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Deveon Deeveon Knight
Birth
At the end of 2006, the Swedish Telecom company Ericsson shut down their Southern California office I worked at and I found myself out of a job after 12 yrs with Ericsson as a Software Engineer. Fortunately, an opportunity to become a Software Product Manager came up in the Seattle, WA area where I had gone to college and my sister was living, so I packed my bags and moved to Seattle.
When I called my sister to tell her I was moving to Seattle, she informed me she and her family were moving back to Montana (where we grew up), so I found myself in Seattle without any friends or family. So one night I went online and searched on MMORPGs and came across a list. I read through the list and one stood out, something called Project Entropia with a real cash economy. I thought to myself, well that's certainly interesting. Being the smart guy I think I am, I knew it wasn't going to be easy money, but I like a good challenge, especially one that I could end up making a few $$$ off of. Shortly thereafter, Devon Deeveon Knight was born May 13, 2007 in the Calypso city of Port Atlantis.
Deeveon has been the character name I've used in all RPGs for as long as I can remember. I had to pick 3 names for PE though, so I thought, what name would Deeveon be a reasonable nickname for? Devon came to mind, but Devon what? Knight was the only thing I could think of at the time that sounded half way decent, so I just went with it.
Childhood
Since I didn't know any other players, I immediate scoured the net for information on how best to get started. I came across Alice in Wonderland's excellent beginner tutorial and consumed it in no time. Next thing I knew, I was weaving my way through seas of red dots looking for blue ones. Within 48 hrs I had managed to collect all the TPs on Eudoria.
On my 2nd day, I even managed to carefully navigate my way through the rig trox to get to the Oil Rig. There were several people there who were chatting and I tried talking to them a bit, but they basically ignored me until this barrel of crude oil landed at my feet. I was trying to figure out how to pick it up when, next thing I know, it was gone and I was seeing red. I cancelled the revive, and laid there for a bit to eavesdrop as they were talking strategy. A few minutes later, Buck Buck Stone appeared from nowhere and the rig was soon littered with white dots other than mine. I was in awe. Wow! I want to become like that guy!
A week later I had the lay of the land with all TPs gathered on both continents. I was now ready to start earning some cash and begin my quest to become the next Buck Buck Stone. The first thing I did was learn how to use Entropedia and got an account on Entropia Forum. I studied the economy of weapons, faps, etc. from the info on Entropedia and knew the first thing I needed was an Opalo from the TT and an A101 amp. So, I headed to Swamp Camp to sweat Daikibas. 2 weeks later I finally had enough cash in my pocket to buy an A101 amp. By this time, I was itching to use it, but no cash for the gun & ammo. So I made my first investment of $10 to get an Opalo, ammo and FAP.
Boy oh boy did I enjoy killin' and skillin'. =) I quickly outgrew the Opalo and soon dispatched the entire Breer MxA series. Just 6 months into the game I already had 5k Rifle.
Adolescence
Early on I had decided to be self sufficient as much as possible, making my own L weapons to use whenever possible. I found crafting quite enjoyable and spent most of my adolescence in game learning the ins and outs of crafting. While I made weaspons to use, I focused primarily on components as I found it much, much easier to break even on those. I dabbled in amps a bit, learning the hard way, that being a swirlie junkie is costly, so I quickly stopped doing those except for own use and occasionally for friends.
Component crafting was not like it is today. Back then there was no in-game auto clicker to do those 5k click runs of Basic Sensors or Basic Sheet Metal while you sleep. So I bought myself a wireless mouse and did most of my clicking while on the couch watcing movies. Multitasking at it's finest if I do say so myself. =)
Young Adult
This is the stage in my avatar's development where I feel I'm at now. I consider myself a true student of the game, understanding most of the game mechanics quite well at this point. And so now I'm at that point where I'm experimenting more and trying to find out who I really am. So I've been skilling up melee and mindforce to get a good feel for those. I kind of wish I hadn't done that, as I find I really like mixing it up - sometimes doing melee, sometimes ranged weapons, and so forth. I was hoping one would rise to the top as a clear choice to focus on the next few years in my quest to reach level 100. Until recently, there really wasn't much of a choice as melee weapons/mindforce were all low level or uneconomical UL. And so the only logical path was ranged weapons. But now melee and mindforce are more viable options as well. So, for the time being, I figure I'll continue mixing it up and just focus on having fun and not so much on trying to reach particular skill goals.
Adult
To me, you become an adult once you've unlocked all skills (in a relevant profession). So, for a hunter that would be unlocking Commando/Kill Strike. I have a ways to go still (66 hit/62 dmg), but I'm having fun, so I'm in no hurry.
Retirement
Retirement to me comes when you can retire from using L weapons in favor of UL weapons (i.e. > level 100 hit/dmg). At the rate I'm going, that's probably not going to happen for several more years (circa 2020?). Who knows if social security (UL weapons) will still exist when I get there so I have a couple of nice toys tucked away. =)
Death
Deeveon will never truly die, he'll just keep on reviving at a revive terminal near you. =)
Social Media
Before there was HU, there was GoC, or Gods of Chaos, which was originally founded by none other than our own Micker. Like HU, GoC sure was a lot of fun! I really enjoyed my time in GoC, but I found myself hunting with HU folks more than GoC simply because I loved the big game hunting (Dasps, big trox and spiders, etc.) Those are the kinds of team hunts I enjoy the most. It's just not as much fun if there's no risk of carnage. =)
Before GoC I was mostly a Freelancer except for a short stint in a soc I can't even remember the name of at the moment. A couple weeks in, the soc leader promoted me and said I now had to recruit one person each week, or he'd kick me out. So I saved him the trouble. It wasn't all bad though. The one thing I learned from that experience was to skill crafting on Basic Sensors instead of Basic Filters, which was good advice at the time and probably still good advice today.
I think I'm friendly (e.g. always saying hello), but I don't make friends easy as I'm generally not that much of a social person. I have made a few good friends in-game though (many of whom are in HU) and even met a few of them outside of the game. Without the folks in HU and my other friends, the game certainly wouldn't be nearly as enjoyable.
Moments of Glory
I can't say that I have had all that much luck a la Skippie, yet I can't complain either. Nothing seems to come easy, but I manage to get by quite well, because I put quite a bit of effort into picking things to do that I have a good chance of profiting off of (which is constantly changing). I will gamble a bit from time to time when I think I have extra PEDs and can afford it. My favorite way to do so is Simple IV Conductors on full condition when brain oil is cheap. At ~20 PED a click, it's a potential 200k ATH. Best to date is only 13k though, which is my only 5 digit TT value loot. My best ever loot was a 36 click Quad Wing bp when those were fisrt introduced. I lost about 5k PEDs getting that BP, but then sold the quads for a bit more than 40k total after commissions to the people that helped sell them.
My best hunting loot is a 4k Cornundos that stood between me and the Eomon I was looking to kill. They always come when least expected, right? That was especially gratifying, because Skippie was on radar and made some comment that clearly indicated he was irked he didn't get it. I don't know Skippie at all, but seen him get many a nice loots and many consider him the game's luckiest player. So it was nice to slip in and steal one away from him.
My very first uber was a 2k Kerberos. Oh man did I enjoy skilling powerfist on the Kerbies out at the old Feffoid camp. As I was relishing in the moment, a few members of the Entropia Latinas mob trained me with a dozen or so Kerbies. I proceeded to run the Kerbies right back to them and soon all 4 or 5 of them logged off to escape. I mob trained Entropia Latinas every chance I got after that for the fun of it until one of them pleaded with me to stop. I agreed to do so as I figured they learned Deeveon is not to be trifled with a la Buck Buck Stone. =)
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