This was pre-Revelations so I didn't start with ~800K skill points and the ability to fly a Merlin, oh no. Back before Revelations was released in late November '06 you started with 5000 ISK, and Ibis, and a tiny amount of skill points. Let the dev blog from that time describe it:
Until now, people have been able to create over 1.400 possible character combinations. Thereof, 126 characters yielded under 6000 SP, but a player who got lucky (or knew the game enough to know what to pick) could get over 303.000 with one of the combinations. Furthermore, hundreds of combinations resulted in less than 20.000 SP, while only about 20 resulted above 275.000 SP.Yeah, I think I started with around 50,000 but I can't be sure. I had zilch for combat skills though, I had to buy weapon and Caldari Frigate skill books.
Running missions in an Ibis rookie ship was painful, but I managed. The tutorial was not short but it was all about basic operation of the ship and GUI; there was no help pages like there is now for every window you open and no rookie missions besides one to get you started with ISK and skill books.
Nor was there certificates to guide you on the best skills and weapons for ship types hence why I trained Small Energy Turret before Small Hybrid Turret or Standard missiles. As a Caldari character this is the height of foolishness but I didn't know and the game didn't tell me. I found out soon enough once I got into the New Citizens forum.
My first Caldari frigate I bought was the Heron and I used it for combat missions. I thought I was hot shit with my 75mm railgun and Standard Missile Launcher I. Of course flying a Heron frigate in missions is like take a research boat into combat against Somali pirates. A few level one missions later it was gone, along with the second and third Herons (Worlds Collide Level I in a Heron is not a good idea).
Note: its worth mentioning that back then the starter mission agent often sent you on missions into or through Jita and lag was a severe problem back then in that hole of a system. A few patches later and the jump from Kisigo to Jita was removed to alleviate that problem but until then the first thing a lot of new Caldari pilots noticed was the horrible lag in Jita space.
I just about quit at that point but fortunately I had friends that put me on the back on the good path with the Merlin (TWO missiles AND TWO railguns!?! *swoons*) and I never looked back.
Posts
LOL! Fortunately I started after Revelations and got all those nice SPs to start. Speaking of moving up ship-wise, I remember getting my first Thorax (on my first toon which is Gallente) and thinking, "Wow! What am I going to do with all those slots!" When I finally got her into a Brutix, I was giddy. When (either through a bug or that's just how they operate) Drug Runner NPCs from the plex in Deltole chased me down and killed my lovely Brutix at a station, I was gutted, simply gutted! It was a powerful lesson about the good sense of insuring T1 ships.
ReplyDeleteI'm so happy I had outside help when I started the game, and by outside I mean someone I could actually phone up and even meet at his place. And to give you an idea, I started reading all sorts of guides, maps, and the general history of EVE in November 2007, but the actual client got installed on January 20th 2008. And on February 5th I was into Clown College, and a month later I became the lowest-SP Bozo member ever (or since I think).
ReplyDeleteI know from the get-go that EVE was a true monster of a game, and even 2 full months of mental preparation did not prepare me for the reality of it.
I jumped headlong into EVE without any real clue as to what it entailed other than "spaceships'.
ReplyDeleteI started collecting ships early and love to get new ones still, although I have more or less given up on trying to give them all good names.
Even with all my battleships, I still enjoy flying the Thorax. Although, that Republic Fleet Firetail is wicked fast and I love blazing around in it and buzzing the belts. Woohoo!