// ARCADE DECADENCE

I remember when I was 14, how engulfing were the 880kb of Amiga's port of ELiTE. Yes the megamighty Elite, which spawned many games with similar space galore theme in 15 years. Privateer, Starlancer, Freelancer, Homeworld, Dark Star One, whatever was the name, we all knew the style they brought. Space sims and space RTS. :D You remember Trade Wars on Buletin Board Systems? Good. EVE-Online makers remebered it too.

I was sucked into The World Of Warcraft for the first 6 months of its release. I waited for it for so long and even knew what I wanted to play when it finaly comes out from the Blizzard cook-house. I wanted to be the big refrigerator on the fiery horse. Yes, you guessed it right! I was Ork Warlock :D. So I played WoW. Went questing, instance dwelling, city raiding, PvP clashing.....And I finaly realised something which was partialy clear to me, but the article in a mag i forgot name, put the exclamation mark at the end of my out-of-the-boiled-brain fact. WOW was nothing more, and IS nothing more than highly polished, full mega-fry-your-video-card 3d version of Diablo. Nothing more, nothing less...
But, I was a lucky one to have very nice group of people playing with me. We also met some nice friends around the globe. Some of them even came to visit us in Belgrade, Serbia. So, sort to speak - it wasnt a waste of time. And also World Of Warcraft comes as a version of My Space social network when you look it from that angle. Most of the time inhabited by geeks, leet peeps, and Counter-Strike players cross-dressed on weekends in battlegrounds - But hey, I said I was lucky.

In that time I was introduced to EVE-Online. My friend got a test account so I went to yet another MMORPG - but in space. The big word about it was that the world constantly changed and that it was possible to influence it in a way that is more than changing the gear you are wearing and the color of your hair.

As someone said on gaming forums in Belgrade - What is this big black Windows Commander clone, dressed up like a game. But in the deeper layer I saw the beauty of Homeworld's universe an spacescapes. My friend logged in. He flied a little, he mined the asteroid a little, he docked to the station (nowhere nearly spectacular to when you dock in Elite for the first time). The game didnt hooked me. Like some others did. But it didnt left me uninterested. Part of it was because I am a big "universe" lover and like to read about it. Other part was that Blizzard firmly holded me in the claws of WoW. I was around level 50 and had yet to expirience some nice game features.

EVE waited patiently for her chance to hook me again. Occasional newsletters from the developer, pinned me from time to time, to read about the game improvements and story that was evolving.

In the meantime I stoped playing WoW. I must admit, I stoped playing everything. I mean everything. Occasional excursions into Civilisation III and IV, and into universe of MAME doesn't count.

I started working full time, producing music, designing some stuff for websited, barmen. Found a decent girl that I'll marry and I still dont play.

Couple of weeks ago, like an itch in the brain, I got the feeling I need to play something, something not too much time consumming, yet leaving me with the feeling of fullfilness (maybe too heavy word). I needed to play something in space, to fly away for a while, from time to time.

EVE came to mind.....

I phoned my friend who showed me EVE. I forgot his birthday. He listened to my excuse. He knows me. He laughs, because he knows me. We are in the simillar state of mind about games in this moment. We agreed we'll give EVE a chance.

And thus no matter that I am 31 years old - these are The Chronicles of NOOBS IN SPACE. The diary of our virgin brains plunged into the space of the second best MMORPG out there, which firmly holds its position against highly polished Diablo clone - World Of Warcraft.

To be continued in Episode 01 - Ignition.