6 more days till I've been playing Eve for 8 months.
It's crazy to think that it's actually been that long already. I think I initially started this blog (my first one ever), with the purpose to hopefully share my newbie experiences with anyone else that may be new so they could learn from my mistakes and hopefully make the transition easier from a mistake ridden noob that is ready to rage quit, to a stable pilot that isn't completely lost and is able to be a productive member of New Eden.
I still hope that my posts add value to capsuleers out there, but I think I write these post more for me now than for anyone else. I'm thirty-four years old and for most of my life I've been an outgoing extrovert that thrives on social activity and being the center of attention. Over the course of the last five to six years I have transitioned to be more reserved and much more selective with the people I choose to share my life with. I think some people call this "growing up". The bi-product of all this is that I've spent years pushing out all the superficial friendships I have in my life, leaving me with only specific people around that I value. The result is also that I am becoming more and more introverted, which isn't a bad thing.
These are some very common misconceptions about introverts that I'd like to make sure I point out before you start drawing your own conclusions about what that means. I used to associate introvert to a negative personality trait but I no longer see it that way.
Why am I rambling about all these things on a Eve Blog? Well, I'm glad you asked.
Eve is full of every personality you can possibly imagine. You will find every nationality, stereotype, and social class in the vast number of solar systems across Eve. Eve is more than just a video game for me, it fills a gap I have in my real life with the social interaction it provides. I have no problem making friends in real life and have plenty that I spend my weekends with when time permits, but most of my friends don't have kids and all they do is party like there is no tomorrow on a daily basis. In the end, Eve is still a game and I will shut it off in an instant if something in real life gets in the way.
I wake up around 5:00 am every day, get ready for work, help my son get ready for school, have breakfast and I'm out the door by 6:30. I get off work around 4:00 pm, pick up my son, head home by 5:00 pm (traffic sucks), help the wife make dinner, help the son with homework, watch a little TV and at 8:00 pm my son goes to bed and I either hang out with my wife or log into Eve for 1-2 hours. On weekends I'll stay up late and play but I've still got to wake up early with my son so we can head to hockey practice/games.
I love my family but if it wasn't for Eve, the only social interaction I would really get is with my family every day, since I don't have time to go out and be crazy with my friends. There are days that I find myself not undocking and just hanging out on teamspeak, drinking red wine or sipping whiskey (not together it just depends on my mood what I'm drinking), and catching up with what's going on in the Eve Universe. And sometimes when the conversation gets petty and boring I find myself just sitting quiet for hours, enjoying the silence. People will say "Hey Val, you haven't said anything in a while you still there?", and I usually respond that I'm just hanging out and I'll jump in as soon as the topic changes direction to something I have input on.
The time I do have to socialize with people I don't want to waste it talking about the weather, which celebrity cheated on their significant other, who is in rehab again, or other things that I have no interest in. I don't care about your cat or what you had for breakfast or how you post pictures of yourself daily on facebook so that all your friends will tell you how pretty you are. I like outer space, space ships, politics, economy, subterfuge, and overall I like the feeling of camaraderie that the right group in Eve can provide.
I like that there are consequences for your actions in Eve, and that you don't just respawn and try it again and again with no fear of loss. People react differently and make very different choices when there are potential negative consequences for their actions. You can be a F1 monkey in Eve and have plenty of fun I'm sure, but for intellectual and analytical people, Eve can be so much more.
Anyways, I've rambled on long enough. If you've taken the time to read this long winded blog entry, feel free to share your thoughts on why you play Eve.
As another Eve playing father: So true.
ReplyDeleteHeh I just turned 35 last week :)
ReplyDeleteI used to play Dungeons & Dragons every month or so with some friends but since I quit that two years ago I only see one of those friends and that only twice a year (birthdays).
A second group of friends that I also used to play D&D with still meets as often as we have time, once or twice a month. We spent the (satur)day playing boardgames like Twilight Imperium, Civilization, Arkham Horror, Relic or some other game.
I started EVE on the invitation of a friend (I see him once a week for sports, squash) who told me about this awesome sci-fi MMO. He was all about pvp, ninja salvaging and joining a nullsec pvp/merc corp one week in the game. He quit, I stayed.
I love sci-fi. I love the fact there it is possible to lose stuff and actions have consquences. I love the fact there is only one server. I like the eve community (though I wish people would have a little more patience instead of whining/complaining so quickly when they don't like a feature and don't trust CCP to iterate and improve on it as it goes.
Good job on 8 months! And on an excellent blog.
ReplyDeleteFor me I play Eve for the depth. I'm something of a jack of all trades - explorer, miner, ratter, pvper, fc. And trader, perhaps in some ways most of all trader. I love the depth to the economy. This makes it hard for me to move on. For instance when I tried SWTOR the economy just seemed so shallow. Almost all those games have economies that are just plain facile, that experience severe mudflation and where it seems devs solve issues by throwing more money at the players (thus devaluing goods).
I might enjoy fighting for a money moon but it's the sense that the money from that moon has real worth in a way that, say, WOW gold, which is effectively wiped out every expansion, does not.
Too bad you don't publish an email address for people to reach you. Not everyone likes to publicly comment on blogs. Anyway, I just read half of your posts and skimmed through the other half, and half of the night is gone. I loved it! Thanks.
ReplyDelete