No Commentary Hardcore Minecraft: The Quiet Grind – Run 5 Begins! Onwards and Upwards (Episode 1)

I’m excited to launch the next chapter in my ongoing series, No Commentary Hardcore Minecraft: The Quiet Grind, with the very first episode of Run 5: Onwards and Upwards. This series focuses on pure Hardcore Minecraft survival, delivered in a calm, immersive no commentary style that highlights the true tension and beauty of Minecraft’s raw gameplay.

Whether you’re here for Hardcore mode, survival strategies, early-game progression, or just relaxing, atmospheric Minecraft gameplay, this new run sets the tone for a whole new adventure.

Reflecting on the End of Run 4

Run 4 officially wrapped up in “The Quiet Grind | The Complete RUN 4 (Spawn to Finish)” an entry that captured what this series is all about: steady progression, careful planning, and that ever-present Hardcore danger. It was a run filled with smart decisions, tense moments, and a whole lot of mining and crafting grit.

If you missed the finale of Run 4, you can catch it here:
https://youtu.be/hjV-R1vB1OY. I had a great time in Run 4 and it helped shape the identity of this series, and its lessons carry forward directly into Run 5.

Run 5 Begins: What’s New?

With a fresh world and a blank slate, Run 5 picks up the spirit of The Quiet Grind while opening the door to new landscapes, new threats, and new opportunities. Expect a focus on:

• Early-game survival
• Base-building
• Efficient mining
• Exploration game-play
• Classic Hardcore Minecraft tension
• Relaxing, no-commentary immersion

If you enjoy Chill Minecraft, Hardcore Survival, ASMR-style Minecraft, or long-form progression, this episode should be right up your alley and as always, very family-friendly!

Watch Episode 1

Run 5 Begins: Onwards and Upwards
https://youtu.be/N9r_43B9rAs

More episodes are coming soon as the journey continues in No Commentary Hardcore Minecraft: The Quiet Grind.

Thanks so much for following along with No Commentary Hardcore Minecraft: The Quiet Grind. Your support truly keeps this series moving forward. If you’d like to stay updated on every new episode — including the full journey of Run 5 — make sure to subscribe to the channel to join The Quiet Grind experience! Take care, stay classy, and God bless!

For opportunity inquiries, please contact: grizzledgamer(at)live.com

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Welcome to The Quiet Grind: What Happens When Hardcore Meets No Commentary?

The stakes are simple: Survive, Build, and Do Not Die. In Hardcore Minecraft, every decision carries the weight of permanent failure. But what happens when you remove the running dialogue and let the stakes, the environment, and the gameplay speak for itself?

Welcome to The Quiet Grind, my flagship Hardcore Minecraft series. If you’ve been following my YouTube channel, you know that this series is the definitive test of skill, patience, and resilience. Today, I want to take you behind the scenes of this project and explain the deliberate choice that sets it apart: the No Commentary approach, and how it has documented my own evolution as a new player to Minecraft.

The Core Concept: Why “The Quiet Grind”?

Gaming content is often defined by rapid cuts, high-energy reactions, and constant interaction. While that style is fantastic, I want to create something different—something that honors the raw, meditative experience of survival gaming.

“The Quiet Grind” is exactly what it sounds like: a dedication to the pure, long-form process of surviving and thriving in the world of Minecraft. We focus on the grind of resource gathering, the intricate work of architecture, and the terrifying silence of deep cave exploration. There are no jump cuts to remove mining; there is just the commitment to the task at hand. This series is about embracing the journey, even the mundane parts, because in Hardcore, even the most mundane task can lead to permadeath.

The Viewer’s Advantage: The Power of No Commentary

The absence of a running commentary is more than just a stylistic choice—it’s a deliberate decision that enhances the viewer’s experience, transforming how you watch survival gameplay.

1. Maximum Immersion and Focus

In the silence of “The Quiet Grind,” you become the character.

Without my voice narrating every thought, you are free to focus entirely on the screen. The soundscape of Minecraft—the gentle lapping of water, the deep thunk of a pickaxe, the subtle, terrifying hiss of a Creeper in the darkness—becomes the primary source of information and tension. It transforms the viewing experience into a more immersive, almost meditative state, where the drama is built entirely by the game itself.

2. Heightened Tension and Stakes

Hardcore Mode is naturally tense, but the lack of commentary amplifies the fear to a whole new level. When I’m deep in Dead End Cavern (a soon to be released run) and hear a Zombie groan, you hear it immediately, without a warning or a joke to diffuse the situation.

This silence makes the small sounds big, the slow creepers terrifying, and the sudden rush of action feels sudden and catastrophic. The gameplay is raw, and the silence ensures that the stakes are felt, not just told.

A New Player’s Evolving Growth in Minecraft

The true magic of “The Quiet Grind” is that it serves as a public journal of my evolving skills. When I start a new run, I am often tackling advanced mechanics for the first time. The high-stakes environment forces a rapid, block-by-block education—and you witness this foundational learning from the very first episodes.

• Learning the Core Grind (Runs 1-4): The early episodes document the crucial transition from newcomer to competent survivor. Securing a basic cobblestone hut feels like a massive victory in those first attempts. The focus is purely on survival: learning mob ranges, understanding farming efficiency, and prioritizing a bed.
• The Power of Strategy: The failure of one run immediately informs the strategy of the next. When early runs are quickly dismantled by a Creeper or a simple fall, I learn the immediate necessity of carrying a shield and avoiding unsupported mining.
• Architectural Foundations: Even the architecture shows this growth. We move from the basic wooden shacks of the first runs to building safe, defensible cave entrances and strategic early-game bases that show a greater understanding of mob pathing and defense.
• Mastering Mechanics: Now, as the series progresses, that progress is only possible because of the hard-won lessons from those initial failures. That level of technical building is something I couldn’t have managed in the very first episodes, and it shows that the lessons of Hardcore stick.

The absence of commentary ensures that viewers witness this evolution in real-time, learning alongside me as I tackle building, caving, and complex tactics.

A Key Benefit: Family-Friendly Viewing

Beyond the immersion and tension, the No Commentary approach offers a huge advantage to families and viewers who prefer clean content: The Quiet Grind is completely family-friendly.

In many high-energy gaming videos, explicit language can be a concern. By removing the commentary track, we remove that risk entirely. The focus is exclusively on the gameplay and the inherent drama of the Minecraft world. Parents and guardians can confidently allow their children to watch the series without worrying about unexpected language or mature themes creeping into the audio.

This series becomes an ideal way for viewers of all ages to enjoy the complexities of survival, architecture, and strategy, making The Quiet Grind a safe and engaging viewing experience for the entire family.

What’s Next for The Quiet Grind?

The current run embodies the spirit of the series: establishing a unique fortress in a challenging biome, facing constant siege from specialized mobs, and integrating advanced mechanics. Each new episode involves tackling high-risk goals, whether that means a deep dive into a newly discovered cave system or planning the next big architectural project.

Navigating the Grind: The Two Playlists

To help you navigate all the content, I manage two main playlists on the channel, and they serve distinct purposes:

1. The Quiet Grind: No Commentary Hardcore Minecraft (Full Series): This is the main episodic series where you find every new chapter immediately after it is released. If you want to follow the current run block-by-block from the very beginning, this is the place to start.
2. The Quiet Grind: COMPLETE Run Archives (No Commentary): This playlist contains the full, compiled runs (like RUN 1, RUN 2, RUN 3, etc.) edited down to a single, high-intensity video. If you are looking for a quick binge-watch to see how a run started and tragically ended in one continuous video, the Archive is your destination.

The ultimate goal remains the same: survive, conquer the Nether, and build the ultimate Hardcore base. I invite you to experience Minecraft in a way that truly honours the intensity of the survival genre.

Thanks so much for reading and for all your incredible support of The Quiet Grind. It is truly much appreciated! Subscribe to the channel and join The Quiet Grind to experience the unedited, high-stakes journey. You’ll find long-form gameplay, detailed build breakdowns, and constant refinement of my Hardcore strategy.

For opportunity inquiries, please contact: grizzledgamer(at)live.com

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Are video games sinful for Catholics?

Off the rip let me state that I am of the laity in the Catholic Church. I converted this past Easter from Protestantism, and the following post contains my personal thoughts and opinions. Let’s get started!

If you take a gander around the internet with the question about video games and sin you will see quite a diverse number of answers like the ones found in this Reddit thread. Asking about this subject is important though, and I am glad that you did! Catholics of all ages need to be mindful of our activities, especially in the realm of leisure, as that is where the enemy will attack and attempt to twist our interests against us to hurt our spiritual well being. Whether you are Catholic or another religious individual who enjoys video games, this is an important topic to consider so let’s get started!

The first distinction that should be made is what kinds of video games are we talking about. For example some people make a distinction between violent video games and non-violent video games. Others focus on games that have a lot of sexual content. Then there are time consuming games that have nothing explicit in them but rather serve as an entertaining way to pass the time. When it comes to sin, are they different, the same, or is it more complicated?

Let’s consider the categories of sex and violence. As video games are quite visual we must consider what the Bible (which by the way is a Catholic book) tells us about our eyes. For instance, the Lord Jesus says: “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light; ²³ but if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” (Matthew 6:22)

Taking this into consideration, if you fill your eyes with things sinful in nature, your body will most definitely be filling up … but it won’t be with light. If you look at your mind as a container, you need to be asking yourself what are you packing into it? It really does matter! Remember Philippians 4:8 “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things.” This passage is important. What we think about is important. Vitally important.

Our Lord Jesus also says “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.” (Matthew 5:29-30)

Obviously you aren’t going to rip your eyes out or cut off those prime gaming fingers, but our Lord Jesus is drawing significant attention to the importance our decisions have when it comes to our health and well being. He even highlights the possible consequence of hell by not doing so; the stakes are high indeed!

A good rule of thumb to follow would be if the content in video games that you are playing through or exposed to frequently is sinful in nature, it isn’t good for you. It doesn’t matter whether it’s gruesome in violence or rife with sexual content, it isn’t good. If you really enjoy it you must gut check yourself and ask why? Are you a lover of sinful acts and representations of sin? Is that healthy or compatible with the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Church? Absolutely not.

Production studios have perfected the art of promoting their products, so there will never be a shortage of temptation. As gamers we must tread carefully. Take games that emphasize a lot of sex. Many a sin is rooted in things of a sexual nature, including masturbation and willfully and purposefully pondering sexual thoughts about others in our minds. Our Lord Jesus himself said that lusting over someone is a serious matter: “But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:28).

For faithful Catholics this means that willful and purposeful unclean thoughts must be confessed to a priest. Confession, however, is a good thing. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is a precious gift that our Lord Jesus gave us as members of the Holy Apostolic Catholic Church to help protect us and allow us to receive healing in our struggles against sin. If you are faithful to God’s Word and confess frequently, you will find yourself asking more and more “is this good for me … is this worth going to confession again …. ” and the answer will very often be a strong mental “NO!” and you won’t let the temptation to sin overcome you. You will also more actively avoid that which tempted you in the first place. But you need to be honest with yourself and faithful to God. If a video game (or something else) is making you struggle in this area, let it go and say a prayer for the people who made it. You are in control of what you give your time and attention to, always remember that!

As for violence in games, there’s no shortage of violence junkies out there (you know who you are) so if you feel that games are bringing on desires to watch or engage with acts of violence sinful in nature, this is also a huge red flag. Content based in sin, whether violent or sexual or otherwise, will fill you up with darkness hurting yourself spiritually. This dark state of being can even assist in the invitation of the demonic to wreak havoc in your life so players beware!

“Woah Grizzled! Did you just go there! Demons?! Really?!”

“Yes! Absolutely.”

Demons can use temptation against you anytime they want, even against the most faithful of people, and under certain circumstances they can do more than just tempt you. The enemy makes use of worldly temptations to bring darkness and sin into our lives wherever possible. Every small step in that direction is a victory for them with the ultimate prize being your soul. Much in the same way that the occult opens doors to the demonic, so too can the saturation of oneself in things of a sinful nature through video games. You are literally focusing time and energy on evil content, so what do you expect? If you play with fire long enough, you will get burned and the scary thing is you might not even realize that it’s happening!

More often than not demons aren’t required to do damage because we inflict the damage ourselves. Take for example video games that are benign in nature, but consume a lot of time. What is being traded in this arrangement? Who suffers the most? Your participation in family matters might suffer along with your prayer life and participation in Church and friendships. Maybe for some of you even your job has been impacted. Have you ever missed a day of work due to a game release? Have you every played a small game at work when you’re not on a break? You catch my drift. We need to be mindful of the time being given to video games. As the old saying goes, moderation is key.

So how does one know then how much is too much? What constitutes too much time, or violence or sexual content in a video game? Can these be defined? This is where things get very personal; each of us will be different. In fact, I encourage you to comment on some games you play and some games that you avoid. Your comments might very well help out someone in their own journey so don’t hold back!

Looking at games I have enjoyed in the past and currently play brings some interesting thoughts to mind. For example, I played Fortnite back in the day. It is a very cartoon-like third person shooter game. The weapons, explosions, and combat do not draw on real imagery or representations so my spirit did not feel negatively impacted in the slightest. Furthermore the story lines used in the game were benign, albeit creative. Because of this, other than watching my investment of time in the game, I felt good to go playing it.

Another game that I enjoy and currently play is League of Legends. With League I have to be mindful of my state of mind as it is quite competitive and tensions get high, both with teammates and opponents through the in-game chat. I often have to ask myself if I am getting angry or if it is just healthy competitive drive. If I am getting angry I have to step back and re-evaluate how I am interacting with the game. I need to treat people in video games as I treat them in real life because they are real people. If I am not treating them well and I am feeling the urge to use vulgar language or become short tempered I am doing myself harm on a spiritual level. This would also be a bad representative of the faith I profess to believe and would weaken myself in the struggle against evil.

There are games, for instance, I outright avoid. Grand Theft Auto and Mafia come to mind. I am leary about video games rated M and I will do a bit of research before getting them. Frankly I do not have the desire to subject myself to what our current society’s interpretation of what “mature content” is. Quite often (but not always) it is openly diabolic in nature and my Lord’s name is taken in vain every 30 seconds in cut scenes and plot lines. There is literally no good to be had and engaging with it would be a spiritual pitfall in and of itself. Through experience I have found that saying “No!” from the git-go yields the best results.

You, of course, will differ from me and you might already be drafting a comment in your mind as you read this. If the goal is to determine whether a video game is sinful or not, in my opinion as followers of Jesus we need to ask some poignant personal questions about the games we play or are interested in. Here are a few that I have found helpful:

• How does playing the game make me feel?
• What thoughts tend to come to mind before, during, and after playing?
• What kinds of emotions does this game typically bring out in me? Are they healthy?
• Am I treating people well in the game or do I become short-tempered, frustrated, prone to anger?
• Does the game or community around it encourage me to desire unhealthy things?
• How does it impact the relationships I have with my family, friends, church, job?
• Are thoughts of the game consuming my mind when not playing?
• Is the game causing me to mismanage my time and impact commitments?
• Do people annoy me when they interrupt me playing?
• Is the content of the game devoid of hope? (i..e is it a struggle of good vs evil or does it just glorify evil things?)

I am sure you can think of some other questions that could be helpful so please share them in the comments for others to see.

In my humble opinion, after being alive for almost half a century, playing video games is fine for Catholics, and not sinful, providing we follow the principles of moderation and don’t engage with games that barrage us with sinful content that hurt our spiritual health and relationship with God and others. This determination will be personal for each of us because we will all react to games and content within them in our own unique way.

In finishing this post, the following Bible passages stood out to me:

Psalms 101:3
3 I will not look with approval on anything that is vile. I hate what faithless people do; I will have no part in it.

Proverbs 16:2
All the ways of a man are clean in his own sight,
But the Lord weighs the motives.

Reflect on them. Internalize them. How do they speak to you? What do they say about you and your relationship with the video games you play? Put yourself on the hot seat and share your thoughts in the comments below.

Take care, happy gaming, and God Bless!

~Grizzled

Can video games make you smarter?

ASAP Science takes a look at this age old question:

Elder Scrolls Online: Why it will fail and what Bethesda needs to do about it.

I had the experience of watching a fan of the Elder Scrolls games play the new Elder Scrolls Online beta this weekend.  Unfortunately for Elder Scrolls fans, the future does not look bright.  In fact, my prediction is that if things stay the way they are, ESO’s launch will be a colossal failure similar to Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Why, you might ask?  Let’s discuss.

First and foremost, one of the most glaring things that stood out to me right off the bat was the absolute and utter failure of the loot system.  The loot system in ESO is almost identical to World of Warcraft in that you kill a crab and miraculously get the 2 handed staff that was somehow tucked in the critters intestinal track.  While such a loot system works fine in theme park MMO’s, it has no place in an Elder Scrolls game.  If you liked having the option of what to loot from things in games like Morrowind, Oblivion, or Skyrim, prepared to be let down.

Some people I have talked to believe that the developers had to do this due to the “size” and “scale” of the game.  It would be too difficult and prone to farming if they had implemented a Skyrim or Oblivion style of loot.  This argument, however, holds no water.  First, let’s address the farming.  If an individual wants to spend a lot of time filling up their encumbrance and traveling to a store to sell loot, then let him or her do it.  If you have concerns about rich people having an advantage over the casual adventurer, then ensure that major game enhancing items or abilities aren’t tied to your currency but rather your content.  Furthermore, there should be somewhat of an advantage in a MMO when you comparing someone who puts more effort and time into things as opposed to the people that don’t.  There’s nothing wrong with that, and farmers are merrily farming in all the successful MMOs as I type this.

If you have concerns about gold farming to sell for real money, there are several games on the market that curbed that problem.  Eve Online, for example, sells time cards on their website and official vendors.  Players that want more in-game currency spend real money on a time card code that they can sell in game for digital currency.  It’s a win/win situation and the developers of the game are in control of the process.  Other games like World of Warcraft have digital goods (Guardian Cub) that people can spend real money on, and then turn around and sell them in-game.  Once again, the problem is managed by the developers of the game as opposed to the gold farming sites.  Is there a perfect solution?  No, but there are workable solutions and using this problem as a rationale for creating a junk loot system is complete hogwash.

The loot system the developers have designed in ESO is simply lazy programming, and basically a slap in the face of Elder Scrolls fans.  If ESO can’t keep Elder Scrolls fans on the bandwagon, they’re done.  The typical MMO gypsies will not fund/maintain this game, and that’s a fact.  Having the ability to decide whether or not to loot several almost worthless items from a typical NPC is a hallmark of the Elder Scrolls series.  The experience of occasionally finding something worthwhile above and beyond the fur boots was realistic and kept an element of interest, surprise, and fun – a stark contrast to the boring mechanics of loot found in theme park MMO’s.  Furthermore, managing encumbrance, while sometimes annoying, also added a level of difference and appeal to the loot system.  This aspect of the typical Elder Scrolls loot system is not incorporated into ESO.  

Another big disappointment in the game is the level-based zone systems.  Hello?  Who’s bright idea was it to do this in an Elder Scrolls game?  Once again, the developers decided to take the standard run of the mill theme park MMO doctrine and force that into the Elder Scrolls universe.  Lazy programming trumps yet another staple that Elder Scrolls fans love: freedom to explore the world.  Frankly there’s no excuse for lacking a persistent world big enough for the server population to explore at their own leisure, and other MMO games have already achieved this, some of them being a decade old already.  Sure, it was probably easier to design a level-based system, but taking the easy road will not keep subscribers paying month to month, especially these days in an already saturated MMO market.  What was really needed here for the Elder Scrolls brand was innovation and a relentless passion for achieving the core essentials of the Elder Scrolls experience, at all cost.  When Bethesda decided to go down the MMO road with a developer, they should have ensured that a true die hard fan of the Elder Scrolls game was at the helm, making decisions that the dev team would have hated and thought impossible, but in the end would have paid off huge dividends as the core fans would be satisfied and willing to pay monthly for the experience.

There are other annoyances with the game that can be attributed to poor design decisions, too many to go into to be honest.  For instance, there’s no pick pocketing.  Apparently, even though any NPC in the MMO’s available today can remember if you have taken or completed a quest for the entire life of your character, the ESO system can’t be coded to remember who you stole from, and if you were caught, how it impacted their relationship with you.  Once again, it could have been done, but the easy road was taken to ignore it all together.  Another annoyance is the super easy and forgiving combat system.  I don’t think it’s possible to miss monsters in this game from what I saw, so if you ever had those moments in Skyrim or Oblivion where you were a bit off your mark and kept missing the darn mob as they were coming for your throat (and all the adrenaline that brought with it!) you won’t get that in ESO.  You can pretty much hit anything within a few inches of aiming for it.  The guy I was watching, who is a big Oblivion/Skyrim fan as well as an avid MMO player, was absolutely bored to tears with the combat.  It “looked” decent but was not engaging in any way, which definitely does not bode well for the game in the long run.  Oh, and by the way you can last hit monsters to get their loot regardless of how much damage someone else has done or if they hit them first.  Have fun with that!

So what does Bethesda need to do about this before April 14th, 2014?  They need to make a decision: launch as is and have a failure on their hands within a few months, or stop the train, delay launch, and fix it so that their fans will appreciate the effort and support the game in the long-run.  Personally I don’t see much of a choice here, but as with all things ESO I have no doubt that the easier road will be taken and the game will launch on time.  Possibly a few million Elder Scrolls fans will pick up the game at launch and in turn will be very disappointed when they play, leading to a mass exodus when the first monthly payment is due.

If you truly care about the success of ESO, email them here to let them know your thoughts.  Ask them to delay their launch and incorporate what you believe to be essential for the game to be a success.  Who knows, your words coupled with other concerned players might tip the scales in our favor of receiving an Elder Scrolls MMO worthy of the franchise name.

~Grizzled Gamer

Eve Online Analysis: The New Player Experience – Part 1

Tons of gamers have, at some point, tried Eve Online, one of the most successful MMO games to date.  Despite the continued success of Eve, many in the industry still consider it to be a “niche” MMO.  This designation is not deserved, but it persists nonetheless.  One of the main reasons this view exists is what happened to many gamers when they first tried Eve Online, and the lasting impression it had on them as they moved to other MMO’s.  Back then, and for a number of years after launch, it wasn’t a smooth process for a new gamer starting fresh in the Eve universe.

Almost 10 years ago, new players to Eve were literally thrown into fire with no clue what the heck was going on, let alone why the decisions they made in the character creation component of the game were even there in the first place.  Those that stuck it out and fought tooth and nail to understand the game and all its complexity ended up becoming the very loyal and dedicated player base for Eve moving forward, with a healthy chunk of them still playing the game to this day.  The rest, however, left with a bad taste in their mouth and proceeded to tell all their friends to avoid the game like the plague and to invest their efforts in other MMO’s going on at that time such as Dark Age of Camelot, Shadowbane, among others.  Unfortunately, this would have a lasting impact on the growth of Eve Online as a new MMO in 2003 compared to other MMO’s that came before it, and a stark contrast to the launch success of the behemoth that would shortly follow in 2004, World of Warcraft.

CCP (the developer of Eve Online) looked at Eve as a success, and given their track record over the past decade this view is deserved.  In fact, since its launch in 2003, they have gained subscribers every year which is something that no other MMO that has been around that long can claim.  As nice as that sounds, building from a small subscription base is still building from a small subscription base.  A lot of the players that were confused with Eve shared their frustration with their gaming friends.  In those days, word of mouth was absolutely essential for the success of a MMO.  If you couldn’t get the existing MMO player base to like your game, your product was lined up for a quick trip to the discount software bin and the writing was on the wall for a slow and painfully agonizing journey to vaporware.

Eve Online, however, had much more to offer players once they got past the steep learning curve, and was able to maintain enough initial players that loved the game, and through their word of mouth and dedication to the brand they helped Eve build their fan and subscription base.  This was, and continues to be, a testament to the diverse, engaging, and in many cases addicting aspects of the game.  However, there was, and in many cases continues to be, big problems for new players to Eve Online.

Eve developers have known for a long time that new players had no easy task in front of them.   They openly admit this frequently, and have agreed with their player base that lot of improvement was (and is) needed.  To their credit, they have implemented a number of positive changes over the past few years to make the initial experience easier to understand for new players.  I will discuss some of these new changes, and also go over some changes that have not been implemented but that would, in my grizzled MMO opinion, make a huge improvement for new players to the game.

Let’s move on from the beginnings of Eve Online and get to the “nitty gritty” of today.  If you try Eve Online now, which I recommend that you do at http://www.eveonline.com  you will have a vastly improved experience over what players like myself went through several years ago.  You will have a solid tutorial system that covers the basics of the game and also experience a series of fairly engaging and beneficial career agent missions (read as quests basically).  These agents help introduce you to the basics of the game and provide tangible tasks for your future efforts in terms of careers in the Eve universe.

Now I know what you’re thinking – “Grizzled, what about the character creation?  How come you’re skipping out on that – that’s important stuff !” and while that’s a great question it has little relevance in Eve Online.  I won’t spend a long time on character creation, so I will just say this: You are going to have one of the most amazing character generation experiences of your MMO life.  The character creator is, for a lack of better words, beautiful!  You will spend a fair amount of time tweaking your character to look just like you picture him/her in your mind, and you will pick an awesome name for yourself. After all of this effort, and a little lore thrown into the mix, you will end up in a room walking around by yourself but unfortunately you will be the only person on the planet (earth that is) that actually see’s your character in all of its 3D glory.  To everyone else in Eve, you will appear as a portrait.  Bummer, right?  Yes it is!

In fact this was a massive design error on the part of CCP, inexcusable really when you think about it one would hope they are working overtime to correct the problem.  They promised their fan base for years that they would implement station walking in game where you could interact with other pilots, play games, basically little things to do when you’re not flying around in your ship.  To put it in perspective, basically a “town” or “city” in pretty much any other MMO except in Eve it would be a station.

This was a great idea from a community social building perspective and definitely would be a boon to the game overall, most especially for new players but it flopped horribly due to major implementation decisions/mistakes.  I don’t want to dwell on this much longer because in the big scheme of things, it won’t hinder your ability to experience the better parts of Eve that will have you willing to hand over money to play each month, but it must be fixed soon (overtime pay if need-be) because the lingering problem, unfortunately, is quite embarrassing in that every other major MMO has never had problems creating an area, instanced or not, in which players can interact with other avatars.  Even the PS3 has a basic avatar interaction mechanism built in for its community members, and that’s for a console system.

Before we move on I have a few other things to mention about the character creation portion of Eve Online:  Take your time picking your name!  Make sure you’re happy with it  because the only way you can change your name in Eve Online is to delete your character or simply not play him/her.  There is no name change service in Eve Online.  Some sandbox players will tell you this is essential so that you avoid people doing “nefarious” things and then changing their name shortly thereafter to erase their trail but in my opinion if someone is willing to pay a fee to change their name and remove their history, let them have at it to begin their scheming ways anew!  Player autonomy and having the freedom to start fresh without completely re-creating a character in a MMO should never be frowned upon, sandbox game or not.  Other MMO games (player vs player ones included) package this option as “server change” or “faction change” or simply “name change” and they charge a fee usually around $20-$25 dollars.

Eve Online, however, has no name change service.  I would wager Eve has lost more than a few subscriptions because people that really would have liked to change their name couldn’t and they had no desire to begin a new character from scratch given the training mechanics of the game (more on training below) so they end up cancelling and going to another game.  In short, everyone loses and there really isn’t a justification for it.  Sure, someone might scam you and make you madder than heck, but if they feel the need to change their name and wipe their history to continue to enjoy the game, then by all means let them fork over the 20-25 bucks and game on – these are after all games we are talking about!

And let’s be honest, it’s not always scammers that want a name change, it can also be just gamers that want fresh new relationships without the past impacting their future.  People generally don’t like to hurt other people’s feelings, especially people they have played with for a long time, but sometimes a fresh start under a new name holds that level of excitement about forming new relationships with the potential of new experiences, and that can help keep people paying to play in the environment on a character they have invested a substantial amount of time and effort into.  Without the option to do so, many simply start a new game and do it that way which benefits no one except for the other MMO that just gained a subscriber.

Along with no name change services, Eve Online also makes it difficult to have alt characters.  You can create 3 characters on your account, but only one character can train at any given time.  In a nutshell, the training system in Eve is based on time.  You select a training path, say for example a missile skill, and that skill must be trained over time and it will have multiple levels in order to advance.  Your skills in Eve train even when you are not logged into the game, and they are not based on “experience” as in other MMO’s.  This is actually quite an ingenious system, and a great deal of players appreciate not having to kill bunny rabbits to progress and improve upon their characters.

Unfortunately, however, the developers of Eve decided that only one character could train on an account at any given time.  So, if you made an alt (which most MMO players love to do) that alt cannot train unless you completely stop the training on your main character (which persists even when you have your alt character logged in).  This means your main character’s progress must completely stop at all times when your alt begins his/her training cycles.  Furthermore, it doesn’t matter which character you have logged into the game.  So technically you can have 3 alts on your account, but only 1 can ever be training.

This is quite different than experience based systems where you can log in any character you want and “level them up!”.  Most MMO players not only appreciate, but in pretty much all cases demand the option to have multiple characters that they can choose to login to the game and progress within the game environment.  By removing this option, Eve Online comes across as an anti-alt game to new players and that can only hurt the initial attraction to the game and the sticking power of the game for people trying it out.

I am not exactly sure of the rationale behind this decision.  I see nothing wrong with one account having 3 characters training at the same time because only one character can ever be logged into the server anyway.  And to be honest, it would be more engaging to manage multiple training que’s than simply managing one.  In some cases skills in Eve Online can take 30+ days to train, so for that entire time you have no power or ability to manage the training of your other characters.

Eve does allow the sale of characters through a series of rules in their forums, and perhaps one of the reasons they limit the training of accounts is this option.  But if all that happens because of multiple characters training is a reduction in price of character sales (which are based on in-game currency) this isn’t a good trade off for limiting the ability of account holders to train their characters.  A positive move that would benefit the new player experience would be for Eve to embrace the fact that the vast majority of MMO players are alt-aholics and that promoting the use of alts would increase overall positive feelings towards the game from players trying it out.  In short, more subscriptions in the long run.

As Eve is a complex game I am not surprised that I have covered so much, yet still have much more to discuss about this aspect of the game.  Please stay tuned for part 2 of the new player experience for Eve Online and I encourage any feedback so far!

~Grizzled Gamer

First Focus: Eve Online

I am currently playing Eve Online as well as some other MMO’s with my sons.  Eve Online is a game I recommend, but it’s also a game that needs  improvement.

To clarify for people that haven’t tried Eve Online yet, it’s a one server universe.  In other words, every single player (with the exception of the new Asian server if memory serves me correctly) is connected to the server Tranquility.  Over the course of my experiences there, which date back to the mid 2000’s, the population has steadily increased.  Nowadays when I log into the game, it’s not uncommon to see numbers in excess of 35,000+ connected.  I think I have even seen in excess of 40,000 people.

In short, it’s a massive online game.  But it’s also a fairly open-sandbox game, which is my personal preference for a main staple MMO although I do play and enjoy other styles of games.

My first series of blog posts are going to revolve around Eve and what it has to offer in comparison to other popular MMO’s.  I will proudly state areas where Eve Online shines, but I will also touch on aspects of the game that need improvement and, in my opinion, are keeping Eve Online from breaking into massive mainstream MMO success.

The format of my posts regarding Eve Online will be as follows:

1. The newbie experience.  What Eve does well, and what it needs to do to improve for new players playing the game for the first time.

2. PVE gameplay and mechanics as players cross from newbies to seasoned Eve Online gamers.  These blog posts will include detailed debriefs of the various PVE mechanisms in the game, how they are functioning, level of engagement and overall purpose.

3. PVP gameplay and mechanics, based on my experiences both in solo, small gang, and large alliance PVP warfare (all of which I have had plenty).

4. Endgame and moving forward.  These final blog posts will be on what I feel about the Eve Online “endgame”.  Some people won’t like the term endgame here, given the open and diverse nature of Eve, but in general I am referring to the point in which pilots will have most, if not all, of their desired training complete.

I hope you enjoy this up-coming journey, and I welcome all comments to the blog posts that will be coming as well as all thoughts and opinions.

To check out Eve Online while I am discussing it, please visit their site here.

~GrizzledGamer

Humble Beginnings

Welcome to my new blog.  As I type this, I wonder where I should start.  I guess the best place is my introduction to the land of MMO’s.

I played Meridian 59 briefly after hearing about it in an old gaming magazine.  My stay there was not long, as I saw an Ultima Online box for sale at my local computer store for the whopping $99.99.  I picked it up, and my true journey into the lands of MMO’s began.

I could go on forever about my times in UO back in the day, but there’s once incident that I always recall vividly. I was in the main city at the time (I believe it was called Britania but you can correct me if I am wrong) and I had just saved up enough money to buy a pack horse.  I took this prized possession out of town to do some mining along the road.  I figured this would be a good way to make some money and items to get a nest egg in the game to pursue other interests.

There I was, casually doing my work, when this other character came streaming towards me.  His name was a different color than mine, which I thought was pretty interesting.  I was about to say hello to this fine digital denizen when he proceeded to gank my horse and lay wreck to my character.  After looting my hard earned stuff, he was gone never to be seen again.  I was hooked.  Was I mad?  No!  I knew that I had found a style and genre of game that I was really going to enjoy: massive online interactive gaming!

I won’t get into all of the games I have played, at least not in this post, but I am happy to have this blog to share with people my MMO experiences, specifically what I think works, what doesn’t work, and what could potentially work in a very competitive market.

I welcome all feedback on this blog and would appreciate a follow on Twitter when you have time.

~Grizzled