We were in the same newbie corp together which didn't amount to much at all and we were basically left to our own devices when it fell apart.
We ended up talking a lot about this and that and learned the game alongside each other. He was very much the patient and dilligent type who would grind through missions, building up his base slowly but effectively, while I went all over the place with tomboyish recklessness.
I still remember it like yesterday when I convinced him to go out to lowsec and we both died in funny ways. He declared he didn't care much for PVP.
I went flying Incursions when it wasn't all structured and organized yet. He declared that he couldn't be bothered with all that fleet stuff and rather farmed his missions all by himself.
I went to go live in wormholes and offered him a place, but he said he'd rather stay with his Incursion fleets while mining and building stuff in highsec with his, by then, very well developed industrial pilot.
Oh yes he had moved on to running Incursions by then. He slowly but surely gained experience, made friends and was eager to learn how to be an FC.
Through those Incursion fleets he got to know some people from a major PVP oriented alliance. He eventually joined them and is rising through the ranks in his usual way. Patiently, diligently, picking up his skills and never rushing things. A trustworthy and reliable participant in an online community.
It was brought home to me how much he had changed. Once he had been a lone mission runner who wouldn't care about Incursions and even less about PVP or nullsec. Now he tells me he dreams of a scene like this:
... with him in the role of king Theoden ... but then in space of course. Commanding a large fleet of strong warriors, ready to bring the fight to the evil hordes.
It couldn't be further away from how I like to picture myself in my game related dreams. It would be more like that:
I have also changed my outlook over time. In the beginning I dreamt of becoming an industrialist and a trader. However, being preyed upon by highsec griefers and realizing that I am actually not all that good at playing markets or even have the necessary knowledge of EVE economy, made me walk another path.
We are both what has been - smugly and disparagingly - called EVE born by someone who is everything but that.
For someone who is not EVE born, things will never change in the same way.
From the beginning you are embedded in a pre-fabricated community. Your only measure of change is which things you can fly and how much ISK or kills you amass or some other arbitrary metric. The experience of having to discover that vast gaming world, learning how to navigate it and find out what you really want to be. The thrill of never really knowing what the people you associate with are up to, who you can trust and who you can't.
Those are things the non EVE-born will hardly ever experience.
As mister M. writes:
In practice that means, you play a game where your actions can have real consequences, but you avoid that aspect alltogether. You rob yourself of one of the most unique aspects that makes EVE what it is."In practice, this means that Goons, Broskis and Redditors can be outright bastards to everyone else in the EVE - besides their allies, of course - and get away with it."
The first time I read that piece, it's self-aggrandizing attitude made me angry. I have read it two times since, and a third time while I wrote this post you are reading. These days it actually reads much more like a justification why you should feel great about being a "Goon, Broski or Redditor" in EVE.
Because, at the end of the the day, you are actually missing out on one of the most engaging and thrilling aspects of this game: The social experiment of forging an in-game community. Changing and growing while you progress.
I, too, am an Eve-born. I followed a trajectory that differs slightly from you and your friend, but similar in that I, too, wound my own path to where I am today. I wouldn't trade that experience for anything, as it has allowed me the opportunity to explore the game on my own time and terms. It's interesting to me that despite the near infinite number of paths available, those of us who stick with the game tend to end up in the same place: hooked.
ReplyDeleteThe way feel about it, it's that sense of discovering ever new things which makes it so addictive.
DeleteIn single player games I always find I enjoy the beginning stages most. When every fight is dangerous, when you know nothing of the world and can discover new places every step you take. It usually becomes boring when you can defeat everything casually in passing and have maxed all your skills.
If you enter EVE, get a free ship and free skillbooks, 1000 friends by default, and a massive fleetfight with supercaps within the first week, what is there left for you to discover?
I apologize for taking so long to comment on this, but the concepts you introduced were new to me and I needed to, in my "patient and dilligent way", assimilate them.
ReplyDeleteYes, I am our dear Patroller's Eve-Born friend. And, yes, the details Patroller has provided concerning our birth and rearing in Eve are entirely accurate. I feel I must explain a bit, however, so please bear with me.
IRL, I am 48 years old. My first video game was Pong, quickly replaced with Super-Pong. My first computer was purchased for my brothers and I in 1979 when I was in 9th grade. It was a TRS-80 Model 1 with 128x48 Monochrome graphics. There was no internet, no LAN parties, and no online gaming.
Skipping forward some 30 years, I decided to go looking for an internet spaceship game. I read reviews, browsed forums, and read coutless blogs before deciding Eve was the best of the best, so I decided to sign up and play. 30 plus years of solo gaming is a hard habit to break, so I plodded along solo mastering the intricacies of Industry, Mission running and Exploration. All solo. I was ganked, griefed, Ninja'd, baited, and scammed without even knowing these things were possible, much less knowing how to respond. I learned in my usual way, by responding incorrectly in every way possible until I learned the mechanics of Eve. This learning involved the Losec PVP trip Patroller described, and later incursions.
Incursions at that time were Live Events, and our Newbie Corp CEO was friends with some of the original Capsuleer defense Fleet Commanders. He invited me along, and I finally accepted. There, I learned a whole new aspect of Eve - Fleet operations. When they finally added incursions as a permanent fixture, I went looking for an incursion fleet to join. It was then that I met an Incursion FC looking for competent DPS pilots. I joined his fleet, and we made a ton of isk flying incursions. Eventually, I flew with him enough to learn the basics of FCing an incursion fleet and became his lieutenant. When he wasn't on, I formed my own fleets and FC'd quite effectively. Thus I learned another pece of Eve - Leading fleet operations.
Now, this FC that I studied under was a member of a Major PVP alliance, and due to my fleet abilities, he kept asking me to join his alliance and get into real fleet PVP. I declined at first, many times, but then came the incursion nerf.
When CCP nerfed incursions, many of the major players left incursioning to make their isk in more efficient ways. I was unable to put together effective incursion fleets, so I finally joined the alliance, and moved to nullsec. There I learned an entirely different game - PVP. Not just a few guys on a Losec roam, true nullsec "everyone not blue is your enemy and there are no game mechanics to protect you" PVP.
As Patroller mentioned, I am working my way up the ranks, learning the finer points of a game I didn't really know existed during my Solo-PVE days.It has taken me over 2 years to get to this point, and there is so much to learn in Eve that even another 20 years won't teach it all. But I will continue to learn, and continue to change my playing style until the Eve Universe finally succumbs to the Second Law of Thermodynamics and is no more.
THIS is what Eve-Born means to me. It's the agony of each new failure offset by the Thrill of each new discovery, copletely scripted by me and me alone. I made my own choices with every step, and faced my own consequences with each choice. I was given nothing, told nothing, and learned everything I learned from experience. I grew as a player by my own hand.
Those in our enemy's alliance will never experience this. A person who is given everything values nothing. Our enemies brag about how many ships they can each lose in a _single_ fleet battle. They brag about how their alliance gives them free ships and all the fittings when they lose them. They say that they "Laugh as they are dying".
I say their words are as hollow as their game experience.
Such a well written (spelling mistaks nothwithstanding) comment.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
Also I am happy that I did you justice.
Great story too, and a powerful statement at the end.