EVE General Discussion

You can't really let on how much you love any particular hobby unless the group your talking with will have some leaning toward it. I never necessarilly think I can convince others to play eve, or play chess, or do martial arts or read philosophy, or read religious history, unless I at least know they have some inclination toward that.

With eve for example if they play other computer games I would likely talk to them differently than I would with others who never really have.

If they are not computer gamers I will still talk to them about eve when they bring it up. But then I am exploring what lead to them bringing it up in conversation. I have talked to someone who is the adminstation of a university about it because he had heard about it from an economics professor. So we talked about that aspect of the game and what I thought was realistic and what I thought wasn't. I may have also threw in a few things about what I enjoy about the game but then allowed the topic to change.

Im almost yelling it out on public streets since there is no damn shame in being who you wanna be..
I talk to my family and my gf about even though they don't understand **** of what im saying..

I see no reason to hide it and therefor i don't.

All my family and friends think it is foolish, "a grown man my age, playing kids' games"

Beats watching television any day of the week to me.

Simon Cowell or Eve?

Hmm...so, 60 hours/week of computer gaming vs. 3 hours a week on the treadmill at the gym is balance?

I happily "confess" that I enjoy spending my spare time playing a game. If anyone is so foolish as to ask for details, I launch off into an explanation of gunnery machanics, approach velocity and tracking. It's rather like discussing chess openings or explaining the limitations of the Nimzo-Indian defence - the recipient is either terrifically interested and will probe further or glazes over instantly and moves on.

The spreadsheet-like nature of the interface makes it easy to convince one's spouse that one is infact far too engaged in a deep study of clinical trial statistics to possibly waste time watching Master Chef, Biggest Loser or some other crap.

Did he squeeze her knee?

The swine!

True, true....but, the sex/hour ratio is not.

I am not hiding EVE but I have to admit that I hide the extreme playing. It's a similar behaviour of an alcoholic. People know that you drink but you don't tell them how much, where and when. You hide the bottles and you are damn good at it. You play EVE at work and you don't talk about it. Your corpmates know it but they don't really realize how much you play (what depends on where you work and in what position ofc). You play till 4 AM again and your wife asks you next day - because you look tired - if you played again till 2 AM and you simply answer with: "No, ofc not. I went to bed earlier." (to get rid of another dispute). Or she comes into the room at 3 AM and you tell her: "I wanted to log and go to bed anyway."

I would say: I am addicted to the game because it took in some cases control over me. I tell myself: I will play just 2 hours and end up in 5 again because I am in a 2 hours roam with some US guys in deep 0.0 what takes 4 hours. I will not post on the forums today. But I am doing it actually. I try to stop to play at work but I am hauling my PvP assets again. Good news is that I have a family and they force me to do something different over the weekends. But within the week in the EVEnings I start to realize that this game isn't just playing 2 times a week. I play it daily and it messes up the life for sure (wife TV, me EVE) because EVE is work and needs the hours. Otherwise it makes no sense to play. But does it makes sense to waste RL for Internet Spaceships? I have no answer to this philosophical question.

The main problem is that the results are very similar to other types of addiction especially when you play daily and extreme. You know it's not good for you, you know that sleep-deprivation is totally unhealthy when you do it for years and finally you start to hide facts like playing at work. You come late home, your wife thinks you had a hard day but it was EVE again. At this point it's time to change life (working on it again and again till it's fixed).

Just to give a honest example where this leads to: telling lies to people who love and trust you and finally to start to tell yourself lies. When you live alone - eg. you have a lot of spare time - you probably will not see EVE as something what can cause serious issues.

I am not happy with it and the proof that I am addicted is simple: I start to change my EVE behaviour but I fall back again. Because it's a great experience but much more than just a hobby. Especially when you are involved in politics, well known and successful in PvP. It's a hate-love.

But the real good news are: I can terminate my accounts anytime (hard but possible) and simply let my wife change the password to get over the 24 hours. Once the chars and stuff are destroyed the addiction is over. That's luckily the difference to physical addiction.

Now discuss and tell me that I have to stop playing EVE asap. There must be a reason why VIDEOS LIKE THIS exist. Or could it be that someone feels like reading his own post.