[Sara, a single mother, and Mike, her son, are homeless and living in an abandoned park in The Sims 3.  You can backtrack to any of the first four entries (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) or jump right into their continuing adventures.]

Sara visits Abraham Finkel at the condo he lives at.  Despite the fact that he looks like a poorly-dressed college dropout, he discusses politics and nature.  Oh wait.  (The baby isn't Abraham's, though he does pick the baby up and carry him upstairs.)



The usual comes up.  Sara wants a home.  Abraham asks what it's like sleeping on a bench.  Sara says she wants to take a bath.




Abraham invites Sara up.  Their conversation remains amicable.  Sara's rather concerned about the baby, though.  I can't tell if her concerns are maternal or merely curious.  Abraham turns on the TV.




Sara meets the lady of the house.  The baby may be hers, though I don't see her interact with the baby (who's crawling off elsewhere) or with Abraham.  She's apparently a bit of a drama queen.




Sara then heads for the bathroom.  She may not have showered for a week (which, in "Sims Time," equates to about a quarter of her adult life), but no one will accuse Sara of not taking care of her teeth.




Sara brushes her teeth once, twice, three times.  Abraham finally has to shoo her out of the bathroom so that he can use the toilet.




Maybe that was Sara's cue to just leave.  She heads out the door, but Abraham meets her out front before the cab arrives.  They goof around.




Perhaps misreading the signals, Sara enjoys making faces with Abraham.  She heads back inside the condo.  That might not have been the effect Abraham was after.




On the other hand, getting on Sara's good side may have been a ploy all along.  Abraham drops a startling request on Sara:  He asks for money.




Sara doesn't acknowledge the request.  They both head into the kitchen and grab some dinner.  They sit at separate tables, and they stop talking to one another.  The mood is suddenly somber.   Abraham's request wasn't detrimental to their friendship, no; but Sara immediately leaves after the meal.  Abraham wordlessly cleans up after her.  Sara doesn't call Abraham again.




Back at the abandoned park, Mike is doing his homework, diligent as always.  He usually finishes it all before the strain starts to set in and he has takes a nap.




I watch Sara head for the cab, and it looks like she's just going to go home.  Then I switch views back over to the abandoned park.  When she doesn't arrive, I have to look around town to locate her.  In another unexpected move -- one that makes me applaud her autonomy -- I find Sara at the public pool, finally getting herself cleaned up.




The weekend arrives.  Sara has been practicing guitar all morning, and now she wants to play in the park.  I send both her and Mike to Central Park.  She plays, and the crowd grows to a burgeoning half-dozen.  Sara gets uncomfortable with the size of the crowd, but she keeps playing.  Very soon, Sara will be good enough to play for tips.




Mike will have a birthday and become a teenager tomorrow.  Sara continues to pursue her dream of mastering the arts.  Things are looking up.  But, without any income as of yet, there's one person that's going to remove a tiny piece of what little Sara and Mike have.  It's the Repo Man.




And that's it, folks.  This blog ends on an uncertain note.  The story of Sara and Mike will continue; just not in written form.  Again, special thanks to Robin Burkinshaw for his embarrasingly-addictive Alice and Kev blog.  Which is still ongoing.  Do yourself a favor and go read his work.  It's fantastic.

[Previous:  From the Bottom of the Harts' Fridge]

[Sara, a single mother, and Mike, her son, are homeless and living in an abandoned park in The Sims 3.  You can backtrack to the first three entries (1, 2, 3) or, below, hop right into their continuing journey.]

It became obvious that Sara should visit the Sunset Institute of Modern Art (or SIMA, if you like the acronym tie-in with the game's title).  She traipses past the reception desk up to the second floor of the showroom.

 

 

Perhaps confused by their non-feng shui placement in the center of the room, Sara levels her first criticism towards the couches.





Sara is paralyzed by the smell of her urine-stained clothing, but even then she can't help but realize she's surrounded by the very objects that populate her lifetime wish of becoming a Master of the Arts.

At first, Sara is at a loss for what to do.  But she views the still life oil paintings (looking past the taxicab-checkered Venus de Milo) and considers the learning opportunities as hand.  She feels inspired.

She takes in the whimsical painting of the giraffe trio.  Perhaps she feels like a kindred spirit.  Living in the outdoors.

But a full night's rest is never a full night's rest when it's on a park bench.  Sara takes a noontime siesta on a cloudy couch in a quiet corner of the Institute.  It's the best nap she's ever had.

When she wakes up, there's no spite in her movements, but Sara never acknowledges the toilet on display.

Also, Abraham Finkle, the androgynous-looking fellow she nearly played chess with in the park, is visiting the Institute, too.  While he had nothing to say to Sar yesterday, he has even less to say to her today.

The school counselor announced a new buddy system is being encouraged.  Making friends will earn rewards.  Bella Bachelor, the girl he hopped off the bus with the other day, seems like Mike's natural choice.  But Mike instead has a boy named Malcolm Landgraab (heir apparent to the Landgraab fortune and industries) who follows him home to the abandoned park.  Mike and Malcolm had met on the first day of school, but they hadn't spoken since.  Mike would rather be hanging out with his mother.  Instead, he sleeps.  Malcolm wanders the abandoned park.

 

One particular cubist painting is the piece de resistance for Sara.  She admires it longer (and more times) than anything else on the floor.  But it's the dining chair on display that eventually moves her to tears.  She admires its craftsmanship and its artistry, to be sure.  But the chair's ability to become "functional art" is what gets her.  She thinks about the plates of food this chair could see when placed at a dining table, and their her own stomach howls at her.

Sara returns to the abandoned park and meets Malcolm.  The introduction is friendly.  Malcolm thinks a little bit of food would be nice to have right about now.  Malcolm has no idea.

Malcolm is not quite sure what to make of the homeless situtation.  Forthright, he discusses it immediately and at length with Sara.

Sara changes the subject as soon as she can, discussing topics she never usually addresses:  football, running, boxing.  But Malcolm brings the discussion back to living the good life:  rich foods, libraries full of books, and leisure time enough for fishing.  He's never so shallow as to discuss money for money's sake, however.

Malcolm, though late for dinner, starts up a chat with Mike who had been doing his homework near the park sign's lights.  They too discuss new topics that Mike never regularly chats about:  upward mobility, public speech, and looking at the bigger picture.

 

But it's after 10 p.m. and Mike mentioned the topic of food.  That reminds Malcolm:  He'll be going home now for a meal.  Later, waking up in the middle of the night, Sara seems mortified by having peed herself first thing that morning.  And there, in the lamplight of the park, she does it again.  This time, she doesn't even move from the puddle.





Okay, Sara wins this battle.  I (once again) build a tiny public restroom in the back corner of the abandoned park.  But no sinks!  I'm not giving Sara and Mike the opportunity to turn into tooth-brushing zombies again.



[Previous:  A Day in the Park]

[Sara, a single mother, and Mike, her son, are homeless and living in an abandoned park in The Sims 3.  You can backtrack to the first two (1, 2) entries, or hop right into their continuing journey.]

With a full stomach, generous neighbors, and a 6 a.m. sunrise, Sara picks up her guitar again.  Mike admires his mother's talent and seems to appreciate her tunes that range from soft-bellied folk to more bluesy rock riffs.  Mike runs to catch the bus to school, his mother still lost in the music.

Taking a cab, I send Sara to Central Park.  Unfortunately, the time-honored tradition of busking (performing music in public places for tips and gratuities) isn't an option for her yet.  Dorie and Gus Hart, two of her neighbors, arrive at the park, too, but they don't acknowledge Sara.  Well, almost they don't.  Dorie gives Sara the "gas face" behind her back and, almost immediately, the Harts turn around and go home.




Sara takes it easy by sitting alone at the fountain, then she starts an hours-long singleplayer game of chess.  The long-haired Abraham Finkle eventually sits down across from Sara, but he never pulls his nose out of his book.  With Sara steeped in her game, Abraham eventually leaves without comment.




After school, Mike wants to hop off the bus at Bella Bachelor's pad.  He follows her, still grungy, tired, and generally miserable from a full day of having too many people around for his taste.




It turns out that Bella lives right across the street from the abandoned park where Mike lives.  Bella at least appears amused by her decision to bring Mike home.  Mike is polite and doesn't even walk on Bella's grass.  She doesn't invite him in, but she brings her homework outside onto the porch.




With a sudden change of heart, and without a word to Bella, Mike sprints home across the street.  Head swimming with exhaustion, all he can think about is getting a little sleep.




Back in Central Park, Sara helps herself to a picnic basket and eats a hot dog so fast she neary chokes. 




She then admires the statue presiding over Central Park until late afternoon.  She either greatly admires the town leadership this man's statue represents, or she appreciates its sculpturing on an artistic level.




At sundown, Sara leaves Central Park and heads back to the abandoned park.  As she waves gently to her already-sleeping son, Sara wishes that she could buy him a toy box.  She falls asleep on a distant bench.  Still, it's surprising to see that, despite the usual gripes (tired, grungy), Sara and Mike are both happy.




Mike wakes up to the sound of his mother working towards her lifetime wish of Mastering the Arts.  In the middle of her practice, Sara seems to notice her admiring son, and suddenly Sara adds a stuffed animal to her list of things she wishes she could provide for Mike.  And as Sara gets progressively better at the guitar it drives her to want to practice more and more.  Taking advantage of her good mood and relatively high level of energy, Sara practices late into the night.




As morning approaches, Sara and Mike chat about the usual:  art, books -- and they even sprinkle in a little neighborhood and schoolyard gossip.  What she'd probably like to avoid talking about is how she just peed herself.  Still, considering the Twilight Zone they'd created with their obsessive-compulsive toothbrushing rituals, I still find it hard to regret my previous decision to bulldoze their public restroom.




Mike doesn't seem to mind.  He walks through it to continue the early morning chat with his mother before school.  And apparently for Sara, nothing screams "artist" like discussing the finer points of the color wheel while standing only inches away from your own puddle of pee.

[Sara, a single mother, and Mike, her son, are homeless and living in an abandoned park in The Sims 3's Sunset Valley.  Their plight began yesterday.  This is their continuing journey.]

Sara and Mike are falling into an inexplicable routine consisting of nothing but napping and brushing their teeth.  They sleep for a few hours on a bench, wake up, and brush their teeth ... and never just once.  They brush their teeth two or three times during each visit to the public restroom.  They will be active for a couple hours, then they brush their teeth again -- multiple times -- before taking another nap.  Once they wake up, the cycle repeats itself. 

So, at first, I condemn the restroom and "board up" its doors (as in, I remove them).  But instead of finding anything else to do, Sara and Mike simply complain all day that they don't have any way to brush their teeth.  Then they take a nap.  When they wake up, they continue their rant about how they can't brush their teeth.



Despite my wishes against intervening in such a heavy-handed manner, I bulldoze the restroom.  Sara cries briefly.  Perhaps having the entire toothbrushing diversion was her only guard against the reality of her situation.  Removing the restroom from her life is a bit too much to handle.  But her thoughts, for the first time since falling into the restroom loop, now begin to wander toward other things.





Fully aware of how terrible he smells, Mike still tries to make friends at school despite his lone wolf personality.  All the other kids make disgusted sounding noises as they pass by him.  Mike waits for the morning bell to ring before he goes inside.  Mike eventually meets another boy, Malcolm Landgraab.  This picks up Mike's mood.  He wants to make Honor Roll now.





Without the restroom occupying the greater portion of her thoughts, Sara actually comes out to meet her son when he returns from school, and gives him a hug.  They're finally talking to each another again, instead of simply waving in passing while on the way to the restroom.  Removing that building was blatant on my part, but it was obviously important that I do so.





Mike has still been getting free lunches at school, so his hunger pangs are kept at bay.  But Sara is (verifiably) near death.  If she doesn't get something to eat, she will (verifiably) die soon.  I send her over to a house adjacent to the abandoned park.  It's the Hart household.  She sprints over to the trashcan and, somehow not garnering the attention of Dorie Hart (who's just returned home), Sara nervously files through the Harts' trash.





Sara finds two old newspapers (useless) and an uncut pink diamond (!).  Still, there's no food to scrounge.  In a bold move, Sara goes up and rings the doorbell to the Hart residence.





Sara is cordially welcomed, and Dorie, who answers the door, doesn't even complain about Sara's smell.  Dorie wanders off to another part of the house and Sara, whose habits die hard, heads for the bathroom so she can brush her teeth.





Dorie only made enough dinner for herself when Sara had arrived.  So Sara patiently watches TV in the living room, and then watches Dorie play videogames -- which apprarently bore Sara.  Sara also meets Gus, the silent and book-reading man of the house, as well as Bebe, a teenaged girl that loves music but loathes television.  Sara understandably talks about little except the Harts' home.  Dorie, after a marathon gaming session, decides to make another meal.  This time there's enough for everybody.  (Verifiably) only a few hours from death, Sara gets her first meal since becoming homeless.





By midnight, Bebe says it's getting late and she asks Sara to leave.  Sara does.  Sort of.  Unwilling to go, Sara stands on their front porch for several hours, listening to Dorie practice guitar while Bebe dances around in a bikini by the stereo.  Sara thinks on everything before exhaustion hits.





Mike had come home from school and finished his homework some time ago.  Still, he appears to be missing somebody.





Around 3:00 a.m., Sara returns to the park.  Mike is up waiting for her when she comes back, but he's not angry.  Sara is stumbling from exhaustion, but she still lets Mike gush about art, film, and literature.  Sara doesn't mention where she's been.

I'm not the inventor of the "homeless experiment" in The Sims 3.  That honor goes to Robin Burkinshaw, creator of the (absolutely fantastic) tale of Alice and Kev.  If you haven't read the tale of Alice and Kev -- which is still ongoing -- stop reading this blog and go read that one. 

Otherwise, I'd like to introduce to you Sara and Mike.  Sara is the single, homeless, unemployed mother of Mike, her son that inherited her genius, over-emotional tendencies, and loner personality.  I created a plot of land to look like an abandoned park, setting about with the idea of following these two on their journey, while minimizing any interruptions and suggestions from myself.  Again, I'm not claiming to be original in implementing the parameters of this experiment, but reading the tale of Alice and Kev was powerful enough to make a purchase of The Sims 3 an imperative.  Here, as I follow  Burkinshaw's example, understand that my emulation is the sincerest form of flattery.

  
I give Sara and Mike nothing but an acoustic guitar, which Sara takes up immediately, musical virtuoso that she is.  Mike stands silently behind his mother and taps his foot to the music.  When she's done playing, they converse.  She talks about music, of course.  But he talks about money.  Then they play tag for hours through the bramble-ridden park. 

 

 

As night falls, Sara again takes up the guitar, playing through her need for sleep, and playing through her hunger that's settling in for the first time.  They both wake up in the middle of the night, talking about nothing but food.

 

They brush their teeth several times each in the public restroom, perhaps to make up for a lack of all other hygiene, and then fall back asleep.  The next morning, Mike talks about wanting a house, and Sara explains that money -- stacks of it -- are needed to purchase a home.

 

It also looks like Sara, in the same conversational strand, is trying to explain what being a "starving artist" might mean for the both of them.

 

Mike runs to catch the bus.  He's hungry, but he'll eat for free at school.  Sara will have to find other means of filling her starving-artist stomach.

In a level-less society, there are few milestone indications proving you've advanced. EVE Online's chat channels aren't caked with "Ding!" messages slathering over what level someone's popping champagne corks over. Yet the "Gratz!" that follow a triumphant message stating the new ship you've purchased can often fall surprisingly limp as well.

That's because in EVE, being able to fly a certain hull type doesn't mean you can fit that certain hull type with appropriate equipment.  You could pilot a cruiser -- a popular, high-powered ship class -- in short order:  the license is yours, have at it.  But you won't necessarily have the acumen and certainly not the experience to put it to good use yet.  The technicalities are beyond the scope of this blog, but suffice it to say that any player can prematurely get themselves into the cockpit of a large boat long before the rest of their gangly-youth body has caught up to the size of their paws.

There is one method for accurately measuring a character's growth and advancement, but it surprisingly lacks ceremony...

I swung over to the always-trafficked Brutor Tribe Treasury, Rens solar system. The Six Kin Development Warehouse -- my usual haunt where I pick up a solid stream of missions from my security agent -- lacks cloning facilities. I deftly slapped down the sixty-five thousand ISK purchase at the Treasury and ding'd in corp chat that I'd upgraded to a Clone Grade Gamma.  Solemnly, as expected:

Crickets. Nothing...

They're a quiet lot by default, so I can't fault them overly much. But that clone will retain two million, fifty thousand skill points in the event of my demise.  (Think of it as a 'save point' for my character Billy Blame's advancement.  I currently have just over one million, three-hundred thousand skill points, and my then-current clone was steadily approaching the lip of what it could muster. I have to imagine that that's solid progression, since I've focused almost exclusively on Learning skills; skills that do nothing except increase the number of skill points I acquire per hour. From go, I earned seven-hundred twenty skill points per hour, according to my iPhone's Capsuleer app.  I now earn one-thousand two-hundred eighty-seven per hour.  I've nearly halved the rate at which I acquire skills.  (There is a major discrepancy between EVEMon (EVE Monitor) and Capsuleer in reporting how many skill points I earn per hour, but I'm neither inclined enough nor numbers-savvy enough to prove who's correct.)  When a single skill takes several days to top out at level five -- even at my low levels -- the patience to train Learning skills pays rich dividends over the course of a tenured career.

Regardless, my purchase of a Clone Grade Gamma was a silent and uneventful ding, likely because there's nothing outward to disclose, nothing showing off me piloting a new Bellicose, Rupture, Scythe, or Stabber-class Minmatar cruiser. But it was a solid indication that my patient training is paying off. Just as it does for absolutely everyone in these space lanes. Which is why it's never a call for celebration.

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.

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.