30 Days of (space black) Night – Week 01 – Return to New Eden

Around this time a year ago my initial foray into the world of EVE Online ended, and at the risk of using an already over-used phrase, not with a bang but with a whimper (you can check out my glorious progress here – Part 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, Interlude 1, 06). Well actually to be accurate it ended with dis-interest. But a spare code for a months worth of game time and the lure of my characters name on a statue lured me back in. I initially wasnt planning to play at all, I didnt even have the game installed but I figured I might as well give it a go, even casually. So now I’ve 30 days to re-visit the world of, quite possibly, the most notorious MMO out there. How will I get on? Continue reading…

EVE and I – Interlude – In space no can hear you scream “FFFUUUUUCCKKKK”

I have part six half finished and ready to go. I left it because I was tired and decided to head to bed. Couldnt sleep so I figured I’d just do one quick mission. Oh how I regret that. A quick bit of background, missions range from Level 1 – 4, each increase in level is a fairly big jump in difficulty (and usually in ship class). However thanks to siding with the Amarr during the Sisters of Eve ESA I’d enough standing with the Amarr to jump straight to Level 2 missions. I’d done about ten or so of them and while some of them had been tough I’d managed to pull through, earn some ISK and upgrade my Destroyer. So I logged in and requested a mission (which are semi random), got a simple courier mission which I banged out and figured, sure why not one more before I hit the hay? I wont have time to play tomorrow because I’ve loads of cooking and prep work to do for Christmas dinner. Oh past Mick, you are a fucking idiot. Continue reading…

EVE and I – Part 05 – Silent Night

When we last left our interpid capsuleer I was complaining that I wasnt really getting the return I wanted in my mining efforts. Unfortunately while I’ve done a number of things to address that I havent had a huge amount of success. On the other hand I have killed a lot of pirates, a lot a lot. So when I logged off the last time I was ready for a bit of a break from the game. But the next day (well technically later that day) Patrick, as always, pulled me back in. He needed help with a mission and I kindly decided to help him out. Of course the fact that I owned a destroyer entirely bereft of armaments or any kind of defense meant he was going to have to wait a little while for that to happen. Continue reading…

EVE and I – Part 04 – The dark of the night

Last night’s plan was to post the previous blog entry and go to bed. Both of which I did. Unfortunately a tag team of caffeine overconsumption and a storm blowing outside conspired to help sleep elude me. After giving up on sleeping for a bit I figured I’d just log-in to EVE to do one or two things. Which lead to me getting to sleep the wrong side of six, which is what sees me in work with slightly over an hours sleep. Thankfully it’s basically all exam supervision this morning so I should be able to survive until I can get a taxi home and garner some proper rest (well a quick nap actually as I’ve stuff to do this afternoon). I’m unsure of the wisdom of playing in the wee hours in the morning. Well that’s not entirely true, depending on what you do you should be fine, more or less as long as you don’t do what I did. Continue reading…

EVE and I – Part 03 – Mining and Hauling and Pirates, Oh My!

Back in my first post about EVE I mentioned that I have a habit of indulging in theorycrafting, often tool assisted, when it comes to MMO. I thought I’d get a little further than four days in before I fell prey to it once more. I clearly thought wrong. EVE has a reputation for having a near vertical learning curve. I’d actually thought that reputation a little undeserved until I ran fight off the edge of that fucking cliff. So now I’m in freefall trying to figure out what to do. Continue reading…