The Lathspell of Mithrandir

Welcome to this special installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by myself, CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to me. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

When you’ve been roaming New Eden as long as I have, it almost feels like home. That’s how familiar it has become over the last 5 years. Not that I have done everything or touched every aspect of this most amazing of virtual world, far from it, but it just feels as though it’s always been there. And always will be.

Whether you’ve logged into the game every day since its launch in 2003, or you’ve taken one or several sabbaticals from your capsuleer career, you’ve always come back to New Eden don’t you. Why is that?

We know the EVE Online Community is unique in so many ways, and that EVE Online is like no other MMORPG out there. But what makes the game special for you?

What is it that makes this particular virtual world so enticing, so mysterious and so alluring that we keep coming back for more. Why is EVE one of the very few MMOs to see a continuous growth in its subscriber.

To put it simply: Why do you love EVE Online so much?

The Contest

Write an article letting us know why you love this game so much and get a chance to win one of these 10 amazing prizes courtesy of CCP Games!

• 1st Place: $100 in EVE Store merchandise
• 2nd Place: $50 in EVE Store merchandise
• 3rd and 4th Place: $25 in EVE Store merchandise each
• 5th through 10th Place: a 14-day EVE time pass each

The Prizes

$200 in EVE Online Store merchandise and six 2-week EVE time codes

The Rules

I’ll be judging your articles based on their quality, structure, approach, originality. Other criteria are as follows:

• Contest is open from now until Sunday January 31st 11:59 PM EDT, 2010
• Submit your article (title and URL) in the comments below, before the contest expires. I will be using the date and time of your comment as the time stamp for the contest.
• No offensive or racist language will be allowed.
• You will need to link back to this post in your article introduction, as in typical EVE Blog Banter fashion.
• The winners will be announced on February 5th, 2010.

On the 6th day of May in the year 2008, Mithrandir Stormcrow was created in an MMORPG that was new to me.  I had played Fantasy MMOs such as Ultima Online, Runescape, Dark Age of Camelot, and even a little one called Dofus.  I was an avid pen and paper RPGer playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, Palladium’s Rifts and Robotech, and then my favorite Cyberpunk from R Talsorian Games.  This, however, really sparked my interest.

The first thing sparked my interest and was the fact that there was no Character Class.  It started with a Race then sub-Race and then we got to choose our school of expertise.  I loved the idea that my character’s attributes were not going to be the same as everyone else.  In recent upgrades, the attributes have been leveled (a bit of a bummer), but the skills have been set to “Newb” on new characters (very cool).  There is now a bonus for characters with Skill Points under 1.6 million – and that’s ALOT.  I am almost in an Assault Ship on a test New Character I have.

The second aspect of EVE, and it was the one that makes me really like it, was that there was no I need to be online so that I can run dungeons and level up.  We get Skill Books to unlock new ships, weapons, and things to do.  We get to make out character the way we want and they can be just about anything in New Eden.  The great benefit is that our characters can grow even when we’re not online.  The Skill queue is a stroke of genius for an ever-growing universe.

The aspect of EVE Online that keeps me coming back for more is the community.  Playing other games, this was the first that made me feel like I was back in the pen and paper days.  A bunch of friends hanging out having fun.  Here, we get to chat back and forth in game and out – telling storing of our exploits and helping other characters along.  I’ve been inspired by other players’ encouragement to keep plugging away at that next mission to reach the next level.  I’ve been given tips by characters that have taken out ships.  And I’ve found myself amongst a great group of pilots from a number of corps in a system that we consider home.

Of all the games I’ve ever played, EVE Online has a place in my heart.  I have found that I am respected, revered, immortal.  I am a Capsuleer.