EVE Online

[Kesnit]

I have been intentionally avoiding this game for over a decade. Then a friend started playing and sent me a friend code to try it out. So I read up on some wikis, installed the game and played around for a few hours. It isn't a game I would want to subscribe to, but it could be something I wouldn't mind playing every once in a while. Which leads to my questions...

I am NOT a fan of PvP. (This is the major reason I avoided EVE.) However, I found a PvE play style I think I might enjoy - exploration and maybe mining/other resource gathering. According to the wiki, that's an option, but is it really? The game has been out since 2003. Are there really any placed to explore and gather from? It seems to me everywhere would be either tapped out or being processed by someone who has been doing this a long while.

[DeTess]

Okay, so 'exploration' as a career isn't really about going where no one has gone before (unless you go to the wormholes, and even then there probably have been a couple of other people there first). Rather it's a playstyle focussed on PvE activities in sites that continually spawn and despawn that need to be tracked down before you can reach them using the various scanning mechanics. I suggest just googling some youtube video's to get an idea of what it's like. It's what I've done for most of my time in Eve.

Wormhole content could be the closest to going into the unknown, but they really require you to know what you're doing and will likely involve at least some PvP (even if only of the 'avoiding the other guy' variety).

Mining can be a career. The mining belts are refreshed daily or weekly (don't quite remember which), so there's always resources, though the most valuable stuff is in low-security space, and people there tend to like blowing up defenseless miners. I personally found mining to be incredibly boring (though enough people do it that that's probably just my opinion). The only time I've dabbled in mining was as part of a corp operation where there was a focus on just socially hanging out while pressing a button every five minutes, or AFK while studying.

What I recommend you do is find a friendly corporation that's willing to take you in and show you the ropes. If Eve university or brave newbies are still a thing, they can probably help you out.

[Blackhawk748]

Just gonna mirror what the above poster said. Mining is very lucrative and there are literally hundreds of belts that no one bothers to claim. When I used to play I made pretty good money alongside a friend selling basic minerals to smallish Corps who just needed craploads of basic stuff and had the money to throw at me.

Bought my first Battleship that way.

[Erloas]

I enjoyed the PvE fighting (Rating), even if I didn't delve as far into it as many (too much grinding and high risk of loss). I also did a lot of other PvE related stuff (mining, moon colonies, a little scanning) and it was all pretty good, but it all takes a long time and I felt I really just didn't have the time to really devote to it and "making a pile of ISK" wasn't a driving factor for me.

The main thing is that having a good corp makes a huge difference, both in terms of what you can do but also in how quickly you can make money and advance. A null-sec corp doing a mining operation with 5-6 people can make more in a few hours than a solo miner in high-sec over a week. You can make enough to get into any non-capital ship either way. Mission running can be lucrative too but some can be very hard and the biggest issue is that almost all the good mission agents are in low-sec space. In most situations low-sec is significantly more dangerous in terms of PvP than null-sec (so long as the null-sec in question is part of your alliance).

It has been long enough since I played that I don't know how the free-to-play limitations compare to subs, but for mining and industry in general you almost had to have a subscription (or make enough to PLEX -in-game purchasable sub for ISK) because all the ships that make mining worth doing are not available (mostly due to botting).

Even not being big on PvP, I still found the game best when joining a strong null-sec alliance, but you've probably got a few months of figuring out the game and mechanics before that is even an option. Most corps and players are walking a tight line between being helpful and recruiting players and being hyper vigilant about spies. So a brand new character can expect some suspicion.