The Sightseeing of New Eden

Recently, a good friend worked out that I needed to install new drivers for my graphics card. We came to this conclusion because, in hindsight, EVE was officially unplayable. I couldn't see the edges of stations or ships, planets and suns had holes in them and space was glitchy. The chat boxes flickered with each movement of the mouse and everything lagged on a regular basis. Not to mention my station screen/docked thingy- oftentimes I couldn't actually see my ship floating in dock through the glitchy walls and floor/roof. Since the start of my game I have had everything off- explosions, shadows, all that stuff that makes this game uber pretty. It just didn't work. Ship trails all that sorta stuff.

Now I have a new EVE- I can see everything perfectly, as it was intended. There are 5 main points I wish to bring up that this alludes to:

(Note; I don't think alludes is TECHNICALLY right there, but I like the sound of it, so it stays :P Anyways..)

1- It gives this game an extra edge, an extra awesome boost. This is and was something I already love/loved, and now its just on a new level.
2- I spent half an hour alone just looking at various different ships, then spent the next 20 minutes after that watching various guns move and shoot. Yeah... really.
3- Its like starting EVE again but with knowledge: all that I already know. It means learning the names of ships that I didn't know what they looked like.
4- Less reason for error too. It's a LOT easier to fly better... can actually see where I'm going and whats around me.
5- Explosions <3

To celebrate my new-found graphics and extra awesome game, my friend suggested we take some care bear alts and take a little roam, following an EVE travel page he'd discovered (http://evetravel.wordpress.com). Neither of us having done something just to relax and look at EVE, it sounded pretty good and a nice night activity, so we hopped on our alts, set up good 'ol Ibis's (I had a look at the destroyed statue in Jita I had heard about and yet never seen, and its the coolest thing ever!) and took off towards the first stop on the itinerary- The Caldari Monument.We had a look, flew through a big hole in an asteroid just because we could and then took off to our second destination, the one I was looking most forward to- The Counter-Intelligence Center. In hindsight, the main reason it looked cool was probably cause of the carefully taken screenshots on the blog post that made it look particularly colourful... >.>    <.<  but never mind! We got to see the little agent ship sitting on top of the station which was pretty cool.

Orbiting the site lazily I alt tabbed to look at our next destination... which was in null sec. Now, being in little care bear alts, we figured this might not be such a good idea, and decided to just skip to the next destination. Surprise surprise.... in null. Looked at the next one.... It was here that we decided that null (which is SO obviously known for its great scenery :P) was definitely a no go, so my friend suggested the EVE Gate. Having heard of it a few times, it sounded sufficiently interesting, so setting the destination to good 'ol New Eden, we set off.

Of course, you can't do something like 20 jumps without a good old fashioned race, so off we went, me with a slight head-start, constantly trying to distract each other and delay that inevitable click of the mouse at the out gates. We did indeed stop for a moment (at a gate with about 50-60 CONCORD on it just for lolz) to try out the new duel function of the game. For those who don't know about this feature (but I guess most of you do)... find out about it yourself so I don't have to explain :P We were shooting at each other eagerly with our tiny little ships, the small guns blazing, constantly seeking that critical moment in any battle where it will go one way or another. The tide turned in our small Ibis vs Ibis battle when I decided to reveal the presence of a shield booster on my little nooby ship, which my companion did not, and we both disengaged, declaring a draw........... *realisation dawns* .... HANG ON A SECOND.....!!!! *storms off*

*Comes back and wipes hands off* Anyways.... we continued our race and after my friend won (because he so totally cheated!), we eventually reached the first of the 'Normal Name Systems' -as I have dubbed them. (And yes, I know the map is too small to actually read, but you get a basic idea of the layout of the systems. And I had fun with paint.... :P) Access, Exit, Gateway and Central Point were all devoid of life, but when we reached CP we decided to branch off to have a little look in Dead End- my suggestion cause I thought it was cool :P

The Black Monolith that showed on overview instantly caught both our attentions and we warped to it about 100km off, just in case the rats got hungry for a little bit of noob ship. I didn't know what I was expecting, but it DEFINATELY was not a big, black, floating brick. Which apparently is important to the rats. I have no idea why... but *shrugs* meh. Leave em to it. Figured it wouldn't get any more interesting up close, so didn't bother. A brick.... XD

Moving back to CP, we moved on to Promised Land (which made me giggle, being a Christian raised kid) and, as nothing was around, moved on no problem into New Eden. Well... I also didn't really know what to expect here either. Maybe some sort of big epic wormhole or a massive planet or sun. Nope. None of those things. It's sort of a hybrid. Looks like both a wormhole and a sun. I was disappointed I couldn't warp to it (CCP!!! >:[ no fun) and seeing nothing else around, what else to do other than blap each other! Not quite though. We decided because my friend has won the race, he got the honor of dying first to my noble noob ship guns :P and I shot him no problems at all. I set my name 'JessiJoy was here' (JessiJoy being the name I use for just about everything- Jessi being my first name, and Joy being my middle name... hellz yeah!) and promptly self-destructed.

And that was that. Sorta anti-climactic, but hey... now we know. And if I just spoiled it for you, well.... tough luck :P

Oh, and Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron totally spells PWNAGE ;)