As I've been contemplating my return to EVE Online, I have to believe my mercenary past is gone. If that's true, I need to determine a new path forward. EVE has always been a game about creating your own destiny, forging your own path. The fun of the game is what you make of it. It's not a coincidence that Dwarf Fortress and EVE share that infamous graph of difficulty.
What originally drew me into EVE was the idea that I could be a mercenary. That other players would pay money for me and my corpmates to do a job. That thread connected all of my activities for nearly a decade. You could string together all my memories and hang it on that gossamer of an idea: to be a mercenary.
So I know that if I'm going to give EVE the good 'ole college try again, I have to find another thread that can bind my game-time together. It's not enough for me to just play for the hell of it - I want my play to be meaningful (as meaningful as any game can be). EVE is unique in that it does seem to offer meaning. Your actions have consequences, and all that.
It's probably no surprise to anyone who has been playing EVE, or at least keeping up with it, that I'm returning partly because of what I'm hearing about Faction Warfare. So naturally it's where I'm going to try and focus my playtime and activity. I like fun as much as the next guy. But I'm going to have to create my own narrative out of that, which may be harder for me than the next guy. I've realized that I need to make stories out of my games, not only of the funny "you had to be there" moments but also stories that are pieces of an epic tale, piecemeal bits of a larger tapestry.
I don't want to be the king, but I want to be able to talk about how my role in the battle shaped the kingdom.
