Day 200 : Space Noob in the ...umm... 21st Century

In the day 200 Space Noob Industries launched a very hungover mining ship.
Aboard this great big space hog a lone capsuleer, Captain S. Noob was to experience extreme boredom beyond all comprehension.
In a freak mishap his entire ship was frozen by lag beyond imagination.
Gold Digger I was blown out of its target belt of Scordite into a grid 1000 times more laggy.
It was a grid that was to return Space Noob to Caslemon .... 365.... DAYS later......
De de duh deeh deeh duh.. etc + Erin Gray (hopefully).


So here I am one year ahead of you, blown into the future by a tragic lag mishap caused by a half assed attempt at building my own shoddy Damage Control II. It's all different in this strange new world.

I undock and find out all my ships have a third more shield and armour. What the hell? It makes fights last slightly longer but perhaps it was the fix to the undock bug where you find you have a third missing from both. A bug where I never found the trigger conditions to report it. Bizzaro. Perhaps it was planned?

I visit themittani.com to see what's happened and use their link to the sov map. Before I can click it I notice the entire site has become crowded with Planetside 2 articles, hemmed in by various articles on big fat combat robots. Planetside 2 has become a dark warground of individuals sniping at their hated enemies. No one goes for the objectives anymore. Guerilla warfare against other outfits rules the entire game. The comment threads are full of DUST players mocking PS2 players for not being intelligent enough to find a fight. PS2 mock DUST players in turn for being nuked from orbit by passing, bored, capsuleers.

Switching back to the Neocom I notice a supercap in the belt. It's mining! When did they allow this? Before I can ask what is going on a horde of T1 cruisers hit the grid, spouting obscenity in local. They tear the supercap apart and then begin to fight over the remains. Most of the pilots are less than two months old, slavering maniacs in charge of guns. It is a cruiser blob. Reavers driven mad by the insane amounts of PVP they can engage in from day one.

I warp to a planet hoping they won't follow but misclick and end up floating above a belt. There are ships here projecting some kind of effect into the rings of the planet. What are they doing? Hoovering up stuff? Half the ships belong to Goons and have escorts of all sizes flying with them. I'm yellowboxed and completely jammed almost instantly by ECM cruisers in the cloud, but I warp to an old safe point just in time.

Something is still on grid! Investigating further I see a strange structure, modular like a huge NASA space station of old. Industry lights some corners of it and a right click reveals the production of biomass in a space conservatory. I fail to see any protection on it, perhaps it can be only dscanned down by randomly pointing into space? As I watch a Tengu uncloaks and begins to shoot at one of the modules, in turn a squad of Battle cruisers unclock, all year old pilots, yet with fearsome DPS, they tear the Tengu apart. I run in fear of noobs having fully skilled BCs.

This kind of space is too freaky for Space Noob, surely some bastion of sanity must exist elsewhere. I set my destination to Jita. On arrival I view a wasteland. Activating a cloak I drift slowly through the wreckage. Local is silent.. Where are all the scammers? Suddenly I notice a lone Iteron on the undock. Local booms out. It is the Knights of the New Order. Trade is now banned without subscription to the New Order and the promise to never autopilot between trade hubs! As I warp out in fear I notice the flayed body of James 315 pinned to the hull of a gank fit Thorax. It looks as if the Knights rose up and immortalised their founder in their quest to prevent anyone playing EVE by other than their own rules.

Where are all the personalities I've enjoyed reading about in the distant past? How many are still with us? A hint leads me back all the way to Old Man Star. I run the blockade of two month old Reavers only just intact and find Old Man Star to be a refuge for any vet' over a year old, fighting a rear guard action against faction fit cruisers flown by five day old characters who have flown out of null ratting sites. Should I call out to the Noobs as their father or should I join with the old guard as I'd originally planned? Null is a desolate wasteland following the cataclysmic war between the Goons and TEST, imitating real world history after a flare up in the Balkans that is the south and south east.

I choose to join the old guard as I had planned to back in the day, too many friends had been made in the past. Tur is there, the grizzled old WH vet with a much scarred Mab at his side, Kyle the Queen of the Rebalanced Nado is there, Kodachi the frigate king, Drack the Destroyer, Fiddle too mocking while Rome burns, Javix the pacifist (he killed too many and now only flies tackle) and too many other notables to mention. The number of pilots online is off the chart. It is time, as Tallahassee once said, to nut up or shut up. EVE is the land of the noobs and their father is coming to meet them with guns, overheated guns with the safety off.

07 EVE.


PS - Apologies all. Back to work tomorrow and that combined with a nice glass of Jura has led me to an irreverent look at the future of EVE. To all those personalities I've followed on Twitter or their blogs, thank you. To all those people I talk with in game, thank you. To all those people who read my drivel, thank you. EVE was the greatest thing in a rough 2012 for me. 2013? Time to nut up or shut up. I'll see you there. It's back to combat come the end of January. Goddamn PI......