Today I thought I'd tell you a story you've never heard before. The story about why I started playing Eve.
Once, long ago, I made a horrible mistake in judgement and married the wrong woman. Despite early appearances to the contrary, she was actually the anti-christ. I could tell you stories to make your skin crawl, this is not the usual divorced man saying his ex-wife is crazy story. My ex-wife is actually crazy. The only good thing she ever did in her miserable life was give me my oldest son. And for the last twenty years I have done the best I could to protect him and fight for us both to have a normal life.
Imagine a bad divorce, drawn out, protracted, expensive, stressful, and psychologically damaging and you are starting the get the picture. I won't go into the details, but suffice to say eventually my son came to live with me full-time, I re-married the world's most amazing woman and we all started building a new life together. Blah blah blah.
Shortly after my son comes to live with me he calls me into his room. He wants to show me something called Eve. On his screen is a beautifully rendered room with a spaceship floating in it. It only gets better after the spaceship undocks from the station. I could tell he was excited. And I suspect he could tell that I was excited. I went downstairs to my computer and started downloading this amazing game.
Eve became the thing we shared between us. Sure we shared other things as well, but Eve was something special because we could do it together. Every single thing I did during the first three years of playing Eve - I did with him and for him. He'd suddenly decide we needed to become Mercs, we became Mercs. We needed to join Tropical Killer Banannas - we did that for a day. We talked about Eve a lot. And we had many, many adventures together.
He's grown up now and life has taken him in new directions. Jobs, College, Girls, there is very little time for Eve these days. It was never the same level of passion for him as it was for me. I always understood that. He's young and he has many interests that don't involve hanging out with his old man.
That's a good thing.
He made me promise that first day that I would never reveal that he was my son. And so I kept my word all these years. A few people here and there found out, but only when we both decided they should. Or I needed to pull some strings to get him back into a Corporation when he'd gone off and done something stupid.
But he doesn't really play anymore. He hasn't since around the time Lucifer's Hammer fell apart. We've had some tough times. My youngest boys are often challenging. My business went out of business. We struggled through a very difficult year last year. And I very nearly quit the game myself.
I don't know why I'm still playing Eve. I can't explain it. I think it has something to do with the strange combination of things that have strangely combined into one thing. I get to write here on the blog, I get to create artwork, in-game events, share my stories with a great community and with my readers, generate excitement in-game, and ultimately enjoy the thing that took my breath away that very first day - 3d rendered, live spaceships with real people from around the world.
That is a pretty gosh darn amazing thing.
And it still excites me every time I log on and see a ship of mine floating in the hanger. Ready for me to take her out on yet another adventure.
Eve has seen me through the last five years, I can't wait to see what she has in store for us over the next five.
Keep the courage.