Played Eve for a few hours today. The tutorial is definitely *not* optional for a newbie, unless you have someone IRL to guide you. It's a lengthy tutorial. The first introduction will take about an hour and the first training mission can take 30-60 minutes. Not that I timed it. So you should figure on maybe 3-4 hour-long sessions at the start.

As I login right now, there are 29,700 accounts active (early this morning it was only ~16,000). However, a bit over 2000 of those are trial accounts! I'd been toying with the idea of doing the download and checking it out for a few months; and it was just mentioned again on Slashdot.

One thing to get used to is the *scale* of the local star cluster. This is a geek's sci-fi dream in a way. There are over *5000* star systems and the map accurately displays them as laid out in 3D, with complex configurations of jump station routes. The scale of solar system objects seems to also be accurate, but with the "warp" drive all action happens in / around local hot spots of activity. You're never more then a 30-60 second warp drive away from any point in a solar system and jumps between systems are also under a minute.

Of course, if you're going someplace 20 systems away... all those jumps and warps eat up time. But there's a good autopilot system along with a smart waypoint and routing system. As long as you stick to high security systems, you *shouldn't* run into issues.

But as they constantly say... never set out in a ship that you can't afford to lose. Eve Online is wide open PVP and other then being docked in a station, there are no guarantees. Even if you're in a high security system the empire police ships may arrive too late.

Off to read some more reviews and maybe finish the tutorial. Then I need to figure out what I want to get done during the next 13 days.