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EVE Evolved: Getting into your first PvP frigate

Brendan Drain — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Game mechanics, PvP, Hands-on, Races, EVE Evolved, Guides

In last week's EVE Evolved, I encouraged new players to grab a few friends and charge head-first into PvP with guns blazing from day one. Whether you join a faction warfare militia, form a corp to declare war on other corporations or head out to lowsec or nullsec, starting your PvP journey is an important part of enjoying EVE.

Several readers requested help with picking a ship, putting together a viable ship fitting and finding the funding for it. So many players asked for help that this week's column is entirely dedicated to the messy business of putting together your first PvP frigate and learning to fly it. Although the ship of choice for most newbies is the agile Minmatar Rifter, each race has a range of frigates that can perform well in PvP groups with minimal skills. In this article, I'll suggest fittings for two frigates from each race that new players with as little as one day of trained skills will be able to fly.

One of the core concepts of EVE Online's PvP that often discourages new players is the idea that your ship is irreversibly destroyed when you die. While this may seem like an extremely harsh death penalty, deciding how much you risk in PvP is part of the game's tactical gameplay and even the best active PvP enthusiasts lose at least one ship per week. Death in EVE is essentially a financial loss followed by the inconvenience of having to buy and fit a new ship. Most of the financial penalty can be countered by using cheap and effective tech 1 equipment and insuring your ship, and the inconvenience of death can by bypassed by building up a stockpile of disposable PvP ships.

With that in mind, this week's absolutely massive EVE Evolved is dedicated to getting you and a few friends into your first PvP frigates after as little as one day in the game and helping you mitigate the financial loss of death.

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EVE Evolved: Getting into your first PvP frigate originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 24 Jul 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EVE Evolved: Getting into PvP from day one

Brendan Drain — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Culture, Game mechanics, PvP, Endgame, Opinion, EVE Evolved

Although it has significant PvE elements, EVE Online has always at its core been a heavily PvP-oriented game. Players wanting to get into PvP are often advised to train months' worth of skills and build up significant ISK reserves before even trying it, but this is something I strongly discourage. As I've said in several previous articles, a new player can be a useful and effective part of a PvP squad with very little training time. This is something I personally put to the test when a few real life friends and I started completely new characters and started engaging in PvP with less than 12 hours of skills trained.

Although we had significant PvP experience under our belts, the exercise proved to me that skill training and ISK weren't the absolute minimum requirement they were thought to be. I firmly believe that all it takes to successfully PvP from the outset is some patient direction from older players and perhaps a little generosity to help you afford some early ship losses. In my experience with introducing new players to EVE, I've always found the EVE community to be more than willing to provide both of these in abundance. I'd say that not only is it possible to try out PvP within the 14-day trial period, it's highly recommended.

In this opinion piece, I explain some key things you can do as a new player to get into PvP right from day one of the EVE free trial.

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EVE Evolved: Getting into PvP from day one originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 26 Sep 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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One Shots: Squish

Krystalle Voecks — Mon, 24 May 2010 14:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, Screenshots, EVE Online, One Shots

Most of the fun of EVE Online, many players might well agree, is never knowing just who or what you're going to run into while flying around in New Eden. With that said, we've never really seen something like this happen before. This Minmatar Rifter -- an inexpensive ship with good speed and firepower -- seems to have attracted a squishy passenger, intent on catching a ride. Thankfully, the EVE Online pilot Shrqansh managed to grab a screenshot of it for us before the situation changed. He explains:

"I dearly love my Rifter and its fancy grillwork, but, just as when barreling down a highway, one's grillwork is likely to catch bugs. Here's a story of two trajectories -- somebody's mining drone and my beloved. I never could shake it out, not until I finally warped out and gave the bug a taste of hyperspace."

If you've spotted something silly in your favorite MMO, why not snap a screenshot of it and send it in? We love to see the odd things going on in games. Email the image to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a description of what we're seeing. Please make sure it's at least 1024 pixels wide and has as few visible UI elements as possible. We'll post it out here for everyone to enjoy and give you the credit for sending it in. Easy!

Gallery: One Shots: Gallery II

One Shots: Squish originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 24 May 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EVE Online blogger provides insight on alliance warfare in Dominion

Brendan Drain — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 15:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Game mechanics, Guilds, Lore, PvP, Endgame, Politics

Alliance warfare has always been a huge part of EVE Online's endgame PvP, with alliances fighting over resources, expanding their borders or just settling age-old political grudges. The Dominion expansion made sweeping changes to alliance warfare and the transition hasn't been easy on all the alliances. Since Dominion went live, it's been difficult to judge just how effective the expansion has been at revitalising territorial warfare or how alliances are using the new system. EVE Blogger Wensley has been involved in the recent war against CVA in Providence region and he's been posting some of the valuable insights he's gleaned on territorial warfare over at his blog Rifter Drifter.

In part 1 of his series "Catch 22" on the most recent parts of the war, he details the reasoning behind CVA's territorial expansion from Providence into the Catch region. In part 2, Wensley describes the details of the actual war so far and provides some useful insights into the mechanics of territorial warfare. He suggests that since alliances now get to choose the rough time their systems are fought over by way of the new reinforcement timers, they should have picked a time zone that would be inconvenient for their enemies. Instead, they had set their reinforcement timer to their enemy's peak play time, allowing them to easily amass huge fleets for the attack. He goes on to blame CVA's poor performance on a lack of preparedness, suggesting that if they had gotten their fleet together and into the threatened system first, any lag occuring when enemy players jump in would have been in their favour. If you're following the war in Providence region or just interested in how territorial warfare is fought now in EVE, Rifter Drifter's on-going Catch 22 series is definitely worth a read.

EVE Online blogger provides insight on alliance warfare in Dominion originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 16 Feb 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EVE Evolved: Making the most of your EVE Online free trial

Brendan Drain — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 09:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Game mechanics, Guides, Previews, Professions, PvP, Tips and tricks, PvE, Hands-on, EVE Evolved

Like many MMOs, EVE Online offers a free trial to let players try the game out before they buy it. While this lets you see if you like the gameplay before committing, the sheer scope of EVE makes it practically impossible to experience everything the game has to offer within the trial period. Additionally, since the learning curve is relatively steep to begin with, it's very easy to become overwhelmed in a short trial period. These factors can make it hard to experience what EVE is really like, meaning it's hard to make an informed decision.

In this guide, I explain how you can maximise your time and fun with the EVE free trial and help make an informed decision on whether it's the game for you.

Continue reading EVE Evolved: Making the most of your EVE Online free trial

EVE Evolved: Making the most of your EVE Online free trial originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 29 Dec 2008 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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One Shots: Weekend ratting

Krystalle Voecks — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 14:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, Screenshots, EVE Online, One Shots

As you may already know, we've been looking for a few good pilots to join our ranks here at Massively. The competition has been extremely tough, but we're almost at the end of the process. (Thank you for those who have been hanging in there!) To relax, some of us have been hanging out in EVE, enjoying many of the different aspects of game-play. Today's One Shot comes from one such (noob) adventure -- mine! This was taken while running a mission in Minmatar space, with a pile of rats bearing down on me, and a mining colony to save. Also: yum, lots of salvage.

Do you have a great screenshot of Corp war, or of something equally exciting sitting in your screenshot folder gathering virtual dust? Why let it languish? Send those screenshots on to us at oneshots@massively.com along with whatever information you'd like to tell us about the scene in the picture. It could be here next. Until then, fly safe!

Gallery: One Shots

One Shots: Weekend ratting originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 22 Mar 2008 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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