Incarna, Itchy Feet & Indecision

Welcome to my blog! I'm Kinis Deren and in this blog post I would like to let you know a little bit about me and my first experiences in EVE Online.

To give you some perspective on my playstyle and abilities, I'm from the Space Invaders and table top RPG generation.  Let's just say I'm not the most natural of gamers and mention the fact that my 12 year old son has to help me out when I play FPS games on the PS3.

I loved playing all big space themed PC games such as Elite, Homeworld,  Epic and Wing Commander so one might well wonder why I'd not taken the obvious progression to EVE Online. Looking back, I'm struggling to remember why I'd never taken the plunge into Eve Online before as well. Maybe it was fear of the subscription payment model at a time in my real life (marriage, young family, new house) when each penny of my salary was allocated to household expenditure.Whatever the reason, my journey into the serious business of internet space ships didn't begin until July 2011.

As part of my pre-entry game research, I kept seeing EVE University strongly associated with helping new players tackle that legendary learning curve. In my first couple of weeks, Seamus Donohue's YouTube channel was invaluable in steering me through the tutorial. After completing
the SoE Arc, applying to E-UNI seemed to be the natural thing to do. I joined a couple of months before the NoWSOP event, took part in helping defend Chribba's Cottage and fought in the legendary "Battle for Aldrat" against RvB in early 2012, whilst attending the many excellent classes that the E-UNI teaching staff provide.

At the outset, I had no intention of remaining a permanent student and it was just before Inferno when I started to feel the need to broaden my horizons and stretch those space wings. I'd developed a taste for the game lore and really felt that the upcoming factional warfare revamp might create a natural home for me. However, seeing  the resultant LP farming turned me off completely. I was back to square one for a potential career path.

I had considered null sec, but the coalition type hegemony was an unattractive proposition. Besides, the inverted snobbery exhibited by the likes of Goons and TEST was always going to ruffle my fur. Looking back, I guess I assumed all null sec alliances were of a similar nature. I maybe a noob, but I sure as hell didn't want to be a scrub helping to inflate some null overlord's massive ego or go on about how awesome the last episode of My Little Pony was. Besides, I didn't want to be part of the mega blob to roll over easy sovereignty targets or participate in the "l33t PvP" sport of ganking hi sec miners in the quest for tears. Not saying any of that stuff is wrong, it just doesn't float my space ship.

I think my attitude to null began to change after reading stories, from various sources, about less well publicised null sec corporations and alliances, particularly those that inhabited NPC null.
Towards the end of 2012, E-UNI had a number of players from 401K alliance provide a guest lecture as part of their recruitment drive. I was very impressed and really liked what I heard.  At the same time, I was busily cross training in weapons and ships as well as discovering a liking for the logistics role. During this training time, I avidly followed 401K activity through eve kill and DOTLAN web sites and really liked what I was seeing. A decision was forming in my mind, but which corporation to join?

One of the great things that E-UNI offers students, via the E-UNI forum, is the Work Fair thread. In this thread, outside corporations are actively encouraged to recruit students. NYAN Cat Pirates, asmall corporation member of 401K alliance, had posted a recruitment advert. A quick read through and a chat with an ex-Unista that was a NYAN member, confirmed these were the guys for me!

I've now been a member of NYAN for a few weeks and I can't praise my fellow corp & alliance mates high enough. They've all proven to be extremely helpful in settling me in, our small gang roams are a blast - it doesn't matter if it is a whelp or a win - I've had an awesome time and being able to participate in alliance level ops, jump bridging all over the place, has been superb bonus.

One thing I have recently learnt is that my current character skills aren't quite up to scratch (damn you AWU V!) but this can be addressed relatively painlessly and will hopefully make me into a better pilot for my corporation and alliance.