EvE Online Stories: A tale of a man who wanted to pay to win

EvE Online is probably the only online universe that gives its players free hand to do literally anything, a real sandbox. The true lore behind EvE is not created in writer's room but instead, it is made by players, the stories of betrayal, espionage, hostile takeovers, and massive heists circulate among the playerbase like urban legends.

Table of contents:

1. EVE Online Stories: The Legend Begins.

2. PLEX to Win.

3. EVE Online Stories - The Awakening.

is eve online pay-to-win?

Ever since PLEX were introduced to the game (a special kind of premium currency) a significant portion of community active on forums have been complaining about EvE becoming a pay-to-win title, where you can just spend lots of money and obliterate those that play the game normally. EvE veterans know how ridiculous such notion is but some capsuleers listen to those voices and take them seriously. One of such unaware pilots, Srydeau Denon, became a living example of exactly why buying wealth in EvE does not replace common sense and experience.

EVE Online Stories: The Legend Begins

Denon joins New Eden on January 8th 2018. He starts as any new player does, runs the tutorial, does a few missions wondering what this game is all about. He has probably read some articles about massive PvP battles in EvE and wanted to be a part of that. The quickest route of getting a gist of PvP in EvE Online is joining the militia and Denon does just that. He joins the Caldari Militia on January 11th. He gets a Condor, fits it with some basic civilian mods, some shield booster he got from tutorials and some T1 launchers. He’s ready to face the real enemy!

With this scrapyard fit he rushes towards Kedama, a low-security system, to finally get a taste of that fabled EvE PVP. Upon reaching the system he gets executed in three seconds to some Exequror Navy.

“If only I could get a better ship,” he thought, completely unaware of how ship and gun sizes work in EvE. Unfortunately for him, bigger ships are barred behind days, if not, months of training. But our brave hero quickly discovers PLEX and Skill Injectors - and thus the legend was born.

PLEX to Win

Upon his first discovery of PLEX brave Srydeau Denon is taking things slow. He buys few PLEX and turns them into Skill Injectors, just enough to get himself a Battleship, way bigger than his lowly Condor. He gets himself a Scorpion Navy Issue but didn’t think to look up any logical fittings online. His build is an expensive dumpster fire, a mix of long-range missile launchers and short range guns, more powerful shield booster, two micro warp drives because why the hell not, cargo scanner, two capacitor boosters and all of that laced with five reactor control units. Our hero didn’t discover rigs yet so he left those slots empty.

Surely, with such a ship he will not be destroyed by some scrub in a navy cruiser. Despite not knowing anything about ship masteries and how skills impact the game and being completely oblivious to ship fitting he still feels that he has made the best investment in his short EvE life. Full of hope he rushes towards closest low-sec. That day it was Maila, a 0.4 system in The Forge. Dies immediately to a carrier.

That loss set him back 635 million ISK. Way more than his civilian Condor. But how did this happen? Unfortunately, EvE won’t give you straight answers so our brave rookie makes a conclusion: I have to go bigger, and what is bigger than battleship? A Dreadnought.

A dreadnought dream

While looking for this massive subcapital, our dauntless pilot does not yet realize the security limitations of flying a sub-capital ship. He doesn’t find that weird that he cannot find one for sale in the biggest trade hub of EvE Online - Jita. He still wants it, he wants to fly a dreadnought and be the biggest baddest pilot in EvE. Problem with dreads is not only their cost but high skill requirements, but this does not discourage Srydeau Denon. He purchases 2000 USD worth of ISK and begins executing his master plan.

The dread knight rises.

After purchasing a bunch of skill injectorsenough to pilot a dread he is ready to buy the hull. Unfortunately closest Phoenix hull is available in Maila a 0.4 system in The Forge. Our hero heads there, buys a Phoenix and attempts to get back to Jita for further fitting. While being stuck on the gate  (he does not yet realize Dreadnoughts cannot enter high-security space) he is being tackled by a familiar carrier from before and destroyed.

Spending 2000$ on the game and still being thrashed by more experienced pilots in cheaper ships must be frustrating. Our hero now starts looking for flaws and cracks in his methods. He finds out DED and officer modules.

As an experienced MMORPG player he knows that purple is better than green. He quickly applies this knowledge into his builds fitting his future ships with the most expensive, “elite” modules believing that it will help him dominate anyone using “white” gear. He looks up gear with the highest dmg output in Jita and slaps it onto his Raven Navy Issue.

This time, however, he looked up some build but still decided to give his Raven his own personal twist with polarized weapons, mix of short and long range weapons and burst jammer. He is finally ready, this 30 billion ISK beast will obliterate anyone that stand in its path. He sets off to low-security system once again, ready to dominate. Halfway there, in 0.5 system of Lituria, he encounters in a simple T2 fitted Vargur and gets obliterated.

Despite the heavy loss, our brave Mastercard Warrior does not give up.

He goes back to Jita and gets himself a Scorpion Navy Issue, but this time around our hero decides to go “pro” and gets all kinds of e-war modules onboard. He was aware that he died to a Minmatar ship so he gets himself Minmatar specific jammer and a multispectrum jammer (just in case), target spectrum breakers, tracking disruptors, sensor dampeners, all purple. With that variety of e-war, there is no way anyone could harm him. He feels ready once again. He quickly returns to Litiura to get his revenge, with so many strong modules there is no way that petty T2 Vargur can even dream of targeting him.

Unfortunately, he failed miserably losing another, 9 billion ISK ship. Upon dropping 7b in loot for the killer Burtakus, our brave pilot quickly got tagged as a “loot pinata” among pirates of EvE. News of a brave newbie, spending tons of money to pimp his fits out despite having absolutely no knowledge of the game, spread quickly.

Our hero returns 2 days later with a new plan and a new fit. He finally realizes that mixing ranges is a bad idea and drops the missiles completely. Spends another bunch of injectors into mastering blasters and finally stops using polarized weapons. He gets himself a Rokh and flies out to test his newly obtained knowledge. Unfortunately, he got caught by Burtakus in Uemisaisan (0.6).

The loss of Rokh made Srydeau realize that missiles were not a problem, his opponent was using a Marauder, a powerful Tech 2 battleship. If only he had marauder of his own fit with officer modules he could obliterate this filthy pirate. He goes back to Jita to buy himself few more skill injectors and a golem.

Once again he goes back to mixing ranges getting three torpedo launchers and one cruise missile launcher, all purple of course. Dropping e-war modules in favor of more DPS and active armor repair modules should make this 40 billion beast unstoppable. Apparently, that was not the case as he fell victim to Burtakus once again in Uemisaisen (0.6).

But losing 40 billion Marauder after spending lots of money on skill injectors did not discourage our dauntless Visa Ninja. Well, maybe a little bit. He gets himself a Scorpion next, fits it as he usually fits his ships - random expensive modules. But this time, instead of jumping straight back into PvP he decides to go for some target practice on 0.5 belt rats. Unfortunately for him, he has already been marked as a loot box so he’s being actively hunted by “locator agents” of Burtakus when news spread that our ISK flexer sits in 0.5 system, Burt went hunting.

New Scorpion of our brave Denon has been fit with e-ward burst jammer. What he did not realize that using this module triggers CONCORD in high sec and thus, the replacement 5 billion scorpion got destroyed by EvE NPC police.

The saga continues, our big spender decides to go for some extra speed with Naga, but a life of a loot pinata ain't easy so he gets destroyed once again by Burt and friends.

Finally, Srydeau decided to avoid the Burtakus’ hunting grounds hoping to be left alone. He bunkers himself in a 0.8 region but his nemesis finds him there as well. Desperate Denon in his new 10 billion Rokh repeats the mistakes of the past and uses ECM burst in a high-security system and once again gets shredded by CONCORD.

EVE Online Stories - The Awakening

By January 29th our Whale of the Year learns a valuable lesson: bigger does not mean better. He goes smaller, investing in multiple Jackdaws, powerful Tech 3 destroyers. He finally stopped mixing ranges but he still could not help himself from fitting his ships with very expensive modules that provide no real advantage. Unfortunately none of his expensive tactical destroyers reached low-sec, each time being intercepted in Litiura.

20 hours later our American Express Juggernaut made it to Akidagi, closest low sec system of Black Rise region. This time in a Harpy…. but not just any Harpy… he has made an assault frigate worth 9 billion isk because he still had an urge to fit it with the most expensive modules possible. Unfortunately he died almost immediately to a 10 million dollar T1 poorly fit Dragoon.

EVE Online Pay to Win - The Saga Continues

Srydeau Denon continues his “P2W” adventures in eve. So far he has lost 3 billion worth Stration, 1 billion worth Astero, he got podded few times with 4 billion worth of implants. Recently he has joined one of the big alliances and managed to lose his first Carrier. Srydeau Denon lives on, being a shining example that you can’t win in EvE just by pumping money in. You can now ask yourself - is EvE pay to win?

All credit of describing the tale of Srydeau Denon goes to:  JakeMiester, Kn1ghtmare, RekkingCrew, Pandemic Legion and Black Legion

This story was based on an article posted on INN