Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

One year and a bit since I announced a hiatus from EVE I have again installed an EVE client.  Am I back?  Not quite.


I had refrained from renewing my subscriptions and instead elected to foray into the world of alpha clones.

Upon logging in the first thing you notice is that you cannot fly *any* of the ships you are used to.  Thanks to a generous, free rookie ship, I could eventually undock...  And do what exactly?

Perhaps I had to adjust my expectations but I cannot help being disappointed. Alpha clones really are useless.

Yes, I know.  Good for some things in limited niches.  And yes they are intended for newer players to introduce them to the game.  And yes, some newbies cause mayhem in their racial T1 frigates.  All the same - I was disappointed.

If I am to continue playing EVE alpha clone I cannot be, to which CCP will probably say "working as intended".


This of course led me to explore the market for PLEX.  Imagine my delight when I found PLEX could be had for the paltry sum of 3.2 million ISK.  Except of course, a PLEX is no longer a PLEX.  Instead of one PLEX I now needed 500 PLEX.   I read the blog on the why, but I have to confess I still don't get it. My aforementioned paltry sum quickly became a very princely sum.

Despite my bravado of earlier it seems an alpha I will have to be...

Other notable changes of are:

1)The training UI.  I have to confess I was lost and confused.  I liked the old interface much better.  Orderly, usable.  Awwwh well, I suppose there is always EVEMon.  Oh, and a 24 hour training queue - this at least had some familiarity - like a recurring bad dream that turns real.  I know, I know - alpha...

2)Some ship changes - most notably, I had an Archon that somehow turned into an Apostle...  Not that it matters because alphas can't fly either...   Besides in a default newbie corp (I got kicked for inactivity) flying that would still be a bad idea....

3)The same old depressing spam, trolling and questions still fills the newbie channel.  Sigh.

4)No IGB.  Will not be missed much.

5)A quick look through the old EVE news and blog sites made for depressing reading.  Goons, TEST, PL, NC and the Russians are still around.  Some comfortable old blogs seems to sadly be going inactive.  In fairness I did not spend time looking for new "fresh" blogs to colour my day.


All this within the first 10 minutes of logging in and subsequently logging off again.  I am sure I would discover some more delights if I were to subscribe again, but to be honest it still feels like the same stodgy old EVE that I had left a year ago.

Then again, EVE is what you make it and maybe, just maybe I am still the same old jaded player of a year ago.