EVE General Discussion

With the 10 year anniversary coming up, I thought maybe it might be enjoyable to look back over some of my 10 years of playing EVE.

I signed up in early May 2003 - the first or second day it went live. I've been on ten years straight since. One fanfest. Tons of friends.

Sure, people can complain all they want about this or that, but I've played a lot of games. This is simply the best game there is. I think the heart of it is the multi-dimensional aspect of all parts of the game. You have to think through everything. If you just haul off and do something without planning or thinking it through, you can be sure that there will be someone ready and waiting to take advantage if you give it. It's at once a cold ruthless place, filled with hated enemies and good friends, and the most interesting universe there is to play in.

I remember:

I had been playing some crap game called Earth & Beyond in early 2003 (I think it was made by EA - who else). I had played that game for a few months and severely lost interest. Happened across a review of EVE and thought I would give it a try.
I started in Lonetrek. I remember the very first time I undocked in my Ibis, and flew around, system to system, belt to belt, I remember thinking what an amazing universe these guys had created, the beauty, the huge size, and how isolated everything seemed. It was awesome and still is. I sometimes have to remind myself not to take for granted.

I remember in the first days of EVE how much it was the wild wild west. All of null sec up for grabs. Low sec practically empty. Everything was new. Everybody was flying around doing stupid stuff, shooting everybody else up, just basically a huge chaotic fist fight.

I remember how, at first, mining was everything. Then it sucked and ratting was the thing. Then missions. And now mining again.

I remember I when I got my first cruiser and had mined for hours and hours to get the minerals to afford it. And then me and some buddies jumped into null sec after joining a corp out in Venal and promptly got popped in 2 minutes.

I remember in the early days, we had only 4-5k people on the server you could sit and mine and rat in remote systems literally all day long if you wanted to and have the system to yourself.

I remember the day that the first player flew a battleship in EVE. It was a big deal. The old MOO corp - some guy in a Domi and his buddies - camped Nonni - and blew the crap out of everybody coming in and out. Hi Sec was a lot different back then. People whine about it now. Nothing like it was when EVE started.

I remember when POSes were first introduced we spent hours scanning moons and I came across some "worthless" technetium moon in low sec Forge, so I thought I would give moon mining a go. Back then demand was often so low I couldn't make a profit on it and actually shut it down because it cost more to run than I could make.

In null sec, in those early days of null sec sov wars, we spent hours and hours spamming systems with towers to get sov. And then more hours blowing the crap out of other alliance towers who then blew up our towers and back and forth. You would log on early morning and stay on till 2 or 3AM all weekend to keep fighting or hauling stuff from empire to keep the supplies and fuel and towers flowing only to see them all blown up and do it all over again and again.

I remember when Jita was someplace nobody had ever heard of and everybody sold everything in Yulai.

I remember back before warp to zero, what a pain bookmarks were.

I remember when people used warp stabs.

I remember when Miner II's came out and everybody went nuts to get one. My first Miner II cost 5M ISK, back when 5M was a lot.

I remember the days of the Stain & Curse Alliance wars. We used to load up our Kessie's with cruise missiles (you could do that back then) and fly hit and run raids, ambushing haulers and occasional cruisers. The best part was, of course, blowing up some reds mining op. Back before mining barges, people often used Apocs or other Battleships with a bunch of miners in the hi's, and we'd fly in a couple of dozen frigs loaded with cruises and blow them all to pieces. And then they'd do the same to us.

I remember how, when Freighters first came out, everybody wanted a freighter, and how our whole corp chipped in to be able to afford the 4 capital parts BPOs and the Obelisk BPO and we mined and mined so we could build just one freighter. Took weeks. And then after we built it, it was like "now what?" so we sold it because we really didn't have anything to haul around.

EVE is a funny fateful place sometimes where just one small thing can make all the difference. I remember once, years ago, on a whim, I blew up some NPC merchant haulers just to see what would drop. One item was 5 BPOs of something called an Auto Targeter. Never had even heard of it. Turns out it was golden. A hi slot item lots of mission runners use. Apparently back then it was a drop item from rats, but the BPOs hadn't been seeded on the market for some reason. And I had five of them. They cost around 20K to make and I could sell them for around 1M because demand was high. So, naturally, I built them as fast as I could for months and months and sold them all over hi sec with a practical monopoly as no one else seemed to be building them. Didn't last forever but was nice while it did.

I remember when I was one of the first players to get my hands on a Covetor BPO. I remember selling 1-run BPCs for 10M a copy and couldn't make copies fast enough.

I still know a lot of the friends I have made. Guys who live all over many European countries, Asia, North America. People I would never have known otherwise. Its funny how you get to know guys in EVE so well and they become good friends. EVE is like that.

I am looking forward to the next 10 years.

Driven

Don't taunt the bittervets. They are my friends, and I am technically one of them.

My biggest regret is that I did not know anything about EVE Online until much later.

All the countless hours of playtime and years wasted in other mundane games....

EDIT- Actually thinking back, I think I downloaded EVE Online once, but I stopped after playing for 5 minutes because I was turned off by the graphic. I believe it was before the massive graphical update. Probably before Trinity expansion?

I remember the days when noobs made their insults with ship guns, not empty forum squawking.

Congrats, Driven.

I can't believe I didn't realize how much fun PvP was, until I started over with this toon, in 07.
Should never have scrapped my old account.

But I do remember what it was like before shipwrecks and alliances. Before supercaps and TechII.
Wormholes and Sleepers weren't even thought of. CCP and GM's had Jovian characters... and nobody could afford a battleship, yet.

Those were the days.

That m0o guy, if I'm not mistaken, was L0rd Zap. I say this because my first character lost his first pod on that fateful day in high sec while they tanked and murdered Concord.

Man..... m0o Corp made a real name for themselves, early on.
Tank CEO..... EVE's original "villain", was a member.
m0o got the first BShip killmail, AND killed the only Gold Magnate.
It took GM help to break their gate camps.

Not to mention a m0o member (Tank, of course) was the only player to ever slip into Jovian space without exploiting the Alliance Tournament.

Maybe it is just fond memories, but I miss those days. Except the bookmarks. Those were always annoying.

Haha fantastic! Thanks for sharing your stories. Amazing to see how far EVE has come, and hopefully how far it's going to go. Can't wait to hit my 10 years and pull up a seat at that shiny 10-year club station CCP is going to build you guys.