With the recent celebrations of EVE Online’s 20th anniversary on May 6, here at INN we have been reminiscing about times gone by across the two decades of EVE history. These bits of discussion have been really interesting among our team, and so we felt it would be good to share some of the reasons why members of our team started playing EVE, and more importantly, why we’ve all stuck around since then.
The Editorial Team
Rhivre, Editor-In-Chief:
“I joined EVE with someone who wanted a full PvP game. They immediately went into PvE and mission running.
I got annoyed when someone wardecced us and the corp docked up, so I made a new char and asked in recruitment chat about a pirate corp. I spent a while having some of the best fun I have had in EVE, but then I got sick, and so I couldn’t do PvP anymore.
I was told about how markets work in EVE and I was hooked….through that I made friends across EVE who I would never have encountered otherwise and eventually this led to me joining INN in 2016. Besides finding friends in all playstyles across the world, the MER analysis I had been doing as a trader got me my current RL job… and I would definitely be remiss if I didn’t mention that EVE is also where I met Caleb (at an EVE M meet 13 years ago).”
Arrendis, Staff Editor:
“I started playing EVE in 2006 when an RL friend of mine who’d come over from Earth and Beyond badgered me into trying it. I think I got across halfway to where they were doing stuff when my autopilot took me into lowsec, I blew up, and I quit.”
“A few months later, that happened again. And it kept happening about once every 3-4 months until 2009, when a group I played WoW with wanted to give the game a try. So we started mining in the ass-end of Caldari space (right around Isaziwa and Inoue) and running missions. Eventually, we went into J-space for like 2 years, before getting bored of it and quitting. We left a scanner and our rorq pilot logged off in our C4, only to find them in lowsec 6 months later. Including the Rorq, which couldn’t have gotten out of the C4 any way except an Act of CCP.”
“I’d stopped playing again, until one of them called me up to say ‘hey, we’re gonna try out nullsec, and we need someone who can fly logistics cruisers’. Next thing I know, I’m in LAWN, and the Scimitar that saw me through 2 years of J-space is getting blown up on a fleet run by some loudmouthed dumbass named ‘Dabigredboat’.”
“That core group moved from LAWN to FA to TNT, until in 2015, Tarrante got asked to oversee the back-end of this new project for Mittens, ‘TheMittani.com’. That meant he’d be in Goonwaffe, and he brought the rest of us along with him. That’s also when I got roped into helping with the editing on the site.”
“About three months after that, I’d been arguing with Flanders & the Finns about whether Goons could cap chain. And obviously, we could. Heck, we had during the Fountain War. Then one day I get a message on TMC’s Slack:’
“So I need someone to fit ships, and your name came up. Can you do the job?”
Not ‘will you’. Mittens never asked if I would do it. Only if I could. I suspect Tarrante had already told him he didn’t need to ask the other.’
“That ate up 7 years. Why am I still here? I can’t find the damned door. 
“
Dirk Stetille, Staff Editor:
“I had a few false starts with EVE Online before I really got my teeth into it – off the top of my head, I tried the game in 2010, 2012, and 2013. But I properly got into EVE back in 2015, and yet I still spent my first few weeks in highsec. During one of the really early weeks, I was in my starter system when suddenly there was a bug with the only gate out of the system; we were locked in while CCP fixed it. For around eight hours, I was stuck in a system with people I didn’t know, trying to have fun in a game I barely understood. Once the belts and the anomalies ran out, we did the only thing left – we talked. This was my first introduction to the thing EVE actually is, in my opinion – the community.
From there, I went to nullsec. I was in the Dronelands during the Casino War. I led fleets during the conquering of Tenal, and I watched as the collective PanFam drove the CFC out of the North. I was also there when PanFam turned on itself afterwards, and I escaped an internal civil war to head into wormhole space. I learned more about FCing and building fleet designs, and six months later when we were evicted, I landed in Goons.
Funnily enough though, while I can measure my FCing career in war and conflict – the Casino War, wormhole eviction fights, Catch et al 2017, Fountain 2017/18, Hakonen 2018, the Northern war in 2019, Cloud Ring and Pure Blind (once, twice, three times), and others in between… My main memories of playing EVE are as a diplomat for GSF between 2017 and 2022. Five years is a long time to be in such a quiet and behind-the-scenes role, and while I can’t talk about those years specifically, they were some of the best years of my time in New Eden.
I’m also a tournament nerd, and I think that’s a large part of what keeps me logging in after all these years. Now I just want to pit myself and my team against everyone else and see who wins.
Somewhere in there too, I shackled myself to INN as a member of the editorial team, and I’ve spent a number of years looking for the exit door. The people (or the labyrinth) keep dragging me back. The lack of an exit door is a major function around here…”
The Collective Team
LifeshifterX, Head of Streaming:
“I started my journey back in 2009 as a simple industrial miner in high sec brought in by my at the time girlfriends dad. Then dabbled in wormholes and other places before becoming part of a few null sec alliances back in 2011. Then left EVE for a bit and came back about a year later bringing my brother into the game and dug into wormholes then eventually got tired of all of that and joined goons with my old corp and never looked back! Now just have fun doing whatever the space tribe wants to do!
Brisc Rubal, Meta Show Host and member of CSMs 13, 15, 16 and 17:
“EVE is one of the very few video games that isn’t merely just a game – it becomes a fundamental part of who each of us is as a person. I talk about games a lot and rarely consider EVE solely in that category. For those of us who grew up playing this game, and have played it through the best of times and the worst, it’s always been more than just a game. It’s been more a lifestyle. My life would have been considerably less fulfilling if I had never found this game and this community.”
Jurius Doctor, Staff Writer:
“I had a few false-starts with EVE and it finally clicked for me in 2013 (Rubicon) when I joined EVE University – an in-game community of players who help people learn the game. EVE is a game which can be played solo, but which rewards social engagement and organization. With 20 years of development and feature enhancements, there’s so much to learn about the game that the onboarding ramp for new players has been called a skill wall. Having a supportive, collaborative, and genial group of likeminded players to help you drastically improves how quickly you’ll learn. I enjoyed this aspect of the game so much that I joined the teaching and events teams with EVE University, and started my YouTube channel where I offer the same content to everyone.”
Jon Calico, Livestream Commentator:
“As a relatively new player to EVE Online, I can attest that it’s never too late to get on board this 20-year-old game. I joined in 2021, during Eve’s first round of its new social media advertising. Unlike some, I was a null-sec baby recruited directly into null. What truly grabbed me, however, was the community and comradery to which I had been exposed. I instantly found a new home in gaming, one where I felt accepted, wanted, and encouraged to learn and thrive in this rich universe. Though my time on Eve so far has been short, I have already made friends and memories that no other game in existence can offer me. I am proud to be an immortal capusleer, forever engraved in the fabric of Eve Online.”
Froggy Storm, Staff Writer:
“I’ve been playing Eve for more than a decade. Despite several attempts to escape, like any other addiction, it keeps drawing me back in again and again. The outward reason has always been that the game is hard. Ridiculously hard. Hard enough to eclipse any hardship in life. But as I matured as both an human and as an Eve player, it was the organizations that really were the largest pull. I wanted to be there to support my corp. I wanted to be there to support INN. I wanted to BE THERE. Now as I approach 25 years of playing MMOs, I simply say, that Eve Online is like no other game ever created. Nor is it likely to be ever recreated.”
Major Sniper, Creative Artist:
“My boss at work got me into EVE. I did it to be his mining monkey until i got bored and was told i had to pay my own account. Went on to do missions for a few years with friends and got bored. Tried playing in WH’s but realized they were the biggest mistake CCP ever made after removing Cyno mods from any ship other than Force Recons.
I lost complete interest and started to prepare my three accounts to stop playing. Saw a dude in a South African channel just days before my accounts went alpha, and he asked if i would like to help him start a corp in null sec and asked ‘what I thought of Goons’.
The rest is ASCEE history.”
Mifune SwordGod, Theta Thursday Host
“I started playing eve with my father as a bonding activity, when I was younger my dad use to play WoW and SWG, I use to love watching him play in raids etc. I was 15 when he introduced me to eve, and it is such a unique experience rather than an actual game. Growing up playing EVE has by far enriched my real life in ways I never thought possible, the friendships we make really do make a difference.”
In Conclusion
We hope you’ve enjoyed hearing about our experiences with EVE Online as we move into this Third Decade.
If you want to listen to some more stories of how some of our staff at INN got started in EVE Online, and how their careers have progressed, feel free to check out the May 6 episode of the Push To Talk show, where the crew spent a couple of hours reminiscing about their careers and discussing EVE’s history!
