Having played WOW (World of Warcraft) from just shortly after the WOTLK expansion (Wrath of the Lich King) launch, I felt I was lucky enough to play it in a golden age. It was challenging, playing a Marksman Hunter while extreme soloing and general raiding was wonderful. Everything felt, right I guess, a little simple but right. Then Cataclysm launched and…well I leveled, played all the dungeons at both levels and slowly lost my mind.
The game I loved for three years is now inhabited by wall-to-wall kid-iots, old-time players who have this insane sense of entitlement, worse still mana vanished, extreme soloing became so easy that all challenge had vanished. In short I was bored to tears and only my close friendship with a few of my guild-mates kept me there. But frankly I’ve had enough. Aside from a lowbie character to play with my lil sister and the occasional dungeon or raid session with my guildies, I’m done.
So what has this to do with EVE? Well like a lot of gamers, I’ve toyed with the idea of playing EVE from time to time. Monday was one of those days, so I went onto Amazon, just to price a DVD copy. I prefer a DVD installation to downloading, much the same way that while I have an e-book reader, I prefer the feel of real paper in my hands. I’m just an old-fashioned geeky goth-girl I guess. Anyway while I tried to get Amazon to give me a price in Euros, I accidentally ordered a copy of EVE, for what turned out to be less than the amount I spend on chewing gum most weeks.
Aha Fate! I could have cancelled the order but, I didn’t. Which begs the question, Why?
Put plainly I need a challenge. On the hardest setting I have almost finished Crysis after less than two weeks of very casual gaming. WOW is no longer any sort of challenge. Star Trek Online became boring after I ran through what felt like the same mission, for the umpteenth time. And yet there’s one game which has successfully kicked my ass over and over for years, X – Beyond the Frontier.
This game was launched approximately at the same time as EVE and despite X being a single player game and EVE being a MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) they have a lot in common. They are both set in distant parts of space with you cut off from Earth, in EVE’s case for thousands of years. They both have huge strategic elements, as well as tactical action, trading and exploration based aspects. Indeed many moons ago, when I asked a friend what EVE Online was like he told me it was like “X with other players, griefers and the an even more complex set of control panels.” Yes he really did talk like a computer magazine reviewer writes, a slightly odd guy.
Well from everything I’ve read, as well as everything I’ve been told by other gamers, EVE will be a challenge. I will lose ships. I will get my ass handed to me over and over. I will struggle to create a successful character. And I will get head-bangingly frustrated sometimes.
I can’t wait. But while I have to wait for the postal service to get my copy to me, I think it’s time to make up some EVE playlists, you know just because. I think I’ll start with some Heather Alexander, hmm maybe some Queen.
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My Random Ruminations. 