Much have changed. Things got much harder. I remember starting back in the day. It was a relatively steady growth with few setbacks. I was never ganked or lost anything that I wasn’t willingly put into PvP. Since I’ve returned:
My max tank, empty freighter got ganked
One of my Squalls got a gank attempt inside Jita.
An empty wormhole turned out to be seeded with POCOs by pirates who then came to gank when I tried to remove the POCOs
In another wormhole total randos came to third party a fight at a POCO timer.
None of these were expected dangers for me, despite I did extensive reading and video watching before deciding to play again. They just came out of the blue.
Now, I have enough leftovers from the old times, so my losses were negligable to my total wealth and much of my old knowledge is still valid, so I avoided countless scam attempts and aggression baits. When I returned, I came with the mindset that many things will go wrong.
Now imagine a genuine new player! Someone with zero knowledge of the game besides some introductionary videos. Someone whose total wealth fits into a 3K EHP Badger.
I can’t fathom how hard it can be to them and how many of them quit after a total loss of assets in the first few weeks.
I have no magic solutions. I just hope to start a discussion about the impossible challenge new players face.
How can any of this be “unexepected” for a returning player when all of this has been a gameplay stable for decades.
Especially since the introduction of the security level explainer badges next to the system’s security indicator, “Unexpected” is not a valid excuse any longer for any areas.
Oh…this is utterly hilarious. Player says they’ve returned and had never heard of ganking before…poor them…the utter shock of it.
Yet that same player HAS ganked…back in 2013…
Not only that…but he destroyed the Orca of a mere 2 month old Noob, yet now has the sheer audacity to come on and complain about noobs being ganked…
And what is almost certainly his alt ( Botslayer Goblin ) who was with him on that gank ( and who also mysteriously just rejoined the game after 13 years at the exact same time…what a coincidence ) has well over 100 ganks to his name as far back as 2013. Yet he now comes on and claims he’s only just discovered ganking.
I did hear of ganking. I did ganking as you found. I haven’t heard of multibox-ganking empty freighters and ganking in 0.8-1.0 security space (outside of burn Jita). Sure as hell, never experienced it on the receiving end. Ganking back then happened to people who flew bling in paper armor. Now, with multibox teams and security badges, it is everywhere.
Well…Botslayer Goblin is almost certainly your alt. It would be too much of a coincidence that you were both on the same gank mentioned above…and that you both left EVE around start of 2014 and both returned around August 2026. That said…I simply lost count of how many ganks Botslayer had been involved in…it looks like several hundred.
But one thing I do notice is that you were able back then to gank a Mackinaw with just 2 gank ships…in fact in some cases a Retriever with just one Catalyst. In fact there is record after record of one Catalyst ganks of mining barges. Gosh…those were the days !
Which highlights that ganking must have been a heck of a lot easier back then. So really, the thing you’ve not been aware of since you ‘left’ is just how much incrementally harder ganking is now. Even 2 years ago when I ganked for a while it required 4 or 5 Catalysts to gank a barge. People fly 10, 20, etc multibox fleets because it is so much harder.
I have to say, though, that the 75 who ganked your Avalanche was not one multiboxer but 4 or 5 groups of such, plus a number of solo. I’d expect a 75 char gank to get a bigger kill…maybe it was just a slow day in Uedama and you showed up.
Welcome back, Goblin! I’m recently back from a long hiatus, too, and playing a familiar game like EVE was such a relief after years of Guild Wars 2 and WoW. Will you be reviving Greedy Goblin as well? We need all the EVE blogs we can get.
That’s a great story man. See that’s exactly why this game is awesome. Welcome back. Unforgettable isn’t it!
The new players and people that prefer no PVP also got a place where they can not have to deal with anybody bothering them. Exordium.
By the way I started 15 years ago and my story is completely different. You could get scammed in the trade Windows very easily. Can-flippin. No global suspects. Isk sellers spamming local in all the systems on the trade pipes. Every single one of us took everything we owned when we were noobs put it in a hauler and went into lowsec like an idiot. Drag bubbles with vagabonds… Endless wars just for being online and a literal watchlist your enemies use to see when you log in and out. Bro it used to be rougher out there. There’s been a lot of anti-pvp mechanics introduced since then. Sub 2 second warps, lower scan res…Blah blah blah. Eve was better.
Bro the first million I made in Eve was stolen. Somebody got ganked right in front of me and I stole some loot. 1m for an afterburner baby!!!
