Editor Introduction:

EVE University is a diverse community in itself, with many players from many places, playing across the entire spectrum of the 24 hour timezones. It is sometimes very easy to have your opinion drowned out by the others around you, but with this series of articles, Student Perspective, we will be looking at getting the view of individual Unistas, their thoughts and trepidations. Fears and goals. And front and foremost getting to know them a little better.

Opinions in this section are not edited, and it can be assured that EVE University management take all suggestions and ideas into consideration when revising various policies.

– Zeroniss

About The Author

Athanor Ruthoern

Athanor Ruthoern is a current EVE University student and a staff member of the Personnel Department. She is part of the healthily growing female player base in EVE Online. Today she offers us her perspective on the daunting challenges a new University member faces.

Choosing E-UNI

As many others I, was given the recommendation to join EVE University, but at that time I had already been invited to join a private help channel and was offered a spot in another corporation. I wanted to take the right choice from the beginning so I spent some time on studying the game, EVE, EVE Uni and a few other corporations before I decided what I wanted to do. So I joined E-uni public chat to get to know EVE Uni better and I was a little appalled over the attitude in the channel.

Non EVE Uni members where using it as their private chat channel and people where generally unfriendly and unhelpful so it was hard to get qualified help in all the spam. Yes I have seen worse but I was really not expecting this from a Corporation which took itself as the webpage expressed.

But after considering my options I decided EVE Uni would be my best option to learn, meet new people and be the base from where the rest of EVE would be opened for me, therefore I decided I wanted to join.

Applying to E-UNI

Now that I had decided to join EVE University, I took some more time reading up on the webpage. Even though I had already read articles, rules and information about joining, it still felt like a massive amount to read up on. The application form was okay,  besides having to give a resume of the rules which was a little boring. I did not understand allot of the special rules about engagement and war and had to read up and ask in E-Uni chat about it. At one point I just got tired of it and added it to summary, noting to return as needed or when I understood more of the game.

Like many others queuing up I was impatient to get my interview done and get in. When I finally got my interview it was three questions – two of them which I also had answered in my application form. So that was a bit frustrating. Then I had to wait 1-2 days for the war to be over as I had chosen to wait for it to end. I spent that time reading up on the Welcome to EVE University page.

Expectations

My expectations for the EVE Uni membership was a friendly, mature, knowledgeable, helpful player base. I expected the Corp to be organized and built up around helping, teaching, and meeting new players. For the staff a place to have fun and socialize.

The First Week

This game in itself is overwhelming, which is one reason why joining a corporation like EVE University would be a good idea.  Alas, in my first week in the Uni the Uni added to this burden, with all the extra things to set up and read.

So still soaking wet and new in the Uni I had a ton of questions to ask. I had my first meeting with ‘chat.e-uni’ –  the channel was bustling with activity. In the channel people are chatting about everything and having fun. The only problem with such a channel is it is not easy to find the right help. If you ask a question you will get a short answer, which might not be the whole answer you are looking for. So if you trying to understand how game mechanics work, this is not the place for it. Trying to ask further about a given subject is easily lost in the chatter. Sometimes your questions can be lost altogether or meet with cheeky replies; people might just try to have fun but it can be quite frustrating in the long run.

Joining up on Mumble one of the first things which I meet is the ‘OMG a girl effect’. Yes I am a girl and I do not care – I just want to play the game. But people on Mumble are very friendly and helpful.  I went out with some older members on their level 4 mission – you can easily get into a mission group if you wish to. This way you get to know some EVE Uni members, learn about the game, and gain a good portion of ISK. I read up some more about EVE University and the game in general.

First Month

So I found myself spending more time on Mumble, learning more about the people and the University. I quickly learned what a massive organization it is and how much work people like Kelduum Revaan and others puts into running this place. The public channel is also full of people like Seamus Donohue, who loves teaching people and helping them out. Now I wanted to learn everything about EVE at the same time which resulted in me getting an overflow of information. E-Uni does not help you narrow down what you want to learn first so I had to do that myself. By this I meant choosing subject and then the Wiki has a lot of pages you can go and read/stream classes but no guidelines to where to begin or not to begin, but I hear that the Mentor program is a good place to start for initial tips. If you ask for help in mumble or chat you might get linked to a wiki page, but in order to understand the info on that page you have to read 2 other wiki pages.

When I first joined there was barely any classes in European day/evening – most classes was when I was asleep and if there was one it was a class on too high a level for me to understand. But after two weeks a greater amount of classes were offered. Like in real life teachers are different and it is a personal matter whom you learn best from.  Personally I found that some teachers speak too quickly, I couldn’t comprehend every word. The teacher moved on so quickly that I could not understand the meaning as a whole. Added to this being new in EVE means you’re not familiar with all the expressions and terms used, putting you behind if the teacher is not aware of it. Class difficulty should of course also be taken into account. But I did not find the class difficulty listed on the wiki very helpful as I had drone 101 with difficulty 1 I did not understand all of while I had no problem with classes with higher rating. It would be very helpful if it was listed what knowledge prerequisite was needed for each class and where to find it or if the teacher said so before each individual class. But the classes are very helpful and a good way to learn more.

Getting to know new corp members can be a little hard as there always so many online talking in any given channel and I play at different times during the day so no set playing schedule. If I did some more group missioning I am sure I will get to know some more people better.  I have been doing some fleets and I am slowly starting to see some familiar faces.

As opposed to many others I find the uni PVP fleets a bit dull. But the more responsibility I get the more fun it is for me. I needing a little more in my hands to keep myself busy and some high risk helps cheer things up. Sitting around in a fleet with 30 other Unistas waiting and taking orders like a zombie is not me. But the fleets are very newbie friendly and anybody who set up their overview to Uni standards and read the Rookie’s Guide to Fleet Ops will have no problem taking part and I heard plenty who finds every second of it really exciting. Personally I am not discouraged yet from PVP – I just need to find my niche in it.

Summing It Up

So does the Uni live up to my expectations now that I’ve been here a little longer? Yes it does. I could not imagine how much work was put into organizing this Corporation. People are very nice and helpful besides a few in the chat channels. There is a lot of knowledge although some of it could be distributed better. The application process is a little overwhelming. The responsibility for learning and getting friends is on your own shoulders but people here are willing to help you. It is defiantly worth getting into EVE University for new EVE players.