Jump

Change is a good thing, and sometimes, a high-dive shoes-clothes-and-all into the deep end is exactly what you need to wake yourself up.

If you’re stumbling across this blog for the first time, you may have no idea what I’m talking about (especially if you’re one of those peculiar individuals who got here by googling “pink disney princess dress”; I’m not actually sure if that makes you or me the bigger weirdo); let me fill you in.

About a week ago, I left Suddenly Ninjas and the TEARS alliance, my home of the past 4 years, and joined Quality Assurance, a newer high-sec shenanigans corp founded by two good friends and former directors of mine in SN. QA had recently joined up with the Marmite Collective, a mercenary and wardec alliance filling the much needed void left after the general fizzling-out of the high-sec mercenary scene. The general idea behind my joining QA was that essentially, it was a smaller, more vet-heavy version of Suddenly Ninjas, but with more red-blinky things to shoot at than one knows how to handle; and that’s exactly what I’ve gotten.

As of writing this Marmite Collective has 39 active war-decs against somewhere in the realm of 2,000 players. When I finally decided to leave SN, I knew what I wanted was the ability to log in and immediately start causing some havoc and generally messing up someone else’s day and I have not been disappointed. Despite a 4 day absence from Eve and some odd-ball work hours, I’ve managed a nice handful of kills over the past week.

In my time in this game, I’ve certainly come across my share of truly stupid, stupid individuals, but being in Marmite has definitely opened my eyes to some truly spectacular instances of what one might call “brilliance deficiency”. For instance, flying an freighter AFK during an active war? Priceless. Mission running in faction battleships under the same conditions? Why not!

My personal favorite kill so far might the elusive and usually POS-sitting CEO of Eve Engineering who I caught sitting 200km off an ice belt late last night, allowing me to park a cloaky alt 3,000m in front of his face and warp in the troops, netting his faction-fit Crow and LG Snake pod. Considering we’d also pooped on one of his towers earlier in the evening, I almost want to send flowers and one of those softly worded Hallmark cards that begins with “in times of sadness”.

The move has also prompted me to go on a multi-billion isk shopping spree including a handful of new battlecruisers (including a Brutix which has already died quite un-spectacularly), a couple HACs, some Recons, a crapload of t1 brawler Cruisers, a new boosting Tengu for my booster alt, and a Proteus which I’m seriously considering fitting in outlandishly expensive and tanky ways. Armor gangs are the order of the day around here, which is a-ok with me, so a shiny new Slave clone is probably on the way as well. Shopping for new toys is awesome (just means I should probably start logging in some of those infiltration alts of mine).

The biggest thing that I’ve probably taken away from this move is that interest and excitement is everything in a game like Eve. I’d been stagnating in SN, not having anything to do with the corp, but due to my own burn-out and general malaise in a play-style and pattern I’d been pursuing for 4 years. Sure I’ve also had more time recently to log in, but for the first time in a while, I find myself truly eager to log in and undock. Its that feeling of excitement when you realize you’ve got a day off, your better half is working, and there’s not a whole lot of commitments on your plate. Its the feeling of getting off the subway and walking just a bit faster to get home as you refresh the alliance KB on your phone and see all the fun they’re having. Its a refreshing feeling, and one that I’d been missing, and I’ve gotta say, it feels pretty fantastic to have it back.

Change is scary, but sometimes, closing your eyes and taking that step off the edge into something new is the best thing you could do. So go ahead, jump.

-Aiden

~ by Aiden Mourn on February 21, 2013.