There are a lot more missions these days, although they still get boring after awhile. And yeah, the whole standings system with factions, corps and agents doesn't make a whole lot of sense at first. The fact that there seems to be no in game method of finding out which agents for which corps are where also sucks. Thankfully there are out of game tools for that but there really shouldn't need to be.



Meh, maybe right when you start out but most people don't jump into pvp that fast. Doing cheap pvp in T1 frigates or cruisers is easily sustainable by a few week old player running lvl 4 missions in a battleship (also not difficult to achieve). You certainly don't need a corp, although if you plan to do solo or small gang roaming in lowsec space you have to be prepared to be blobbed by a larger fleet. It's just a chance you take. But yeah, a corp (whilst desirable) really isn't necessary.

Saying that, however... the point of EVE really is to join a player corp, make friends and get out there and do stuff together. If you're (collective rather than personal useage here) planning on staying in the npc starter corp for your entire EVE career I'd have to question the wisdom of playing the game.



Okay, this I do take issue with. It may well have been like that when you were playing (I have no idea when you tried the game out) but that certainly isn't the case now. There's plenty that you can do solo; right from mining and mission running to scanning down exploration sites and running them, venturing into wormholes to take on the sleepers and exploit their resources and roaming pvp down in lowsec or 0.0 space. And that does even take into account the people who play the market and manipulate the economy. Or the scammers and corp thieves. Or the pirates, especially the high sec ones who mostly operate solo flipping cans, ninja salvaging, etc. There's a lot that you can do solo in EVE.

But the game has WAY too steep a learning curve.