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So I finally got back into the world of EVE again last night after a few busy days. I am starting to make some observations. This game is IMMENSE and clearly 14 days isn't a drop in the bucket. People on the EVE forums talk about training skills over the course of a YEAR to get a good rounded character. I was SHOCKED when I read this. However, while that is going on you are still active and doing many things. However, the word things is vague so lets be more specific. At this point I find myself doing small skirmishes which are a lot of fun, these are all through quests, I haven't done any PvP battling, I would be like a sheep to the slaughter there. I'm also doing a lot of gathering and crafting. Which is actually fun in this game because as I'm crafting I can go out and do more gathering. It works well.

But here is the thing. In other MMO's I've played, Guild Wars, WoW, Anarchy Online, Aion, etc. I've felt like I have control over my character. In EVE I don't feel like I have control. I click and tell it where to go and it goes. I had to fly to a system last night that was 5 warp jumps away. All I did was right click to set the location and then click the autopilot button and off I went. I actually walked away and came back and was in the system I needed to be in. That is quite a change from what I'm used to and I'm not sure if I like it or not.

Overall after 4 days I have my reservation but I can also see what draws people to EVE ...

It was strange. Last night playing EVE reminded me a lot of watching a professional baseball game...oh wait, no EVE last night watched the Orioles play the Yankees last night.

With leads me to an interesting question, why do peoplehave to act like idiots at sporting events. My friends and I were having fun heckling the Yankees as the Orioles got the win (not really a huge fan of either team a Phillies fan myself, but if I had to pick one I was much happier to see the O's win). But come the ninth inning some fat guy decided he wanted to fight and started saying, "That's it, come over here I'm sick of your shit. Let's go! Come on let's do this!"

Now I'm not a fighter, nor am I one to egg someone one, I just slink down and shut my mouth and ignore the person. However, one of my friends is the exact opposite. He loves to egg people on, he won't fight but he will egg them on. In the end security had to come down and tell the two of them to sit down and shut up or leave. Plus the guys friends (the fat guy I talked about earlier) had to "restrain" him from coming after my friend. It was terrible. I love to heckle with the opposing teams fans, and then get heckled back and we go back and forth and in the end we hug it out and there are rainbows and everyone is happy...ok well maybe not exactly like that but we shake hands at the end and laugh and have a good time.

Its just I don't get this I have to be so macho and ...

Last night was such a nice quiet night in game. I worked on some training missions in game and started doing some mining and selling the ore for some ISK (the in-game currency). I also got a NEW SHIP! It seems that each of the training missions can land you a new ship as you go along. I was very happy about this. This ship was better for mining because it had a larger cargohold so I had to make less trips.

Mining appears to be pretty lucrative. What you mine is a mineral and that mineral you refine into ore and sell. You can sell the pure mineral but it doesn't appear to be as lucrative to do so. Each trip back netted me about 6000-7000 ore which I was able to sell at 2.51ISK each 1 so for it being my first trip into mining I thought 14000+ ISK was nice per trip and totally worth my time. I have heard ISK is the key to a successful beginning in EVE. I should add however that I only used my new ship on "safe" mining missions where I wouldn't be attacked by other players. Tonight if I'm able to play I might head out to the unsafe confines of an asteroid belt to mine...we shall see. If I do this then I will use my non-mining craft. Let me explain:

There is a saying on the EVE forums don't fly what you can't afford to replace. My "battle" frigate is valued at 35,000ISK. So basically if its destroyed its only 35000ISK to replace, so two or three mining trips. On the other hand my "mining" frigate is valued at ...

So yesterday started my trip into a whole new world. I wasn't sure what to expect so I didn't really have any expectations. I started an Amarr character for no particular reason. It seems the race you select has an impact on the ships which you can purchase. Still much to learn about the different races. The next thing you come to is your character portrait. Since you don't see your character only his ship I wasn't terribly worried about my overall appearance but I was happy with how the portrait came out anyway.

So then you load into the game and dear god is it overwhelming at first. I expected to see a skill bar, experience bar and all the normal things you are used to when playing an mmo. Well this was not to be. There is no experience, there is no skill bar. What you start with is one lase gun and one mining gun. The tutorial is a MUST (first time I've ever seen that be the case). The menu system is so complex you can easily get lost, which I did a number of times, but in the end you start to understand and move about pretty easily.

The first thing you do is have to target an enemy craft and destroy it. Targeting is a bit difficult in the beginning and truthfully after about 5 hours yesterday, I still don't have it down. I am getting used to the HUD which will display all the targets in your area. You can use this for targeting. Locking on seems to be another issue. In order to engage you have to lock on to your target, the only ...

Over the years I have had the pleasure/displeasure of participating in several different MMO's. I started in Anarchy Online when it went from subscription to free for the base game. I played several classes and overall enjoyed the experience. Then I moved to Guild Wars then to WoW then to CoH/CoV then to WAR briefly to Requiem:Bloodymare and finally to Aion. Currently, I am playing League of Legends, which I don't really consider an MMO (but will discuss it more in another post)

I by no means consider myself an MMO expert. But I love MMO's. Currently I have stepped away from Aion, mostly because it is just too time consuming for my lifestyle at this moment. Which leaves me wandering the wasteland of MMO emptiness. There is a special place in my heart for MMO's. The community at the end of the day is refreshing and you get to meet some wonderful people (some jerks too but we won't think about them).

To fill this void I have decided to start to ride a new rollercoaster per se. I am going to play over the course of the next month 2 new MMO's. Both ones that I have wanted to play but at this time have not. For those of you interested I plan to blog about my experiences in both. Both games I will only be using the free trial so time and level will be limited but I plan to get a taste and share it with you. The two games are EVE Online and Age of Conan. EVE Online offers a two week free trial and Age of Conan allows you to play to 20 over unlimited ...