The Learning Skill Rant

I was gonna make a rant on the impending disappearance of learning skills from Eve, but then I realised I don't care enough to turn it into an actual rant.

Having said that, I do feel a little cheated with this move. Yes, I know skillpoints get reimbursed and all that, but my main gripe is that I chose to invest time into these skills at a point in my character's life when you're eager to get a gazillion other things done, so you can board more awesome ships, etc. I made a choice to invest time then into something that would only save time in the long run. The fact these skills are going to disappear makes me feel robbed of that time.

Maybe I'm just too set in my ways. Or maybe I'm just bummed that Kay is at a point where I don't quite know what to train next so I'm just passing time by training the longest lvl5 skills I can find on my skill list, and these skill points that I get to reinvest are sort of useless to me, right now.

The points will come in handy, at any rate, for my alt who is scrambling to get into stealthbombers.

Still.. in a way, learning skills were a reflection of a certain playstyle which represents Eve, in my mind. They implied this game was not about instant gratification, so much as it was about patience, planning, and being in this for the long haul.

No biggie, I suppose. It certainly doesn't hurt any of my characters - possibly quite the contrary. Go figure players, for still whining ;)

New Chargen - 'Cause Everyone Else Is Doing It

A while back, at some point in the two months' break from which I've just resurfaced, one of my friends pointed out to me that a brand new, gorgeous chargen had been made public on SiSi for us to mess around in. Uninspired to play though I might be, I couldn't resist firing up SiSi and messing around with it, especially once I saw some of the attempts posted out there on other blogs.

I naturally dabbled first on Kay, my long-suffering main who has been my face in Eve for about 4 years, 9 months. That's a lot, in my book. In my defense, I was still discovering functionalities so even taking into account that this was still very much the first incarnation of the new chargen, there were more things I could have tweaked that I only found out about a bit later. Anyway, this my first attempt at Kay:



She looks really pretty and I've managed to even make her look a bit shy, which she really ought to, so that's fine. I didn't mean for her to come off more mature than previously but on second thought I found I actually think it fits her well. She was never the most cheerful person in New Eden and she's seen her share of mishaps in her short piloting career. She has grown, and I like that.

My one worry was that I felt I didn't really tweak the base features all that much on her, and still it looked very much like my idea of Kay. So I'm worrying if all jin-mei are going to look the same. Or at best like sisters. Perhaps clothing, height, lighting, pose, all that will differentiate us all enough. Here's hoping, 'cause I don't wanna look like all other jin-meis out there :(

Looks-wise I was not so lucky with Kay's former assistant, a Gallentean Gallente young woman, so much so that I don't even wanna post the picture :/ The single pair of eyebrows available at the time somehow made her look a bit... hm... shall we just say simple? I hope the next incarnation of the chargen will give me more options to tweak her.

Welcome back, Kay! D:

So, I was away from Eve for a while - what, two months or so? - and I recently came back to Tranquility to check things out, reconnect with some people. And this...



... was the welcome I got.

D: