Like a Phoenix From the Ashes…

The ship decelerated from warp with a soft whump sound. Urd Voiddaughter had just arrived at an ancient Angel mining facility. He glanced over the instruments in his cockpit nervously. The system was becoming active but it didn’t seem that anyone knew his little gem was here. He was convinced to make the most of his discovery. Scanning probes were blanketing the system, but there were over a dozen signatures in they system. It would take a significant amount of time for anyone to scan this particular one down. Still, he would have to work quickly to analyze the relics hidden within the complex before him. He targeted the nearest object that looked to be of value and moved in for a closer look. 

*Whump*

I looked up from my comms at that all too alluring sound. The sound of a carefully laid trap springing. The frigate-class ship that had just entered the area sat approximately 25 km away from my cloaked Nemesis stealth bomber. I double checked my cloaking device to ensure it was still functioning properly keeping me off of anyone’s scanners. I have a nasty habit of bumping into stray debris fields at the most inopportune times. The Probe began moving towards something that had caught its eye. He had no idea I was there. No idea that he was quickly closing on my exact position. I moved my hand over my console, and hovered the slightly shaking appendage over the target lock button.  It’s been too long, I thought too myself. Too long to be this worked up over a single Probe.

Urd locked onto a storage facility’s computer console and began decrypting the security systems contained within. One last check of the scanner. Still blank. He had run into another explorer about an hour ago. An experience that left him frazzled but not deterred. Most exploration ships in these parts were of little to no real threat. Their ships were calibrated to scan and hack valuable computer banks and focused little on offensive modules. Still, even a single turret, missile launcher, or drone would be a problem for his ship’s weak defenses. Speed was of the essence, time to break this mainframe’s…

My ship decloaked in a shimmering of light. The computer locked onto the Probe’s hull almost instantly. An array of rocket launchers were unsheathed from my hull as the warp disruptors immobilized the Probe’s engines. I hesitated a moment. My finger over the trigger button. I paused in a second of regret for the poor helpless ship caught in my cross-hairs. A quick smirk stitches its way across my face and I hammer the trigger button. “He should know better” I say to myself. “Too many people looking for easy money these days.”

I had just cleaned up the mess from the careless Probe’s demise when a second ship exits warp a few clicks from my position. “This is a popular stop tonight!” In an instant of intense deja vu the Helios rockets towards my position. “God, it’s like these guys have never flown in lo-sec before!” I chuckle to myself as rockets spill from my ship’s hull and obliterate the enemy’s frigate. “25 million isk in 15 minutes. I’ll take that.”

I re-engage my ship’s cloaking device. The ship phases out of existence as I point the bow towards home.

Hey all! So I’ve been on jury duty for the past month which has given me a good deal of downtime from work. And since the girlfriend was away for the holidays and all, well…I honestly didn’t have any excuses not to play. It’s been fun getting back into things in Eve. I haven’t played in a long time and a lot has changed. A LOT. But it seems to all be for the better. See y’all in the sandbox!

A Question to the Players: How Do You Get Out of Your Eve Slumps?

I think every Eve player has gone through a phase, or possibly many phases, of inactivity in-game. I always find it funny how you can play this game for years and the same cycle always seems to happen. You are totally invested in the game and your characters, and then for a few months you just can’t seem to find the time to log on for more than the few moments it takes to update your skill queue. Unsubscribing is never a thought. There’s no giving up on the game completely. You just don’t seem to have the energy to sit through a serious session.

Let’s be honest, Eve is not a game you can play half-heartily. It is a serious and complex game that requires your full and undivided attention for most of the time you’re playing. Some weeks it can feel like a second job, that doesn’t pay you. Some weeks it’s all you want to do when you are anywhere near your computer. It’s a vicious cycle and I feel like I am at the mercy of such currents recently. I think I’m slowly coming out of the funk, but in all honestly I’m finding it hard to motivate myself to log in and play. So I figured I would turn to vast Eve playerbase and ask you:

How do you find motivation to play?

Is it the people you play with? The thrill of hunting other pilots? The feeling that you accomplished something when you see an Orca full of ore? How do you re-energize your enthusiasm in the game when you find that it’s lacking? Do you read fan fiction? Do you just take a break? I’m very curious to know what other players think about this and how they seem to overcome these “slumps” of Eve excitement.

That’s not to say I’m not playing. Yesterday the corp collapsed three wormholes that had magically popped up the day we had decided to bash a few of the local Interbus customs stations. Hours spent at the computer yielded nothing but a heap of slag where the station used to be and the beginnings of our new planetary empire slowly anchoring itself in the vacuum of space.

Today I even managed to get out and attempt to harass a few C4 neighbors of ours. They were using a scanning “safespot” about 100km outside their pos. I managed to cloak my way to within 10km of that spot and waited. And waited. Then I waited some more. Finally my bloodlust slackened enough for me to get the feeling that engaging a probing boat right at their tower with a fleet of small ships within eyesight, may not be the best use of my time or ships. It is always fun watching pilots go about their daily routines without knowing I’m there though.

 

Freighter Route Interrupted

Wake up and am excited. I’m working from home today and know there will be quite a few opportunities to get in-game. It’s 12:26, Azx and Oz are both on making me even more excited. Finally might be able to get a little action going in here. I open the corp bulletin to see that Oz has been on quite the adventure in my absence. He’s managed to lose two ships in combat in lo-sec systems with Kap. Well if he’s gotten into action why can’t I!?

I have about an hour before I have to start work and decide to buzz over to the connecting C4 to see what’s going on. Nothing on scan when I warp in, launch zee probes!

Hmm…

I was pretty sure that wormhole said it was stable, and yet it has disappeared from my overview. I check the bookmark again. Yup, I’m definitely stuck in the foreign C4. Great. I start scanning down the signatures before realizing Oz has done it for me already, bless his scanning soul. The C4 I’m currently in connects to a C2, that should be fun and probably lead me back out to empire space.

I enter the C2 and scan around looking for any prey before resigning myself to scanning for the wormhole out of here. System appears empty and I lock down the wormhole in short order. It dumps me out in Gallente space in Sinq Laison. This day just keeps getting better. My reputation with the Galls is not particularly good. I mean, did I partake in the wars against them? Yes, but only because the empire told me to, I’m innocent!

Well the First Sergeant who has just opened fire on me doesn’t seem to think so. These Galls must have some impressive sensory equipment on those navy ships! I’m still cloaked at the wormhole, and yet he has warped to me and started to engage! Well that’s all the hint I need. I warp to the stargate that will eventually link me home.

What a bunch of jerks. I finally make it into Caldari space and couldn’t be happier, except for the fact that I’m still about 20 jumps away from the lo-sec connection back to w-space in Vehan. I check the clock, about 15 minutes left until work begins. I decide instead to hop into my ice miner near Amarr and afk harvest on my laptop while I do some work.

17:32 and I’m on lunch break and back in Vehan. Seems like the same characters are in system that were here before. Another cyno goes up. These are some productive guys! I warp to 100km to watch the parade. A good sized jump freighter train passes through and immediately warps to the gate leading to hi-sec. The Probe that opened the cyno is just floating there, making a very tempting target if it wasn’t for the nearby station guns. Damn empire space, always takes the fun out of it.

I warp home and put together a small roam with Azx and Oz. A new wormhole has opened up leading to a different lo-sec system and we decide to check it out. I pop through and scan real quick. That’s a lot of Tengus, with more Tengus on the side. We quickly decide Vehan might be more fruitful. So I zip back over and start scanning around again.

We setup a quick makeshift gate camp from hi-sec hoping to snag one of these transport ships that keep flying back and forth. The gate flashes and a Viator comes through, but he cloaks before we can catch him. I have a feeling he may have told his buddies. I go through the gate and cloak to see what’s on the other side. Sure enough a Rattlesnake and Apocalypse are sitting on the gate. I report back to my crew to get out of there just as another Viator warps in and jumps through, quickly followed by the battleships. Our camp is already in warp back to w-space. Glad I decided to check that out!

It’s 22:12, and I’m finally done with work and have a little time to kill before the evening’s real life activities become a priority. I warp back into Vehan, but nothing is going on. I practice my d-scanning, which I determine, needs much more practice. Another time perhaps. I pop into the next lo-sec system in the chain, Undianoor, but an Onyx and Buzzard on scan persuades me to call it a night early.

Void Doesn’t Begin to Describe it…

October 3, 2011

00:27 I log in to an empty home system, no corpmates online, no ships on scan. A few new bookmarks are all that greet me at our tower. Pickings are slim to say the least. Only two anomalies and a ladar site. Might as well harvest some gas, some corpmates should be logging on soon and then I can do something more productive.

To say I got lazy with my d-scan would be an understatement. After 20 minutes of continuous updating with not a thing showing up my vigilance began to falter. I spent some time tweaking PI installations which got another extractor head on Planet I out of it. Good thing, I needed more non-cs crystals.

02:41 Forget this. Obviously it’s a Vult solo act tonight. I pack up the gas mining operation and grab my Pilgrim out of the hangar. I decide to go into the neighboring lo-sec system to find something to hunt. I get spit out into Shach, a lonely little unpopulated system in the Derelik region. It is nestled in a nice little lo-sec constellation though so I decide to move on to another system.

I move from system to system, scanning down what I can, looking for anything that may be interesting. A few systems have a lone pilot in local, but no ships on d-scan. I assume they’re sitting in stations and move on. I warp into the Arena system. One pilot on local, nothing on d-scan. But wait a minute, there are no stations here, he must be in space! I cruise around for 15 minutes or so d-scan pumping, but not turning up anything. Probably a stealth ship in a safespot. No need to waste anymore time. I warp to another gate to see what I can find elsewhere.

I end up at the end of the lo-sec chain in Bairshir. The d-scan spits out a few dozen mission NPC wrecks. Well at least someone is out doing something. There is one pilot in local so I decide to warp around to see if I can get any ships on d-scan. No such luck, he’s probably in the station now. I warp around scanning for another 20 minutes or so before deciding to call it a nig…A PROBE! Finally a ship on d-scan. He must have undocked from the only station in the system. I warp to within 100km of the station to hopefully watch him warp towards a belt to go ratting.

Sure enough there is the Probe, about 138km away from me. I watch intently, gathering intel on the pilot as I watch for any sign of him warping off. I’m practicaly drooling over the thought of an easy kill, until I notice the cyno bubble open. Within seconds the grid is full of very large scary ships. Well, not going to be much I can do about that. I watch the fleet dock up in the station before warping off myself to find my way back home.