So I picked up Guild Wars and Counter-Strike again and forgot about the world of EVE. But a year later I was bored with these games and looking for something fresh and exciting. Then I remembered EVE. Suddenly the memories of the excitement, the grandeur of EVE came flooding back and I decided to give it another go. I'd forgotten everything I'd learnt the first time I played though and I wanted to start afresh, so I created a new account with another fourteen day trial. I created my main, Laktos, who was going to be a noble Caldari warrior, loyal, stoic and an incredibly skilled pilot. A few days later I created my alt, Jotto. An older, grumpy Amarrian with a knack for trading and mining ore, he was going to make me rich, stripping the asteroid belts of New Eden clean of Veldspar.
After a few days I upgraded to a full paying account. In the meantime I had become captivated by the idea of being a pirate. I'd read countless guides and stories on the internet about EVE piracy, including Skira Ranos's Beginners Guide to Piracy and a can-flipping guide written by the Gentlemen of Low Moral Fibre [SCONE] corporation. So with a gleam in my eye and a fire in my heart I bought a Moa cruiser and set off for Amamake, having absolutely no idea it was one of the pirate capitals of EVE. Needless to say that Moa died, and after a few more losses and not having made any friends, I became disillusioned with the game again and quit after only a few weeks.
Another year passed. I began reading about EVE piracy again and in 2009 I subscribed once more to try my hand at piracy and mining. This time I found a friendly industrial corporation that I joined with Jotto, and with Laktos I began my fledgling career of piracy in the Amamake area once more, but in a properly fit Rifter this time. I had a couple of kills and a handful of losses, but progress was slow and because of my inexperience I had a horrible time trying to find targets and would roam for hours without finding anything to shoot. I lasted about a month this time before quitting again.
But only half a year later, in January of 2010 I resubscribed. I didn't know why, but something about this game just kept drawing me back.. I felt that this was the perfect game for me, if only I persisted with it. And persistence paid off this time. On only my second day back I met two young pirates, SinthEmortal and Diddy Meerkat who had just started their own pirate corporation: Beyond Redemption Corp. We hit it off really well and before I knew it I was moving down to Aralgrund with two new friends who could teach me piracy and a hauler full of Rifters to lose. Sinth and Diddy were themselves fairly inexperienced at pvp, so it took me about a month to catch up to them in knowledge of the game, and then for more than a year we lived a simple life in Aralgrund, learning from and with each other.
After about six months living in Aralgrund, a very experienced pirate by the name of WayCharles moved in to our system. Ex-Mean Corp, now running his own corporation, the Mountain Militia, he had a vast amount of knowledge and experience of EVE, yet not a whiff of elitism about him, and we quickly became friends. Life went on fairly simply from this point, the Mountain Militia and Beyond Redemption Corp became closer and closer, eventually forming our own alliance together called the Mountain Sprouts, which also included the one man corporation London Fields Coffee Club, run by Serenetor.
But eventually this situation came to an end. Me, Waycharles and a few others moved into a C3 wormhole to conduct low sec pvp operations from. To be able to access the POS properly, I changed corporations from Beyond Redemption to the Mountain Militia. During this time Sinth and Diddy started to lose interest in the game and started playing less and less. WayCharles became busy in real life and was playing more and more infrequently. Sinth and Diddy soon effectively left the game and with the wormhole starting to lose it's spark the Mountain Militia moved back out into low sec, to the Aedald system in the region of Molden Heath. Aedald lasted a few weeks, but WayCharles soon told us that due to real life he was going to be leaving EVE for a long time. So with the corporation in stasis I decided it was finally time to branch out into the world and discover new things, after all, EVE is a vast world with countless pvp corporations to try...
So I leaped three systems across to Oddelulf and joined Gunpoint Diplomacy [RANSM], talking my way in with offers of free sexual favours for my good friend Dirty Protagonist.
And now here I am, writing this blog. I've long been tempted to start a blog, but have resisted until now for want of keeping my inane thoughts and ramblings from clogging up the internet highway. However I've decided I've got nothing to lose by giving it a shot, so here goes.
Oh, and why the title: Crime, Punishment and Spaceships? Simple, it combines two of my favourite things in one sentence. The novel, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, and EVE Online.
