EVE is full of them, at every step in my short career as a capsuleer i've been faced with numerous choices.
From the very first time i installed came my first - my character.
Male or Female?
Which race?
Hair style, color, muscles or skinny, clothes?
History and family lineage.
So many choices already!
Now of course these small decisions have zero impact on the larger scale of New Eden, but higher up the hierarchy you go, those choices can have a butterfy effect felt throughout the universe.
Now the last 2 weeks i've not been doing much flying about, i have made myself a skill plan as suggested by somebody and given myself goals of certain ships i'd like to get myself into along with respective fittings, ive also downloaded 3rd party programs such as EveMon/EFT and Teamspeak to help with the skill planning.
What i have been doing instead the last 2 weeks is reading up. Reading up to the point my eyes started to ache.
Everything i could get my hands on relating to EVE, i read. From current goings on right back to 3 or 4 yrs ago, if it was on google, chances are i read it. It's after filling my brain with all this info that the impact of choices really hit me. Some of the things in EVE's history are immense, from fake investement funds making the instigator a multi billionaire, to actual devs breaking rules and supplying his allaince with valuble BPO's to gain an unfair advantage, to whole (seemingly) untouchable super alliances getting taken down from the inside by spies out to make a fast and easy profit for themselves.
All the events through EVE's history is littered with the after effects of player choices. Never have i known a game to be so malable in its entirity by the very people who play it. This is what makes EVE stand out against all the other MMO's out there in my opinion. It litterally gives you a blank canvas to start out with, and dependant on your ambition and stamina you can make EVE exactly what you want it to be.
PVE-PVP-Hauler-Market trader-Explorer-Industrialist-Alliance leader-Corp leader-Manufacturer-Pirate and many more things i cant think of right now. All these things can be achieved making the right choices in your game, and if at some point you find yourself getting tired of EVE, then the blame can only be laid at one door- your own.
It's here that i bring myself to the point of this blog.
The choices ive made so far im happy with.
I want to PVP pure and simple.
I'm happy with my char, im happy with my skill plan, im happy with the experience so far my choices have given me, i've met some nice people, ive also met one or two complete asshats, but those are all results of the choices those people have made in their own game, which i think makes EVE so diverse and full of opertunities it really is mind boggling.
Now, me wanting to PVP means i will, and have lost ships, which dont come free. I'm happy to lose stuff as long as i take something from it and learn for next time, but those ships need replacing and to replace them costs isk. PVP is not a viable way to make an income to support losses, i know this from my limied experience of losses and from reading till my eyes bled.
With this knowledge in hand, i'm faced with any choice.
How do i make the money to replace ships and modules lost?
My options are pretty vast, taking from the list above of EVE careers, there are many things i could set out to do, but, the easiest and therefor most acessible to a new player without either making a new account of stopping the training on my char and making an alt, is PVE.
My desire to PVE comes only a close 2nd to my desire to remove my own testicles with a blunt and rusty spoon, so my choices are narrowed down somewhat.
Do i want to make another account? No.
Do i want to stop my training and make an alt on my current account to make me isks? No.
I'm screwed then right? Not quite, as during my reading up for 2 weeks phase, i discovered GTC's.
The answer to my problem!
Off i went to www.shatteredcrystal.com and bought myself 10 x 60day timecodes.
These i learned can be exchanged in game for 2 PLEX - Pilot License Extentions - and sold on the market to people who CAN be assed to slug it out with PVE or market trading to make thier millions and pay for their game playing time with isks, thereby making their experience totally free other than the actual time spent on the game earning those isk.
I have to applaud those guys, they have more patience than me.
So my dilema is solved, i now have just over 1b isk in my wallet through selling those first 2 plex on the market from the time code, this was another one of my choices. I really have no issues with paying to play EVE and if other players want to look down their noses at me for doing so, than so be it, i really couldnt care less how others pay for their enjoyement, be it through slogging away with PVE each and every 30 days, or buying GTC's and selling them to achieve the same thing. Sure, they're playing the same game for free in effect, where as i'm paying 15Euro per month plus any GTC's i buy.
But if im cool with that, why should a stigma surround it? I have not been told it does for certain, it's just going on other players comments on the EVE forums, that seems to be the general concensus.
Basically i'm trying to convey that my game is not the same as everybody elses game, how i do one thing will vary wildly with the way another player does the same thing and this, again, is what makes EVE a great experience for me upto now.
To finish this blog off, i'm still faced with my biggest choice yet- a player corp.
Right now im still in the starter NPC corp, but i'm in no rush to jump into the first one who'll take me, i've even had a few offers from corps after making a post on the forums a few weeks ago which is encouraging for a new player who cant really offer much towards the betterment of a corp other than buckets of enthusiasm, being self sufficient and a desire to learn and not cry when blown up!
Fingers crossed i'll earn myself a place in a player corp i'd like to join some time in the (near) future, minimum requirements is the biggest stumbling block right now, but maybe more time to train up whats needed to make me usefull for the next time is a good thing, but only time will tell.
Hopefully the next time i write a blog, i might even be in a player corp!
Fly dangerous
Rox
