My journey through EVE has taken me through triumph and tragedy, through losses and gains (too many losses), but through it all I have stuck with the game. That is my EVE story of 2020-2021. My EVE story of 2018-2019? Well, that’s a different story.
I started playing EVE in 2018, and as I started, I enjoyed it. I played through the tutorial, career mission, and got on my way. As I truly set off on my own, I started with mining and soon after I reached my first million. Yeah, yeah I know, that is literally a drop in the bucket. But to my ‘newbish’ self it was a big achievement…until I looked at the expanse of the game.
We’re Coming for you PAPI
But that gave me motivation. I moved on to exploration, combat sites, etc. As I moved on to these new frontiers, I slowly made more and more ISK. During this time, I recruited one of my friends to the game and we started our own corp. The mighty ‘Osiris Empire’ with 8 million in the band and a whopping two members. We’re coming for you PAPI. All jokes aside, it was fun to play with another player and we were gaining more and more ISK to the point I was in a fully fitted Vexor, as was he. However, we ignored the first rule of EVE: “Don’t fly what you can’t afford to replace.”
In a low sec adventure we experienced what so many players do – a gank. Our ships were destroyed, our ISK gone, with barely enough left to fit T1 destroyers. At this point we started to play less and less and less.
I Love Having No Free Time
Until COVID-19 hit. I remembered my times on EVE after a video popped up on my YouTube recommendations. I remembered all of the fun times and all of the depth (something I value in a video game). So I figured, what consequences could there be? I’ll sign up as an alpha. I’ll tell you the consequences, no more free time. But I love having no free time.
I came back to EVE with a different mindset. I started off how most newbies do, doing the tutorial, the career missions, and started mining. As I got up to about 5 million skillpoints, I joined a corp in the alliance Phantom Horde. This was a great way to get advice and meet new people through the game. I bought an Algos worth approximately two million ISK. With this ship I got into an activity I would be doing for the next couple weeks – combat sites.
I learned how to scan efficiently and started my new work. Within a couple days, I got my first real drops. I was moving through my normal route and came across a Haunted Yard. This is a pretty basic combat site but has the chance to drop good loot. I had run these before and never gotten anything too good. This time was different however. I killed the Sentient Drone and got two good drops: a Rogue Drone 46-X Nexus Chip and a Sentient Sensor Booster coming to a total of 98 Million ISK. This still isn’t that much in the grand scheme of things but it invigorated me.
For Better or Worse
After this and my newfound wealth I threw myself into the game. I researched more about my current profession, and new ones as well. Through this I have raised my net worth up to over 500 million ISK and was poised to make almost 200 million more ISK when I experienced my first big loss. I had been exploring over multiple days in null sec and when I tried to move back to high sec, my tiny Imicus met a Gnosis with a warp bubble. I lost almost a week of progress and work in five seconds.
But this isn’t going to be like last time. I am sticking with EVE for better or for worse.
