Old Habits

I've played EVE Online for over 5 years and I still find myself playing in ways influenced by the way I played EverQuest 2.  Last night an exit popped out into Promised Land so I decided to take a quick excursion to the EVE Gate. Since I was in the area, I decided to start making bookmarks and probing down sites to make a little ISK.

One practice that I've heard many explorers perform is using a cargo scanner to determine the contents of containers and leave them if the contents are not valuable enough. That just offends the sensibilities I learned in my three years of playing EQ2 to no end. In EQ2, in the basic zones and zones from the earlier expansions, resource nodes would spawn in the same places, but the node types would change. I was taught that good players should clear cut the nodes when possible, that way gatherers would always have something worthwhile to harvest. Inconsiderate players (and bots) would cherry pick what they wanted, leaving vast fields of bushes, the least valuable resource. Then someone would have to clear cut the area and then wait for the resource nodes to respawn in order to get something good.

That's right, I'm one of those weird people who will clear all of the containers in data or relic sites so that new sites will spawn. I guess some might call that good resource management. I call it self-interest. I'm finding myself more and more staying in an areas for 2-3 days, which means I don't want a site hanging around full of worthless junk. I want a chance at something better. So, if I'm alone in the system, I'll go ahead and play the mini-game. Containers holding little to nothing of value are really easy to do anyway.

The hanging around an area for two or three days is something new for me. For years before playing EVE, first WoW and then EQ2 had conditioned me to always return to the inn or house in order to gain the rest XP bonus. The term "rest XP" is a lie, as both games actually impose a penalty to experience gain if a player plays the game too much. In EVE, with its real time based skill point gain system, I don't have to worry about that. But until recently, I always made sure I docked up before logging off.

Why do that in EVE? No good reason, especially living in low sec like I did, and still do a lot of the time. I think joining the Signal Cartel finally broke me of the habit. Our home station is in Thera and, if not camped, then probably a spy from Verge of Collapse has our bookmarks and can sit on out insta-undock points and wait for us to land on grid for them. Also, I'm finding myself a long way away from the nearest station. For instance, last night I logged off 5 jumps away from the nearest station. I don't like to think about how far away from a station I was when operating in the middle of Great Wildlands. When I went to join the war fleet, I couldn't just pop into Thera. I had to travel a long way just in order to get to a station so I could clone jump into a clean clone.

I probably won't give up the clear-cutting habit, as I still see where I can gain a benefit on an extended exploration trip to a constellation or region. But that whole logging off in a station every night? I'm giving that up. After all, creating distant safe spots in Thera is easy, and now that I'm in Signal Cartel, I'm sticking my nose into places others rarely go. Once I get into a place, I'm going to stick around awhile.