Siren's Call

Typically I play through a game once or twice (or five times, in the case of Mass Effect) and move on. There are a lot of games in my backlog that require attention so I try to keep moving forward. Unfortunately some games never end.

I've quit EVE Online at least four times now. Here's my history:

• My first stint was from June 2008 - October 2008. I was hooked, playing during the few moments between breakfast and going into the lab for work, during lunch, and as soon as I got home every afternoon. My friends and I were in a corp that had zero participation, but we had a good time between the few of us.
• Boredom struck and I lapsed until CCP offered five free days and a $10 renewal deal right at the end of December 2008. By then our corp CEO had finally left for good, leaving one of my friends in charge of all the corp assets. It was a field day and we quickly ran to set up our newly-inherited POS in Molden Heath lowsec. This proved to be incredibly beneficial for us even though the POS was a failure. A few days after setting it up, my corpmate and I were out there mining and shipping equipment to the POS. A -10.0 player showed up in a Jaguar and wiped the floor with us (Wolf + Kestrel). He mostly only spoke German but we happened to be German minors in college so we could vaguely communicate. Turns out the guy was really cool and he invited us to join his corp. So we did, and started playing PVP in earnest. A good thing too because the corp was actively scouting the region for a noob POS to bust with their dreadnaughts and ours was the next target! The corp moved to 0.0 and joined the alliance Wildly Inappropriate for a time. We left after less than one month due to a variety of reasons, then began searching for a new 0.0 alliance. We ended up helping found AGGRESSION. We tried to take some 0.0 space in Wicked Creek and succeeded for a short time, until Tau Ceti Federation showed up. AGGRO collapsed then and I faded away from EVE in August 2009.
• My friend dragged me back from February 2011 to June 2011. We joined a corp made up of old AGGRO members in a southern alliance. The alliance atmosphere was awful but we made some money and had some fun in wormholes and PVP for a bit. Eventually the Russian alliance grew too hostile to its non-Russian members so we quit playing again.
• I joined EVE once again in late January 2012 through March 2012. I left 0.0 and started up some semi-passive industry and trade work. Knowing full well how lame it can be, I tried my hand at ninja salvaging (i.e. ganking players who don't understand aggression mechanics (or who simply don't care)) to some success. I have a terrible hard time finding fights. It seems everywhere I go is empty or everyone is a pacifist. Boredom hits and I left the game yet again.

I still follow the EVE blogosphere, however, which constantly threatens to drag me back into the game. I recently read a post at Jester's Trek which turned me on to a relatively new blog called Diaries of a Space Noob. I recommend you read it from the very beginning, if you're interested. It follows the out-of-character experiences of a new EVE player who recently left World of Warcraft for our fine game of internet spaceships. It's endearing and, like so many other players, it reminds me of my early days in EVE. It's calling me back into the game and I'm not sure I can continue to resist.