Obligatory Introduction

Going to give a quick introduction (in bulleted list format b/c I think in bulleted lists not paragraphs), then I'll get into more interesting things like what I decided to blog. I think intros are important b/c I'm always wondering more about the people I read about and it takes a lot of posts to pick that up from context.

• Demographics
• 25, Male, East Coast, USA
• Studied economics, finance and computer science in school
• Currently employed at a major institutional investor, work a lot, love my job
• Gamer since I was 4 years old (flight sim on the Mac, I crashed a lot)
• I have a serious girlfriend who is a casual gamer as well
• Gaming experience - MMO's
• Eve
• Since mid-June 2009
• Characters
• AllenRiley (primary - mission runner)
• ThorRiley (alt1 - miner/hauler)
• Expecting to also create PvP alt and maybe more
• WoW
• Since mid-March 2009 or so
• Characters
• JachJach, Thestian and Rashna
• Everquest
• Somewhere in the 2000-2002 range
• Played for a few months in high school but was too ADD to settle on one char type and finally got tired of always being < lvl 20
• The Realm
• Back when I was a kid, probably more than 10 years ago
• Played for a few years I think, loved that game but it started to go downhill
• Offline games I love: Too many to list, here are some samples
• Civ 4 (FFH mod almost exclusively)
• Heroes of Might and Magic II-V
• Sins of a Solar Empire
• Elder scrolls series
• Star Wars KOTOR and MassEffect (BioWare rocks)
• Sims 1 & 2
• Hellgate
• Diablo 1 & 2
• Halo 3/Quake 3/Duke Nukem/Doom

I'm relatively old to games but relatively new to MMO's (or at least it's been 5+ years since I played an MMO, so I'm considering it a reset). This is my first blog about gaming. I'm actually fairly quiet most of the time...I don't even post on forums or comment on blogs. Hoping to change that now. But while I don't post, I do read a lot. I like being good at a game. I realize as a newbie (and given my attention span on games, I'm often a newbie) I'm going to be bad at the game (if it's at all challenging) and do lots of stupid things, but if I read what other people suggest for newbies and then adapt from there, I'm going to waste a lot less time and have fun a lot faster. So in Eve you never saw me flying around in a dual hull/armor tanking laser-fitted Caracal. I read the guides, I read battleclinic, etc. I fit it reasonably well for my meager skill-set. I still lost that missile-fit, shield tanking Caracal in low sec while running missions b/c I didn't fully grasp how stranded you are when webbed in a belt so didn't understand the value of watching local and aligning to a celestial. But at least I had to learn fewer lessons the hard way. I'm not saying I'm god's gift to eve and the super l33t ultra-n00b-pwner, I'm still going to do stupid stuff (my first loss was when I attacked a can flipper b/c he targetted me and I thought he was shooting me...then I kept wondering why he didn't get Concorded). But I'm not going to run around doing really stupid stuff and expecting no consequences (back to that Caracal, I knew I was taking a risk and what my downside was...I was insured and I had no implants, so the loss was only 500k, which I could easily afford at the time) in a game that prides itself on being an open ended sand box with very few guard rails.

So, I like games, I'm not an emo-raging moron or a help vampire and I tend to be a lurker. I've been reading others' blogs since weeks before I started Eve and kept thinking 'blogging would be fun'. But what am I going to write about? I'm not living a life of low sec pirating adventure like Wensley, Ka Jolo or Mynxee. I'm still not even sure what I want to do when my char grows up. I spend most of my game time running missions or trading. That might be interesting to some, but I'm not sure what I'd write about. It's not like I have some brilliant trading strategy or am great at running missions. I occassionally dream of null sec grandeur, but don't think I have the time to be in a serious alliance and if I'm going to spend my time doing something boring (like gate camping or patrolling) I'd rather do it on my own clock, so I choose mining, running repetitive missions and moving bids and offers by .01 isk when I want to do something tedious.

Then I was reading blog banter #9 hosted by CrazyKinux and immediately wanted to jump in and comment on different bloggers suggestions for what they would remove from the game. I like playing games, but I love gaming mechanics. I love to see a game that gets it right (fun, original, at least somewhat rational) and cringe when a game does stupid stuff (like requires lots of repetitive action, stuff appears out of thin air, the game breaks its own rules, etc). So many wonderful games are ruined by annoying mechanics and many others have something that just gnaws at me even though I keep playing. I'm probably pretty picky, but I also try to be thoughtful about it. If I see something strange or annoying in a game, I want to really understand what the problem is and how to fix it, not just jump at the first solution that comes to mind. I also try to be objective about the mechanics, not just 'this is how I like to play the game so cater to people like me'. So given my (attempted) objectivity, non-stupidity and broad gaming experience as well as my interest in the topic, I think I might have something to talk about. It's not even a bad subject (I don't think). It's certainly a subject that everyone seems to relate to and have an opinion about.

So, get excited, another Eve blogger has entered the sphere (maybe not all the excited...there are 200+ on CK's blogroll). If I can keep my attention span and people find my writing interesting, I may even stick around and make a difference. But for now my girlfriend is wanting to play WoW, so I'm just going to end with a teaser about different mechanics I'm thinking about rather than diving into anything meaty.

Why is bid-ask spread in Jita so wide?

Is there really no way around invincible, god-like Concord police to ensuring the safety of high sec?

What benefit does insurance provide? Should it cover more or less? Should there be restrictions on payouts? Does the low payout on T2 help the game in some way?

Add 25 m^3 of drone bay to the Rokh (couldn't help it)

Footnote:

I'm used to open and honest feedback. I particularly appreciate negative feedback b/c it's actually useful. You don't have to be polite, you can tell me I'm a stupid f*cking moron if that's what you think. But if you can't give me a good reason why I'm a stupid f*cking moron I won't pay much attention to it.

And yes, I've read enough forums and blogs to realize that I don't really need to tell people they can speak their minds.