The Appeal of the Never-Ending Story

Welcome to the November installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by 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 great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month’s EVE Blog Banter comes to us from Brinelan over at The Shard (http://www.theshard.org). He asks: What drew us into EVE, what keeps us playing the game and what brought us back if we’ve ever left?

. . .

Erbo Evans here, speaking for the Ralpha Dogs, but mainly for myself this time around.

Before I was in EVE, I was in Second Life, as was LexxEva (where she is known as “Alexzandria Aeon”).  We were convinced to try EVE by a friend of ours, known in EVE as “Valandriana” and in Second Life as “Lillindrial Kamachi.”  She was on Skype with me, as was Lexx, as I created my young Gallente character, using my Second Life name as a character name (hey, it works), completed at least part of the tutorials, and flew my first ship, the Velator Greased Pig, along the long and dangerous course from Cistuvaert to Ogoten, where I signed on with the corp she was in, Chilled Solutions, part of the Cryogenesis Mining Syndicate alliance.  Chilled Solutions, and its CEO Slif, were good to us while we were there; how we got from there to founding the Ralpha Dogs is another story entirely, mainly having to do with what we now refer to as “The Kublai Incident.”  But you can see evidence of my SL roots in the greeting I send out over chat: “Friendly greetings!” (Shamelessly lifted from Torley Linden.  I don’t think Torley will mind though.)  All of it is part of the evolving story.

Selenalore, of course, came into EVE after she heard about it from me.  She was also a Second Life Resident (under the name “Selenalore Michigan,” among others), and she also had experience in a couple of other MMOs, so this was not as great a leap for her as you might think.  She took to it readily, and has been doing her best to build herself up and become worthy of the title “Sicaria.”  At the same time, she has really taken to the EVE universe; I recall an IM conversation recently, while I was at work, in which we spent some time discussing the fallout from the Kador invasion of Gallente space.  (Looks like President Foiritan did exactly what I hoped he wouldn’t do, and took military action in response, though it appears to have been limited.  Now I just hope Empress Jamyl doesn’t get all pissed off as a result.)  We’ve taken a few others under our wings as the Ralpha Dogs have gained a foothold; some have drifted on, and we wish them well, while others have stayed and done great things for us.

Obviously, my friends keep me playing the game, both those that came with me from SL and those I’ve found among the stars of New Eden.  But, more than that, I keep playing because of the endless possibilities.  The universe of EVE is large, both in space and in time; its grand history is as essential to its depth as its galaxy-spanning geography.  Yes, I spend a lot of time running missions with Selena; it’s more fun to run them together.  But I’m also always looking to train that next skill, get that next ship or module, explore that next system, find that next mother lode of ore, run that next manufacturing job, help that next new corp member fly the ship of their dreams–write the next chapter of the never-ending story.  And I know there are possibilities even beyond that, that I’ve barely scratched the surface of.  Someday we may be running our own POS, or flying the “big ones,” or doing God knows what out there.  And we–the members of the Ralpha Dogs–will be doing it together.

Wrought in deepest Hell, our vengeance is freedom!

…

Other articles published from around the EVE Blogosphere (links will be updated here as new posts are added):

• CrazyKinux’s Musing: EVE Blog Banter #2: Space, the Final Frontier…
• Ombeve: OOC Blog Banter 2
• The Wandering Druid of Tranquility: Internet Spaceships is Serious Business
• Semper EVE: The Allure of EVE
• A Merry Life and a Short One: EVE Blog Banter #2 – This Is My Time
• Life in Low Sec: Blog Banter #2: EVE’s Enduring Allure
• Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah: Eve Blog Banter – What Drew Me Into Eve?
• Roc’s Rambling: Blog Banter #2: Staying Power
• Sahirs Journey: Why am I sitting in an internet spaceship?
• Diving into PsychDiver’s Psyche: EVE Blog Banter #2: All I Ever Wanted To Be Was A Capsuleer
• Achernar: Just gathering intel
• Sweet Little Bad Girl: Blog Banter #2
• The Ralpha Dogs: The Appeal of the Never-Ending Story
• A Mule in EVE: Mule Psychology : EvE Style
• A Misguided Adventure: Blog Banter – Enduring Allure
• One Man and His Spaceship: Blog Banter 2 – November 2008 Edition
• Letrange’s EVE Blog: That Banter Thing
• Diary of a Space Jokey: EVE Blog Banter: How’d I get here ?!
• I May Find Peace Within The Emptiness…: EVE Blog Banter #2: New Eden Bearhug…
• The Shard: EVE Blog Banter #2