hmm...sure

OK so almost a year ago I posted about this alpha thing. I failed miserably at my goal to fund a plex with an Alpha. Mostly because I did not commit and invest time. Also because well alphas were that tenth of crack to lure people to sub an omega. Seriously one race, and cruiser is a tenth of crack in EvE.

So with the last expansion I re-downloaded the game and went about figuring out my old account passwords. Logged in a Zombinutz and went about seeing what I could fly. I was excited that my rattlesnake was flyable now. Sadly the T2 cruise launchers and hardeners were not usable in my Alpha state. Hmm..faction launchers and hardeners then....bugger those went up since I last bought them. So more like a ounce of crack now which is good I guess. The good news is I cannot fly a mining ship worth my time, so there is that. So after about half an hour I decided that it was still not going to work with my current Work/Life/EvE balance to do much with out re-subbing.

I did leave the game installed for now. I am about to take some "Me" time away from work and that normally means games get more love. This means I will explore more Alpha options with some of my old pilots. If for some reason this turns into something worth sharing. Hell I'll post it up. Who knows, might be less than a year between posts...

Until next time,

Sincerely

EVE SOB

Is this on...

Well then it's been a long time since I came back to this place. A very long time since I put up the "be back soon" post. It's been a busy time filled with many stories and adventures both in the real world and with "other" games. It's funny to think that after all that I find my self back here, like EvE was never a concern.

Actually EvE drifted in and out over the time I was away. I re-subbed a few times and ultimately got frustrated that I was not doing enough to justify the cost of resubbing and not playing enough to fund my accounts with Plex. I never stopped in here to blog about it because well, it never lasted long enough.

So what has changed? Why am I back?

Simply the free 2 play side of EvE lets me log on and monkey around with out the worry of time and money being wasted when life gets in the way. The goals are simpler too. I log in and see what I an get away with on an Alpha clone. The current one is to see if I can fund plex inside of 30 days with a alpha account with casual game time. That alone will mean I need to drift away from the old industrial play style and look at some of the new tweaks since I last played. So I'll be likely blogging about the life of an Alpha for now. Leaving my old characters locked away in limbo.

Let's see what an Alpha can do...

Back Soon!

With the previous post I sort of hit the nail on the head for my life focus these days. I am 100% a father who is busy guiding two growing lads along the path to a life of their own. I work and commute like most of us 5 days a week and the weekends are 100% family focused.  As such EvE has slipped into a sad cycle of updating training and vaporizing liquid ISK for plex.

It’s SUMMER and with summer comes a time for vacations and getting out side. Summer is exploring new avenues while unplugging from the digital world of life and leisure. Its days at the lake and nights by the campfire with the smart phone tucked away.

As such I am un-subbing 100% for a while until the fire and drive to log in and actually do something in EvE returns. There is no other GAME or major life event here rather 4 years in and time to unplug for a bit. So as I vacation from EvE I wish you all well and leave you with this. I will be back when the time is right with no hint of a maybe.

Cheers

EVE SOB

Corrupting the next Generation.

For as long as I've played EvE my two sons have been enamored with the sparkling stars and ships I fly about them. They have watched me play over the years and they ALWAYS want me to blow something up. They are older now ages 8 and 10, and while still technically too young to play the game alone. I started to let them play with me on one of my accounts this past weekend. Of course the first thing they wanted to do was blow things up.

Like any good corrupter of children (aka father) I started with a nice 21 Jump journey through highsec in a deep space transport just to set the mood. In EvE nothing is right there for you to just log in and start. Yes I know, a shuttle would have been faster, but I told them to package that up and put it in the cargo hold. I have to say basic overview and navigation came easy to my son. He asked lots of questions. Asked why he could not open that yellow cargo container on the gate. Asked what the flashy red guy meant. Asked why this ship was slower than daddy’s stiletto. Asked where the guns were on the Bustard. I answered them all, showed them the fitting screen, talked a bit about agro and griefers. It was a social father son chat while we made the jumps to a mission system. It all seemed to settle in.

When we got to the system where I keep my mission ships I told my son to open up his inventory. He knew where it was and made “mega-flop” active before I could ask him to. He pulled up the fitting and said “Nice!” out loud when he saw the T2 rails. Asked lots of questions about each module and what they did. Then he knew what was next and excitedly said “We are going to blow stuff up now!” He did his cute little 8 year old happy jumping and clapping thing. I felt like a good father. So we found a level 3 mission agent and off we went. I was in a PvP fit Drake just because.

Mission went well and my son got to range and use of the rails well. He turned on his tracking computer and tank automatically and locked and obliterated any cruiser and above between 45-60KM. He complained a bit about it being too easy and asked if I could change his guns to something more exciting. I explained that he was the DPS and my drake was the bait. He still wanted missiles as they looked “cooler”. He was also curious about the drones I was ripping frigate rats apart with as well.

We played for a few hours and ran a number of classic level 3 missions. Towards the end all I needed to do was drop system and station links into the fleet chat. He would warp out to the system and wait for me warp us into the mission. He would dictate his range from the rats and spawns all while talking to some of my old EvE mates in chat.

The following day my 10 year old, who had watched his younger brother quietly for 2 hours the day before, was at the controls of Mega-flop. I spared him the 21 jump overview training and we dove into level 3’s. After watching his brother he knew just what to do down to activating his tank. I showed him how to control drones. This time I flew a hurricane (225mm shield PvP fit) so I could tear up frigates faster than the drake. Another 2 hours passed and again it was fun and effortless. The only major difference was my 10 year old talked smack with me in fleet over politely talking to others.

I have to say it will be a long time before I can take them on a lowsec roam. However it was a super fun way to spend a few hours on the weekend blasting some rats with my sons. Next perhaps I’ll break out my Navy Scorp. and run some level 4’s with them. Heck if I activate my other accounts we could prob’ recruit a few stragglers and start incursions. I did show my eldest scanning and he was BORED out of his wits. So blowing stuff up seems to be the way forward.

Cheers

EVE SOB

New home – Genesis

Last post I chatted about lonetrek being a long term home for me for many of my years. I am still deciding what to do next, but I was drawn to Genesis as a new base of operations. Perhaps it’s the whole 10 year anniversary calling me back to the “roots” of New Eden. Perhaps it’s the quiet systems and need for change. All the same I’ve trucked a large subset of my stuff 20j away from familiar (again) to see what trouble I can get into.

Sure I have to grind Amarr standings to put up a POS again. Then again you have to almost wardec someone now to stand up a POS in 0.5 Caldari space. So some senseless courier missions while I watch TV for a while and I’ll be done with all that.

Odyssey so far has not affected me much. I can still fly pretty much any ship I could before. The new gate animations and moved undock button don’t bother me at all. I did find an anomaly warping around asteroid belts in my jaguar with-out so much of a single click of a scan button. So I ran it for grins. I’ve not really played enough to comment past this.

I still plan to do a journey of sorts. I’ve got to rebuild my ISK a little before I can begin but I opened up the full map of eve the other day trying to plot jump ranges from Genesis to the market hubs (not awesome). When I did I was kind of shamed at how little of EVE space I have seen. When a man feels shame he is biologically driven to take action to atone.

I really should fly lowsec more looking for fights. Perhaps I’ll troll around the EVE Gate systems for grins. Little historical camp ground violence.

Cheers

EVE SOB