The Return to EVE

Almost a lifetime has passed by since I left EVE. But now I'm back.
Last week I couldn't find the joy playing any of the games I was currently active in - that's when the voice in my head whispered: "Fight it all you want, EVE is where you'll end up".

I went to their website and got the DL going for the client and well, here I am.

I'm not 100% sure what my main goal will be in EVE this time. All I know is I'll blog about my time in New Eden. Judging from my last period in EVE I'm pretty sure PvP will be a really small part of my time in-game.

So far I've been beating the dust off a few ships by running a few missions and it seems I've come to like the missions this time around. Other than that there's always some skills lined up for the next ship. I my case the next ship will be a battleship (standard). I'm looking towards either a Megathron or Hyperion. I can't really tell why I might go with the Hyperion as I've read close to no positive statement about it but maybe that's why I want to fly it.
The Megathron on the other hand gets a lot of praise in all it's different variations. I guess the Mega is the safe bet.

Anyway, more from me and my EVE Xperience later on.

//Fly Safe

On Break

Due to many different things happening in the real world I'm on a break from EVE and gaming in general. If everything turns out as I want it to I'll be back in a month or two.

So far I haven't been online in EVE the past few weeks.

//Fly safe

The EVE vs WoW Rant

Yesterday I sat down and did some thinking - mainly about the things I miss in EVE, but had in other MMO games.

All in all, this came down to an "EVE vs WoW" battle in my head as I spend about 2 years and 7 months playing WoW after all.

Is this turning into some sort of rant? You bet!

Will you make WoW sound better than EVE? At times.

Do you like anything in EVE at all? I do.

Interface

I really miss the ability to make the interface mine! I don't need a ton of add-ons as I had in WoW, but the interface is just not anywhere close to usable. If you set it up for one thing then it's more or less useless for all others. In WoW you new that you'd never go heal as say a warrior, so that made you set the interface as a good "inter-your-face". You needed info on your character and your target (group and raid almost optional).

In EVE you need to fit too many things into a screen that's half full from the start. There's not much you can disable or ignore as the threats are lurking all over New Eden so every bit of info is able to save your ship.

Looking for Group

I know this is a WoW feature but damn it's neat. When running instances (dungeons) in WoW you could queue up in an automated system and be thrown into a random group to run with - maybe even just while in an NPC corp.

A feature I really miss something like in EVE as a new player. It could be made so the person in the queue could not  group/fleet with players at a higher standing than him/her. So if your highest mission standing/level was 3 then you couldn't group with people who were 3+. Maybe make it so players with a standing within X of the next level could join the fleet would still have an average of Y making them able to fly said level.

- I am aware that missions don't work like instances, so it's not as easy as I make it sound.

Quests & Missions

Let me say that I hate both in every aspect and try to do as little of them as possible! A thing that reflects this is two of my main characters in WoW. My old main was herbing his way from 15-85. The other and most recent main made his 100th quest while leveling from 85-90 after MoP hit.

In EVE I find the missions to be wasting my time by having me jump more from one system to another than doing the actual fighting. And should you want to grind a little standing this only get worse.

Crafting & Production

I LOVE the production system in EVE. If it was a chick I would take it to dinner!!!

The fact that you need to think ahead a bit, and it takes time (more than just the time of a click) to create things are so great! The problem as I see it is that if you're not full on into production then you don't get to do any at all.

If you're in a corp it's mostly done by players in control of POS, best skills or those dedicated to it.

As a new player that doesn't leave you much. So you gotta hunt down a system with a close to free assembly line.

WoW makes it a matter of grinding your profession and after that it's all about finding the recipe/pattern, and you're set to go... if you have the materials. In this way a fresh 85 (the level you can get profession to max) can actually create viable items on same terms as a high end hardcore progression raider... give he/she has the materials and recipe/pattern.

Skill vs Skills

This one might have an entire community rage on me - but so be it.

To me it seems like EVE is a matter of skills (the ones you train) and not really skill (the ones you have). It might be the core of it all when you're at a certain level of play but as I see it now there's not even a slight hint that this is the case. In WoW one thing was level and gear - another was skill. A skilled PvE geared player could whoop a certain body part of even a well geared PvP player. I liked that. EVE is making it (to my knowledge) too big a benefit to have a PvP fit ship. It's like saying a suit from Wall Street can't break your nose, but the pizza guy most likely will. It makes no sense to me at all.

Things to Do

I never ever thought I'd say this... but man is EVE limited when it all comes down to it. There's a billion ways to make a living in EVE and that simply rocks! Having said that every single way feels like a job after two months.

And to be honest, you get nothing to show from your effort. To make things worse it's nearly impossible to play the game with only one character - if you want to get into the different ways of playing/making ISK.

In WoW you could always take a day off from the usual ways of play to work on a new outfit (transmog) for your character. Hunt down a new mount or even pet battle if you're into that. There were more options to make your character personal. When it came down to fights this was also the case as you could make your healer cast bigger heals or faster heals depending on what stat you had as the first priority.

FYI I haven't tried all the ways to make a living in EVE, but I've talked to other new-ish players about this subject.

End of Rant

Do I miss WoW in general... no. Do I hate everything in EVE... no. What I do miss in WoW is the fact I could do what ever I'd like to do with or without the help of others. I could sit down one day and throw myself into PvP. I didn't have to train for it - I simply had to die and get better at it. I could solo old content (instances and raids) for items/mounts on my beloved Priest. A thing that was great fun on a disc priest I must say.

EVE is more like making your character sheet look better than others. It's a training game, and while it does have it's advantages it has far more disadvantages if you ask me. It's not too late to start EVE though - but it's more corp-dependent than WoW is guild-dependent unless you want to do high end progress raiding or large scale ranked PvP.

Note: While thinking about this post, and writing it, I've asked myself two simple questions:

1) Will I go back to WoW?: I don't know. The panda thing simply killed my joy for the game so at the moment I can't see myself back in WoW.

2) Will I quit EVE?: Odyssey seems like a time to answer that question. One thing is what it looks like on paper but when it hits Tranquility it may feel different and be either a dealbreaker or a time to go full throttle into New Eden.

Not EVE But Still Space

I simply have to share this video.

Getting into PvP

I've been reading and watching videos about PvP in EVE. I'm rather sure I'd want to try PvP in some aspect but the great thing about EVE is the different ways you can use PvP.
So far I haven't figured out what kind of PvP speaks to me more. Actually all I've come to terms with is I'll start an alt and train it towards PvP. Not sure if that's really the way to do it, but this way I'll also get some use of my 2nd account.

My first thought is the open world PvP as it adds more excitement I think. But to do that I guess null sec is the place to be and to be honest that scares me a bit yet. I still find myself being a bit extra paranoid when I enter low sec so I have to get used to the thought of that. Open world PvP really isn't that great in high sec if CONCORD has their say.

The obvious choice of style for open world PvP is piracy. After all ISK is the main drive behind close to all actions in EVE. But am I the pirate kind of player? - I ask myself that a lot these days.
I don't see any reason to blow up a Venture or Retriever as their chance of survival is limited due to the lack of weapons. Players belt ratting on the other hand could be a more exciting target in my eyes.
Maybe also those who explore New Eden. Then again maybe piracy would be a fast way to pay the PLEX for the 2nd account.

But for now this is just thoughts of what I'd like to have a closer look at in EVE. No question that PvP is the most attractive style of play for many pilots, and I want to join the ranks. Right now I'm (still) looking for a good blog, guide, forum post, video that actually take into account that it's the first PvP adventure of a player. And it should be of a date new enough to be viable now.
Found some really nice guides from 2009-2011 so I don't rely too much on the info they supply. In general though it seems to be a good idea to start out with a frigate for some newb PvP action.

EVE is a big game to begin with and from where I stand the PvP part of EVE is no different. So if any readers have a good tip or a way of getting into PvP without losing all the time... please do share as I'm ready to get my feet wet.