The Beauty of EvE

Welcome to the twenty-sixth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week or so to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check for other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month’s topic was proposed by @KatiaSae of the much praised “To Boldly Go” blog. Katia asks: “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. As an astrophotographer, I’ve found it in the stars and planets of New Eden. Where have you found it? Perhaps you’ve found beauty in the ships we fly? Maybe it’s the sight of profits being added to your bottom line? Or maybe it’s the pilot portraits you see in the comm channels? Where ever you’ve found it, write about it and post an image.” Don’t be afraid go beyond the simple visual aspects of EVE as well. Is the EVE Community in itself a thing of beauty? What makes EVE the game, the world, the Community, so appealing to you?

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This IS a good one. How do you define beauty for a start…?

Beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror

Which we are barely able to endure and are awed

Because it serenely disdains to annihilate us

Each single angel is terrifying

Beauty. Awe. Terror. Something which EvE does do very well in the first few months. Beauty in the ship classes. Awe when your frigate flies past a marauder for the first time. Terror when you get targetted in low sec or null.

Graphically, EvE is very pretty. IMHO most especially when you’re in a wormhole and seeing the system effects. Lens flares of a magnetar. The inkiness of a black hole. Really looking forward to the new nebulas too. Mr Hubble would definitely be proud. IMHO they will add a vastness that is currently mssing from the game, a glimpse into the depths of space.

But at the heart of it all, I can’t help but wonder where the beauty of EvE really resides. I suspect it is in part due to it’s sandbox nature , in part due to the callous and cruel environment that it can sometimes be, and also in part a reflection of the way in which people band together to fight against that randomness to achieve an end. Community in other words. Humanity, perhaps, in others.

In this, I believe EvE does very well indeed. There is no other game that I can think of that has the conjones to reflect real life in all its messiness, sudden and unexpect violence, betrayals and glories, heroics and self sacrifice. We are flawed. So too is this game.

But, like so much in life, it hints at greatness and complexity beneath the common and the mundane.

Look closely. It is in the corners of your mind, where you dare dream of greatness. Where you hunger for glory. Where you reach out to those who also hunger and dare, so that you together may achieve where one cannot. EvE does not provide these things. We do. EvE provides the framework and context.

Look inside. Look closely. And dare to dream. For here lies the beauty of EvE.

H

List of Participants:

1. CrazyKinux’s Musing: Beyond nebulas and shiny ships
2. Freedom: the beauty in EvE » A Mule In EvE
3. Achernar: The bike and the barbecue
4. where the frack is my ship?: Blog Banter 26: Love at first sight
5. BlogBanter 26: EVE … beautiful … « One capsuleer against all
6. Blog Banter 26 « Mad Haberdashers
7. » Blog Banter 26: Beauty of EVE – To Boldly Go To Boldly Go
8. Down By Law: Blog Banter #26: “The Beauty of EVE” (OOC)
9. Blog Banter #26 – Beauty « Roc’s Ramblings
10. Banter #26: Beauty is in the eye of the markets | Diary of a Garbageman
11. Progression’s Horizon: Blog Banter 26- Carry It With Us, Or We Find It Not
12. Blog Banter 26: The Beauty of Eve « A Scientist’s Life in Eve
13. Freebooted: BB26: The Beauty Between the Lines
14. Eve Opportunist: EBB #26 : Beauty is destruction.
15. Blog banter #26: EVE shines, and not just visually « Diary of a Pod Pilot
16. Blog Banter 26: Everybody is Pretty – Learning to Fly
17. BB26: Beauty, in certain conditions | A Missioneer in Eve
18. Dying in Lowsec (One Hauler at a time)
19. EVE Blog Banter #26 – Beauty « Evehermit’s Blog
20. EVE A to Z: The Beauty of EVE
21. Blog Banter 26: Beauty In A Bottle « A Lush In Space
22. EVEOGANDA: Blog Banter 26: The Ballet of Battle
23. BB26: Sometimes the sum of the parts … | Morphisat’s Blog
24. The 26th EVE Blog Banter – TOPIC: The Beauty of EVE – The Phoenix Diaries
25. And Knowing is Half the Battle: BlogBanter#26 The Real Beauty of EVE
26. The Beauty of EVE | Miner’s Blues
27. The Beauty of EvE | Aggressive Logistics
28. Blog Banter 26: The Beauty of EVE – Random Posts from Auga
29. The Beauty that is EVE Online « Lost in New Eden
30. Eve Blog Banter 26: Quit gettin’ mad about video games | Spaceholder