EVE General Discussion

I've been thinking about this recently..

I started playing back in 2007, and within a few months of starting i decided to learn to code with the EVE Online API.. The reason for this decision was to create a tool that helped solve an in-game problem. EVE linked fun (gaming) with coding! i got hooked! So, I quit my art degree and started a computer degree and 4 years later got a job as a front end engineer specializing in Javascript and have been doing it ever since. Because of this, i moved flats and met my GF.

If i didn't get into this game who knows what i would be doing now... or who i would be with..

How has EVE help shape your life?

I'm still sitting at the same computer pounding my fingers into a keyboard and reading more than I am playing. Maybe it has in some way impacted me, but it hasn't been as life altering as what you described. Happy you managed to pull it off and improve yourself!

Real life???? What is that?

I just got out of jail for stealing a guy's car because he left it unlocked, and then scamming a priest at a local church out of his life's savings.

I started playing EVE when I was 18.

I was the quietest guy in the world, and the thought of even having to give a presentation in front of five people, or do an interview absolutely terrified me. I was a serious introvert.

I started playing in 2002 during beta, then after release in 2003 I was like "spaceship game made by a group of nutjobs on a volcanic rock in the middle of nowhere? I'll play it for a bit, it's only going to last 6 months." At that point in time the only thing I knew about Iceland was volcanoes and Bjork.

EVE lasted into 2004, so I joined ISD as part of CRC (that's what the forum moderators were called back then) and had fun pirating and forum moderating.

In 2005 I was like "Well ****, it's still here." my confidence had grown a little bit as I'd started talking to people a little more, so I thought "Screw it, I'll form my own corp. I'm not the leadership type so it's only going to last 6 months." Yeah, right.

2008 rolls along and I've got a notorious 100 man pirate corp only my hands - suddenly I'm flying to Iceland for Alliance Tournament 4. I'm still pretty introvert in real life other than being a big mouth in EVE, because hey, it's on the internet.

I remember being on the set of AT 4, absolutely shitting myself, fifteen minutes before we were due to go live, shaking like a leaf.

30 minutes into that broadcast I didn't look back.

I believe I missed AT 9 and 10 if I remember right, but have been involved in every one of them since 4 in some capacity or other - it just became a thing I've loved. The last 4 have been with CCP as a member of staff.

Fast forward from 2008 to 2017, and from a shy introvert it's now pretty hard to shut me up. I've presented on stage in front of thousands of people, live streamed in front of thousands, and interviewed for EVE media and press from all over the world.

That's all been thanks to EVE Online, CCP, and more than anything, this community.

So yeah, EVE basically changed who I am as a person, from a quiet, introvert, fast mouthed smartass nerd who really needed to get to know people before he'd open up to them, to the person I am today (a noisy, loudmouthed, extrovert smartass nerd who never shuts up).

EVE and this community have given me some of the biggest opportunities of my life, and both have been with me on a fifteen year journey of self discovery that, while it's had its rocky moments, has defined who I am and changed me in more ways than I can list.

TL;DR - Yes.

Falcon, you were painfully shy? Huh. Interesting...

Best "winning EVE" story ever.

I credit eve with motivating me to learn two programming languages.

PHP when the old New Eden Research website needed to be refactored away from its original ColdFusion incarnation.

More recently Python, when I wanted to start playing with the API, something that Python's good at.

I've just volunteered for a project at work that will work with a 3rd party provider's REST API based on my experience with eve's. Let's see where that goes.

Using the market system in EvE taught me to do a similar thing with Bitcoin

It was more the other way around for me.