Chatting with Newbies

There's been a huge influx of newbs into EVE following the release of the amazing new EVE trailer.  I've always wanted to give a little back to the community, and this seems like a good time for it.

So I spent a night doing nothing in EVE except talking.  I logged in, entered newbie chat, and answered questions solidly for three hours.  It's a surprisingly fun activity.  I start to get competitive with the other oldsters, seeing how fast I can type out a good answer that does not assume much knowledge.  Trying to pick up on questions that did not get answered.

There are a lot of newbies getting stuck in the training missions at one point or another.  Mostly, the volunteers in the channel talked them through all sorts of weird conditions that we'd never think of.  Like, the guy who had a blueprint in his hold and could not get it to work.  Lots of questions of "where are the asteroids?"  (Apparently they'd been mined out in the newb systems.)  Most of the questions about the missions I did not even try to answer, since I just don't know.  I should create a trial and see how those missions work these days.

It was other questions that I was able to help with.  All sorts of questions about EVE; things we take for granted.  How do you fly in space?  Can I move my ships sideways?  Can I move all my ships to a different station without flying back and forth?  How do you quit out of the game?  How do I get item X?  (The market is apparently a novel thing.)  Can I earn enough to buy a PLEX in 14 days?

Then there were some harder ones.  I finished the training missions; what do I do now?  What's a good corp to join?  How do I make ISK?  (That's a tough one.  Do I tell a newb to... mine??)

One guy in particular I remember.  He PMed me, then gradually worked out for himself (with me supplying answers), that he wanted to PVP and did not want to earn ISK in game, but could do it by PLEXing.  And that he could buy a character... he thought this was a bit pay-to-win, and it is at least pay-to-get-ahead... but as I told him, character skill is useful but player skill is what is most important.  You can't buy that.