Quite getting back into EVE Online again, representing as it does, an MMO that does things a bit differently, which is the sort of game I'm increasingly drawn to these days. I've auto-attacked a lot of monsters in my day, and after a while, one 'Miscellaneous "Cause Damage" Special Attack #43' hot key button starts to look much like any other, and only the particle effects start to vary. EVE Online, as I've mentioned often in the past, during my previous seasons in there, presents an entirely different game mechanic on a very moment-to-moment level, throughout play, based more in the instinctive understanding of geometry, energy balancing, and a firm grasp of having the right tool for the job, and knowing how best to use it.

Forgive a bit of minor 'Topic Necromancy', but the other Monsterhunters were talking at length, a while back, about what exactly constitutes 'The Next Generation' of online gaming. Now I don't know about 'Next' generation, but for me, an interesting game is more and more one that belongs to an entirely different family, rather than being a son or daughter of the ones I'm all too used to. Existing games I'd consider to fit in this category include Planetside, Neocron 2, Auto Assault, Guild Wars, Second Life, Jumpgate, Mankind and of course EVE Online. Of course different isn't necessarily the same as popular, or indeed, good, and many of those have bombed terribly, perhaps for being too different to the standard Everquest evolution most of us are happiest with. If it's evolution we're all looking for, it's the quirkiest mutants that I find the most fascinating.

Possibly one of the main reasons I keep drifting back to EVE is the sheer difference between it, and the usual hack-n-slash, which I do enjoy, but can't do forever.

Anyway, central to keeping life interesting in EVE, is the ability to set your own goals. There's only limited 'questing' in there,  the ultimate aim of Being Embarassingly Wealthy for it's own sake, and of course for the larger corporations and alliances, the whole 'Conquer the Universe' game, but on a personal level, it's nice to be good at something in particular, and being good at it is nice. I've quite taken a shine to the new Exploration content, and it seems I have the patience and skills to have developed quite a knack for it, so for this Season of Interest, I'm going for that.

Been at it a week or two now, and after a bit of a frustrating start, my skills are now comfortably competent, and I have a better idea of how long the activity is supposed to take - a hurdle which seems to discourage most players who try it for the first time, and have now found quite a few of these hidden locations. I'm pottering about in one of the quieter regions of Empire space, so don't have to worry about being blown up while doing it, and the new corp I'm in is very supportive, providing the probes I need, in exchange for access to the sites when I find them, which suits me admirably. For me it's the hunting that's the most interesting, and often the site itself will need different skills and ships to the ones I have so far anyway.

The corp seem particularly happy when I turn up special hidden asteroid belts, containing tens of millions of ISK of rare ore types. At that point we all descend on the place like locusts in an attempt to squirrel them away before some other enterprising scan probe launcher comes across the location. Yes...it's a another small-scale mining and manufacture corp, but the people are fun and interesting.

I think my bold PvP 0.0 designs are going to have to wait for now. Despite the universe-quaking rhetoric, (See EVE Tribune, sidebar) all these huge Alliance wars seem very remote and distant things when you're comfortably ensconced in Empire space, and anyway seem very private affairs really. PvP will have to be something I'll work up to gradually, only that isn't really how it shakes down in EVE, where it tends to be all-or-nothing even today, what with ship replacement costs, Tech 2 Superiority, security status exiling, NPC Police and so on. You can't just race out there and start shooting. On the more organised side - large corp and alliance wars in 0.0 - paranoia runs rampant, and if you aren't in 'their gang', most will just execute you there and then, making it very difficult to earn enough trust to actually take part in any of it, and Ethic's recent corp troubles are still distressingly common:

Kill Ten Rats: Space Drama

Seems as if most players in EVE are spies and thieves, just most of them haven't quite reached their 'breaking price' yet. Still, all this may be so, but does not mean you can't still be friends with people. Just try not to actually trust them with anything important, and it's all fine! On the whole, I'm finding it's more fun being in the corp than playing alone, even if they are all secretly plotting to rip me off.

The plan next seems to be to develop my Exploration abilities as much as possible, which will involve training for a new class of ship, along with associated trimmings, and to keep finding interesting places for my own satisfaction, and the corp's benefit. Of course there's still the usual missions, marketeering, and even occasional bit of mining to vary it all, but it's good to have a longer term goal.

After that? Well, Factional Warfare is supposed to be the next big feature coming, and with any luck, this may turn out to be the 'shallow-end' introduction to affordable PvP that I've been looking for...