech 2 ship... quite how you will pay for this, is not clear.... but it's going to happen soon... because there is not a poorly fitted mission rat that take you on.... especially since you just learned long range targeting 3....
Which is not to say I wouldn't like faster training - after all back in the day you used to have it by training the education/learning skill first and then using the modifiers to speed everything else up - sort of kind of, because initially you were not really speeding the training up, as so much time was spent earning to learn.
But it can only be of any use if at the same time there is an appreciation of the skills you actually need are not in the training queue, or that often the best plan needs the extended training to time to get the money and materials in place to best make use of the newly trained skill.
Which I realise is somewhat of an abstract concept, and gamers being gamers like to deal in 'facts'.
All I know is that I have currently more money, and more assets in the game than I have ever had in any of the previous times I have played, and I doubt any of the characters have half the skill points of my 'main' had on those occasions - and by having the money, and the resources, I am able to do far more with far less skills
peace)
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