CCP has been sending me “come back to EVE” e-mails for awhile now, touting variously their refund of learning skills, the new character creator, soon the “captain’s quarters” where capsuleers can get out of the pod and stretch their legs.
So, what the heck, I took them up on their latest offer. I made a character portrait that looks vaguely like me, except my skin is worse and I look way older.
Anyway, my nullsec fleet had kicked me out, and I was back in highsec somehow, only about six jumps from my home base in Aunia. I’m going to have to figure out how to contract back the Domi they lent me, and I’m going to have to do it pretty fast. I just don’t think I can ever go back to EVE.
Inertia is the inclination of moving objects to keep moving, and for stationary objects to stay put. Once you get going in EVE, it’s easy to keep going. The skill queue charts your course, you have your market ops and your research and the ongoing political situation with your allies and enemies, and it’s just easy to keep moving in that space.
But should you stop — your skill queue empties out and you forget what you were training to do, nobody in game remembers you anymore, your research seems pointless and you are no longer connected to the game. News of a griefer olympics makes space seem even colder.
It’s inertia, and it would take a powerful shove to keep things moving again.
I’m in a weird spot with MMOs at the moment. Since I didn’t want to play in any of the recent Rift betas, I’ve been floating between games. Lucent Heart, DDO, even EverQuest II.
My adventures in Fortune League, the EQ2-themed fantasy adventurer trader game on Facebook, have led directly to sparking my interest in its parent game once again. As much as I love my troubadour, her time has passed. But my berserker …
First of all, she looks really cute. The latest gear and skill changes have made it far easier to gear her up. I had some issues with her AA, but redeeming a Fortune League AA scroll made me five AA points last night. I also redeemed one of the XP potions I won and ground minotaurs in Steamfont for writs until I made two levels (in one hour) and dinged 52, where I can get the Mastercrafted stuff.
I’m not sure anyone particularly needs a midlevel faerie fighter, but who needs groups, anyway?
While EvE is still stuck in one place, Fortune League has given EQ2 a little bit of a push and set it in motion.
Which is, as I mentioned, too bad, since Rift starts Thursday.
13 thoughts on “The Inertia of EVE Online and EverQuest II”
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I have returned to EVE a couple of times after prolonged breaks and I found it rewarding enough. The trick for me was to abandon whatever it is you were trying to do before and start over again on something else. You were a miner – try running missions. You were a pirate – try playing a hauler for a bit or how about just do something freaky like trying to fly solo around 0.0 space.
The reason this approach works for me is that EVE doesn’t hide all of its complexity till the later stages of the game. EVE is an enormously complex game right from the get go and therefore it is possible to get completely engrossed even at the very early stages.
I think your problem is you have yourself stretched really thin between too many games. Very few of these games are meant to be played rarely, not if you want to keep up with the new stuff.
While yes, I know you like to review games coming out, you can’t expect to keep an interest in all games if you hardly ever play them.
The Eve Online reviews/stories you did, I found really interesting. It made me check out the game. But since I don’t want to spend the time needed to make the game fun and interesting, I don’t play it.
Now i’m not suggesting you pick a game and stick to it, not at all. Just saying of course your going to find games not as fun to play, when the games are meant to be played regular.
Anyways, take care, hopefully the new EQ2 expansion is worth the time and money I spend on the game (3 accounts, SOE are greedy bastards, at $40 a pop)
Its possible it could be a mixture of both comments above. Some MMO games are not really meant to be that rarely played if to hold interest or skill or even remember how to do stuff. Yet returning to a game being gone that long as Mbp said its good maybe to try and do something different in game vs what you did before.
I’ts almost been a year since i’ve been playing EVE, yet i clearly remember before then I was playing STO and reading your blog allot and about your EVE adventures back then when your played more at that time or before. I found your adventures so interesting i read all your older EVE adventures and just found them fun and interesting account of the game. Reading all your stories gave me a big push to hit the button and take up learning to play the game. Its just funny how things work out.
You do seem to play quite many games so it could be possible your indeed stretched thin with all the games you play in keeping the interest up.
Tipa, the likeness of that character is uncanny.
Did you ever make it onto Fippy Darkpaw?
I made a character there, but I’ve committed to Rift, and EQ really wants to be your only MMO.
Tipa–if you really want to contract back the domi or just say hi I’m in game again myself. Meclin/Scipia. Don’t know how you ended up in high sec either–last I saw you was in Deklein after you jumped out!
I contracted the Domi back to DISEASE U. I don’t know if I still have any free time in EVE Online 😛 But that ship has been bugging me for months, and I promised myself the next time I got some free game time, that ship was going back to Skyforge.
Ahh well thanks 🙂 Disease left some time ago for another corp. No biggie!
He contracted it back to me. Thanks for sending it back–it just happens I can really use it right now.
You know, I’ve tried to actually describe it that play in these cases ends up more like inertia. And then you said it yourself so well! And even described a state of inertia where you stay still, which I should have clicked onto already. I Must save the link to this post!
Heh 🙂 Thanks! I think most MMOs depend upon intertia to some extent to retain their players. If you make a game easy to jump into and out of, then you have made a game that is easy for people to jump OUT OF… and that’s bad news for any MMO.