EVE-Mag.com

The Middleman’s View

Published on 02. Oct, 2008 ... written by Ebonezer Skrewed, Tags: Articles, Columns, Ebonezer Skrewed

by Ebonezer Skrewed … I neither consider myself a newbie nor vet of EVE-Online. I in fact hold myself to the demographic of middleman. That doesn’t mean too much too many people. From the point of view from a newbie or a veteran, I’m that kind of guy that floats around and does nothing in between bursts of small activity. My name is Ebonezer Skrewed, and for all intents and purposes I’m a college student, or a bum, by most people’s standards. In the day and age of people hustling and bustling back and fourth between work and EVE-Online, I once again fit into the middle demographic. I sit and study during the day and then I play EVE-Online at night, having no real job at this moment while then moving in between studying and playing EVE-Online. Perhaps some day I’ll be a vet. Not now, though.

Viewing EVE-Life from the middle
When we look at things nowadays, we have to understand the fact that from the point of view from a Vet, they already know almost everything to be known. They might not use it well, or even adapt to the situations well, but they more or less know it. Such as point webbing, how to properly shield tank or armour tank, all of these things that require ISK and time, for a new player, these things are out of their range yet. They’re stuck being either the tacklers, or starting miners, or level 1 mission runners, scraping up enough ISK to get a proper frigate, dreaming of the time when they can grab their first Caracal, they dream of being the one’s leading the fleets.

What about us, in the middle? We’re the one’s who have got enough money to get a Caracal, have spent enough time to get themselves some skills and to start hitting out at the world, but from the point of view of a vet, we’re still too small, still need more to learn, more to spend time learning, need more money for better ships. Our set-ups suck. We don’t have the money or skills for Tech II. From the new player point of view, we’re the one’s that are the stepping stones up to them being in the big leagues. Or we’re the real villains, since we can’t pick on the older players, we instead prey on the new while we sharpen our claws for the time when we can take on the old vet’s at their game and win.

From my point of view, however, I float in between the world of the vet and the new player, and it’s a strange world to look at from both places. You learn enough skills to get yourself out from the new stage; you’ve got enough money to have a Caracal with a decent rig-up – in your opinion. You’ve got the skills to be a threat to an unsuspecting player at your level, or, if you’re really lucky, an older player who isn’t exactly designed to be a primarily combat character. We’re the one’s who are picked up into the gangs and fleets as the cannon fodder, those who can afford to lose our ships since our bodies don’t have the most expensive implants, or our ships don’t have the most expensive gear. We’re the citizens of the EVE-Online universe, looking up at the managers and bosses, waiting for the time when we can get promoted, or we’re looking after the babies, the new players, nurturing and letting them grow so that we can achieve the rank of ‘Vet’ with the support of others.

With our skills and our ships, we push and struggle to grow into what we might finally become. Some of us have an idea of what we want to be: Pirate, Trader, Miner, PvP’er, all of these things are viable options for people in our situation, but we try to spread out and do everything so that we can have enough money to do the main thing we want. Unlike Vets, we won’t have multiple accounts or be running multiple instances of the game so that we can have a mining alt active while we run missions on another character.

We’re the run of the mill of the EVE-Online world, the stuff that floats in the middle, undecided if we’re going to rise to the top or fall to the bottom. It’s a big universe out there, and we are the one’s who are reaching out to take the place of the one’s before us.

Life’s good when you’re in the middle.

Ebonezer Skrewed

Tags: article, middle, middle man, middleman, new, newbie, opinion, player, vet