So why have a urinated on my own fire?
As usual, real life is to blame. Well, what else could it be? But there is good and bad news to all of this. I have always started with the bad news, so I can end with a high.
Firstly, my girlfriend and I broke up. She called the shot not long before I made my last Blog entry. I'm not going to break out the violins, but it took a while getting use to being on my own again. I'm sure folks can appreciate that writing hasn't been my priority of late. We're still friends, which is something I've not done following a break-up. But she now plays EvE more than ever and we are both still in the same Corp. So far, it's working out Ok. So far.
Second reason is work. I'm approaching the final phase of this course and things are starting to step up a gear. Come May, I will be starting the hardest exams I will ever do in my current career. So I have had much less time on EvE.
And the final reason is High-Sec war. With any little time I get to play EvE, I have been trying my best to manage and fight against War-Targets. A few months ago I left our Wormhole to come and do some Epic-Arc missions and develop Chreighten, my Alt. During my preparation, I decided it would be a good idea to open our Corp to recruiting. I took on many, many good pilots. At the same time, however, I unknowingly recruited some spies for a few griefer Corps. Since then, we have been enduring back-to-back High-Sec warfare. We are currently on our forth War-Dec.
And High-Sec warfare sucks. Big time. At first it was interesting as we were learning quite a bit about PvP. But now, it is really taking it's toll. I can sum-up High-Sec warfare as the following:
- It's a game of Cat-and-Mouse, station-spinning, station hugging and gate camping.
I will make a separate post talking about High-Sec Warfare, so enough said on that for the moment. But to cut to the chase, I put so much time and effort into the first two War-Decs that I pretty much ran myself empty. I was getting 4-5 hours sleep a night due to time-zone differences. I had an over-riding guilt due to the wars being a result of my slack approach to recruiting. So I ended up trying to get myself involved with every fight and also compensate my Corp-mates with ISK when they suffered losses. I, too, lost damn expensive ships through fighting and trying to save some of our new members when they got jumped. Whenever I could I chewed through mission after mission to claw back lost ISK.
Needless to say, the Wars took their toll. By the end of the second war I had churned out 2.5billion ISK, and other than learning a thing or two about High-Sec Warfare I had gained nothing.
When the third War-Dec landed, I had to step down as Vice-CEO and slip into the shadows. I was done. I had literally fallen ill due to life circumstances and even took up smoking again. I was depressed over the break-up, having to move out of my house and into 'student' accommodation full-time, the escalating pressure of work and through the hours I was putting into EvE. Yes, I was upset over Internet-Spaceships. I play EvE because it's an escape from the strains I'm currently facing in the real world. So when EvE slips into the stool bucket, it doesn't leave me with a lot to be happy about during the week. If I could no longer enjoy EvE I had to put it aside.
Socialising during the week isn't all that easy with my work colleagues (mostly due to our older age-group and the fact that most of them are hard-up due to family life), hence the amount of time I can put in to the game on weekdays. But being a social and creative creature I managed to inspire them to get out and do a few things so I wouldn't be sat moping in my room. Albeit the activities were mostly drinking, but the occasions have been good. At weekends, I have been driving back to my old haunt and have had some blinding times with my old friends. And when I've found myself on my own I have been picking up my guitar instead of logging on.
Now I am pretty much reset and starting to enjoy single life.
So, I log on to find a fourth War-Dec is under-way. All of my Corp have had enough of High-Sec war and moved into our Wormhole. Those that are left are certainly gearing up to head out into the 'Hole. For myself, I still have not achieved what I originally set out to do when I left Unkown-Space. I'm not ready to return to the there yet, so I'm Corp hopping for a short while to avoid the war. After-all, I will probably be the only one left in Empire by the end of this weekend and I don't fancy my chances against an entire Russian Corp.
But where's this good news? Well, other than starting to get back on top of life I also treated myself to a new computer. Due to the nature of my job, I am on a pretty good salary. And now that I am no longer paying out for a house it means that nearly all my money is my own so I can afford lots of nice things. I spent a lot of time researching what computer to get, and after doubling my original budget I landed myself a rather special machine. Recently, I mentioned that I could just about run two clients on one screen as long as the graphics are turned right down. Now when I do the same, I can run both windows with max graphics and not witness a slight glitch. I will be picking myself up a second monitor soon so I can run duals, which will truly optimise my EvE experience! I even donated my ever-faithful old computer to the Ex so she can experience decent gaming with Internet-Spaceships.
So, apologies for my unannounced absence. But I'm back now!
And if you read this CK, I hope I haven't let you down too much.
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