Ok so now I have had time to get back to the game my next steps are to continue to search for a home but at the same time to plan the future of my character.  This is a roleplaying game and whilst there is no need to become a frothing roleplayer that only ever talks in character in some respects I do need to think a bit more about Moriarity, his background and his motivations.

I have had some time to listen to the different characters I have met so far, including the really helpful comments I have had through this blog.  Having quite a bit of experience of other games I have not been surprised to discover that there are different play styles in this game.  There are those that like to grief, those that like to scam, those that like to solo pvp, or those who like to do small gang pvp. There are those that like to collect ISK by either running missions, or by trading/mining, piracy (which I have to admit sounds like an interesting profession). Finally, there are those who have been in touch telling me that nullsec is where the real game is at.  In many ways the styles in Eve are no different to most other games.  But then why play Eve if I only end up doing what I have done other games?

In many respects Eve seems to present specific problems for some playstyles. Take solo PvP. Ava Starfire runs a Wolf, that ship costs 25million ISK then add the costs of the modules. I have around 7 million ISK right now and that has been ground out of the game running rather boring level 1 missions.  Now I could immediately go for Level 4 missions or Incursions (whatever they are) and then grind those when I am not PvPing to replace my losses.  But why would I want to do that?  It would be like I was working to enjoy my PvP and it strikes me as tedious in the extreme having to replace a ship every time I lose it. I can play other games such as Dark Age of Camelot where I don’t have to do that in order to PvP.

All of this said however the prospect of losing your gear in PvP is something Eve has over other games it is one of the things that brought me to the game and is something I have not encountered before.  It is just I cannot imagine that the best way to play is to reduce everything to sessions of PvP and sessions of PvE.  The key question is to what extent I can develop a more integrated approach and find out where that approach might be best served?

Ok so what elements of an integrated play style might I want to put together?

Exploration

I have had some time to look through the guidelines on Exploration and whilst I would still like to follow this path I am not convinced it is going to provide me with all the entertainment I would want.  Apart from scanning down different complexes and completing them its not clear just how much this will keep me interested in the long run.  But I would still like to be able to do complexes because they seem to rely on skills I can use elsewhere – and in the process of doing them I might brush up against some PvP by chance especially if the complexes happen to be in low sec.

The Market

I don’t think any player can ignore the market in an anarchistic capitalist game and Eve has what can only be described as the most impressive player built economy I have ever seen.  I do think that doing something within the economy would provide me with another element to Moriarity.  I have not had time as yet to figure out just what but I will be exploring this as an option in the near future. Another argument in favour of this is that by operating the market I can have Moriarity’s presence and therefore earning potential persist when I am offline.  I might even find profits follow!  This is something I have done in other games and the potential for this in Eve is enormous. So the next stage of my efforts will be to research this a bit more in the near future.

Backstory

As I said above I am no raving role playing lunatic but I do think that in a role playing game you can enhance your experience by actually doing some role playing. By paying some attention to Moriarity’s background and story I am pretty sure I can tie together the various aspects of his activities to provide him with a story that can produce that ‘sandbox’ effect.   It will also give me a chance to get involved with  some of the role playing parts of the community should I decide to do so.

The Player Base

The most obvious source of entertainment and the one that has proved most interesting so far is definitely the player base.  I have enjoyed interacting with people seeking new recruits.  I have also loved discovering the blogs and watching #tweetfleet and #blogaday on twitter. All of this enhances my game.  So I would like to continue to develop these links but perhaps eventually see if it is possible to reduce my NPC interactions to the point where I can live and survive in Eve of my own accord. I hope to be able to achieve this without having to be propped up by the NPC’s by working with other players and the general resources in the game.

Summary 

So having managed to get myself up and running, and having had a few accidents along the way the time has come to piece together my gaming experience.  Let all things sandboxy begin!