It is often said that the only way to “Win at EVE” is to unsubscribe your characters.
Almost all of us have faced the prospect of Winning EVE at one point or another in their careers. Some cut back on their play time and the number of accounts they have active, while others simply walk away, leaving their characters and assets in place.
I was a member of the latter group. As a bitter vet, I was fully aware that, based on the shift to small skirmish fights, I would never again see a B-R5RB, nor would the beacons be lit to cyno reinforcements across the vast gulf of space. I grew bored and shifted to reporting for TMC, and eventually stopped logging in all together.
But the winds of change are blowing and there may yet be hope. It is because of this fact that I have chosen to “Lose at EVE,” to which I can hear a collective gasp of shock and frustration. The server population have been trending downward. The wars are all done with. Besides masochism, what could possibly drive a player back to EVE?
Losing at EVE
First and foremost, I am a sucker for a good story. In the past, the stories had to come from the players and the clash of bloc-level entities. With Uncle Fozzie’s crippling of power projection, now the stories all have to come from outside the playerbase. And honestly, CCP seems to be delivering fairly well on those stories.
Allow me a moment of purest fantasy. The Drifters and the Jove reemerging from the shadowy hinterlands is a wide, open plot line that could be used to lead to some massive shake-ups in the power balance. And I don’t mean just the null powers. This story arc, in conjunction with the death of the Empress, could very easily become the fall of the highsec factions and the end of CONCORD.
Just imagine for a moment the possibilities of systems where security status was dynamic, based on the player activities within them. Now imagine a star gate system where they are targeted and controlled by player organizations with the ability to levy taxes and tolls. Jita and other hotspot hubs suddenly become the Wild West in fact and practice, and the hallowed halls of null become safe space.
The organizations who have space that is both safe and patrolled can attract trade through their gates and sell the labors of their dwellers on markets that are policed by the inhabitants. Conversely, those organizations who don’t keep their space safe will dry up and waste away with nowhere to sell their goods, and little tax revenues from their gates.
Hugely unlikely, but who can ever tell where a thing is going? More importantly, there is great potential for the future. The promised citadels and reworking of capitals will be a fundamental shakeup to the old order and older players. At the same time, the introduction of more specialty frigates makes the prospect of new players being able to really get into and be significant parts of a team more accessible than ever before.
It is for these reasons that I see hope in the future of EVE. I want to make sure that I am prepared for the changes, and have a part in the shaping of it.
Resurrection
So I decided to resub. Much like waking up in a new pod, the wise returning capsuleer will need to do a number of things, both obvious and obscure, to be able to get back into the flow of the EVE. Depending on how far back your last play time was, things can be very different both in form and function.
First thing to do is take a good look around. Where is my character located? Did I leave my clone and all my assets in the old nullsec home? If so, do I still know the landlords? Remember that if you undock and you are no longer a part of the controlling organization, you may well be consigning everything in that station to permanent lockdown. Finding out if your old organization still exists, where they are located, and if you can rejoin should be the very top priority for a returning pilot.
The next priority will depend greatly on how a pilot left EVE. If the pilot was smart and prepared to leave in advance, then their goods should be in a central location in highsec or lowsec. If they were like me, and just walked away, it is likely that goods will be scattered across a half dozen pilots and a dozen or more player stations. In the event that a player has to abandon their belongings, a tool such as Evepraisal.com can give a player a quick estimate of the value of onsite goods.
After that, get to know the locals a little bit. By explaining the situation and playing the metagame, in conjunction with knowing the current value of things, a pilot can recoup a better percentage of their otherwise lost assets.
So now that you have your assets and corporation plans sorted, the third item on the list is to figure out how to reestablish an income. Getting back on the gravy train as soon as possible will reduce the real world cash a returning player has to expend, and will improve their quality of life. How that is done will vary depending on an infinite number of factors. Identifying what sources are available and how best to attack them will require some forum diving and research. Then again, if you are reading this, you likely have kept at least peripherally aware of trends and changes.
Last, but not least, sorting out skill training. For those who have played in the last year or so, the training queue limits have changed a great deal. It is very possible that your queue is empty, or loaded up for a year or more. Remember that you have remaps, now and there may be new skills that are of critical importance. This is another place where some careful research and consideration might be in order. If you are back in your corporation/alliance/coalition, look at what the current fleet doctrines are, and how your skills match up to them. Next, look at the local ISK faucets and how well your accounts are suited to take advantage of them. Don’t forget to consider the new command destroyers, or the pending capital revamps. Ultimately, it is up to the individual, but just as with a new character, a little bit of planning can go a long way.
In Closing
The choice to play a video game or not is highly subjective. Some people enjoy the match-based DOTA style, or FPS games, where others want all the “fun” of a RPG where getting loot is another step to unlocking more loot-grabbing opportunities. But for that narrow group of people who want the potential to not only act out a story, but be part of a story that shapes the world, EVE is the undisputed master of that architype. For all its flaws—and there are many—there is no other game that allows so much freedom for players to interact with each other to the gritty end.
This article originally appeared on TheMittani.com.
