The workaday world isn’t all that glamorous for most of us, is it? Even so, with the right frame of mind, it can be satisfying. And to the extent that a virtual universe models a world, the same thing is true. While in the stages of working toward a particular goal, depending on the distance of the goal, things can get repetitious. Boredom can set in if you let your state of mind get away from you.
Of course, I would never let that happen. Uh huh.
EVE Online immediately presents three obvious ways to make a living: Running missions, mining and killing the NPC pirates — sometimes while mining. Some people don’t bother with the mining but just go killing instead, calling it “ratting.” Former employees of Terminix, perhaps, I don’t know. The graphics possibilities boggle the mind, conjuring images of giant space rats that…
Oh right, back on topic…
Running missions just doesn’t appeal to me. 
I ran a few and made some easy money. I’m sure they get much harder and more interesting, but I just don’t care. For me, the big appeal of a game like EVE is the openness and missions are closed by their very nature. It comes back to a part-timer’s time-spending habits. I need to stay focused on the gameplay that really interests me and not get distracted by the lure of easy money. I have to be disciplined about my time because I have less of it.
Mining at the beginner’s level is easy. Just fly out to an asteroid, lock onto it and press the mining laser button. A while later, your cargo hold is full and you’re done. Fly back to base and either sell it in raw form or refine it and sell the results. If NPC pirates show up, you have to deal with them or run. Just lock onto them and press the other button, the one for the gun. They’re gone in a minute or two. Some will leave a wreck with some cargo that you can loot.
Now, my new ship’s cargo hold is about three times the size of the rookie ship’s, so it’s a lot more efficient as a money-making tool because I fly back and forth a lot less. I fly out, start the mining laser, and pretty soon I’m dreaming about the navy of ships I’ll have soon with all this money rolling in. Cruisers escorting dozens of mining barges. Big freight haulers that will blot out the sun, kind of like the Persians’ arrows in 300 when the Spartans said they’d “fight in the shade”. Yeah, great scene, that one. Good movie…
So anyway, on the third or forth trip, the pirates show up, a gang of three. I lock onto them one at a time and shoot them full of holes, the dirty scoundrels. They beat up my shields and get into my armor a bit before I can take them out. Ha! I loot an afterburner and a shield extender from the wrecks. More riches. Soon I’ll own this solar system. Six months, tops. Maybe less. I’ll build a station the size of Mars and be the richest guy in the…
(Amazing how if real life gets boring you can just get another life — no, not a Second Life – online, and when it gets boring your mind just takes over. There’s no telling where you’ll go then. The escape from the escape. What next?)
Yes, to the point…
Fortunately, there’s always the next fun thing to spend money on, real or virtual. Some of those pirates cut me up pretty good there. It took longer than I like to dispatch them, and that sounds like an argument for a newer, even bigger, ship. A quick check on the market reveals that will take a while. At the rate I’m earning money, a couple weeks maybe. Time to settle into the workaday world of EVE with my sights set on the next big upgrade.
Now where was I? Ah! Owning the solar system. Now if I just…
— Will Collum
Read Additional EVE Online Diaries:
Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8
