Character Creation

When it comes to character creation in EVE Online, there are ample opportunities to customize the look of your avatar. There are four races to choose from, each subdivided into three bloodlines, that are further subdivided into three different lineages and there is a unique background story for each of the choices at every turn of the character creation process. The look of each character can be morphed to your liking, although it is somewhat constrained to the overall look of the bloodline. Nevertheless, there are a lot of customization options to make your character look just the way you want to.

Keep in mind that once the character is created, you will not be able to change the character's name. It is possible to change the look of you character, but CCP charges a fee for that service and you will be limited to the same race and bloodline. If you are not satisfied with something, you will have to create a new character.

However, one thing to note is that you won't be seeing your character in game unless it is through the character information sheet. As much as a visual look and the background story of the character are important, the overall race/bloodline/lineage combination affects the character's attributes which have a direct impact on how fast you can train certain skills.

In EVE Online, you are never limited in what you can do in game with a particular character, but you may experience much longer skill training times. For example, it will take you longer to learn business skills with a character that is more suited for combat.

When you're first starting out, you may not know which aspect of EVE you like better or what you will ultimately end up doing in New Eden. For your first time, I would recommend selecting a very balanced character that would let you be the jack of all trades so that you could sample every gameplay aspect there is before focusing on something particular. Akita T wrote an excellent guide on new character creation. The article ranks different races and bloodlines according to versatility.

You should also read up on the background stories and look at the ships that each race manufactures to find out what you like more. Although any character can fly any ship in the game, you have to devote additional time to train ship command skills in order to fly the ships that are not of your race.

If you are more or less certain what you would like to do in game, then you can use third party tools such as EVEMon. There you can select which skills you want to train and the software will tell you the most suitable character you can pick.