So, I've been in EVE for about 45 days now. Which is about the point where you can say that I don't feel like a complete rookie / newbie anymore. EVE is very much a write-your-own-story kind of MMO. While there are some pre-built goals, it's mostly up to you to decide which goals you want to accomplish. You can carebear away in high-sec space, running missions and accumulating ISK. Or you can train up PvP skills and work your way into a 0.0 corp. Or become a player pirate and prey on other players. Or hunt the pirates.

Now, the thing to remember about EVE is that there isn't a level-grind. Instead, you have a time-based training system that opens up additional possibilities, but which can't be sped up through power leveling. (But there are ways to speed up your learning rate.) This is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that you don't have to be logged in to advance. The downside is that you need to be prepared for long-term training goals that take months to achieve.

For instance. At 45 days, I'm just getting to the point where I'm comfortable flying combat cruisers. That's the 4th ship size in the progression (Rookie Ship - Frigate - Destroyer - Cruiser - Battlecruiser - Battleship). It would've gone faster had I chosen a combat specialization during character creation, but instead I chose more of a mining/industrial background. Which isn't a bad thing, as it lets me do a decent job mining using a cruiser in addition to using cruisers for combat.

Now for the caveat. Comfortable does not mean that I'm fully up to speed with combat skills which would make things easier for flying my cruiser in PvE missions. In order to get to that point, I need to train up combat skills for another 45-60 days. And even then, it would probably take 90-180 days to become fully proficient in my chosen combat skills. But on the flip side, those combat skills (such as railgun / missile / drone skills) carry over into other ship types. So it's more of a long-term investment then skill points down a hole.

Some examples:

90-120 days for me to get into a mining barge (along with support skills where I can give bonuses to other players).

90-120 days to become an Electronic Warfare specialist. Which would put me into a support role during fleet ops where I use ECM to block the other side's targeting sensors.

30 days to finish training all of my basic and advanced learning skills up to Level IV. Which will shave weeks / months off of my long-term training times over a 2 year period.

520 days to become a carrier pilot with decent skills. Using implants that boost basic attributes by 4 points each, this time can be shaved down to 415 days. I could fly a carrier after only 200-300 days, but it wouldn't be as effective.

750 days - The size of my current "wish list" plan. Which is the list of all of the skills that I'd like to know learn. Again, with a head full of +4 implants, that time gets chopped down to 600 days. But that head full of +4s would cost me around 200 million ISK. Which is about 100 hours of work for such a young player. Later on, when I'm running L3 missions, that will only be around 15-25 hours of work.

Of course, I'll get distracted along the way, so a lot of these goals will take longer. But that's why I buy my game time in 6 or 12 month chunks.