Notes from the past

Usually when I return to EVE from a long hiatus, I spend the first few days (or even weeks!) trying to figure out what I was doing last time I played. Hours spent trawling through my assets page trying to work out why my stuff is scattered halfway across New Eden. Scrolling through bookmarks, old mail messages and killmails trying to piece things together.

This last hiatus was a particularly long one, and I hadn't blogged since 2012, so there were no clues to be found in these pages either. I remembered some things about my last stint in New Eden, in particular losing a large chunk of ISK to a gate camp (as mentioned in my last blog), but some of the more nuanced stuff eluded me. Things like what I was planning to do, what skills I was training and why, where I had my home station and why... lots of things that I couldn't figure out!

Then the other day I was going through all the menus in the neocom thingy, trying to find the jukebox (I guess that died a long time ago, huh?) when I stumbled across the Notepad. Honestly, I'd forgotten there even was a notepad in EVE, so I was curious to see whether I'd ever written anything in there.

Lo and behold there were actually notes in there! Some API keys, some notes about a wormhole system I must have lived in at some point... and two others that seemed very intruiging.

It appears that past me had thought it would be helpful to write down his plans and what he was aiming for. December was clearly the time I felt most reflective... or maybe it's just something about the winter that makes me want to play EVE? Anyway, the notes themselves were all about what I was planning, where I was and what I was training. Basically the exact information I'd been trying to pull from the depths of my memory for the past week!

So 2014 me wanted to get into Covert Ops ships, mining frigates, battleships and Tech 2 cruisers. I have a vague memory of trying station trading and being awful at it, and to this day my only experience of 'noob pvp' has been me exploding while frantically clicking buttons trying to run away.

Fast-forward to December 2016 and we've got a bit more information here. Seems like I was only an Alpha Clone at the time but I definitely remember upgrading to Omega at some point. And I definitely made it into Covert Ops ships because that got me blown-up in null-sec just before I stopped playing last time.

It's pretty interesting to see my thought process of what to do, as they're all the same questions I've been asking myself this time around too. I've definitely managed to consolidate my assets this time, so that's an achievement of some sort... now I just need to figure out the rest!

I was really happy to find these notes - I find EVE incredibly overwhelming a lot of the time, so being able to have something like this, even if it's a bit lacking in detail at times, was a great find.

I'm not sure if this will have been interesting for anyone who happens to stumble across this blog, but I'm planning to continue writing little notes to my future self while I try and figure out what to do next!

Back in action

Hello fellow space-people.

I am now back in-game after a lengthy hiatus, and thought it might be nice to fire-up the ol' blog again. I think this is probably more for my own enjoyment of EVE rather than anything else. I like going back and reading about what I've been up to, and if anyone else enjoys doing the same then they are more than welcome.

The un-blogged era

The last post in this blog was back in 2012, but my last action in-game was late 2016. I'd returned in the usual fashion, after a friend had started playing again and was having a great time. 2016 was the year of the infamous 'This is EVE' and I have no doubt that it helped to bring me back to the game. I still get goosebumps when I watch that video - "OH MY GOD THAT'S A TITAN!" - love it.

However, my 2016 stint in EVE followed a familiar pattern. I logged in and immediately felt overwhelmed. Questions I'd asked many times in the past came back to me:

• What should I do? 
• Where should I go? 
• Why am I playing?

If you read through previous posts in this blog you'll be able to see the pattern.

Still, back in 2016 I was determined things would be different. I was going to try some new stuff, go to null-sec, not be so afraid to lose ships...

And I actually did all of those things. Exploration was the new thing I tried, and I liked it - it was something a bit different to just mining rocks all day or running missions. And I did it in null sec too! The first time I'd ever spent any real time there. And I also lost some ships.

My biggest and most painful loss was my Covert Ops Frigate packed full of exploration loot, around 600 million ISK worth. That was a lot of money to me, and it was quite difficult to watch it all go up in smoke.

https://zkillboard.com/kill/58016984/

I got caught in a gate camp trying to get my stuff back to high sec to sell. I'd never seen a gate camp before so had no real clue how to get out of one.

That loss sort of took the wind out of my sails a bit. I drifted around in the game for a while longer after that, but I was mostly back to playing skill queue online, and eventually just drifted away again.

Present day

Fast-forward to now and, honestly, I've no idea what's brought me back. I've been working from home a lot due to the pandemic, and EVE seemed like a good way to pass some time in the background on slightly quieter days. I'm currently taking things nice and slow whilst trying to get used to everything again.

So far I've done a little bit of exploration, wandered through a few wormholes, and spent a good couple of days consolidating all my assets. I've got a couple of thoughts in terms of what to do next, but I'll save those for another blog when things have become a little clearer.

For now, it's nice to be back. See you out there!