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Enter Eve

I was looking forward to Blog Banter #41 after my abysmal failure to produce something that was not a ten page rant about how much I hate sports in #40. Then I read the subject matter, put my head on my desk and sighed.

The topic is:

BB41: Director's Cut The universe of EVE is not without its drama and epic stories, both in and out of game. Imagine a publisher, movie studio or television network asked you to prepare a pitch for a new brand of EVE-flavoured entertainment. This could be your big break, what would be your synopsis to bring New Eden to the wider audience?

The problem is that I don’t watch TV. I rarely go t see movies (I think its been two years). I was caught up in those two for several days so I missed the part about a publisher. At some point I decided to revisit the topic and see if I could figure something better out. Then I saw the publisher bit and I was still like... blargh. Words I can work with. I can understand a publisher but even that needs to be something short and concise. I don't really think i know what short and concise means.

Which led to my first problem and its solution. Eve is not short and concise. The very concept of wrapping it up into a bite sized flavor to lure someone in the game doesn't work for me. But I am terrible at business and terrible at advertising things. If I want something I will go looking for it, research it and decide on if it is what I do or do not want. While I can write praises about Eve and seek to tell others to give it a try I cannot do it in a short, snappy clip to grab the attention at others.

So I won’t. Instead, I will write about the game as I would advertise it to someone who was looking to know about the game. Eve’s game play is more than the interaction of screen clicks and spaceships against space.

Intro New Eden

(Let me take you by the wrist and run away and take you to a land that is so far, far away.)

In the serious world of internet spaceships internet spaceships are serious business. Eve Online is a game where Real Time Strategy meets Puzzles mixed with a three dimensional Environment and is multiplied by a fraction of true time. Your body is a spaceship and you’ll like it that way. Your personality can have more power than your skills and the ache of loss is a real pain.

Your Avatar is whatever Spaceship you decide to fly. Your gear is the pieces that you install upon your spaceship to forward your goal. Your goal is something only you can decide upon. Intangible or immediate the universe is a pool that you step into to adapt or plunge into to get over the initial shock.

Eve is a game about shattering loss and impossible gain. The yellow brick road must be laid before it can be followed. The other players will hold your hand only as long as you put it out to be held. Even then, eventually, they will toss you from the nest because your spaceship has wings and starships were meant to fly.

It is a land where personal value can hold more weight hen money but money runs the universe as a lubricant instead of power. People will sacrifice their most prized possessions for the greater emotional importance of friendship and loyalty while shattering all the hopes and dreams of another person with a cold viciousness that reflects the void we fly into.

Beauty will always be in the eye of the beholder. Personal taste can sometimes be stronger than reality but reality is based upon facts. Yet, manipulation of the universe is possible if one is cautious and thoughtful in their actions. The game rewards intelligence with success and stupidity with boredom. But the game will never lead you by the hand and it will render you uninterested and unsubscribed if you do not possess deep pools of self motivation.

Eve is a game of tools where the restrictions on those tools have been removed. Yet tool use has consequences. A consequence can be good or it can be bad. In a game with only one server who you are matters and many people never realize that until they have burned their own identify into the ground. Yet, the phoenix can still rise from the ash and a new start can began because in this world you are only one person affecting one part and the rise and fall of greatness continues in its unrelenting path.

But it is also a place of beauty and splendor. I can only comment the cool joy of the depths of space, or the sparkling beautiful of a pulsar in a wormhole. The moments when you zoom away from your ship to suck in the beautiful backdrops of space are endless. To see flare of a ships engines or sit in the quiet active company of one’s fleet of drones. And to watch the backdrop of a planet, as ships pour in and out of a system. The gritty, street market feel of Jita or the nonstop bickering one on one fights in Hek are all things that are meant to be experienced for one to know what they are.

Eve has no story because it is a world. It has a past and it has a future but there is no story for each player to enter and repeat over and over again. History is kept with a tender care. That time has come and gone and only the unknown new is ahead. The world will always move forward regardless of the players interaction. One can ride, one can push or one can pull the story along. It is all about choice and those that have a taste for consequences. It is about the people that are there and the person that you are. The only one that can mold your game is yourself.

And in those times when you feel alone look around and remember that every ship on that screen is another person. In the same world with you. Go interact with them. Enjoy.

And then when you are tired, visit Eve off line. The forums, the wikis, the blogs, the news sites, the dev blogs, the jabber accounts, and sending text messages to your new corpmates while tweeting your first success will drag you in and drown you in the richness of this game.

If you want this you can have it but you have to take it.

Welcome to Eve.

Of course, since that sounded almost sane and I was avoiding doing productive things at work...

Or Blog Banter #41 Interpreted with Bad Poetry (this is best read with manic hyperactivity mode set to:On)


Welcome to this bit of space,
Where a Thanatos and a Machariel shall race,
There are lights along the star ship gates,
Where we mine and mine at a frantic pace!
It’s a place of loss and a land of fear,
It is everything that someone once held dear,
And its full of fear but sometimes its just,
Lots of stuff and a bit of Dust.
If you leave can I has your stuff?
There is no hero quest for you to win,
No special tasks but for ship spins,
Can you accept that there is no end game to win,
And just enjoy the game with in.
And the first time you lose your ship,
Don’t quiver your lower lip,
Instead go reship,
The universe is within your grip.

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