End Game

The time as finally come. On May 19th, at 0245 EVE-time, my account subscription will run out and Cozmik R5, Cassy Winds and Outofplace Lamb will be put into cryosleep vats. This time it has nothing to do with real-life finances, in-game conflicts, frustration or bad game design. I am just awfully tired of playing a game that seems more like a chore than a game. And God knows I hate chores with a passion. I have said it before, there is only a tiny fragment of EVE that I actually like, as beautiful and as deep a game as EVE is. But I tend to prefer games that I can turn on and off whenever I want. In EVE, you know when you turn it on, but you have no clue when you'll be turning it off. Sheer addictiveness does have something to do with it, but not always. The majority of the time everything you want to do just takes too damn long. I've had quite enough of this. Trolls would tell me to harden the fuck up (!); well fuck you trolls! All you're good at is trolling. Putting your money where your mouth is is only a vague concept to you.

But do I want to make an emoragequit post as I'm about to leave a game I've spent close to three and a half years in? Hell no. Despite the sometimes excruciatingly slow action there have been a few jewels of action where the heart was racing at 200 BPM, laughed so hard I was brought to tears, or was simply amazed at some players... let's keep it civil for once and call it "lack of information"! Here are a few of my favorite memories in my time in New Eden.

Flying dangerous, very early: I was 4 or 5 days old when I tried to go for the slightly tougher rats of Low-sec. I knew Low-sec was more dangerous, but at this point I didn't know how harsh the EVE environment could be. I proceeded to kill a few Angels for about 20 minutes when someone in Local said "Alright, that's it!". A second later my then almost brand new Thrasher was no more, blown up by a Rupture  piloted by someone I would later find out is kind of an EVE PvP celebrity. The pilot was Garmon. The system was Amamake :) Yeah, only n00bs!

Show me PvP bitch: at a mere 3 weeks of age real-life friend Letrange introduced me to one Arancia Detto of the Clown Punchers Syndicate. Yeah, a complete n00b wanting to taste 0.0 PvP. BOZO had a training corp back then called Clown College, and once in a while they would take complete n00bs like me and teach them the ropes of The PvP. Of my class I was the only one to not only make it to the big corp, but to stay on for an entire year.

The suicide fleet that wouldn't die: I was learning the ropes of FC'ing and was leading a suicide fleet made up of nothing but T1 cruisers and frigs, when on one roam we managed to kill multiple T2 ships, battlecruisers and battleships, all while losing a single Griffin. Pure epic win!

The rebirth of an alliance: That much PvP was fun but I did need to slow down my pace at some point. This happened to be just in time to join Letrange in his rebuilding of the AMC alliance in preparation for Apocrypha, W-space, T3 ships and all that fun stuff. Let's alliance was composed mostly of industrialists who had never flown in dangerous space before, but players like me, Cerui Tarshiel, and MAPU corp made sure everyone got a crash course in PvP, which culminated in the first POS bash we had to do in W-space, which was expensive but we had managed to pull off what we intended to do, kick the bad guys out. AMC pilots are still carebears at heart but I would dare anyone to try and fuck with 'em. Go ahead, try!

From learner to master: when one of my long-time friends surprised me by logging on the day after I told him about EVE, I became a teacher. He was of course overwhelmed by the Learning Cliff but he came out alright. The fact that he's not playing anymore has more to do with his company getting WTFPWND by some bank-frauding douchebag than by loss of interest.

The Provi-War: I wasn't there for the entire duration, but fun was had especially at the very beginning. Unfortunately the alliance I was associated with bit off more than it could chew and eventually fail-cascaded, which was sad because at the start it looked like it was going to be a total ball!

Back to AMC: when I came back the alliance wasn't the fledgling thing it was in early Apocrypha, it was a well-oiled machine making more ISK than you could think possible. Wardecs were welcomed with bared teeth instead of dread. POS ops were handled with calm efficiency instead of the first ones' panic. And we also had a few PvP roams that were nothing but pure fun. The highlight was catching gank pirate WayCharles pants down, killing a Phobos, an Oneiros and an Abaddon with nothing but 2 T1 cruisers, a battlecruisers, a Rifter and my Taranis. Piwat tears > Carebear tears :))

Back to Curse: when I joined Ushra'Khan just over a month ago I came very close to writing this very post because like a few of my AMC mates, I was in burn-out mode. Hell, I AM in burn-out mode! But despite some schedule conflicts because most of U'K is EU-based, and some hard-headed spirits I have a tougher time dealing with, I was welcomed with open arms into this new family. I even had my best ever stats within a corp. The final tally in my time in TDR is 36 kills (25 real kills) and 1 death, for a 97.19% efficiency. Not bad for someone who has trouble logging in at the same time as most of his corpmates. But the feeling I now have for EVE goes beyond the sweet PvP numbers. Internet spaceships don't sing to me anymore, so the time has come to put some tarps over my ships, close the garage door and put out the lights.

"So what are your plans?" you ask. Well, before the light goes out I do want to treat myself a little. I've always wanted a Cynabal so I'll get one. When I tried it on Sisi I fell in love with it. I won't play with it much right now but at least it'll be there when I come back, because of course I'll come back at some point. But not before summer's end, at least. There are some other games that interest me, but I admit that this burn-out is pretty much a gaming burn-out, not just EVE. But yeah, I will fly a Eurofighter Typhoon down the Grand Canyon once in a while. I will frag the crap out of someone on Quake Live. I will fly a starfighter with a stick and blow shit up. I will blow some Inner Sphere surat's mech to smithereens. I will hack-n-slash my way into a dungeon, looking for sweet loot. But I will also play my drums and guitar as often as possible. I will ride my mountain bike for miles and miles through all sorts of terrain, urban and not. I will do some urban exploration and try to go into real-life Low-sec. I will go see awesome music shows and enjoy a cold one on hot summer days. And after all that, then I'll see if it's worth it for me to come back to EVE. But whatever I do, if it's interesting enough I will probably blog about it because the "Diary" isn't going anywhere, and I love writing about and posting stuff. Yes, you can still expect a tune next friday :))

I cannot leave EVE Online without saying some Thank You's to a few people that have helped me in one way or another, even if they don't know or remember me, during my growth as an EVE player, so here goes:

To Garmon, who has taught me to harden the fuck up 2 years before the slogan was invented.

To the BOZOs: Arancia Detto, Quebnaric Deile, Teister, Tolarus, Cerui Tarshiel, Maelgar, Madcoy Flinstone, Matriux, Kazmak, Masnunca, Nagumwasuck, Zenethian, Jel Malar, Freak76, Delusional Miner, Ephetian, and countless others I will probably remember one week after this has been posted, for giving a 3 week old n00b a shot at 0.0 life, and getting on more killmails in a single month than some people have in their entire EVE career. (v3rtigo, Rugs, ts5p, Fumb Duck, Music TSP... there are more!)

To all at AMC: Cathrianne, Strongpaw Griffis, Teena & Luna Wyldfyre, Raistel, StarHomer, Devorik, Uskas, Zynda, Tsurugisan, Gemorion, FreddyFacepalm, and various others for teaching that not all carebears shed tears, but turn into kodiaks instead.

To MAPU, Chez Stan, and other Montreal EVE pilots: Unzer, Suletsap III, Havegun Willtravel, IvanAsen, Felix Dcat, Mokmo3, Theodore Geisel, Ouzag and Cartboard Box for being the best real-life buddies anyone could have and for helping with real-life shit. Whenever any of you guys need help, I'll be there.

To the EVE bloggers, past and present: Mynxee, Shae Tiann, Spectre3353, Kirith Kodachi, Manasi, Ga'len, Wensley, Kane Rizzel, Miura Bull, Rixx Javix, Helicity Boson, Raxip Elamp, Crazy Kinux, and others for giving me different prespectives on EVE and giving me the means to read about the game when I can't have access to it.

To TDR and U'K: Lord Makk, Cenm, Aedun Sole, Xious, Forlorn Wongraven, Spark's, Spotlessblade, Nutkins, Naurill, and various others for the warm welcome back in that crazy place called Curse.

And finally, and most importantly, to my great friend Letrange, who helped me with everything from fitting my very first Slasher to buying me lunch. I would've have passed on EVE if it hadn't been for you, which means I wouldn't have been associated in one way or another with the fine people (yes, even Spectre!) named above, and I wouldn't have been able to deprive New Eden's citizens of 42.63 billion ISK worth of assets, according to Battleclinic.

Now's the time for one last trip in dangerous space, as I will board my last interceptor and head towards the Doril gate one last time, at least for a few months. This isn't goodbye forever; it is merely as René Lévesque put it on that faithful day in 1980...

A la prochaine !!!

o7