Calling

I tried EVE Online about a year ago, and managed to last all of one hour.

You see, I have a dream.  A dream of a wide open space simulation game in which I get to fly awesome spaceships around in any direction doing all manner of things space-related.  I tried Sins of a Solar Empire, but the combat in that game is garbage.  (Also, I always went broke rather quickly and got steam-rolled by my neighbors.)  None of the games on Steam fit the criteria.  So in my desperation, I turned to EVE.

I had heard from the Internet, (the most reliable of sources), that EVE Online was replete with scammers, griefing, spreadsheets, and confusing interfaces that make Microsoft Excel jealous.  However, I had also heard that EVE had spaceships, and an open galaxy to explore, and the ability to fly around and do whatever you want.  So I created a trial account, logged in, and entered the world of New Eden.

And then promptly left the world of New Eden in disgust.

Looking back on it now, I don’t really remember why I hated that scant hour with the game.  I didn’t do much research before playing it, and I had no idea as to how you actually handle the game, so I imagine that hour was largely spent fighting the UI and not understanding how to fly my goddamn internet spaceship.  And since flying goddamn internet spaceships was the whole point, once I realized that the game didn’t seem to want me flying said internet spaceships, I logged off, uninstalled the game, and never looked back.

So now jump to about three weeks ago, when I decided to look back.  Remarkably, it was not the release of Crucible that drew me to the game (although it was VERY fortuitous timing that I came back to the game right as that expansion dropped), but rather my dream, my fervent desire, to fly spaceships.  There still was no other viable alternative, and so, steeling my resolve to brave any interface in order to get to fly my precious internet spaceships, I made a new trial account, downloaded the client through Steam, and logged back into New Eden.

This time, I stuck around.

I suppose I should commend CCP for the latest iteration of the new player experience.  The initial tutorial, followed by the five career agents, worked very well to introduce the many mechanics of the game, as well as suggest possible careers that I could pursue whilst flying my beloved spaceship.  However, following the completion of those career agents, I found myself at a loss as to what to do.  I was already perusing EVE blogs, in an attempt to get a better grasp of the game, and reading about lowsec PVP adventures led me to consider piracy.  But one does not simply waltz into lowsec with a two day old character and start ransoming haulers.  I had to do something while I was training the necessary skills and accumulating the necessary capital.

So I looked up missions, learned of the Sisters of EVE level 1 epic mission arc, and set out to complete it.  I wrapped it up a few days later, richer by a few million ISK, but poorer for the experience.  Mission running is basically just normal MMO questing, but that EVE doesn’t tell you to “kill 10 foozles,” it tells you to “go to this place and kill all the foozles,” with the foozle count ranging somewhere between three and a boatload (for the higher level missions).  This was not what I wanted to do.  I did not brave the 1998 user interface of the game just to fly my internet spaceship around popping foozles and collecting 50,000 ISK rewards!  There must be something more!

After further investigation, I learned that the “something more” was reserved for characters with more skill points.  Incursions, nullsec warfare, piracy, exploration, all of it was for older characters with skill points coming out of their ass and faction fit capital ships.  The only things I could find that were within my capabilities were mission running and low-grade planetary interaction.  Thus educated, and somewhat dejected, I set course for a system with a good corporation for grinding missions and standing (a system that, coincidentally, had a good planet setup for Tier 2 planetary production), plopped down a few planetary command centers, and started popping mission rats.

For three days I was miserable.  My playtime consisted of, “log in, reset planet extractors, do three our four missions, hope one of them was a high quality one that paid out 500,000 ISK, train skills toward bigger ships, log off.”  This was not fun.  This was a fucking job.

But then, just when all hope was lost, and it seemed that there was no fun to be had in EVE for at least the first six months, a miracle happened.  By one way or another, leapfrogging from blog to blog to forum post to Evelopedia entry, I discovered something that would change everything.

Kahega's Ninja Salvaging Guide

From there I discovered the ninja ganking and salvaging blogs, wherein I learned of a whole new way to play the game.  Stealing mission runner loot, creating highsec PVP, suicide ganking, salvaging from high level missions.  Now this sounded like fun.

Within minutes I was in Jita, buying and fitting a Probe and a Vigil.  I brought up the map and searched for the systems with the most pirate kills in the last 24 hours.  I jumped my new ships there, scanned down a Navy Raven, and warped right into Angel Extravaganza.  I made more ISK in one hour than I had made in the last ten days combined.

The next day, I harvested my planets, demolished all my command centers, and left my old mission system never to return.

For now I know what I want to do.  I want to relieve mission runners of their salvage, which they so carelessly leave cluttering up the systems.  Soon, I shall relieve them of their ships as well.

- Sert