When does it get fun?
and I mean FUN.
I've been looking for a slower game, just something I could enjoy and dominate, and EVE seems to fit the ticket... but the tutorial scares me away.
How much do I have to endure?
It's up to you, Eve can be pretty frustrating when you work up to more powerful and expensive ships, and then you go exploring in low security space and you get ambushed and destroyed. On the other hand you can have fun upgrading and tweaking out the smaller ships and then go and do npc missions, or get hired protecting mining ships, or join a clan etc...
It can be tough earning isk, but what I did was buy popular goods on the market for as cheap as I could, then resell them for as much as I could, trick was keeping your buy and sell orders on top of everyone elses. Got about 120 million isk in about a month, prolly not that great compared to a lot of players but it was pretty good for me.
Anyway I don't play anymore, too expensive and takes too much time, but you can put your account on hold and come back to it after a few months if you want, I've played a total of about 6 months, on and off over a few years...