EVE Online at Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMOG Gamers to the Next Level!

There are some pretty simple mistakes that are alarmingly common to new players in EVE Online. This is my take on the ten things most players would warn themselves about, if they could travel back in time.

#10. Not Doing The Tutorial

Ten mistakes every newbie risks making.

The tutorial teaches you essential skills. It turn's EVE Online's famously vertical learning curve into digestible bites. Taking notes is a good idea. Especially if you are interested in that particular area. CCP has spent a lot of time trying to perfect their tutorial process to make things easier for new players, and only a fool would not avail himself of that.

#9. Not Availing Yourself Of Free Information

The internet has a wealth of freely available information about EVE Online. Nearly every facet of the game is covered in excruciating detail, somewhere out there in internet land. Ten Ton Hammer is a great resource for this, of course, but as with so many other aspects of life, a wisely chosen google search will tell you everything you need to know about any problem you are having. If you get stumped, ask Google. The answer is out there.

#8. Enjoy Yourself First, Worry About ISK Second

When I first started playing, I spent an awful lot of time mining with a Tormentor, which is a teensy frigate that nobody in their right mind would waste their time using for more than a day or two. I used it for a month, and proudly, because I simply did not know any better. During that time, I could have been joining a real corporation, doing low-cost PvP, or otherwise enjoying myself. Instead I was dodging frigate NPCs and harvesting rocks.

Maybe all that suffering built character, but I would rather have spent that time clowning around and actually doing things, rather than trying to maximize my ISK earning.

#7. Not Making Friends ASAP

The point of playing an MMO is that there are lots of other people playing with you. You should do your best to make some of them be your friends. Not the kind of friend where you nod your head when you see them, either. You want the kind of friends where you are doing the same things in-game and hanging out on Ventrilo together, regularly. It will heighten your interest and involvement with EVE Online, and enable you to pool your collective labor for projects that otherwise would not be feasible.

The best way to make friends is to join a corporation. The best corporations for newbies are the ones with a proven track record of training new players to be better at EVE Online. EVE University is highly praised by myself and others, and rightly so. Consider them or a corporation like them, and get to be on a first name basis with some people that seem to be your kind of person.

#6. Not Trying Everything

There are lots of interesting things to do in EVE Online, and you owe it to yourself to try as many activities as possible. This means, yes, try mining. Yeah, you should probably try PvP, too, though I caution that you should do it in good company. You should try exploring, trading, inventing, and anything else you can think of. It's a big game, and the more you try, the more general expertise you will have, and the higher the chance that you find something that perfectly matches your idea of fun. It's like playing russian roulette, and every chamber contains a different variety of winning.

#5. Not Sticking To A Skill Plan

Some areas of EVE require a lot of skill points: flying capital ships, inventing tech two ships, and so on. But most of EVE Online isn't like that, at all. If you pick a thing, like flying stealth bombers or manufacturing tech two missiles, you can be doing that thing about as well as anybody, in just a couple months. Figure out exactly what skills you need, make a skill plan and do not deviate from it.

Lamentably, this sometimes runs counter to mistake #6, with trying new things necessarily involving training lots of weird skills. That's fine. But if your skill tangent takes more than a few days, you should seriously consider whether it is worth it.