Everyday Eve

So I was off out into New Eden. Where was the best place to start? I thought I might as well go back to low sec. I still had a small bounty on my head because of that over excited ‘podding’ all of those years ago. I headed back through Ammamake in my ‘Susan Black’s Thrasher’. I had that rush that you get when you anticipate a gate camp. But when I landed it was quiet. Eerily quiet. I had not really seen it this quiet before. After this I zipped about in low sec for about half an hour. Still not sure exactly how everything worked but growing back into the game. I noticed a lot of Tribal Liberation around.

“Good Factional Warfare is still going strong.”

It dawned on me the best way forward was to go back to Rens and sign up. I zipped back through low sec into Rens and re-joined the TLF. This brought me back into several chat channels all flashing from time to time with various stuff. OK this is good I have interaction again. For the first time in years I had other players to interact with. A few hours alter and I was back to figuring out how the faction warfare was running. Amarr were pushing hard at the moment and there was plenty to do.

I spent time looking at the fit I had setup 9 years previously. It seemed to work OK and so well. ‘What the hell. What could possibly go wrong right?”

The fit is as follows:

[Thrasher, Moriarity Kanenald’s Thrasher]
Gyrostabilizer II
Reactor Control Unit II

5MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive
J5 Enduring Warp Disruptor
Medium Shield Extender II

250mm Light Artillery Cannon II,Republic Fleet EMP S
250mm Light Artillery Cannon II,Republic Fleet EMP S
250mm Light Artillery Cannon II,Republic Fleet EMP S
250mm Light Artillery Cannon II,Republic Fleet EMP S
250mm Light Artillery Cannon II,Republic Fleet EMP S
250mm Light Artillery Cannon II,Republic Fleet EMP S
250mm Light Artillery Cannon II,Republic Fleet EMP S

Small Auxiliary Thrusters I
Small Core Defense Field Extender I
Small EM Shield Reinforcer I

It had served me well in the final days of my previous stint in eve so it was a case of ‘hey ho!’ I headed back to low sec. The whole thing so unfamiliar to me. Warping through system after system. Then I remembered about plexes and that is where the action might be. It took me around 30mins to locate the directional scanner and another 15 to get it working. I went into Floseswin warped to the Small Outpost and as I was sitting on the gate a Worm landed. Within seconds I was tangled up in the gate, trying to align out, no stuck on the gate quite literally rolling along voer the top of it like some sort of lost slug. By now my shields had gone and I was deep into armour I started to load some ammo and boom! Gone.

“GF” in Local.

“Yeah, right.”

I was right back into eve and as it had been doing previously it was handing me a new one!

https://zkillboard.com/kill/92667842/

I only wish I could have fired back at least! I was going to need a bit of support to relearn the game – otherwise this wasn’t going to go so well!

Coming back to Eve has been a good decision. The game has evolved to the point where it is now a pleasure to play. Gone are all of the old gripes I had about the game and there have been a host of developments that really just make this such a nice game to play for new people.

The first thing I noticed when logging in was this mad busy ‘The Agency’ Screen listing a whole range of things to do from Agents and Missions, Encounters (New!), Exploration, Resource harvesting, Fleet up and a help section (this virtually did not exist before). Its got stuff I knew about and a load of new stuff I knew absolutely nothing about. Immediately it was just a sense that things were so much better than before.

You click on the encounters section and ping there is sitting in front of you a whole range of things to do. The Encounters tab opens to Show the various kinds of agents and encounters you might want to do. Click on Mission agents and you are taken to a really straight forward screen where all of the types of mission are sitting waiting to be completed (Security, Distribution, Mining, R&D and Locator Agents).

Encounters Opens up a new window that includes the Stargate Trailblazers, Incursions, Faction Warfare, Pirate Strongholds and Abyssal Deadspace. I had no idea what half of these were. Mori was sitting in Rens in a Thrasher along with his negative sec status. I couldn’t remember what that meant. I could not locate how to fit the ship and I had no idea what stuff was worth anymore! But it felt good to be back. The last nine years I have tinkered with a few MMO’s but mostly just played solo offline games. All of which has been great – but I have really missed the interaction that comes with a great MMO and Eve Online is a truly great MMO.

Sure I have kept up with the history. I knew there had been a few great wars along with the game hitting global news from time to time over the last nine years. I had missed it and it was good to be back – even if I had no idea how anything worked anymore. The first thing I did was undock to have a look around. Rens was how I had remembered it. Busy with ships coming and going. The usual local spam but for stuff that made no sense to me anymore. My “Susan Black’s Thrasher” drifted along for a bit. I got excited but stuck “How do I fly this thing?”

I double clicked. OK good the ship responded. Flew around the station and then OK how to I go to a gate? I docked up, looked on YouTube and before I knew it I was able to hit the gate jump through and poof I was gone. Back into New Eden.

Sorry its been such a long time away from the game that I barely recognise this blog and the character it is about. Have played so many games that I have forgotten about Eve and yet always missed the game, the pathos, the sounds and the general aura of it all. If I am being honest at the time of writing this blog I had recently lost a very close work friend. I was sad and very very lonely in my working life. The game gave me some space to do something else.

I also think the other character was a bit of a waste of time – too little focus on what I liked about the game and too much in the way of distractions. Once you have to spend so much time servicing a game it starts to feel like work and really this is not what I wanted to do with my time. It’s a game right?

Then came the book. It all started shortly after this ended and I lost my time, I have literally been swamped by work and of course I have a family that all needs support. But 9 years is a very long time away. If I am honest I cannot really explain why this took so long. But I have plexed up and re-subscribed. I have flown into low sec again, shot a few rats and become familiar with the old names Abudban, Rens, Dodixie. More later!