The title says it all really. This isn't a bragpost or anything I'm just genuinely interested in how I compare to others and whether I could have spent my short time in EVE in a more profitable manner. I think any noobie entering the game could also benefit from this as it'll give him/her an idea of what they can expect, in ISK, from their first EVE career choice.
I'll post my path to a billion as an answer.
Flash Hazardous
[ Editor ]
I was really aimless in my first week as a capsuleer and wasn't sure what I wanted out of EVE or what the profitability of the various career's was. Given that my RL job involves financial markets I naturally gravitated towards EVE's market place. I don't have that much time to invest in EVE on a regular basis and the various forum posts I read seemed to indicate that the market place was a great way to make passive ISK.
During the first weeks I decided my goal out of EVE was to have accounts that paid for themselves and were still able to fund my PVP main.
With this in mind I set up a number of alts in the various trade hubs around EVE. With a 50 million starting donation from a friend I was able to build that up to 1 billion in 3-4 weeks of play. I focused on moving goods quickly from buy-order to buy-order in the various hubs with the help of another 2 alts that I trained in industrials. I'm well on my way to a freighter that should significantly raise my ISK potential too. In terms of time invested I would say it took me about 15-30 minutes a day to keep my buy orders up to date and the odd haul which took about 30-60 minutes once or twice a week.
I think I've been very lucky not to lose anything in this time. I've also had some ridiculously lucky encounters that fattened up my coffers:
So far so good :) with a bit of luck I should be making close to 2-4 billion ISK within the next 2-3 months.
EDIT: Talking about crazy luck... I just met a guy desperate to sell his BPO's... 200+ of them. After doing some crazy number crunching I bought the lot off of him for 280 million when they're worth 600 million at least. EVE doesn't give you luck if it doesn't plan on taking it away in future... I think I'm worried LOL
Matt
[ Editor ]
Well for me it depends.
If you are asking in reference to how long it took to make a billion on the market, or if you are asking how long into playing did it take me to make a billion.
I didn't start playing the market till about a year plus into my eve career. I basically did a tone of missions in this time and then met a few people and went out into 0.0 when soverinty was new and BoB was in full prevelance.
A billion wasn't really a personal objective, more making sure I had sufficient to replace my next loss (Which were huge) I typically had about 350M in my wallet, with no interest in exceeding this balance.
Then one day I decided to buy another account or two to try different things. This is when I started playing the market. I had just been given my own moon by alliance for my contributions to war effort and basically I had my 300M in my wallet and about 2 weeks of Moon Goo to start. Next day I had ~750M, that day I was ratting in and I had an officer spawn and to my delight he dropped 3 mods worth over 2Bill.
However same thing as on the market Money makes money, OP's initial 50M donation probably saved you 2 to 3 weeks of game time. And for me my experiences in PVP/PVE greately shortend my rise in financial wealth.
If I started out playing the market from the word go it would no doubt have taken me months to get there.
In my years in eve I too have been the benefactor of some sweet deals, a numpty who got the wrong number of 0's on a chimera contract leaving me with a fully fitted Chimera for 107M rather than 1.07B springs to mind. On the other side I have also been scammed twice, once costing me 80M isk and another 400M isk both fairly early on in my carrer which hurt, but would of hurt much more if I hadn't had the moon making money for me. so it is swings and round abouts.
This is going to be very different for people in general dependant on certain factors.
Starting Capital, if you have a benefactor or another character feeding you your starting capital
personal Wealth (a few traders I know started the game recently by buying in like you would at a poker table) basically dropping a GTC into their wallet to give them half a bill starting
Time, I rarely spend more than a few hours a week on the market these days, things to do people to kill! I know I could make substanitally more was I not working or could dedicate more time to eve.
Financial inclination, if you have a job in Finance or natural head for figures will give you advantages,
Luck (speaks for itself)
Friends, to help you and show the ropes
Patience, Trading can be infuriating.
Drawing sources, if Market is your sole reason for eve it will be 0, but for most players the market is a means to fuel their PVP or other endeavours.
Attitude to Risk, high risk means more profit, but more chance for loss, a luck person could make a Bill fairly quickly, and unlikely person may never get there. A risk adverse player would get there but may take a long time to do so.
ancalagon
[ Editor ]
I am not sure I can give you an thing like an exact answer to that question as I started with manufacturing and selling so I always had a my ISK tied up in materials, stock and BPOs as well as buy and sell orders. I was also splitting my attention between that and mission running. So was spending both capital and SP's on PvE ships as well as my industrial endeavors. But to put a ball park figure on it, 4 months to make my first billion ISK and 6 months to have adequate income to start paying for my account by PLEX.
I started by running through all the tutorials and as an Amarr character, this took me to a system called Pasha in Tash-Murkon. It was there where I started was with manufacturing basic T1 items that I could sell for a good profit margin (after a while of being a mission runner). As a newbie I had ended up there with no option other than buying what was available in system (as I did not understand how to look further a field). So I reasoned that a lot of other newbies would be in a similar position.
Items like small frequency crystals, small laser based weapons and armor mods where good little earners ie all the basic equipment an Amarrian newbie was likely to buy.
It did not take me long to out grow this location and look for better markets selling more expensive items but my trading in Pasha taught me loads and started to bring in an income.
I should add that I had no great lucky breaks that threw 100's of millions ISK my way. I did have a couple of friends donate me some money but the first load paid for my learning skills and the second paid for my first cruiser and fittings. So I never got a bump to my manufacturing capital and had to grind it up all the way.
grumni falcon
I made my first Billion running mexallon from Solitude to Empire thru Syndicate space in a defenseless hauler. Lost 56 haulers I think but I made my billion and got a freighter. Seems like a long time ago.
gd_14
I never got 1 billion ISK in my wallet, but my working capital easily exceeds 1 bil. It's my answer to both of your questions.
desktop oblivion
I bought the first billion from the chinese, same for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th... Delivery usually takes about 15-30 minutes. Never got caught.
While incredibly entertaining, this isn’t the sort of of question that people can get right or wrong.
What do you recommend that I should do then Serp? If someone else is willing to vote up the question one more time I’ll delete to get my “Disciplined” badge :)
Lol how do I delete this question? It says question cannot be deleted, too many existing answers… Maybe one of the moderators can do it?