Hello, Old Friend

It's been a little over two years since last I posted anything in this blog, or since I was a regular player of EvE. Those who were reading at that time saw me just vanish without a word. There were reasons, but at the time I just wasn't able or willing to take the time to talk about them. I will now.

Why I Left

When first began playing EvE, I was a solo player for several weeks before I joined a corporation, EvE University. During those first days, and during the time I was with E-Uni, I played essentially on my own schedule whenever I had time for the game. The problem came in when I'd left E-Uni and formed a new corp with a friend. I found the style of play required to be a director of a manufacturing corp not really that much to my liking, and I began to become bored with it.

Then the responsibilities at my RL job increased dramatically, as did its demands on my time. It eventually got to the point where personal free time became a precious commodity. I was having to rearrange my real life to suit my duties in EvE a little too often, and I decided that I had no choice but to leave the game.

The problem was that I really didn't want to leave EvE, but I felt I had no choice. I didn't know what to do and I guess I still held out half a hope that somehow I'd figure out a way to keep playing EvE and still maintain my insane work schedule, so I just stopped. Stopped logging in, stopped blogging, I just stopped.

For the next two years, I was solely a single-player gamer. I just didn't have time for anything that wasn't completely centered around my own schedule. I played when I had time to play and that wasn't all that often.

Why I'm Back

In all honesty, I had no intention of getting back into EvE. I'd started playing Fallen Earth when it was in closed beta and I was (and am) enjoying it very much. I'm also the moderator of a group blog site called Fallen Earth Bloggers, which I'm sure is self-explanatory. In addition, I recently started a blog on MMORPG.com. I've got plenty already on my plate and I had no intention of getting involved with EvE again.

I'd had the idea that it would make for a great MMORPG.com blog post if I revisited EvE almost exactly two years after I'd left, and wrote about it from my perspective now, as an MMO gamer with a bit more experience under her belt. Basically, the plan was to go in, take a look around, maybe run a few missions and try a few things, log out, write my piece, and then move on, back to Fallen Earth.

I knew the graphics had gotten a major upgrade as well as a few other new things like overheating systems because I'd kept up with the major news from EvE. Even though I wasn't playing, reading stories about banks failing, player reps using embargoed insider info to their in-game advantage, and the destruction (disintegration?) of the vast monolithic force that was BoB (this one I'd actually like to know more about...I heard that it happened, but I've heard nothing about how) helped keep me kind of in the loop.

I also decided that in order to get a good idea of how the game is now, I wasn't going to attempt to reactivate my old toon with a year's skill training but instead I signed up for the two week free trial and started from scratch as a new player.

All in all, it was a good plan, a well-thought-out plan, a sensible plan. Thing is, it just didn't work.

After going through character creation and basically recreating what I looked like the first time around (though I did add a cute tattoo on my cheek this time) as well as a slight variant on the name I used last time (my in-game name is now Bekka Jaie, note the new spelling), I stepped back into EvE for the first time in 2 years. My plan was to spend a couple of hours in-game, but I ended up losing myself in the game for hours as I remembered why I fell in love with the game in the first place. It's the same as when I played, only better.

Yep, I think I've been sucked back into the EvE wormhole.

The interesting part of this is that unlike last time when I didn't start blogging about my adventures in the game until I'd been playing for a while, this is only my fifth day on the trial account. I've been wrestling with the question of whether or not I should subscribe again once the trial is over (last time I signed up like two days after the trial started, but the system doesn't give you credit for the unused days, so since I have no immediate need to learn the Contracting skill, it seems silly not to wait until the trial is just about to end before I convert to a paid account).

Right now, I'm mainly just flying around in a Tristan running missions. I'm in no big rush to figure out my next move. It's just a girl and her Tristan (I'll get a Thorax and re-justify the title of this blog when I can afford one...soon).

If you're a returning reader, thank you for coming back. If you're a new reader, thanks for coming by and I hope you'll enjoy what you'll read here.

And as for what you'll read here, you may very well read a lot of stuff that's similar to what I've written in the past in some ways, but I can promise you this: I won't be going the manufacturing corporation director route this time. What that actually means remains to be seen.

Stick around, I have a feeling this is going to get interesting.