I used to play TradeWars in the mid/late '90s on a dial-up TELNET connection to a local BBS. TradeWars, for those of you who are not familiar, was a semi-persistent, turn based MMORPG. TW was a text based game (GUI overlays were available from various third party developers) with a randomly generated universe. Like EVE, players built empires by grinding at trade stations, mining planetary resources, and conquering rival colonies. Players could chose to cooperate with ISS (think CONCORD) or play the role of a pirate, but the choice really only affected PVE. Unlike EVE, everyone was red. The game would last a few weeks until a predetermined win condition was met at which time the GM declared the and reset game. I LOVED that game!
A few years ago, I found myself with an unexpected amount of free time, so I set off to find out what happened to TW. As it turned out, TW still existed on a handful of obscure TelNET servers but there were too few players to make the game interesting. I considered re-writing the game for the internet, but someone beat me to it. This game, however, was only inspired by TW and after a few iterations, the publisher started to depart from the original version. Also, at the time I started to play, this version was a 'beta' with frequent resets and very few opportunities to achieve the winning condition.
I resumed my search. I'm not sure how I found it, but I came across EVE in 2009, shortly before the Apocrypha release. I signed up for a trial account, rolled a Gallente character and found myself in Center for Advances Studies (CAS) with a shiny new velator. I undocked and was amazed by the graphics and the familiar feeling of the game. This is exactly what I imagined TW would have become after fifteen years of iteration!
About a year ago, my game started to stagnate. Many of the characters I started out with had moved on – it happens. I joined a null sec corp because that’s where I saw my end game but I very quickly realized that null sec was not where I wanted to be. It was about that time when the monocle rebellion emerged and I was caught up in the outrage over Hilmer’s disparaging remarks. I unsubscribed, like many others, and deleted my main character. It was time for me to move on.
I followed developments in EVE forums, mostly to see how it would play out. CCP gradually started to adopt a more conciliatory attitude. My attitude was changing also. I started to realize that I was taking the game way too seriously. The fact of the matter is that I very much enjoyed the game despite its flaws and there are no other internet space ship games that even come close to what CCP has achieved. So when Hilmer apologized, I petitioned for the resurrection of my main character and the GM obliged.
When I logged Crash in, I found myself in CAS again with 0 isk and a shiny new velator. It’s a new start indeed!
Welcome to the reincarnation of my blog. This will be a public forum (why else would I publish it to a blog?) but mostly I plan to use this space to organize my thoughts about EVE Online and maybe a few random thoughts that are only peripherally related to EVE. I'm familiar with the characters on EVE forums, so comments will be moderated. Trolls, griefers, and those with nothing constructive to add will be ignored. I may also delete anonymous postings; I'm putting myself out here and showing you my face - the least you can do is show yours.
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