IRL and MMOing

I haven't played EVE online in several days, except to log on to check skill queues and mail really quick. I'm in college, work a ton (all hail the glory of the Starbucks Empire!), have a social life (what's that???), and am very active in my community. On top of that, a buddy I served in the Air Force with is moving here and I'm applying for a work study program through the VA.

A familiar nagging thought popped into my head as I was bustling around this weekend tending to RL duties and obligations. Where the hell am I going to find time to keep up with MMOing? 

I love playing, but I can't slack on my RL commitments unless I want to make lattes for the rest of my life and have no social life.

I faced this same problem probably about a year ago when I was in WoW for what was then my final stretch. I was playing the latest expansion (c'mon, pandas? Really?) To get top tiered gear, you had to do an almost unlimited amount of daily quests that were really dreadful, mundane, and time consuming. It would take around two hours a day. And on top of that, I had to be raid ready, doing heroic dungeons, and keeping up with crafting and gathering.

So as I found myself wondering how ever was I going to keep up with playing EVE online, I realized that EVE isn't AT ALL like other MMOs. There is no feeling of "Oh god I gotta log in and do my dailies! Shit, I missed the raid time!!? Will I be kicked from the core raiding group? How am I gonna explain this to my guildies?"

That shit doesn't matter here. There is no pressing objective really forcing you to be logged in to the game all the time, other than -you- simply -wanting- to be online. There are no attendance requirements (at least not that I'm aware of, in our corp) and you can literally be as casual as you want to be. Sure, training the ship types you wanna fly may take some time, but the beautiful thing about EVE is that you just queue up your skills and log the hell out of the game if you want to. You don't have to grind levels or grind to max level. 

I can literally do whatever I want. And I do.

I was chit chatting with one of my corpie buds who has been uber duber helpful with  helping me  (Nordy!) figure out what skills to train and everything, and he suggested we go out and do some 1v1 against each other. "Come on," he said to me. "Sitting around in station is no fun."

"I actually enjoy it." I told him. And it's true. I like staying docked up waiting for fleets, staying lost in all the chat tabs, blabbing with different people about everything and nothing at the same time, role playing, asking questions, everything. 

I got a very, VERY encouraging in game mail from Sentinel VI, saying to not get too discouraged as my last post was a bit QQish with all the losing of ships. He said to find my niche, have fun, and above all else, don't become defined by kill boards. 

So far, I like fleeting with my corpies and just chilling around Egghelende docked up. Still learning what's out there in game for me, and experimenting with different things. But I'm slowly finding my way, and I'm not quitting anytime soon, and I'm having fun. 

I'm flying first class!