Feels stunningly appropriate that I finish the eighty-eight page New Player Guide from BattleClinic within minutes of completing Instant Recall 5 in game. Queue up Analytical Mind 5 before turning in for the night.

Decidedly, trading and mining are not personally viable career paths. Fell asleep three times slogging through admittedly short tutorial write-ups. I appreciate the power of EVE's economy, but don't feel the Alan Greenspan route is my foot in the door.

Slasher isn't cutting it. Rifter curing that. Averse to piloting the magazine ad poster child for the Minmatar Republic. Get over it as Angel Cartel pilots drop like flies. Broke my heart to dispatch a Thrasher class destroyer. Beautiful boat. Want one presently, but will diligently hold the line in Rifter until frigate skills -- and then destroyer skills -- are up to par.  Need to download the EVEmon character skill-path planner and monitor.  Integrate it into regimen.  Need a ballpark on how long patience will be tried waiting for Destroyer certification. 

Training Learning skills is mentally taxing. But being in this for the long haul implicitely calls for early-game patience. Have to eat my vegetables.

Mynxee, CEO of all-female pirate corporation Hellcats, blogs about Capsuleer 2.0 in "Big Hits, Near Misses and Windfalls." The iPhone app, which I'd downloaded on my reinauguration-into-EVE day about one week ago, is personally invaluable, not to mention sensually faithful in positing the EVE Online aesthetic into your palm. "Long story short," Mynxee says,"me likes!" And I would echo her sentiments completely.

Developed by the prolific Roc Wieler and partner in crime PyjamaSam, it's entirely possible that these two individuals have been ordained from on high to preemptively save my marriage and my day job. Familiar to anyone with an EVE account, keeping a frighteningly close eye on the tick-tock of your character's skills is an exercise (and revelation) in obsessive behavior. As we speak I'm sliding my iPhone open, thumbing the Capsuleer icon, tapping the refresh button in the lower right-hand corner, and noting that -- taking BattleClinic's New Player Guide to heart -- I'm currently training Learning 4, with fifteen hours, two minutes, and twenty-two seconds to go.

I stare at Capsuleer's silent, soothing countdown. Untouched, the iPhone gradually fades to black. Without second thought, I'll check again in ten minutes.

My previous stint in EVE, during Exodus (circa 2004), was short-lived by many standards, but it was the longest I'd ever handcuffed myself to any one MMO. I believe I stayed aboard for merely three months. You don't know me, but if you did, you'd know that's too long a time in any one game for my tastes. And you still don't know me (I'm of course working to remedy that), but if you did, you'd know that constitutes a minor addiction by my own set of demarcations and parameters.

During my time in Exodus, I'd diligently set buzzing alarms on my phone, waking me up at the witching hour, to queue up my character's next skill. My lovely wife was duly unimpressed with my dedication. I also began packing my home laptop to work in order to have EVE at hand for the same purpose. My diligent manager was likewise unimpressed with my divided attention. One man's multitasking is another man's lack of focus.

But now, with Capsuleer, I have an even more discreet solution for monitoring Billy Blame's skill progression -- aside from the option of having EVEMon sit studiously on my Start bar. But, more importantly, the Apocrypha expansion has introduced the Skill Training Queue. This is truly the life-saving device I required. CCP has gained insurmountable respect from this returning player for making this singular concession to their otherwise brilliant skill training mechanic. With it, I may indeed go out on a limb and keep Billy Blame active for longer than my previous earth-shattering three-month record.

You don't know me, but if you did, you'd know that those unlikely words make for an ironically strong promise, coming from me.

Sony, your killer game for the PlayStation 3 isn't selling as well as it should. The game should have a higher attach rate and should be in many more households with PlayStation 3s. It's not and that's unfortunate. It's not selling systems and it's not getting into the hands of as many people as it deserves to. So, I propose a bold new option for you. Port the game to a system with a crowd that loves first person shooters. Port it to a system where it can look even better than on the PlayStation 3. How about you guys port the game to the PC?

The March NPD numbers just came out and you sold 296,000 units in the US last month. Combined with 323,000 in February you have in the US 619,000 units. You've said you've sold a little over 1 million world wide and while it may be the fastest SCEA title to reach 500,000 that really doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things. It should be doing gangbusters in the likes of Halo or Gears of War because of the effort put in as well as the hype you tried to generate before the release of the game. It's not and it probably won't be getting any better when the game is released in Japan as well. You have over 21 million consoles in the hands of consumers and only 5% of those that own it own the game. Don't you think that the game you advertised as the premier title of your console and one you say can only be experienced on the PlayStation 3 because of the power of the console should be in a lot more hands? This is where the PC side comes into things.

The PC gaming crowed absolutely love first person shooters. And, the genre succeeds immensely when a good quality product is produced. Valve Software has a FPS lineup that kills on the PC. iD Software's bread and butter is still the PC shooter crowd. The folks at Crytek are selling better with Crysis Warhead and plenty of people talk about the visuals of Crysis. Since Killzone 2 is not doing as well as you thought on the PlayStation 3, there's a nice market to tap where I think gamers would eat it up.

You brag about the visuals of Killzone 2 and how it's just a step ahead of every game out there. The PC can do it as well and in some aspects even better since the system can be expanded with more powerful hardware. The multi-core architecture is there as well so you can do some parallel processing that the Cell CPU handles with your game. With the ability to SLI some very powerful video cards, imagine Killzone 2 running at resolutions up to 2560x1600. You could even market it as a competitor to the visuals of Crysis, arguably the graphical standard for the PC. Physics is starting to be pushed by companies such as NVIDIA but you already have a great physics engine with Killzone 2. The way the enemies fall in different ways is such a beautiful sight and you could market that as well for the PC gaming crowd.

There's also a huge group of online gamers on the PC that would love to take your shooter for a spin against others. Games such as Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike,  Quake Live,  and Battlefield 2 have a huge following still and Killzone 2 has the potential be one of those games that get played for a long time with a large group of online people.

While Killzone 2 might have sold OK at over a million units worldwide , you need some more revenue. Porting Killzone 2 will need some work but it can open up a whole new revenue stream for you. It's your killer game and not only can you garner some income by selling it on the PC but you could also take an approach to license the engine to others as well. Yes, your game might be pirated and heavily at that since it's such a high profile game but set it at a reasonable price ad I think consumers would flock to it. Take some of the profits you have earned by selling the PS3 version and use it to produce a good quality PC version and reap the benefits.

In the end, you'd generate a bigger audience that can experience the game as well as produce some more revenue with PC sales. With that, you can start hyping up Killzone 3 and expect a lot more people interested in the game. You can see what a good name brand can do with sales like Halo Wars selling 693,000 units in a few weeks just because of how popular the name is. The first Killzone wasn't a killer title but the second one is and to help further that you can draw in more of a following with a PC port. Take it to the computer crowd, advertise it a lot better than what you do now with the PlayStation 3 version and I think you'd have a huge hit on your hands in that arena.

Let's face it, Killzone 2 is too good of a game to not sell better and be in the hands of more gamers. There's no way you'd let the game be on a competing console and you have a division that does produce PC games, albeit MMORPGs. But, there's nothing to preclude you from offering one of the best games you have on the table on a platform that is exponentially in more households than your console. Sure, there's some pride you have to swallow and some PlayStation 3 owners might be upset that their baby's going to be on another platform but we're talking about business here and business I think you would do well to see Killzone 2 on the PC.

Two important developments. One: visited BattleClinic.com. Two: may have just been self-taught an easy lesson in EVE Online's universe.

Saying that BattleClinic is a "comprehensive" resource for EVE players is an understatement of Guinness Book proportions. Downloaded and printed the eighty-eight page New Player Guide PDF. Teeth have only sunken into the Ultra-Quick Start for New Players bulletpoints on page four. Have a ways to go.

But that bulletpoint guide is rife with wish-I-would've-known-that-at-your-age-young'un material. One pilot, Llanthas Freedark, contributed (because BattleClinic is a wikipedia of sorts, though don't believe it's quite so Wild West in nature) "Your first priority in game should be to get all six basic Learning skills. Get them all to at least level three before you do anything else."

Good call. Only acquired enough ISK to purchase two of said Learning skills, however. Sorted the market out from lowest to highest prices, with Instant Recall for my Memory and Learning for some improved training times overall. Both found in a system only three jumps away. Good again, because the Missus just watched Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson get Old Yeller-ish over a golden lab in Marley & Me and she's feeling particularly needy. No time for "ratting."

Two purchases, bam bam. Set my destination for the system I'd just bought them in and hit Autopilot. Short cruise, but the new Edge magazine had just come, needlessly wrapped incognito as usual in the mail today, and deserved perusal.

Looked up again, saw the Osoggur side of the Amamake gate, Amamake being my final destination. Hesitated. Conspicuous yellow dot next to Amamake's security rating on my HUD.

Full stop. Bring up map and hone in my location. Osoggur, current location, had already dipped to a 0.5 security rating, though several Concord ships still pattered around the jumpgate in viewscreen. Still. Something about Amamake's 0.4 rating rings dangerous. Continued hesitation.

Begin pulling up statistics with a sense of urgency. Each button torched the screen in varying globules of yellow and red depending on the offending statistic. All signs pointed to very, very bad. Twenty-seven pilots in Amamake system, ten of them docked. Fine. But also: forty-five escape pods killed in the last twenty-four hours. Seven of those kills within the past hour.

Dawns on me. A moment's hesitancy at that jumpgate, I'm completely convinced I just prevented myself from becoming the eighth death in the past sixty minutes. Hook went through the cheek but managed to not hit any nerves.

Cannot seem to locate through market channels whom I purchased the two books from, but it's apparent that the tantalizingly low (but not suspiciously low) priced books were a deliberate lure for new pilots like myself to be drug into a dangerous, low-sec system in order to provide dinner for some unscrupulous pirates. Rampant speculation, but the end result would've played out the same.

Pulled a one-eighty and headed back for the "carebear" safety of the 0.8-rated Odatrik system, place where I'd made the remote purchase. Needed to rethink next step, but it's obvious that I'd just spent seventy-six thousand ISK -- a goodly sum for my newborn character -- on two skills that I was in no position or competency to retrieve. The two books will sit there a while.

Going forward, ensure that I inspect security level of destination, along with interim systems between. Need to be capable of picking up purchases.

Back in Odatrik, queued up thirteen hours of Energy Management training to level three. The introduction of Certificates is a new hand to shake, but apparently this last skill will earn a certificate in Core Integrity which, according to Concord, represents a basic level of competence in structural integrity management. Certifies that the holder has solid damage-absorption skills.

One lesson this certificate doesn't teach is the avoidance of having to take damage in the first place. Quite sure the pirates sitting on the Amamake side of that jumpgate would've taken any certificate from me and wiped my backside with it. Only a few days in. Have to get used to this carebear badge stitched onto my breast pocket for several more weeks. 

Ryddinjorn VI – Meinigefur Constellation – Metropolis Region

Billy Blame, greenhorn pod pilot for the Pator Tech School located in the Ryddingjorn VI station, is learning a lesson in patient origins.  One hour previous, back on Earth, I open up an EVE Online account (this is my second in approximately three years, executed with a nonplussed expression on my lovely wife’s face as she’s seated next to me), just hours before the in-laws pull into the driveway for Easter Weekend.

Only enough time for blasting halfway through the tutorial, which has changed its voice since my prior visit.  Rather, it’s lost its voice, and began my training out in the ether, as opposed to docked in a station, with me reading the tutorial text rather than listening to the vocal-distorted audio monologue.  I’d feared that developer CCP was denying me an intimately familiar voice from my bygone subscription, but – two NPC pirate kills later – I see that the voice is here, comforting, just dismissed from the tutorial process.

My Reaper-class Minmatar frigate warps to my first duty station, the Pator Tech School, at a healthy 3.0 AU per second.  Not bad for a ship that looks held together by duct tape and a prayer.  To be fair, the architectural aesthetic of the entire Minmatar Empire doesn’t fare much better.  Picture the Slumdog Millionaire trappings of an in-the-cracks India, and give them just enough technological advancements to be a force to be reckoned with in a quarter-spliced universe, and their build-style materializes.

The focus of EVE has shifted from mankind’s exodus from the Milky Way to his gospel as an immortalized force in the New Eden galaxy.  As evidenced by the intro, there’s less pontificating on the harrowed histories of man’s spinoff races (Amarr, Caldari, Gallente, Minmatar), and more bolstering statements of each individual’s inherent potential in this scary-huge galaxy collective.

In-laws are five minutes away and the Missus is committing herself to a frantic run with the vacuum cleaner.  I surprisingly pull up the Training Queue, a long-awaited device that allows me to stack Billy Blame’s skill training for the next 24 hours.  Building a character’s skills in EVE is a non-organic (but intriguing nonetheless) process of, essentially, plugging a skill training ‘book’ into a brain receptor and, over the course of minutes, hours, or days, depending on the level of information being taken in, absorbing the skill through an osmosis-like process.

I queue up the allotted 24 hours’ worth, all Piloting 101 stuff, and shutdown.  Tomorrow evening, the soonest I’ll log back in, one to two levels of advancement will be realized within a spectrum of topics covering electronics and engineering to gunnery and science.  Even though I haven’t accepted a single agent-given mission yet I’m already growing in ability.  This entirely unique system seems to be trademarked by CCP, since no other MMO wants to even touch its complexities, but it’s a system that never ceases to amaze, no matter how long you see it in action.

As you were.