It was four years ago.
A timid capsuleer was loaded into her first ship called an Ibis. (Yes in Eve Online you float inside a fluid filled capsule). The Ibis isn’t big, it isn’t fast, and it certainly isn’t powerful. In fact it would have a difficult time taking out a pickup truck driven by a guy with a tire iron (O.K. maybe not that bad but not by much). It does have the sole benefit of being the only free ship in Eve Online. If you want one all you have to do is get yourself blown up.
Back then there were no wonderful tutorials that guide you step by step through new adventures, introducing you to the various professions available to you. No, it was little more than a voice that sounds suspiciously like Majel Barett that taught you how to fly your space borne Edsel of the future, how to mine and sent you out to die…er…make a name for yourself or (more likely) die trying.
Fortunately things have change…a lot
Now you don’t just get a ship for free. By the time you are finished with the new player experience you have a small fleet of ships, equipped to start you in one of many professions: I chose mining and mission running. I made my way through the missions starting with frigates, and ending up in battleships. Not long after I was offered membership in what quickly became a null security corporation. Most days I quickly made my way to the object set me by my agent (quest giver for all you WoW players), and rushed back after to “turn in”.
But there is one sight that always made me stop, and stare.
I would cut my engines and just hang there, outside the space station. The cruisers I flew back then were dwarfed by them. In fact even the battleships I later flew shrunk into insignificance. It’s black mass would fly over head, never seeming to stop as it blocked out the stars. It was so big it could hold Soldier Field (a football stadium in Chicago) in its titanic hold. At one point they cost a billion isk, placing them well out of the reach of the average player. Yes, it may have moved so slow it was like pushing an elephant across the rug on its nose; but that didn’t matter to me.
Now as anyone who has ever obtained a goal will tell you, having a thing is not always as desirable as desiring a thing. Still, as I think of the uses to which I will but my first Charon freighter I am reminded of a time that Michael Nesmith of the 60s band “The Monkees” was on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. During the interview he described what he pictured to be his ultimate hot rod. When Carson asked him what he would do with it, his reply was “Nothing man, just sit in it.”
Bank sitting has long been a tradition in MMOS, ever since the days of Ultima Online. In fact back then it had a very practical use – the area in front of the bank was the best market place in the game, there being no such thing as an “auction house.” In Eve Online it is difficult to “bank sit”. There are places where you can “space station sit”. I have seen a place or two in Amarr space.
Being an industrialist and mission runner, there are a number of uses to which I can, and will, put my freighter. My initial voyage proved to be much easier than I had imagined, my skills making it much faster to align the ship for jump to warp…a task which has pained many a freighter pilot. With the advent of the new expansion for Eve Online due out this May 18th, there will be even more use to put the freighter – hauling everything made through the new planetary interaction system from the end of space, out where “God lost his shorts” as one friend put it, to the major trade hubs.
It’s nice to see CCP giving some care to the players that many a misguide individual has dubbed a “care bear”. Then again, it only makes sense – we’re the ones who pay the bills.
See you online,
Julie Whitefeather
(posted for Julie Whitefeather by The Webmaster)