It’s working! They got me!

A couple of weeks ago, on a Thursday afternoon, while working at the office I had received a new email notification. Taking a short break from my task, I opened the unread message. This is what it stated:

This is not the first time that CCP tried to lure me back and bring an old pilot out of retirement. With each dangling carrot I would ignore their messages. This time, CCP’s offer was different. What piqued my interest was three full months for $24.95. That offer got my notice and I pondered whether I would accept their proposition.

As day turned to night, I was still on the fence on whether I’d reactivate an old account. The thing is, Anjo Ryker is one of my oldest accounts in the EVE universe. He was created back in 2006. While not my oldest character, Anjo is the oldest that’s associated with an email address that I actively monitor today. My history in the EVE universe actually goes back to 2004. Back then I’d play it in brief periods and walk away, perplexed as to what I had accomplished during my short stay. The universe of New Eden is immense, daunting and in some cases quite unfriendly. The depth of what one can do is extraordinary. The skill leveling system is, in my humble opinion, the best around. EVE is a game that rewards patience.

So, why shouldn’t I accept CCP’s offer to activate an old subscription. The thing is, following the lack of success that I had experienced with Anjo, that I can attribute to my ignorance of playing the game. He was left parked in a star base a ways into null sec. As an example of why I viewed Anjo as a failure was my poor choices in his skill leveling as well as the ship that I had him piloting. What that ship was I couldn’t recall, except that I remembered an ill fitted Thorax armed with lasers. That’s how much I sucked, you don’t arm that cruiser class ship with lasers. So I abandoned Anjo Ryker.

Although I had cancelled my subscription and left EVE, I can emphatically state that it’s a game that’ll forever be under my skin. On an annual basis I renew my subscription on the character that I view as my main, who at this time has over 29 million skill points. Last year I took advantage of CCP’s offer of The Power of Two, where you can create a second account for six months at a discount. So going into this past March I was playing two characters simultaneously and not even considering a third. Playing those two together only lasted through a seven month period after which I cancelled both subs. Recently I’ve re-subbed my main with the goal of getting all of his certificates to elite status. Currently he’s parked in high sec and I log in weekly to queue the next week-long training session for him to meet that goal.

So, the day after I had gotten CCP’s offer to bring back Anjo Ryker was on a Friday. That evening, after a date with my wife and spending time at home with her, she called it an early night and went to bed. I stayed up, logged onto my computer, wondering which game I should play. It was going to be either Guild Wars 2, or The Secret World. On the release of The Secret World I had gotten a lifetime sub, so had no pressure to play either game. The offer to bring back Anjo won out. So I reactivated his subscription.

Besides a monetary incentive the decision to do resub was for a few other reasons. Since CCP had revamped the new player tutorial I was curious to see what that was going to be like. I also wanted to rectify a wrong by giving Anjo a reboot on his progression. Once the account was reactivated, I logged on with a bit of excitement. It was like running into an old friend. Being the first character that galvanized my interest in EVE, I looked forward to see how Anjo had aged. This was done by the initial creation of his portrait as I slowly teased out the fine lines of age on an old warrior. Someone who has seen battles that he’d rather forget. Perhaps even losing a son too soon as they were both in a battle against pirates, and Anjo watched helplessly as his sons incursus exploded before him. What came from that mindset was a pilot that looked resolute and stoic, with a few battle scars to remind you that he’s a veteran. So, here I present you with Anjo Ryker, reborn.

Upon logging in with Anjo I found him still in the null sec star base. He wasn’t in a thorax though. I can’t recall which ship it was but I didn’t care as I had intended to sell it. After exiting the ship and repackaging it as well as the fitted modules I then sold what I can while trashing the rest. Once done I did a clone jump out to high sec and then destroyed the clone that was left behind. That final act severed Anjo’s ties to null sec as I looked to move him forward with no connections to his past. After purchasing a shuttle for quick transport, I then piloted Anjo to the new player tutorial agent.

In a nutshell, the new player experience is not bad. My only critique is that the tutorial instruction windows should be scripted to update automatically as you accomplish each step. Once completed I then moved Anjo to the career tutorial agents. So far he’s completed the business, industry and exploration. I’m nearly done with the military agent missions and will finish them all by going through the advanced military missions. Once those are all done I’ll then direct Anjo to The Sisters of Eve to complete their epic mission arc. For now that is my short term goal with Anjo. Afterward I don’t know what to do with him. I imagine once the first epic mission arc is completed I can then park Anjo in a high sec star base and cancel his subscription, satisfied that I had righted a wrong.

Posted with Blogsy

Where’s Rhalinur

Definitely absent but not completely afk. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been busy playing Tera and clearly I’ve been posting about it. A couple of nights ago I had gotten the itch to do something different so I got back into D3, leveled my witch doctor and recently defeated the skeleton king. This was a nice divergence from my focus on Tera. Tonight I’m tempted to jump back into D3 but this is my final weekend of playing Tera for a couple of weeks. This coming Monday my family and I will start our trip to Europe for a 2-week vacation in Italy. We’re very excited and preparing for that trip has had me busy. On top of that I’m taking care of our youngest son who is out of school for the summer. Anyhow, when we return in early July my goal is to not just jump back into games that I love but to continue posting on Aggrolicious. This is a long term project and I intend to be here for the long haul.

#MMONBI completed

And the story continues…

Congratulations to all of the other members who have participated. Hopefully you have also enjoyed what you’ve contributed to our small community as I have. Please continue what you’ve started.

About a month ago while taking a few minutes to get caught up with my RSS feeds there were many posts mentioning the New Blogger Initiative. The idea to introduce new video game bloggers to the world had piqued my interest and I knew that I had to be a part of it largely because it’s something that I had attempted before. The experience from participating in the NBI has taught me that this is not as easy as I had envisioned the project to have been. Now that I’ve got plenty of posts there are a number of things that needs to be addressed. The design of my site, how I share my media, and more importantly how I represent myself to the public. Although the NBI has ended it is now my duty to continue what I’ve started and hopefully solidify my minor inclusion in the online gamer community as a casual observer.

Stay On Target

Lately I have been negligent in posting anything new on Aggrolicious. This is a trend that I’d like to avoid as this is a project that I’d like to see evolve into something special if not for anyone then at least for me. That being said I have to do a better job talking about the games that I play on a regular basis and my opinion on current news and trends. This is probably the hardest task that any blogger has to address and I’m sure that it’ll get easier as I start hitting my stride and truly find my online voice.

And I’m back

The past week in Las Vegas was incredibly intense. The class would start at 8:30 every morning with a day filled with lecture, labs and practice tests. Every night I found myself up till at least 11 PM studying and then getting a few hours of sleep before the next day began. Except for Sunday evening when we arrived the rest of the week we didn’t leave the hotel where the training was co-located. By Friday that diligence paid off. I was able to successfully pass my certification exam and return home victorious. 

Where’s Rhalinur

Today has been an incredibly busy day that started off with a parade to celebrate our troops. Afterward we joined them at a local park for hot dogs and snacks. After getting home I biked off to get my wife a camelbak backpack from a local outfitter store. When I returned home I had taken off again to get a few more things for my trip. Since the trip is to Las Vegas for a weeks worth of IT training where the days are near triple-digits during the daytime I picked up some new pairs of shorts. Coming from Alaska, the highs in Vegas will be pretty darn close to double than what we got at this time of year. Not looking forward to it. So, that being said I’ll be gone until next Saturday. For now I’m playing a final night of Tera before calling it an evening. Enjoy your week and I look forward to reading up on the D3 reviews. I know that next weekend I’ll be able to join you then.

Cheers!

Rhalinur

Getting Some NBI Love

Syp posted a few additional blogs that are part of the Newbie Blogger Initiative, and I got a mention. Yay!

1. Middle-earth Initiative: A LOTRO blog geared toward helping new players in the game
2. That Was An Accident!: A WoW blog with a strong emphasis on humor and screenshots
3. Aggrolicious: A returning blogger who’s trying to hit the ground running
4. Conveniently Placed Exhaust Port: Man, today’s all about the awesomely named blogs, isn’t it?
5. Adamant Nomad: A StarCraft II blog

Follow the link for the full post.

Where’s Rhalinur

Sorry for the absence. This is finals week and I’m very busy administering, grading and entering final grades for students. Even after I’m done I’ll be leaving for Las Vegas for training this coming Sunday and will be gone for the week. However, I’ll sneak in a few posts on my thoughts on my game play in Tera as well as game news they come up through the coming week. A post made by Slyp at Bio Break was a very good read, and I’d like to share my comments about that tomorrow. 

Meanwhile, I highly recommend that you too take a few minutes to read up on, Is the LOTRO free-to-play path simply too painful?, by Slyp.

Tabletop Games

As I have attempted to expand my horizons on other gameplay options I’ve been looking at boardgames to pass the time. What has helped me discover games has been YouTube. Passionate players from around the world has been sharing the games that they enjoy. Among them has been Wil Wheaton, whose TableTop videos has been a spectacular production. In the link provided Wil and three friends play three different games, which looks like a lot of fun.