EVE Online at Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMOG Gamers to the Next Level!

My first spy ops were humble and often ended poorly. When Goonfleet’s founder resigned, he dropped the position of CEO in my lap; at that tender age I was absolutely unready for leadership. That CEOship was such a (brief) disaster I still cringe thinking about it. But over time - and there was an awful lot of time spent every day working as espionage director - I learned my trade. When Haargoth Agamar defected from Band of Brothers in February 2009 and I conceived of disbanding them, I referred to my idea as a ‘flash of intuition’, not something deliberately planned. But in hindsight I had already put a completely obscene amount of work and effort into being a ‘spy guy’ between March 2006 and February 2009, since focusing on EVE while at the office is what kept me from losing my mind while helping defend corporate criminals and wallowing in moral hazard.

We assume that the famous or highly skilled are somehow different because they have some kind of innate, unobtainable gift. In real life, you need to both be born lucky and then work your ass off to achieve world-class success; in EVE luck and circumstance certainly helps, but the impact of hard work matters more.

If you find yourself following the exploits of one of EVE’s outliers - someone like Ribeye, Shadoo, Istvaan, Xttz, or Nync, know that you too can reach their heights, so long as you focus and are dedicated enough to put the hours in to learn your trade. I’d suggest picking a specialization that has some kind of real-world applicability, like leadership, psychology, financials or what have you, if only because I wouldn’t want to sink so many hours into something that doesn’t teach you useful skills beyond the game. Don’t expect to achieve ‘natural’ success by dabbling. New Eden is a harsh sandbox, but at least - in this one respect - it is fair.