Welcome to the eighteenth instalment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by none other than CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

On May 6th 2010, EVE Online celebrated its 7th Anniversary. Quite a milestone in MMO history, especially considering that it is one of the few virtual worlds out there to see its population continually grow year after year. For some of you who've been here since the very beginning, EVE has evolved quite a lot since its creation. With the expansion rolling out roughly twice a year, New Eden gets renewed and improved regularly. But, how about you the player? How has you gaming style evolved through the years or months since you've started playing? Have you always been a care bear, or role player? Have you only focused on PvP or have you given other aspects of the game a chance - say manufacturing. Let's hear your story!

It's a Sordid Love Affair

Eve was launched way, way back in the Earth year of 2003. At the end of 2002 Firefly was dropped by the studios in the US and in 2003 Little Britain first hit the TV screens in the UK. One of the best video cards at the time was the NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4400 128MB, which is a pretty good indicator of the technology available. Since then PC technology has moved on and improved and Eve has improved with it.

Even though I didn't join the scene until 2006 and have no personal experience of the game before then, screenshots, forums posts and comments from friends all serve to give me an idea of what it was like. Ever since then there have been really massive improvements such as the major graphics update of Trinity.

Four years doesn't really seem like a long time but it is the longest I have played with one game and it's almost like a sordid love affair. You know it's wrong but you keep going back for more because you like it.

That fact alone should tell you something about the way this game can hold your interest. Not by just being particularly fascinating in one area (although it can be), but by offering a whole load of options and avenues to explore should you find your attention wavering.

When I first started playing I was thinking I should play this like I used to play David Braben and Ian Bells Elite. Fully aware and bizarrely attracted to the notion that you are your POD character and your reputation sticks like skunk musk, I named my main the Unique Name of Awesomeness I used for three years playing Starfleet Command, I fancied myself as the Han Solo type smuggler/mercenary and thought I could roam around the entire Galaxy in a cool ship trading goods and battling the equivalent of the Thargoids. How wrong I was!

A) I looked nothing like Han Solo
B) My ship looked like some twisted hunk of metal only it's mother could love.
C) No Thargoids of course, don't be silly!

Everything else was there, the locations, the trade goods, the stations, modular upgrades but there was also so much more. The local chatter (with real people!), the agents offering missions and the market! Wow, there were so many distractions! So I spent the first two weeks getting to grips with exactly what was on offer before settling in to any sort of role.

Feeling now a little bit silly about my name choice but too far in to the game to even consider re-rolling I couldn't help but notice one aspect of the game that intrigued me. The Great War which later became more commonly known as the Pendulum War. I spent a little time researching this, i.e. What's this all about then? A few blogs, forum threads and still with no real idea about who was what I decided that I wanted to be a part of this big war, this massive thing that was taking the game by storm, this huge event that had thousands of players screaming at each other on forums and blowing each other up in the face, this mass of exploding ships and arcing lasers. But to do that I had to join a Corporation!  read the rest of this post»