It is customary to recap the year past before the ball drops allowing a little bit of reflection what was good and what can be improved in the next year. I won’t disappoint my last remaining reader but before I start, a fair word of warning: 2017 was not my “EVE year”. In fact, it was the year I came closest to walking away from this game since 2009.
Lets start at the beginning. 2017 saw me starting up my own little industrial corp somewhere in highsec with the goal to afk-mine or run PI while my meatbag hangs limp in some conference call. My wormhole life consisted of solo roams due to my corp being heavily UK / EU focused and I encountered them only in our slack channel. On my main, I celebrated my 7-year birthday (yay me!) while I was getting slowly exasperated with my wormhole existence. I pretty much ignored the Nullsec-Fest (formerly known as “Fanfest”) and slowly stopped reading the EVE blogs or standard media. My fare, like 99% of EVE players became reddit with its short and bitter memes. CSM time rolled in and I think I managed to break my record, not a single one of my candidates made it. Yes, I went for non-bloc players that I would have trusted to represent independents but CCP wanted to build out their nullsec game and the CSM represents this perfectly. This came during a time where I went moderately active in my wormhole again and even killed things. I managed to lose my Proteus due to a series of really dumb decisions and I had fun with that as well. ’twas a good fight.
The summer kicked in and /r/eve caused a rather intense spat with CCP who dared to dial-back risk-free, unlimited ISK making. The brigades didn’t like that and the old “player v company” dynamics returned. To be honest, I agreed with the players, CCP made some terrifyingly stupid design decisions and was now paying the price for it. At the same time, I was getting tired of hanging out solo in our C4 hole where PvP is highly situational (with 2 characters and not being good at it) and PvE is nearly impossible. I ended up settling our long-lost C2 again with one of my corp mates – good times where had in organizing and hauling gear into the hole and creating a new base for my corp. The promise was that C2s can offer a more routes and contents and stimulate recruitment and corp activity. To some extent, this was certainly true and we recruited a couple of newer players. Overall however, my time in EVE was dropping week by week, this wasn’t helped by RL reasons that radically shifted my worklife. EVE was simply not on my mind anymore.
A CSM member with the nominal WH portfolio organized a townhall which went down the predicted path. That call took the last hope I had for our space from me. CCP and players want Sov-Nullsec Online “be” EVE Online and Faction War, High Sec, Lowsec and Nullsec are fighting a hopeless battle for attention. I am too old, too cynical and too bitter vet to write up precise mechanics how I think it could be improved; I know it wouldn’t be read or taken seriously by anyone. My time in spaceships reduced even further and with it came my realization that I actually don’t enjoy this game anymore. I logged, unsubbed 2 of my 3 accounts and walked away for a while.
Which brings us to 2018. I still think EVE has tremendous potential, I love hanging out with my corp mates on Slack and am not negative about the game itself and what it promises. In 2018, I will try to re-kindle my love and energy but this will likely mean a drastic shift of attitude. Maybe solo roaming nullsec or wormhole space in search for things I can take down. Maybe re-joining the Mercenaries (if they will have me!), I remember my time there very fondly. Maybe joining some SOV nullsec corp, as long as they don’t force me into a Rorqual or Titan, I’d have fun with some large fleet fights. Maybe joining one of a last remaining “fun” wormhole corps with more than one dude in the chain. Overall, 2018 will be a good year and I will make EVE online part of it in some way. And yes, I will write about it!
Onwards!
A journey through the mind 
Hello my friend. I hope you can find something to bring you back. It seems my favorite bloggers (you and the hermit) are feeling the Eve blues as I am. It is weird because there is a ton of new stuff to do in-game, but the coolest stuff, as you said, is geared towards nulsec and such. I hope it is in the cards for me to justify paying money to play Eve in 2018. I love this game, but there’s something left to be desired. Happy new year to you and yours.
Thanks Red, I really appreciate your feedback and comments. I do miss the game, I really do. I miss the times flying in WH space for hours stalking a POS and watching an Epithal like a cat watches a mouse. But for better or worse, these days are over. I can’t (justify to) allocate this time anymore. At the same time, yes, I liked being a Wormholer. You know (so does Tur, for example) that we were the few and the proud, we were to EVE what EVE players are to other MMO-players. Slightly “touched” and spoke to with both concern for our mental state and awe. I mean, who on earth lives out of a POS? We swam in ISK and our fights were small scale ambush, virtually always against a foe who had no idea that we had been watching them for weeks.
CCP has decided to turn EVE online into Nullsec Online and thats their prerogative. Its their franchise, its their IP and in the end, their paycheck. I wish them well. But I can’t see myself afk-ing a Rorqual in NS somewhere and talk shit on coms while playing PlayerUnknown.
Its not over. Am stabilizing my life and free time and I intend to come back. It would be great to fly with you again!
I’d suggest looking at Wingspan Delivery Services. They have the numbers to reliable find content day to day no matter your time zone, most of which occurs in LS or WH space. You can find people to chat with in Wing-DS (I think), but you can always check out http://www.torpedodelivery.com/
o7 fly safe.
And their slogan “we are not satisfied until you are content” is marketing genius. However, I’d prefer a smaller corp that actually lives in WH space rather than “dumpster dives”. Having said that, I hope to have an announcement next week…