So, here’s the first post of YAEOB (Yet Another Eve Online Blog).
I’m Kasuro, a young Caldari Deteis. If I was going to RP my character in EVE, his story would go something along the lines of being an honorable member of the Caldari Navy who, during a botched operation against pirates, is captured and held prisoner. While being held captive by the outlaws, he starts to take a liking to their ways and means of doing things and the rest, as they say, is history.
In the bloody nightmare that is RL, I’m a young guy in the US Air Force. I’m an aircraft mechanic, and due to OPSEC, that’s basically all I can say.
I started playing EVE, actually, around the time Cold War came out with a free trial. Iw as a senior in high school at the time, and after I graduated high school, I played EVE off and on for around a month. I never really made any friends to show me the ropes, so I kind of meandered through space in my little puddlejumper of a ship. I think my toon was Gallentean, though I don’t remember. I didn’t find it very fun after a few weeks, so I went back to play World of Warcraft and Everquest with my girlfriend and parents.
After about a year, I got the EVE itch again from reading Massively and a few other blogs that had EVE ads plastered all over them. I decided to scratch the itch when I got an email from CCP telling me I could re-activate my account for 14 days free and try EVE again, because the latest patch had changed a lot of things.
I did it, and played for a little bit. I deleted my original Gallentean and made a Caldari, because I liked missiles and blowing stuff up. I still didn’t know anything about the game beyond doing agent missions. I had no idea what the different modules did, unless they were weapons or shields. But I had some fun. I got up to a destroyer and started working on cruisers, thinking that, like WoW, the faster you progress – the better! Not so in EVE.
At that time, real life reared it’s ugly head. When I graduated from high school, I didn’t go to college. I went straight to work. And work sucked. The economy was going to crap and I was stuck working in a crappy little restaurant as a baker with my parents. Probably the most depressing period of my life thus far. So, I enlisted in the USAF, and started focusing on working out and getting my life in order to ship out. My girlfriend and I got married, and I went to BMT on December 4th, 2007.
Kasuro, though, sat on my suspended EVE account, waiting for his time to shine. And I think it’s finally come.
Now that I’m done with training and the like, and I’m settled at a base in a house, I started playing WoW again with my wife. She got to 70 and I got to 65 (she’s a draenei priest and I’m a draenei shaman on Quel’Dorei), but I was pretty bored with the whole ordeal. Something about mindlessly killing mobs for +5 rep so you can get a piece of gear marginally better than what you have isn’t appealing to me. In fact, the whole process seemed only a little better than running in a wheel like a hamster.
I wanted something more, something that required intellect and innovation, something that rewarded creativity instead of squashing it with the fist of the devs who created their classes for only certain roles.
Well, Warhammer Online came out. I thought, ‘Hey, realm vs. realm sounds fun.’ I started playing an Chosen, like 97.8% of the rest of WAR players. Being a part of the majority has never, NEVER been my taste, in everything from games to music (my favorite genre of music is pagan black metal, although I have a very broad taste), so I re-rolled an Ironbreaker on the Order side. I had fun with that until about rank 11, when I realized that Warhammer was just 4 tiers of the same crap over and over again. RvR was a joke. Scenarios were a joke. It took too long to run anywhere. Nothing worked the way it should. Sure, it’s a new game, but meh. I didn’t have the patience for it.
So, last week I downloaded EVE and started playing again. My first comment at the new graphics was something along the lines of ‘Holy SHIT.’ I still remembered the fundamentals, but I set out to play EVE with a mind full of lessons learned from other MMOs that I didn’t have a year ago – the knowledge that you can find any information you need on blogs, wikis, or message boards, and that Google is your best friend.
But, playing EVE this past week, I realized that EVE is not a linear game like WoW or Warhammer, or any of the other MMOs I’ve played (That’s a whole ‘nother post, bubba). In those games, if you make a dwarf warrior, you’re a tank. That’s all you’ll ever be. You can’t learn a warlock’s skills, or a priests skills, and become a warrior healer or warrior warlock. You’re a warrior. You’re given a choice, and you have to make it. It’s the same with the crafting. You make a choice – if you want to change that choice you suffer an irreperable penalty.
In EVE, I realized, my Caldari Deteis, a tube child soldier from the War Academy, could easily train any skills he wanted to do whatever it is he wanted to do. If I wanted to suddenly start mining and making my fortune that way, all I had to do was buy the books and train the skills. Sure, it takes time, but it gives you freedom.
An interesting career path that can be taken in EVE is that of outlawry, or piracy (or yarring). The prospect of becoming an EVE outlaw has been in the back of my mind ever since I heard of the concept.
The other day, while I was running my agent missions, I thought, ‘There’s more to EVE than this. I’m going to go out to lowsec and start hunting!’
After some research online, I quickly discovered that, to my dismay, Caldari ships are some of the worst for solo PvP. If I was going to have a decent shot, I would have to get a hold of a Minmatar Rifter or Gallente Incursus. The closest thing I had was a Kestrel. I loaded one up with rocket launchers, a warp scrambler, a webifier, a cap booster, and a BCU, and wandered off into the stars to eke out a new life as an outlaw (I prefer the term outlaw to pirate).
The challenges of being a pirate in EVE are many, and I look forwards to them. Getting through highsec as a pirate, fending off others, procuring supplies, equipment, and parts – I look forwards to all of that!
I’m trying to get 5 solo kills as a fresh outlaw. That’s the requirement for admission into the Tuskers, a pirate corp that I am very interested in joining.
That’s pretty much all about me and this blog. Thanks for reading.
