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EVE Evolved: Getting into your first PvP frigate
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.
EVE Evolved: Getting into PvP from day one
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.
The Swinger hacks any song to... swing
Here's an amazing little bit of code which hacker (and alumnus of MIT's Hyperinstruments Group) Tristan Jehan put together at the recent Music Hack Day in San Francisco. The premise of the Python program is simple: take any song and make it swing. The code accomplishes this task by taking each measure and time-stretching the first half of each beat while time-shrinking the second half. Then blammo -- it swings. Honestly, it's best you just listen to the results yourself... you'll never hear "Enter Sandman" the same way again. Check out a few examples after the break.
EVE Evolved: Making the most of your EVE Online free trial
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/EVE_Evolved_Making_the_most_of_your_EVE_Online_free_trial'; 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.
