Quote Originally Posted by Squiggoth
Quote Originally Posted by thinus
There is also not much you can be effective at before about 6 months worth of skill training to pick up crucial base skills to make you somewhat effective.
I could not disagree more. This is the fundamental reason why Goons are so powerful in the game. They take people who are interested in the game, train them in the basics, and let them loose. They took down the Titan, not anyone else. They, with their "ineffective" noobs.

They have a propaganda/recruitment poster that says (and I roughly paraphrase here):

We won, because their leader quit, because he was fed up with them being disorganized, because they kept asking where to go, because the next system over was mobbed by us, because their scout died, because you tackled him. Every person counts.

It's like that. As a BRAND NEW character you can at least do basic scouting and tackling and you can make the difference in something as major as a Titan kill.

So yeah, disagree on that. And the whole BPO thing...jeeze, it was a long time ago. The scandal bothered me too but it's a game. I still fight against BoB every day because it's fun. They had an advantage -- so what? I don't give up...psssh.. Anyway. =)
As a tackler you are useless without your gang/fleet backing you up. How long do you spend sitting at gates waiting for scouts? You probably don't even have guns fitted...?

If you are so effective why are you playing WoW while your characters are training?

Don't get me wrong, EVE is a good game. I am not disputing that. I just don't think it is the kind of game you can play unless you commit to it long term or if you have a problem dealing with the backstabbing underbelly encouraged in it. And be prepared to deal with attacks against your corporation forums if you ever go up against some of the other corporations.

And I personally have a problem with developers playing leading roles anonymously. I just don't think it is fair and I don't want to get involved in competition with someone else only to find out at some stage they got an unfair advantage. Especially when it takes you months to accumalate funds for a decent ship. But I suppose if you are flying a cheap T1 fitted frigate for tackling purposes you don't really care if you get blown up.

I enjoyed my time playing EVE but I never had the intention of becoming a cog in a big corporation. I never mined either. I mission ran mostly and now and then helped the corporation out on missions and hauling. My aim was to have a combat pilot and a manufacturer. To have an effective combat pilot or manufacturer takes a very long time.

My most enjoyable time playing was probably in my passive tanked Drake. That was one sweet setup. I got caught by pirates twice and managed to fight them off twice. They were unable to break my tank. I was in a Raven and saving up for a Navy Raven when I quit while my manufacturing alt was almost trained up to fly a freighter.