In December, it is customary among bloggers to recap the year and I nearly didn’t make it which is in itself indicative of my state of mind. EVE and blogging are simply not as much in my thoughts as it used to be. There are a few obvious reasons that have (almost) nothing to do with the game itself and I’ll get into it.
Real Life has been quite good but complicated. I am involved in way too many professional projects to be able to really focus on a single one. This is expected in new ventures but needs to find a rhythm or I burn out. I am pretty hopeful for this in 2019 for a bunch of “reasons” but with many professional distractions, the motivation to log into any computer game was limited.
On December 30 2017, we brought home a 9 week old puppy who grew into a 70 pound dog with all the usual fun, accidents, destroyed things and gallons of slobber. She certainly has changed the dynamic of the household and I love the raw energy she has.
The Dog is also responsible for increased outdoor activities (by design). Since I started tracking in March (294 days), we did 253 walks (there must be more, at least 1/day but I sometimes forget my Smartwatch). Average distance of the walks was calculated as 2.35 miles which includes a few incorrectly recorded events (shortest for example was 0.14). The longest walk was 5.75 miles and of course having spent 2 months on crutches this summer didn’t help the statistics. Walking is better than not walking but I can’t rate it as real exercise. In 2019, I need to get back into running or cycling or gym or whatever but get the core strength back.
Gaming. I am the other idiot who pre-bought Fallout 74, I loved “4” so much that I blindly bought whatever has “Fallout” in the name. My experience with No Man’s Sky should have taught me and since the whole internet hates the game, I have not even installed it. I think I let it simmer for a year and let Bethesda roll out a few patches before I give it a shot. At the same time, Blizzard (Bungee?) released Destiny 2 for free which I downloaded and fell in love with. The game is an incredibly polished shooter with little pretense to be anything else. As immortal hero, I log in, blast away never ending waves of bad aliens, get some purple SuperGunofAwesomeness and generally have an fun 30 minutes. Destiny 2 is what space shooters need to beat if they come into the market and I am sure something like this gave CCP cold feet before they pulled out of their shooter development.
EVE. I think 2018 is the nadir of my EVE-playing time, I lack motivation, focus and time. With NOMEX, I am back in WH space and in the company of excellent pilots. I had some really cool, fun PvP encounters and always want more but never really get around to it. I did manage to write an RP piece for Telegram Sam’s Pod and Planet contest, its dark and brutal and I still don’t think its bad. Lets see what the judges say when they publish their ranking. For some weird reason, I am optimistic that CCP adds content to EVE, including Wormhole space. Its pragmatic – citadels are reasonably stable and while some can be tweaked and added more features, the core design is “done”. Nullsec is about where CCP wants it to be, a region where ISK doesn’t matter and massive battles without consequence can be fought that PC Gamer will write about. So, my gut tells me that Nullsec sees a little bit of change here and there but WH, Low Sec, Faction War and High Sec (Wardecs) get the bulk of developers’ attention in 2019.
Thats it, spacenerds, fly dangerously and see you on the other side.
A journey through the mind 