someproteinguy wrote:
How easy is it to earn your subscription fee through in-game trading and stuff?
You need to train up some skills that you probably won't be able to get while on the trial, so you would likely have to pay for the first couple of months. Not sure what the PLEX (in-game game time token) are going for right now, but they were around 500-700 million ISK back in the days. I've heard of Explorers who make 100 million ISK an hour by running exploration sites. Trading can turn a pretty big profit, but you need capital to get into it, otherwise the ISK/hour will be horrible due to ship size, cargo size, travel distance, etc.
Personally, I just mine a lot. The basic ore, Veldspar (equivalent to Copper Ore from WoW), is selling for a truckload these days because of the new expansion cycle (they release a new expansion every 6 weeks now) pumping new ships and stuff into the game. Last I played, Veldspar was one of the most profitable ore types in the game, and you can mine that almost the second you enter the game (tutorial will give you basic ships, modules, etc.).
Edit: While the tutorials have been improved to help the average player, the following developer quote still sums up the game's learning curve quite well:
CCP Soundwave wrote:
Welcome to EVE, here’s a Rubik’s Cube. Now go **** yourself.
Edited, Nov 26th 2014 11:19pm by Mazra