I only know that you should be able to pay the monthly fee using your in game earnings completely, if you learn how to. Find a corporation (guild) that will have someone show you how to do this and play properly; it's a bad idea to try and figure it out for yourself.

just have fun with it. read the forums alot and ask questions in the help and rookie channel.

but it wasnt fun for me until I found pvp and fleet battles with 1000+people. great mmo ... still playing it

Oh and I also wanted to say that its not really hard, but everything is complicated ... more than its needs to be.
But once you got it it makes click and you are 'ahhh wasnt that hard'

Its kinda unique game. You cant compare it to other mmo. One server for all. User based ecconomics and so on.

Also its a sandbox > you can do more or less what you want and dont have a 'goal' which other mmo companies sets for you.
But here lies the problem. You will get overwhelmed and most people wont make it through the trail. But if you stick with it you will get rewarded.

Look for a good corp to join which explains it to beginners and it will get much easier.
Search for a short and longterm goal to keep you motivated. Like earning enough ingame money so that you can buy one month of gametime with ingame money (around 500million isk), without using your own money may one.

Also skill system is based on realtime. You will skill up after a specific amount of time not after grinding. And it skills even if you are offline. So you cant powerlevel or get faster to something. It will take time.

not really hard. there are extra channels where people are looking for corps or even a channel if you want to join a corp.

you can either read in the channel where corps are looking for other players or you can activly post in the channel to get in a one that fits you. (dont know the channel names, but you can find them if you click on the chatbubble > join or so)

edit: you can find it under 'corporate' > 'english recruitment' or join the channel recruitment (for english speaking people)

Oh and do the tutorials ... they arent that bad and explains many things.
Back in the old days there wasnt a tutorial or it was so bad I cant really remember.

You can expect the same thing you'd expect trying to effectively manage the economy of a small country from what I've heard.

i can't help but let us know what you think when you have played a bit

I hope he and the other beginners stay so that we will see eve for many years :)
but my guess ... he wont survive the free month ... most dont :(

good luck,haha it might be to much for a stoner but at least it will look good

yes its looks pretty nice ... for a game thats from 2003 :)