Mad Rant

Stay of execution....

2011-06-27T08:54:00.004+12:00

So CCP Zulu has released another devblog, in which some answers, and an apology, are given.

My thoughts of Vanity Items

I think the problem with the price of vanity items, is one of sticker shock; that we were expecting much lower prices, that have eventuated. I know my own initial reactions were such. However on taking the time to think it though, and applying some economic theory; I can possibly see why they have done what they have done.

This however is going to take a bit to write up, so I will come back to that in a separate blog post.

My thoughts on Non-Vanity Items
'...there are no and never have been plans to sell "gold ammo" for Aurum...'.

Finally the words we have all been waiting to see... I am admittedly however one in the corner of thinking that "Gold ammo" is being used here as a catch-all for all non-vanity MT items.

Some are concerned that this is just means no Gold ammo, and it still allows for anything else, but I think that is slightly churlish.

Trust
For me, the biggest pain I have felt over the last few days, is the destruction of trust. CCP needs to sincerely make a massive effort to regain the trust of the community, and this urgent summit is a good start.

On one condition..... Don't NDA the CSM.

The general Eve populace need to have the CSM come back and be able to give us enough information to allay all of our concerns.

For now, my finger is no longer hovering above the "desub" button, but I'm still not comfortable with the present situation.

Help us CCP, we want to be able to trust you again.

PS. World of Tanks is fun, and worthwhile bit of fun to try.

Really...??

2011-06-25T12:01:00.003+12:00

This is your response CCP?

200+ page threadnaughts, people protesting in game by capping out the trade systems, and you think this vomit suffices as a response?

My last post I said I thought you had reached the point of jumping the shark, but now I realise that does not even come close to describe what a monumental fuck up in motion we are witnessing here.

Protip - When you find yourself in a hole, a good first step is to stop digging!

Nowhere in your response is the elephant in the room (namely pay to win) addressed, more you dismiss it as all being about

The price of the current vanity items,
The way in which the player base have reacted.

Okay, to address the points, I think I speak for most people, when I say I don't give a rat's arse about vanity items, though maybe if it was more price sensitive maybe I would have got some stuff to "spiffy" up my characters, but to be honest this is all shiny pony stuff. But as long as it remains shiny pony stuff, I don't care... in fact it's a good way to visibly identify the "tools" in the game.

Of course we have reacted violently, we as players have a lot invested in this game, in fact for many of us it is a hobby (rather than just a game), so of course we are upset when you threaten that investment, or the way our hobby works.

Between my wife and I we have a total of 7 accounts, which we pay for directly, so that makes Eve one of our biggest expenses. At US$105 a month, this is more than we pay for our cellphones, our home phone, and our internet - COMBINED. Indeed aside from food, petrol and rent, it is our biggest sole expense.

We love this game, we want to play it as long as it is possible, but we're not comfortable spending that sort of money each month if we can't trust the developers.

CCP - you have lost the players trust, and with every response you are making it is getting worse.

Jumping the Shark

2011-06-24T15:49:00.007+12:00

US$65 for a Monocle?
More for an in-game shirt, than it would cost to buy a shirt in the real world?

It would appear CCP has reached their "Jump the shark" moment

I initially looked at walking in stations positively, as a way to increase the appeal of Eve to a greater number of people, and also give us more options for how to intereact in the game. Many regarded it as a waste of time, but I held faith that it would be used by people in ways we didn't expect to create new gameplay to enrich the game for us all.

However it appears some people's greatest fears have proven true, and walking in stations has become nothing more than the thin end of the wedge...

With the release of the "Greed is good" PDF, it is become apparent that CCP will not be happy, until we get nothing from our subscription but the walls of the sandbox, and a thin layer of sand at the bottom. If we want enough sand to do anything meaningful, or indeed the ability to use "tools" then they will all need to paid for seperately.

We all subscribed to Eve, on the basis of it being a subscription model, of it being a fixed monthly cost to enjoy what was the premium sandbox game, one that allowed us all to do whatever we wanted. Now CCP want to change this, and they assume we will all smile and take it....

Another sci-fi game did this... it was called Star Wars Galaxies, CCP should remember this, after all it gave them a nice big influx of players who left that game in disgust, when it happened.

Please CCP, step away from the kool aid, step away from the edge of the cliff, step away from your NGE, DON'T JUMP THAT SHARK

We love this game, but you are making it too appealing to look over the neighbouring fences, to see what is available.

EDIT.
There have been some great blogs, articulating better than I, just how retarded this all is, so in the interest of spreading their thoughts here are links to some of them

Warp Drive Active's "Macromistake" blog and comic
The Hydrostatic capsule's "At the monocular level"
A merry life and a short one's "The Noble Exchange/Red Light district"
Ecliptic Rift's "Beginning of the end"
Chocolate Heaven's "Is Eve dying?"

Deja Vu.......

2011-06-08T15:17:00.006+12:00

Once again I find myself bailing out of a null sec home, towards empire as fast as my little warp drives (or jump drives) can carry me.

As is now common knowledge, the northern power that was the Northern Coalition has been quite effectively smashed.

The forces of the DRF and their allies have changed the face of Sov warfare, and unfortunately we (the alliances that make up the NC) did not adapt, or recognise the the severity of the threat until it was too late.

So here I find myself, for the fourth time in my eve career*, packing all my stuff into ships, and getting out of dodge. So far 95% of my assets are now safe, while the remaining 5% I burn by assisting with others moving, or doing some quick pvp in what is a target rich environment.

I must admit I am having some of the most fun pvping that I have had in quite some time, the pressure has gone, and so I can relax into the fights, and enjoy them for what they are, rather than worry about "winning".

As for the future, we'll see, but at this point I see no need, or desire, for my wife and I to leave our current corporation. It is a community of friends, and no matter what happens I know we will succeed.

Finally, a piece of truly genius satire (regardless of it's accuracy or inaccuracy), it is just too damn funny and even Vuk posted it himself (proof he has a sense of humour).

* Interesting fact - All four times I have had to evacuate, it is has been with Russian pilots hot at my heels.

MEDIC.......

2010-05-10T13:29:00.001+12:00

........

It has been a bit since I've last blogged regularly, actually that's quite a while in fact, but I am going to be working on making it a more regularly thing here on.

My wife is now well and truly addicted, and together our little t2 business is humming along nicely, but that is to be the subject of my next post (I promise it won't be far away).

Rather, this post is more related to the other evidence of her addiction. Namely, that she has 2nd account on which she is training a logistics pilot to go to 0.0

As a result of her decision, I've actually increased the amount of time I spend in a logistics myself. In fact it would be more accurate to say I am somewhat dedicated to the ship type currently.

.... and I am having a ball!!!

The play style is uniquely different to the normal pvp roles you experience.

Instead of having an overview of reds, you typically have your "purples" showing, so you can maintain a good position in relation to the rest of the fleet (i.e. keep them within your rep range, but also not slip to the edge of the fleet too much).

Your main focus becomes the both the broadcast window, for your fellow gang makes screaming "MEDIC" as they are primaried... Once you see that broadcast, it becomes a race to lock them up, and start repping them in hope of saving them.

The sight of a fellow pilots armour/shields going back up, even under full fire from the enemy, is truly a sense of satisfaction.

Of course at the same time you are doing this, you are also watching your watch list, that typically is populated with the other logistics in your fleet, so that can be prioritised if they come under fire. Though it does feel bad to abandon a pilot in a BS to save a logistics, it is the right call, as every dead logistic makes the enemies job that much easier.

To top this off, you also have the issue that you have de-target ships, once they have been repped, or you find yourself all out of targeting slots for the new ships being targeted, assuming you saved the ships.

While throughout this, you also have to listen to an FC bark orders to primary X, while listening for the important orders that still apply to you; align, warp, jump, hold, etc....

Logistics is not an easy job.

However at the end of a fight, when the fleet realises that although the enemy was wiped out, our fleet lost barely anyone, and that was due to the logistic pilots; the sense of satisfaction in a job well done is immense.

It is a role that I now love, and I find myself sitting on 4 logistics ships currently on my hanger, and with the capability of building two of the four races of ships. Indeed I have now the ability to fly all four races, and have logistics to V, purely because of the joy I get from this role.

Logistics, give it a go!!!!

7 years old...... DAMN...

2010-05-07T14:58:00.003+12:00

Well Eve has done it, made it to the 7 year mark, and I think we can all safely say that is a damn impressive feat.

Think of all those other MMOs that came, tried to succeed, but eventually failed... either closed down, or fading away.....

Myself, I started playing Eve nearly nearly 3 years after it started, in February 06 to be exact, so that makes me a 4+ year veteran, something I still find hard to comprehend.

When I came to eve, I had been playing WOW for nearly a year, and although I was enjoying it a lot, I always felt "restricted", unable to do what I wanted to do. Forced to follow a certain path to get anywhere.

Reading about the great heists, and wars that were occurring in Eve, I was inspired to give it a try. Though admittedly a childhood of playing Elite, probably also had an lot to do with it.

I spent the first 6 months of my time in Eve alone, I was too worried I didn't know enough to join one of these might "player corporations" (in hindsight one of my greatest mistakes). Until the stories of piracy peaked my interest, and my 2nd account was begun.

My 2nd account was as a direct result of quitting WOW, as my wife said she was happy to have a 2nd eve account, if it meant no extra costs....

(The irony now being that she also plays, and between us we have 5 accounts).

I didn't end up getting into piracy, but instead joined my first corp, a little high sec corp with big dreams, that unfortunately never went very far. However it increased my confidence, and within several months I had decided that I really wanted to get in on this 0.0 action.

Late 06 or early 07, I joined my first 0.0 corp, and made some great friends, that even to this day are some of my most trusted friends in game (and dare I say it, out of game as well).

I found myself in the Drone Regions, in the space that was eventually renamed "Perrigen Falls", in the FREGE alliance. A lot of bad things were said of FREGE over the years, but I have personally have fond memories, as it was there that I learnt the basics of 0.0 combat, and moved into the first T2 ships I ever owned.

With the fall of FREGE, I found myself back in high sec, and I quickly realised that in my heart that my home will always be in the depths of 0.0, and so I returned, this time with Ethereal Dawn.

My history beyond that, has been previously covered in this blog.... but really the point of this, is that looking back, the depth of the life in Eve is immense.

We all have a stories, and pasts, within Eve, but what makes Eve so great is that they are all so different, yet also all matter and are interconnected. Compare this to any sharded game, where everyone has done the same instances, over and over again...

This is why Eve keeps going, why it has lasted 7 years, because we create our own world, our own goals...

To CCP and all my fellow eve players (be the red, neutral, or blue) - tonight I drink to you all!!!!

CHEERS and see you on the field....

Blah blah blah....

2010-01-06T10:56:00.003+13:00

0.0 warfare is well and truly broken at the moment.

Gone are the good fights, and instead they are replaced by races to get into the system in question first.

Even when the "2nd" to arrive has greater numbers, the risk of jumping in, and being lagged out, is so high, that they usually turn and leave.

In short very very very very very very boring!!!

However, having been in the jumping in side once, I can not criticise any FC from turning from that situation, the loss in ships and morale is just too great...

C'mon CCP lets get this sorted ASAP!!!

Despite this, I have been participating in as many operations staged by my alliance as RL has allowed (given that here it is summer, and so outside activities have been taking priority).

I did find myself yesterday in a situation for the first time, with me helping to reinforce a POS belonging to the BPINC corporation I used to belong to.

Seeing someone I respected and flew with less than a year ago, inside the shields of the POS I was bashing, was somewhat disconcerting, but I've always known it was going to happen at some point.

Although I would never go out of my way to shoot a friend that was red to me, when it comes to outright warfare, it's just par for the course, and I'd expect nothing less from them.

In other news, my wife is now well and truly addicted to Eve it seems, and indeed on the day we were going away, she logged in before 7am to "check skills" - the words of an addict.

I'm so proud....

This is admittedly one of my least thought out posts, but conscious that I have not posted in a bit, I thought I should at least put up something, to show that I am in fact still playing, and haven't forgotten about my blog.

Don't cry for me......

2009-12-06T10:49:00.002+13:00

.. the truth is we always hated you.

With the patch to dominion, has come many many many great new improvements

Mail - that is usable and easy to manage
Browser - that actually works
Fleet finder - wee hee can find a fleet without spamming the channels

But for me, the one that made me the most happy is the "report as isk spammer" under the context menu for characters.

Since playing with my wife in empire, I have again been reminded just what a scourge on the game isk spammers are, so any step to make reporting them a one-click experience is plus in my opinion.

Needless to say there will be abuse, but I think it will be easy to tell who is, or isn't, an isk spammer (transactions to lots of different characters, 3,000 mails offering 1b isk for only $49.99, etc).

Go CCP.....

Aside from that the impact of the changes, and just what it really means to me as a cap pilot was brought home by a couple of killmail

As a cap pilot, that DID use my carrier to run stuff to low sec from 0.0, all I can say is yikes...

cats and dogs living together....

2009-10-11T18:44:00.003+13:00

.... flying pigs orbiting the house, ice skating in hell, etc...

My wife now has an Eve account.

Well this is not exactly the blog I was expecting to be finding myself writing.. I had planned at some point to write a blog on the fact I was again playing wow, and that it was with my wife.

I was planning to talk about some of the interesting comparisons between the two games, and in particular how that wow was much more new player friendly
...... and then she goes and decides to give eve a go after all.

Now, it's still early days (i.e. we're talking less than 24 hours), but it is interesting to see how the tutorial is compared to when I last went through it.

There is no question it is 100% more user friendly than when I did it, but it is still needing a bit more polish. I found myself several times leaning over to suggest smarter ways of doing certain tasks, ways that to me should have been being pointed out in the tutorial.

However despite this, the focus on introducing professions (the point she has reached due to only a short stint so far) is good to see. Eve has so many paths that it is vital the newer players are given a bit more of a heads up for what is possible.

The inclination of myself and the other individual that has strongly suggested she give it a go, is that she will go down the industrial path. However just as likely she could choose a mission running path, or trading, or.....

That is what truly special about eve, the fact that any person can choose any path, at any point in their game career. Be it a year or a single day after starting the game.

I'm trying to not over suggest any path, instead just (together with a mutual friend) contributing some isk to her starting fund, so no matter what she picks she hit the road running.

Long time no post....

2009-09-23T13:38:00.006+12:00

The move out to Immensea and into Aggression, was (as no doubt most would know) a bit of a mistake....

The ability to get regular PvP lead to me have a lot of fun while we were there... Indeed I could safely say I went of some of my most enjoyable roams ever, while we were there.

However it soon became obvious that not everything was right... i.e. cyno jamming of station systems, but not communicating the location of jump bridges so caps could be moved in and out of the systems.

The public "emo" nature of the implosion, left those of us out in Immensea with a narrow time frame to get out before the eventual piling in of hostiles. Luckily my carrier gave me the facility to get my T2 ships, and those of my friends, out. However, I had to self destruct all my Battleships, as the risks in trying to get them out at that point was just getting a bit too high - Insurance Fraud ftw.

Luckily, my time in empire (again) was short, with a friend from our time in BPINC sponsoring a number of us from ZZK into Morsus Mihi, via what is turning out to be one fantastic corporation.
Unfortunately my bad luck did continue a bit longer, and over a short time frame I managed to lose two ravens, and two hulks in less than a couple of days.

At one point I got to the point of having less than 40m between all of my characters, but luckily this has climbed a bit recently, with me choosing to liquidise some assets (i.e. selling my dread to the corp).

Indeed much of that isk has now been invested into long term isk making ventures, as I am utterly sick of not having any regular income... i.e. I'm getting into inventing and t2 production.

Also another development is that my wife showed some interest in playing a MMO, and as much as I love Eve I could not recommend it as a first MMO, and so (together with her) I am once again playing WOW (stop the hissing), albeit extremely casually.

Anyhow, this is just a quick blog to say I am still alive, and still playing eve (albeit on a short sabbatical right at the moment).

Indeed with some of the above developments I have some material to blog on, so I will be getting some more out over the next week or so...

Oh well.....

2009-06-14T23:59:00.000+12:00

Much has happened since my last post.... both within Eve, and outside. The key events being...

The ongoing war between ED/IRC and RA/friends which has now continued unabated for longer than most would have expected.
Real life jumping up and biting my wife and I in real life, i.e. my wife was made redundant from her job.

Even though my lovely wife rejected my offer of closing some accounts, I decided to at least try and cover some cost via the purchase of plex passes, through the generation of isk. At the time the only way available was a return to empire...

With my selection of characters, I decided to try my hand and empire mining, utilising two characters (specced for mining 'Gormn and Mollernak') in hulks, with a third in an orca proving bonuses and hauling capacity. However after time in 0.0 mining, the returns from this exercise were demoralising to say the least.

Meanwhile the burnout being felt by some within Cassus Beli, both in terms of morale, ships, and isk was starting to show. Following several discussions a decision to look for a new home was made, and Cassus Beli left Ethereal Dawn

The small size of a corp resulted in it being rapidly made clear we simply did not have the size to gain access to a new 0.0 alliance. However at the same time we were looking to leave a fellow corporation within ED had made the same decision - Zip Zoom Kaboom (ZZK).

The ceo of said corp was a close friend of our ceo; and we all seemed to get along, so the decision was made by Cassus Beli to merge into ZZK, and ZZK welcomed us all in to the corp.

With that decision also came a decision to return to 0.0, albeit this time as a member of Aggression alliance in Immensea. As a result I have spent most the weekend moving ships, and gear out into a new home.

Indeed this is a big change a new home, a new region; as my 0.0 life up to now has always been within Drone Regions. The change in region means no more drone rats, but proper bounty rats. Hopefully this help with my plan to fund at least my third account via plex passes.

Also old enemies are now friends (i.e. Atlas alliance), which will be fun as many of their pilots I have respected fromt he other side. Though luckily some enemies remain the same, i.e. RA alliance.

Interesting days and weeks ahead....

Frigates down......

2009-04-22T10:41:00.003+12:00

Well not in the sense you'd expect....

As of early yesterday my character Mollernak gained the ability to fly Amarr T2 frigates destroyers (having earlier gained the ability to use T2 lasers).

In itself this is no major achievement, however this is the fourth race I have now reached this achievement for. As such I have the ability to fly every T2 frigate and regular Interdictor in the game.

The funny thing is that I have never hopped into any Amarr ship, and so only know them as targets. To the point I didn't even know which laser type was long range, and which was short range; all I know is that they are armour tankers, use lasers, and need lots of cap.

So now begins the slow process of determining; which Amarr frigates deserve a place in my ship hangers, and what is the best way to fit them.

As always I plan to start with the interceptors, Malediction and Crusader; so if anyone has advice please feel free to share it with me.

Once I have finished small beam/pulse specialisation skills to level IV, I will begin the train to be able to use the T2 Amarr cruisers, with T2 lasers, so pilgrim/curse/zealot/etc here I come.

Love the smell of vodka burning in the morning.....

2009-04-20T12:39:00.000+12:00

The Insmother war continues apace....

Constant battles rang between us and our allies, against the various forces that we face.

The fights have been good, and so far I'm finding myself on the positive side of the balance sheet; with more killed, than destroyed. So far losses include; a Taranis, a Rapier, a Hound, a Megathron, and only a single pod so far.

The Megathron was unfortunately to a friendly DD, but that is par for the course when operating with Titans, and I should have considered the possibility of desync, before hugging the pos shield edge so closely.

It has been a lot of fun, and there have been some fights truly worth the 'GF' in local that comes where earned from both sides.

Indeed, that during fights it's not uncommon to see people losing more than one ot two ships in under 5 minutes; because they come straight back in another ship when popped, is a sign of some great pvp, and determination of both parties.

For me however, this weekend is now over, my timezone returns me as one of the first to the day we all dread on weekends like we have been having - Monday.

^bump^

2009-04-02T22:18:00.004+13:00

Dire Lauthris's Day of Darkness II short is just pure fantastic genius....

Enough can't be said about this video (Eve online thread), and it is fully deserving of the praise, so I'm bumping it in case someone hasn't seen it yet, and no matter what make sure you download the full resolution version.

WTM's characters all walk over to the hanger and group hug Gormn's Chimera.

We don't need no water...........

2009-03-24T20:29:00.001+13:00

As x1376 has already highlighted, and blogged from the front lines on... Intrepid Crossing (his alliance) and Ethereal Dawn (mine) have gone to war with Red Alliance.

... and the Goons have reset us to neutral (which to Empire dwellers means they can and will shoot us now) for their own reasons.

Needless to say this has sparked the usual lol thread on CAOD... but I have absolutely no intention on commenting on any of that rubbish, after all it is nothing more than the glossy tabloid of life in 0.0

Personally I am just happy to get some regular fleet pvp!!

Let loose the dogs of war....

Blog Banter - It's my party, and I'll alt if I want to....

2009-02-27T10:48:00.009+13:00

Link Kirith I was forgotten this month, but like him I am still inclined to post about this months blog banter.

Edit. Turns out CK sent the email the day of the gmail outage, so many of us didn't get the mail. No doubt this will spread the posting over several days, but that may be well be a plus.

- oh and I retitled the post.

Welcome to the fifth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter

This month’s topic comes to us from Mynxee of Life in Low Sec. She asks "Alts and Metagaming: Is playing two accounts who are logged in at the same time and work together (hauler/miner, explorer/combat associate, trade alts in trade hubs) a form of metagaming that is 'ruining the game'?"

Firstly, as is no doubt to anyone who even just read my last post, I am a dual boxer (well to be exact I am now a triple boxer).

There is no doubt, in my mind that it is a form of metagaming. However it isan accepted form, and is indeed encouraged some what by the publisher (power-of-two anyone?).

However you would still expect a clear 100% "No, it doesn't ruin the game", but to be honest I don't think it is as clear as that.

I myself started dual-boxing 6 months into my Eve career, though it was never my intention in creating the 2nd account to do so. Indeed my intention with Mollernak originally was to be able to try out piracy, while Gormn remained safe (with a positive sec status) in high sec.

However quickly the idea of using Moll to haul ore back to station, while Gormn would continue to mine, became appealing. In less than a month the original plan to keep them separate disappeared, and instead I was dual boxing.

How I came to triple box was covered in my last post, so won't cover that again.....

So why multi box?

For me the multi-account playing, from a PvE and isk making perspective, has allowed me to:

Rat or Mission run - with one account shooting rats, while another salvages and collects loot
Mine - with one or two mining while another guards against rats, or does hauling

In both cases the result being a vasty increased efficiency and effectiveness.

For PvP though I generally do not multi-box, the only exception is that when I do field Gormn in a carrier I have sometimes also fielded Mollernak/Kahamahl (either as a cyno pilot or fighter bombing in a fast mover).

However the risks of losing one ship, while playing the other overwhelm any potential benefit of trying to fly two ships in combat at once. It can be simply to difficult to keep track of two during PvP, or even too risky in laggy environments.

But back to the original question, is multi-account playing ruining the game?

The short version is still no, it's not ruining the game.

With the increased revenue of two or more characters, comes also the expenses incurred by that number of players (i.e. you have two sets of skills, ships, modules, etc to buy).

In addition this is also ignoring the additional cost of the account (be it in isk or $s) to the person in RL...

The only real tangible issue with multi-accounting is when people use it to gain an advantage that is not available to some one with a single account (and hence main), i.e. spying, corp thefts, scamming, etc... Now that's not to say I against these types of actions (well okay I usually am), but it's the fact that by using a separate account to do this allows someone to do it with no risk to their real "main"..

By using an alt account to spy, the enemy has simply no real in game way to detect, or track, you down subsequently for vengeance or payback. In short it creates the means for the "perfect crime".

Myself, have always been up front that I have multiple accounts, well at least if challenged.

Separate accounts, and hence multiple mains has allowed me to experience so much more of the game, than would have otherwise been possible.

I can field a carrier or dread, but then on the other hand I can also put some one in one of six possible recons, or in one of 6 interceptors, and so on.... This is BECAUSE I was able to specialise my two mains down two distinct skill paths.

With a single character I would probably have ended up struggling to ever achieve what I have done in the game.

For that reason alone, I am in no way inclined to ever give up my additional accounts.

However often people make snaky comments about multi-account players, that we "cheat" that we have an unfair advantage, etc... and it is the creation of this attitude itself that is why, potentially, multi-accounts could ruin the game (however unlikely that may be).

If I had my way, I would like to see CCP institute some method to link a person's various accounts, so that others are made quickly aware they are dealing with a single (rather than two) people.

Obviously it would need to be something that would not be so obvious to give other people advantage either (sorry pirates), but in engaging with someone for recruitment, contracts, etc you can see they are a dual-boxer...

That would IMHO resolve the worst negative of dual-boxing...

Final answer - no it is not ruining the game, the impact is over exaggerated, and in reality it is peoples money and time to spend how the like.

Adapt or die, and you you just have to accept some of us just choose to adapt by having multiple accounts.

Participants:

Epic Misadventures, This is my Alt - There are many like it but this one is mine.
Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah, I Missed This Month's Blog Banter!
A Mule in EvE, Meta what? Is it hurting EvE?
Morphisat's EVE Online Blog, Me, Myself and I
One Man And His Spaceship, Me and My Shadow
Ombeve, Blog Banter edition 5
Diving into PsycheDiver's Psyche, CK's Blog Banter #5: Everybody Needs Somebody
Dense Veldspar, Blog Banter
Ecliptic Rift, OOC: Blog Banter #5 Metagaming
The Ralpha Dogs, Me, Myself and I
Mad Rant, "Blog Banter - It's my party, and I'll alt if I want to...."
EVE Chick, The Handicapper General
The Wandering Druid of Tranquility, "...you see mate, it's a matter of leverage, savvy?..."
New Eden Diaries, It's only a game
Oz’s House of the Evil Dead, If You Can’t Ride Two Horses At Once, You Shouldn’t Be In The Circus
Diving into PsycheDiver's Psyche, Everybody Needs Somebody
CrazyKinux's Musing, Leave what you know at the door please!
Diary of a Pod Pilot, [OOC] EVE Blog Banter #5 Metagaming
EvE - Wotlankor, [OOC] Alts and Metagaming
Roc's Ramblings, February Blog Banter - Meta Me
Drunk in Space, Metagaming....so that's the name.
X1376's Space Odyssey, Blog Banter #5: Army of One
A merry life and a short one, EVE Blog Banter #5: Uh...
Zero Kelvin, Are alts ruining the game?
DeafPlasma's EVE Musings, Blog Banter #5: Alts & me!
I am Keith Nielson, EVE is All About the Metagame
Everyday EvE, Two Accounts Edition
Blogging from inside the pod, EVE Blog Banter #5: Arletta and I
Speed Fairy, Meet Paul
More coming as the articles post!!

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go.....

2009-02-24T22:08:00.003+13:00

As mentioned previously I have been part of a reformation of an old corp a group of were all members two years ago.

As part of that I decided to leave faction warfare, and bring Kahamahl out to 0.0

Kahamahl had reached a stage in his training where he gained the ability to use not only interceptors and assault frigates, but also the covert ops frigate, cov ops cloak, and cyno generator. Making him a perfect cyno character to get Gormn into hostile systems, or even to just move Gormn around quickly.

The thought of using all three accounts at once never once occurred to me. The last time I had attempted it, it had failed miserably with unbearable lag resulting.

As such I never looked further into the idea of running three at once, and anyway with Kahamahl in faction warfare there was little point.

It was the sudden realisation that Mollernak was only a couple of hours from flying a hulk, and a mere month from T2 strip miners and crystals, that suddenly the idea of three at once reappeared.

To test the possibility of doing this required nothing more than turning down the client settings, and attempting to log in three characters.....

...... and it worked.

Within a few days Mollernak was in a hulk (although with T1 strips) and together with Gormn stripping belts of Arkanor, Bistot, and Crokite asteroids; while Kahamahl provided drone tanking duties in his new dominix ratter....

To say this new set up increased productivity, would be understate just what a difference it made.

Ratting in the drone regions has long been the best means to make isk, with a single ratting character more than able to outclass a hulk in terms of making isk.

With two hulks, the ability to suck ore near doubled, and the marginal gain vastly exceeded the opportunity cost of ratting.

Recent events, i.e. a trip to Delve to assist our Goon friends with the removal of Kenny, have meant the use of this setup was short lived, but I look forward to returning to mine in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, Gormn has finished all the prerequisites to fly a Rorqual, and use the industrial Core - i.e. can compress and move large amounts or ore easily. Just a case of buying the two skills needed, and either borrow (and eventually buy) a Rorqual to speed up the mining process..

So... Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to mine I go.........

Blackout

2009-02-17T22:36:00.005+13:00

You'll have to excuse this one little bit of non-eve bloggage...

On 28 February 2009 comes into effect, in New Zealand, a deeply flawed piece of copyright law that essentially allows copyright holders the ability to have any IP address disconnected on the basis of their accusation alone.

There is no "standard of evidence" defined, no level of proof, that the copyright holder must provide the ISP, merely the accusation is enough.

Efforts have been made to drum out a workable solution, but the media companies have rejected the proposed "code of conduct" and have instead made demands that effectively leave the ISPs in a no win situation - breech of contract with the customer, or legal action in the face of the copyright law (as per the iinet case in Australia).

As a result a Blackout has been organised..

"The controversial law reverses New Zealander's fundamental right to being presumed innocent until proven guilty, punishing internet users with disconnection based accusations of copyright infringement without a trial and without evidence held up to court scrutiny.

The blackout has already drawn international support: world renowned actor, comedian and author Stephen Fry has blacked out his twitter profile stating that “Stephen Fry is blacked out: Stand up against Guilt Upon Accusation for New Zealand”
The movement is rapidly growing, with thousands of people in New Zealand modifying their websites, blogs, FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter and Bebo accounts to show their opposition to the law. Instructions on how to take part in the blackout can be found on www.CreativeFreedom.org.nz

The blackout is part of a week of action against S92. A S92 song remix challenge will be announced tomorrow, and various other initiatives including video commercials and radio broadcasts will follow.

The week will culminate in a major web blackout on Monday the 23rd seeing blogs and websites “dimming the lights” as a means of drawing attention to the issue that could leave New Zealander's in the dark when they face having their internet cut off. Hundreds of confirmed participants include Kiwiblog, Zoomin and Public Address with more to be announced over the coming week." - Creative Freedom press release

Several others, vastly more knowledgeable (and articulate) have documented the issues with this law in the following blogs, and I would suggest anyone interested follow up on these...

They/we/it/I pulled us/them/it/me back in..........

2009-02-15T12:07:00.002+13:00

With the new year finally over and done with, I have to report that I have over the new year left my last corp, "Best Path Incorporated", and participated in the reforming of an old corp that I had previously been a member of....

Cassus Belli

This was in fact the 2nd player corporation that I joined playing Eve, and was the corporation that had introduced me to 0.0.

At the time however it turned out at the time time that, as a corporation, we were not ready for 0.0. As a result, for various reasons and individual desires, the corp decided to disband.

We headed in various directions, and career paths, with some remaining behind and joining another corporation within the alliance. However we all remained in touch, and spoke weekly, if not daily, with each other.

Over the past year a number of us (including our old CEO) found ourselves in the all in the same fantastic corp (BPINC). As always some our conversations revolved how we would run CB now (knowing and being capable of that much more now).

At Christmas 4 of decided to actually give it a go, and to try a particular approach that we had discussed, and CB was resurrected from a holding corp.

The four of us bring to the corp a significant capital capability (more characters that can capitals than actual members), as well as significant industry capability (mining, production, T2 invention, etc).

At this stage we seem more than capable of providing for ourselves, but if that was all we wanted to do, we should have stayed in Best Path...

What we really want though, is people! We want to create a nice big family of people working together to achieve everything they want to achieve....

Recruitment is open, but we admit to not being really active at it....

We know what we are looking for in a person, but articulating that is the hard bit....

However what we do know is what we are looking for in terms of a character, i.e. can fly a BS or barge (to rat of mine), and isn't an "alt". Oh, and not a trial account, but otherwise we are open to anyone (we remember what it is like to have low skill points, and are happy to help you out).

Any how, these should be a few interesting months....

That all said, I think I speak for us all when I say we were very say to leave Best Path, they are truly a fantastic corp, and would recommend them to anyone. However, some times you have to endure short term pain, to achieve long term gain.

Queue the ewoks.......

2009-02-06T00:36:00.002+13:00

Band of Brothers as we all knew it has been dealt a truly massive blow today (the news wires are on fire.....).

With the actions of a single (now ex-) director in two of the key corps within the BOB alliance, their entire alliance was disbanded, and all of their sovereignty lost.

This is drama of the highest order, with the impact of this barely fathomable. BOB has lost ALL of the following:

Cyno beacons
Cyno jammers
Jump bridges
Capital systems
Titan production facilities

To re-establish this requires a significant investment of time, but ignores that through the loss of sovereignty they lost all their advantages of home territory.

These coming days will be interesting....

No doubt over the weekend we will see a sudden flood of hostile capitals moving into the BOB areas, with the intention of denying them any ability to reclaim sovereignty..

Now if you excuse me, I'm off to join the Ewoks dancing round the bonfire....

Details

Carrier go BOOM!!!

2009-01-21T13:44:00.003+13:00

Well, it finally happened...

As X1376 has already mentioned, IRC and ED are down south helping our allies, Goonfleet.

The reasons for why we have gone are many, but personally the fact they came to help us, and lost a titan, in our home system when we were seiged by RK/SMASH/Atlas has something to do with it.

Also the idea of AAA and BOB as neighbours doesn't appeal....

Moving our fleets down to join the battle took literally hours of travel (at least for sub-caps) and even for the caps required multiple jumps even to just reach the staging system. As an idea of the scope, the caps brought with them a jump freighter of fuel.

Once we had all arrived, refuelled, and had the required bio breaks; the time came to move out, and towards the final destination (0-w). Which involved jumping to a Goon jump bridge, via which we were to enter the system.

The sheer number of caps involved, necessitated that the bridge would have to be constantly refilled, but after a period we all arrived in system. With local standing at over 900 people in system the lag monster was present, and no doubt was expected to be a factor. The order to align came.... and we all dutifully aligned, the fleet of caps beautifully pointed in the same direction at full speed awaiting the order to warp.

Suddenly an IRC carrier reported that they had been emergency warped off due to the lag, and had found himself scanned down and tackled before they could warp back. The FC ordered the carriers to warp to him, in an attempt to keep him alive, while the Dreads would continue on to complete their mission to engage an enemy POS.

Upon arriving in my carrier to help save the tackled carrier, the situation appeared relatively benign, and I quickly locked the friendly carrier and applied my capital shield transfer.

Some time after the beginning of the rescue the lag began to pass, and I found myself subjected to a significant jamming attempt, and the size of the enemy fleet suddenly became apparent - 170+ ships...

Versus a significant BS fleet with a significant amount of ewar and dictors, with no hope of rescue; we simply had no chance.

One by one the carriers began to fall.

The FC apologised to us; that unfortunately we had to die, and that there was nothing the rest of the cap fleet could do, or indeed any of the support fleets either. There simply wasn't the assets available to stage a rescue (against that firepower).

When my turn came (2nd to last carrier) and I was primaried, the sheer amount of DPS was horrifying. My capital shield booster had no chance of standing up to it, and my tank collapsed like a butter sculpture in the middle of the desert.

From my killmail alone there were 152 ships involved including:-
105 Battleships (the only T1 ships involved)
18 HACs
12 T2 Tackle (including 4 Interdictors)
8 e-war (including 7 Falcons alone)
3 Command ships

With the explosion, and subsequent popping of my pod, I found myself suddenly back in station.
The commiserations were quick to come, but the reality was that I simply didn't mind. The carrier had lasted a year, when in fact I had always expected to lose it within a couple of months.

I have always viewed every undocked ship as lost, so this was no exception.

Although I wasn't able to attend the following days fight, I was able to attend the one two days later, in a carrier loaned from my corp, and was back in the fight. Indeed a replacement carrier has already been obtained, and is only awaiting fitting before being ready to rejoin the fight next weekend.

War is fun

Iron Maiden....

2008-12-27T12:25:00.001+13:00

... have a mascot, which they call Eddie, or "Ed" for short sometimes.

This is important for two reasons...

I am finally going to see them live, after listening to their music for 20+ years, next year
The alliance I'm member of uses ED as it's Tag.....

In other words, to cut a long story short; my two mains are 'Gormn' and 'Mollernak', who both are members of the Etherium Dawn alliance, and therefore reside in the Drone Region.

After originally choosing to keep my mains out of my blog, and instead trying to focus on blogging about my Faction War experiment, I have found it harder and harder to find topics to write about...

Also finding myself in system on an op with X1376, having just mentioned with Kahamahl in the blogger channel, yet then not being able to say anything to him, let alone blog about it later - just started to get a bit frustrating.

I've had enough of not being to say much about most of my time in-game (or even out of game), so as they say, 'I am coming in from the cold....'.

PS - the fact I am going to Iron Maiden, was simply a way of leading into this blog, but it's still true and boy am I looking forward to it (as this is their first time to NZ in 16 years)

Merry Christmas to all of Eve

2008-12-25T09:29:00.000+13:00

Well Christmas day is finally here (to be exact it's 9.29am Christmas morning), and as normal despite it being summer here, it's raining.

Here's wishing you (as well as your families and friends) all have a great Christmas, or which ever holiday you do choose to celebrate.

As we all start to see the impact of the economic downturn (seriously the shops were like ghost towns two days before Xmas here), it's important to remember that stuff is exactly that; stuff; and that is people that are what's important.

Fly safe and enjoy the holiday season....

....oh for a real life snow ball launcher (heh heh heh).

My hero......

2008-12-22T16:24:00.009+13:00

...... [insert puking noise here]

(just kidding)

In all serious, it's time for CK's Blog Banter #3.

"This month's EVE Blog Banter idea comes to us by Roc Wieler of Roc's Ramblings. Roc's asks us to "write a story about a fellow EVE Blogger, or an EVE player whom has inspired you or affected you in some tangible way. After your story, describe why you chose them, and any Holiday wish you have specifically for them".

This is a hard one to be honest..... To pick "any" player from my time in Eve would be disrespectful of all those other people that I have flown with and that are also fully deserving of my respect.

Instead I am going to pick someone who I can not name, or identify, simply due to the time passed since that event.

The person that has most inspired me in Eve, was the first person to shoot me down, and then as instantly chose to pod me in short order.

That person inspired me to review my goals in the game, and indeed what I valued within the game. Until that time I had flown perpetually in fear of losing my "ship", and as such had fearfully lived in high sec, for fear of the danger that would await me in low sec, let alone 0.0.

By destroying my Badger Mark II, at a low sec gate camp (in the time before warp to zero), i was suddenly reset back to nothing, by the sudden and complete destruction of nearly everything I owned in game at that time.

For many, this would be the moment that leads to them pushing away the keyboard in disgust and walking away. The sudden loss of everything, was instead the kick up the "proverbial" that I needed!!!

From this point, I had an objective, get out and experience everything that Eve offers, PvP, fleet warfare, territory control in 0.0, etc.

My 2nd main, originally intended to become a pirate, was soon rolled, but instead the life of an 0.0 pilot called... and so within 3 months I found myself in 0.0 where I learnt to PvP, and to enjoy the camaraderie of my fellow pilots.

..... so what do I wish for my "saviour" that showed me the true way of Eve???

I hope he gets podded again real soon.

Other Participants in the Blog Banter:

CrazyKinux's Musing: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
Roc's Ramblings: Blog Banter #3 - PyjamaSam
The Wandering Druid of Tranquility: What will your verse be?…
A Merry Life and A Short One: EVE Blog Banter #3: What Not To Do
Mad Rant: My Hero
The Ralpha Dogs: A Greeting Card
Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah: The Station
Diving into Psyche Diver's Psyche: CK's Blog Banter #3: Praise and kudos
Protosolus: EVE: Blog Banter 3 - A Piratical Legend
Blogging from inside the Pod: The 'Jita Incident'
Achernar: Citizen Zhang
Cosmik R5's EVE Blog: Blog Banter: Tribute to an EVE player - Letrange
Letrange's EVE Blog: Is it December Banter time already?
Life in Low Sec: EVE Blog Banter #3: Reverend Book
Sweet Little Bad Girl: Blog Banter #3
Votrian's EVE Blog: EVE Blog Banter #3 - my influences
Zen and the Art of Internet Spaceship Maintenance: Blog Banter #3 Ships that pass in the night
A Mule in EVE: The reawakening
Jinarre's New Eden: Blog Banter: Inspiration
The House Theodoulos: EVE Blog Banter #3
Flashfresh - The Pirate: EVE Blog Banter #3
More to come...

Snow.....

2008-12-20T11:59:00.002+13:00

Well this is the closest I am ever going to get to seeing snow at Christmas where I live.... (south hemisphere ftw).

I'm guessing that across my various accounts and characters I should have a fair pile of these things...

As I commented on Kirith's blog It should be interesting to see if these can indeed be used as a means to bait some newer and less experienced players, but given that was what happened last time, I'm guessing it won't be necessarily possible this time.

As for myself, well I am going to get all the balls into one big pile, and go Alliance leader hunting....

heh heh heh

RL > Eve....

2008-11-28T16:01:00.007+13:00

.... as well as both > Eve blogging.

As is immediately obvious from the blog archive to the right of this post, I have not written a single blog for the entire of November.

A major event occurred for me during the month, so I had little time free to blog about Eve.

I came close to blogging about some events during the month, but each time I ran out of time, and the topic became too old or out of context.

At the end of the day RL is more important than Eve....

In my personal opinion that "view" is a primary attribute I like to see in all my fellow players...

After all, Eve is only a game, and the moment you start to take it to seriously, and let it impact on your real life, is the moment to "step away from the keyboard"...

However, that responsibility should not only fall to the individual player, but to also their corp, alliance, CEO, and fellow space pilots...

So for me, next time a fellow pilot seems to have gone to far,

Should have logged off 12 hours ago (i.e. 11pm the previous night),
Blown off a piece of work so that they could play Eve
Not done something with their wife/girfriend/family to play Eve
Too have taken something too heart that really doesn't matter in game
Get too worked up and forgotten it's a game.

Do me a favour...... Tell them to log off and go have a break for a few days...

Tell them to talk to family, loved ones, RL friends, and focus on their work (be it their job, or education).

Eve is only a game, a beautiful and fantastic game.... but still ONLY a game.

Saturday Night Fever

2008-10-29T22:36:00.004+13:00

Welcome to the first installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month's topic comes to us from PsycheDiver: Ambulation: What are your hopes for your avatar and new functionality of stations?

What do I hope??

To be honest I don't know what to hope for... and in all likelihood will not be disappointed whatever we may get.

On the other hand, do I know what I don't hope for??

Everyone running around like they're jacked into the mains
People feeling the need to stand in a spot and jump, jump, jump, jump........
The dreaded "/dance" being used just about EVERYWHERE
...continued frothing at the mouth

My greatest concern for ambulation is not that it will not meet the community's (and mine) expectations, but rather that it will live up to our worse fears.

Although the RP element in Eve is small, and that most people talk "Out Of Character"; it is safe to say that most of us do enjoy the immersive nature of Eve.

In an odd way the lack of avatar control allowed, and indeed forced, players to imagine a world that their characters could inhabit, either through the Eve's art, trailers, written lore, or even just through the aesthetic nature of stations/ships/etc.

With ambulation comes the chance that we may individually find that our view of the Eve characters life does not match that of CCPs, or indeed the rest of the community....

Will this risk breaking some players investment into the game? Possibly, however CCP have stated it will be an optional aspect of Eve, and that everything you can do from your ship now, will still be possible from your ship after ambulation.

The problem is that this will likely result in empire space stations being empty, with no reason to talk to each other directly or to leave the ship, most people will likely stay inside their ships. While ironically in 0.0, where Alliances can have a strong sense of community, there will already be good reason to interact outside of the ships.

The obvious solution would be to "make" people use ambulation, however that is likely to be counter productive and could result in a "Star Wars: NGE" like drama; which is likely why it will remain optional.

Instead, following the most logical course, CCP have indicated that they will add new game play, that provides a reason for people to leave their ships... Shops, "Saloons" with "in-game" games of chance, and the such like.

Again, this simply adds to the reasons why I believe ambulation will end up being quite popular in the depths of 0.0, despite all the likely protestations that we'd rather CCP just focused on lag instead.

The ability to have briefing sessions to communicate to a gang (prior to setting out); where they are going, why, and how they could get back if it went wrong.
Provide a means for players to just congregate in an area, without looking like the morning commute traffic jam.
Customisation of avatars, without the risk of impacting on the main combat game engine.
Morale building, and non-ship entertainment - i.e. gaming and the such like.

The benefits will be huge to 0.0 alliances trying to coordinate pilots and build their morale. Though just how ambulation will work in conjunction to the external 3rd party voice applications, does remain a concern.

However, for all these possible benefits and best intentions, CCP can not control the human element.

So the risk remains; that having provided the tools, it will be only a matter of time until some one goes and organises a massive zombie like conga line through the Jita 4-4 station while singing the BeeGees....... or something like that.

Participants:

CrazyKinux's Musing: Exotic Dancers, Corporate Meetings & more

The Wandering Druid of Tranquility: Ambulation - what I hope to see

Semper EVE: Ambulation and Me

Roc's Ramblings: Blog Banter #1 - Ambulation

The Ralpha Dogs: Ambulation/Walking in Stations: A "Second Life" for EVE?

Drunk in Space: Look at how much weight he put on…
Diving into PsycheDiver's Psyche: Ambulation and Her
Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah: Eve Blog Banter - Ambulation

I am Keith Neilson: Going For A Stroll Through EVE

Life in Low Sec: Ambulation Fantasies

Shahirs Journey: Hopes for Ambulation

A Mule in EVE: Ambulation

Protosolus: EVE: Gawking in Stations
One Man, One Ship: Ambulation
Achernar: Avatars in a spaceships game
The Shard: Ambulation
I May Find Peace Within The Emptiness…: Walking Around…
Ombeve: Ambulation

Myers-Briggs for Eve......

2008-10-22T19:30:00.005+13:00

Reading Black Claw's Blog, I saw his post about the "Eve personality test" (ironically referencing Super Gamer Housewife's post about the same test). I had read or heard of the test before, but had never made the effort to complete the test.

However, given that I had a spare quarter of an hour, and nothing else to do, I decided to give it a go. Fully expecting to get the usual "Industrialist with teeth" result, I was somewhat surprised to see.....

Eve is a PvP game. The PvE parts of the game are there to drive the economy in order to produce more PvP. Multiplayer is key, and even though solo-play can be fun, the game should be balanced as a multiplayer game. High-sec is as much of a warzone as low- and nul-sec. It's just a matter of finding ways to get at the people living there. You usually play with other people, because when the going gets tough, the tough get some backup.

I guess I really do belong in 0.0.....

I came, I saw...... but I didn't get the T-Shirt.

2008-10-20T21:35:00.006+13:00

After 2 years and 8 months of playing Eve, 3 accounts, and untold ships, I finally made the trip out to the "Eve Gate".

I had initially planned to log Kahamahl on to change skills, before swapping to my other characters to settle down to a stint of ratting to refill the wallets of my various characters. However I quickly realised that I couldn't be bothered ratting....

.... actually I was just too tired to contemplate it.

The thought of zipping out into Black Rise to try some solo hunting in the new Taranis popped into my mind, but was quickly ended by the report of an enemy fleet camping the Villore gate in Old Man Star.

Some discussion on CrazyKinux's blog several weeks back had left in mind the seed of an idea, and suddenly it fell due.

So instead I brought up the map, clicked search and entered 'New Eden'. Followed quickly by a click of 'set destination' and a glance at the left to see how many jumps I was looking at.

21 jumps - through Amarr space (ah well why not fly through enemy high sec for the first time as well) - making a total of 42 jumps return from Villore to the Gate and back.

The Taranis was the obvious ship to choose for this journey, especially given that the other options were a old shuttle and an unfitted Brutix.

The Taranis is a fantastic interceptor, it may feel like a sluggish assault frigate after flying other interceptors such as the Stiletto or Crow (my other favourites), but boy does it have a bite that no other interceptor can match. Three tech 2 Blasters, combined with two Hobgoblin IIs, providing a substantial level of DPS from such as small hull.

The trip to the gate, to the amarr space, and indeed right to the gate and back passed quite uneventfully.

Entering Amarr space generated the expected notification that Amarr Navy vessels will engage me upon site. Which given that I never saw an Amarr Navy vessel, was really false and deceptive advertising.....

Passing into the low-sec surrounding the gate proved to be no more successful in generating any possible content. Indeed the locals seemed well trained to warp and log upon an unidentified individual entering system.

Reaching New Eden, I admittedly felt a bit like the Penguins in the movie "Madagascar" upon reaching the Antarctic. In short, a bit underwhelmed!

The Eve Gate itself looks pretty, but somehow I had expected there to be something a bit more. Perhaps I know too little of the lore, but I would have imagined a site such as the Eve Gate would have attracted a little bit more attention, i.e. scientific vessels, tourism, etc...

Instead, there was just me, and one other in local, and a big bright gate....

I took quite a few screenshots, as any good tourist should, but as per the above comment, there was no where to get the obligatory "My Cousin/Uncle/Granddad/etc went to the Eve Gate, and all I got was this..." T-shirt.

The trip back to Villore gave me time (to be exact, 21 gates and systems worth) to think, especially about the fact that I had on short notice willingly gone on a 42 jump round trip just to "see" something.

I blame that on living on 0.0 and the distances you sometimes have to travel to get anywhere.

I came to realise that I had been underwhelmed because it had just not felt like much of an adventure.

I can imagine for a 'newish' pilot, a trip out into an old empty, uninhabited bit of space, where we are meant to have come through from the old world, would seem exciting. However to a 2+ year player, it just feels like just another jaunt to the corner dairy for a paper and a pack of cigarettes.....

That all said, I am glad I finally went and can say that I have been.

Indeed it is something every long term player should do at least once while they play Eve.

Mutter mutter....

2008-10-16T14:24:00.004+13:00

There's good news and there's bad news....

First the bad news...

I haven't been playing eve very much recently..... actually I haven't been playing very many games at all. The ol' bugbear of RL, and the various stresses that encapsulates has been holding me hostage, and not allowing me any time to game.

Little gaming makes WTM a very grumpy person...

That said, I have been playing some Advance Wars on the DS, and it has to be said that for some turn based strategy on the go, it's hard to beat. there's just something satisfying about building a pile of tanks and rolling them into the enemies downtown....

Now the good news - Taranis

As of 2-3 days ago, Kahamahl finally trained the Interceptor skill, and climbed into his first Taranis.

Though I haven't yet had the chance to take it out for a spin in Black Rise and the surrounding areas, I am gleefully looking forward to using it in anger. Whether that will be as part of a militia fleet, or for piracy purposes, I'm not sure yet....

Kahamahl is now up to just under 4m skill points, and it shows that he is still 25+ million behind my other interceptor pilot
- He's slower
- Can't fit his ships as easily as my other mains

However, the fact remains he can hop into the Taranis with T2 guns and t2 fittings in all bar two slots...

It should be fun (probably short, but still fun).

I'm broke (again)....

2008-10-01T10:33:00.003+13:00

No, I didn't lose any ships, a POS, etc...

Instead I made a couple of significant in game purchases (namely skills), and as a result have found my isk (and high end mineral stockpiles) reserves heavily depleted.

I still have a stock pile of ships for my 0.0 PvP, but only have the one ship now for Kahamahl, so I guess it's time for me to get stuck in and make some isk.

I have to admit, that my income is actively generated (i.e. I have no passive income), so this means I need to either actively rat/mine. Or in other words...

"Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work I go"...

I hate ratting, it's honestly one of the most mind-numbing activities in this game, but in my current location it is the best/fastest way to make isk from primary production. I personally would rather mine (pick your jaw up, you're catching flies) than rat.

Ratting involves a random element of chance, i.e. will you get a rubbish/bad/good/excellent spawn. Too many times I have sat down for a ratting session, to only quit in frustration at the spawns an hour later.

Also residing in 0.0, there are many rules/regulations/protocols for determining where/when/if you can rat in a certain system. So it is not unknown to log in, and yet still not be able to rat, even though you have allowed yourself 2-3 hours spare to do it.

No, for guaranteed income, you can not beat mining (if you are well setup, two accounts and they both have the skills required).

Now it is not something many people will admit to, but I am one of those "sick" individuals that enjoy mining...

Why do I enjoy it? Well actually for the same reason most people hate it, it requires you to repeat the same basic task, over and over... Which I find quite relaxing after a long stressful day at the RL office...

It does me make me wonder however, am I alone in this view, or whether other people also carry out tasks in game that others would consider boring, but yet that they find a good way to get some stress relief?

Any who, I better get earning isk, and setting up Kahamahl for his life on the wrong side of the law.

11d11h35m46s....

2008-09-25T23:27:00.004+12:00

.... until Evasive Maneuvering V is complete. I'm training Kahamahl for interceptors after all. Truth is, as I see it I have four broad options going forward for this character...

Mission running
Out with my mains in 0.0
Continue with faction warfare
Piracy

Mission running, although a regular income, really holds not interest for me, and to be honest my cap pilot would be suited for the job (using JC's). Also, running more than two clients (as well as Teamspeak/Ventrillo, etc) on a single machine is not the best of ideas. So option two is out of the question as well. So this only leaves two options to be considered.

Continuing with Faction warfare for the time being is the most likely course for me, it gives me a good way to get some small gang fights when my 0.0 home is quiet, and I don't want to rat/mine.

Long term though, well to quote Mynxee I think I may be Pi-curious.... Ironically my 2nd main was originally intended for a life of piracy, but at that time I was still new to PvP and a second character working with my other main was of more use.

Also, another reason for wanting to take up piracy with Kahamahl is that my 0.0 home has become largely quiet (atm), and this would allow me to fly weapons free, without fear of sparking a diplomatic incident or flying 50 jumps just in hope of finding a target.

So how does this tie in to training interceptors you ask, well the simple reality is that they have been for a long time my favourite PvP ship, and for tackling purposes you just can't beat them.

That is not to say I am not training other ships, indeed I am also training for assault ships, and T2 modules for Gallente Battleships. But to quote my RL boss, I decided to go for a quick win, and train for Tarnis and Ares.

On a side note, if any pirates are willing to take a pirate noob (but not PvP noob ) under their wing to show the ropes for surviving a life of piracy give me a yell.

.... I stay.

2008-09-16T22:00:00.002+12:00

Of course I do.....

My problem is that I just unfortunately live in a TZ that has too low an Eve population. The only solution to my issue, would be to move to either the States or Europe in the real world. Which is just not something I plan to do for a game.

If I were to seriously consider leaving, I would definitely do as Shalkis suggests and go "public" within my corporation. In fact I have pretty much done that (or there was a merger) every time previously bar one....

The simple reality is that I stay because the people are good, the rats are worth the effort to kill, the money is okay, and you know what....... there is always someone to PvP with (eventually).

The question is..... what to do about Kahamahl?

Do I stay or do I go.....

2008-09-16T16:15:00.006+12:00

I once again find myself considering whether it is time to move on from my current corp (and hence alliance).

My current corp is undoubtedly one of the most enjoyable groups of people that I have had the pleasure of flying with, and indeed if I do leave it will be with much regret.

However it is becoming apparent that my RL geographic location (i.e. New Zealand) is diametrically opposed to the heavy EU nature of my current alliance, and so I find myself often reading up about fights that were while I was sitting at work.

After all, I didn't train to fly capitals, just to just use them for 0.0 logistics only....

So the thought... "should I leave?" has once again popped up in my mind.

However, it is easy to not think this through, and make a leap into the fire from the pan (been there and done that before - ended up stuck in high sec for a while). Instead, one should think about the three questions that need to be considered when joining/leaving a corp/alliance

1) What do I want from a new corp (compared to the last corp)?
- more activity in my TZ
- more PvP
- more Capital PvP
- 0.0 access with all that it entails (stations, sovereignty, etc)

2) What do I offer a possible new corp/alliance?
- Two mains (combined 60+M sp)
- Capital pilot (Carrier/Dread) with a Carrier
- Sub-Capital pilot (3 races ships up to T2 cruisers incl. T2 modules)
- I am self-sufficient (I have my own empire logistics etc)

3) Who would actually want me, or be interested?

...and there is the crunch. I have only ever twice gone out to find a new corp, and since then have relied on contacts made in the first two corps to find myself a new home. The idea of going out to try and solicit a new home, when in fact I actually enjoy being part of the group I am already in, is hard.

No doubt, if I disliked the corp it would be easy, but in fact the opposite is true.

To top that off, there are RL friends in my current corp, that I brought out to 0.0, and leaving them behind to fend for themselves, does leave a bad taste in my mouth (a bit too loyal for my own good I guess).

Ah well, in the end I will probably happily stay where I am, but the frustration at the lack of PvP in my time zone will continue to annoy.

...or maybe I will actually do something, and get out there....

~wtm

I see a Square..... (reposted)

2008-09-12T09:56:00.002+12:00

Flashcards..... yup those things. You probably like me remember them from long ago when you were at school, and developed a hatred for that way of learning "times tables" "elements tables" etc...

However, an Eve player has developed a tool (still in a beta stage I believe) using this method of learning to assist people with putting names to ships.

http://www.phase.org/journal/parsingphase/post/23085

After all, it is important to know the difference between a Rupture v Broadsword, Blackbird v Falcon, etc. The difference being the difference between life and death in some cases.

Usually most people learn ships over time, however any tool like this that will help people clamber up the cliff that is the Eve learning curve is a big plus to the community.

I know I could have used a tool like this, when I first moved out to 0.0, and into PvP. The ability to quickly identify threats, the risk level they pose, and prioritise.... is not only a required skill of FCs, but of every PvPer.

Also Zero Punctuation has reviewed Eve..... (oh dear)

Now to be honest, I have laugh at his review... because to a large degree it is true. Oh and also I just love his sense of humour

However, he has unfortunately completely missed the point of Eve - THE COMMUNITY, indeed from the moment he stated he was avoiding Player Corporations, I knew the review was doomed.

.... and personally, any corp that makes it always feel like you're logging on to your second job, is not a corp I'd want to join or stay in.

(reposted due to issues with the date of the post not matching when it was actually posted)

Sorry for the lack of posts

2008-09-10T12:08:00.003+12:00

To anyone that may be following my blog, apologies for the lack of posts over the last week or so.

Real Life has unfortunately once again taken over all of my spare time, and so time available to log into Eve has just disappeared.

That is not to say I haven't been playing any games (trust me I require it for my sanity).

Instead I have been playing Team Fortress as an ideal way to let of stress... there's something so therapeutic about imagining the other team being people you work for, and with. It is a bit harder to imagine a ship as a person you work with..... unfortunately.

While I've been away from Eve, my three characters have continued to train, and indeed one reached a milestone of being able to now fly three races up to T2 cruisers, as well as the appropriate T2 weapon systems.

It is interesting, the longer you play, and the more SP you have, it gets harder and harder to just pick a skill to train... indeed for my two mains I now find that the next skill i usually need, is a 10+ day skill, or in many cases 20+ days.

Anyhow, hopefully RL will quieten down soon, and I will be able to set aside the time you need for a decent Eve session or two....

~W

Old dog and new tricks

2008-08-19T23:03:00.008+12:00

Eve is the deepest, and most complex, MMO currently available.

I think it's safe to assume that most Eve players would agree with the above statement, and for many new players (or non-players) this can be the factor that either stops them playing, or from even trying the game. However, for myself and many (if not most) Eve players it is that depth that keeps us playing.

Even after 2.5 years of playing, I still find myself learning new things, for example I only recently learnt to set drone aggression, instead of manually updating their targets every minute to avoid them attacking the wrong rats. More importantly though, it was the fact I learnt this from a player who is both half my RL and character age.

Also there is also entire areas of industry that I have never attempted, such as research, invention, reactions, boosters, etc. Also I have not tried exploration, and amazingly only ever run one (non-mission) Plex.

Factional warfare provides both high sec dwellers an opportunity to try out PvP, and for 0.0 pilots a way to do some PvP, without the huge risks.

Yet still, you sometimes find yourself listening to some idiot who says "I've done it all, there's nothing left to do....". Now admittedly a comment like this out of the mouth of a 5 year veteran would possibly be accurate, but in truth they wouldn't say it. No, the individual that normally claims to have done anything is usually only a year or so old...

There is simply no way anyone with only one character can have done it all, and to claim you have just shows how little you know.

Ah well, if they leave, at least if they leave that's one less idiot to fly with.

There is always something else in Eve to try, and that is what keeps so many players playing. Proof of that is as clear as the near constant increase in player numbers since Eve was released.

The only thing I have become more sure of, the longer I've played Eve, is that there is so much more to experience in Eve, than I probably will ever get to try...... and that is a good thing!

It allows specialisation and in particular it allows the possibility that a younger player may be able to "teach an old dog new tricks", just like one did with me.

~WTM

PS I still haven't had the chance to fly Kahamahl in FW again, instead RL, my 0.0 alliance, and Guitar Hero (a new non-mmo addition) have conspired to keep him on ice. However the training continues....

Weeeeeeeeeee

2008-08-11T16:13:00.004+12:00

The hiatus is now officially over.

In the space of two short days my addiction is back, and I'm mainlining as much PvP as I can.

My alliance has once again let lose the dogs of war (someone REALLY annoyed the leader of my alliance), and once again I find myself in a carrier in a hostile system (or jumping back and forth to get stront for the sieging dreads).

When the first days hostilities came to a temporary stop (damn Dread pilots needing to sleep, where's your commitment?), I found myself sitting thinking... "but... but I need more PvP?!"

5 minutes later..... Kahamahl was x'd up and heading out for the first time into the field of war called "Black Rise" in a Thorax.

The first Thorax didn't last long, and I was quickly back in Villore, buying a new ship to replace the one I just lost (congrats Victoria Ehr), before heading back out.

I quickly got the hang of using the Thorax (damn it seems slow after my Stiletto/Crow/Taranis), and indeed got to have a lot of fun over the following hours either chasing (or running from) our enemy, the Caldari scum (the irony being that over half my characters are Caldari).

Even taking breaks (to go back to the alliance war), I still managed to get a total of four kills over the 6 hours on that first day; two battleships, and two battle cruisers. I was pretty happy with my first attempt.

So what did I learn from my first experience in FW:

It's fun, there's no sovereignty to worry about (no, faction sov does not count)
There are good FCs leading FW fleets, and there are bad ones as well.
People signed up with factions aren't as homogeneous as you'd expect (I saw a lot of drakes, Crows, Ravens, and even a vulture for example, in the Gallente fleet).
It's fun, there is always something happening it seems, and 'nearly' everyone has the right attitude.
Fleets seem to be light on Battleships (at least when I was trying it out).
Plenty of experienced pilots participating -I flew with people that I have flown with (and against) before on both sides.
The scale of the "battle field" is nice and small (no 100 jump journeys)
It's as cheap, or as expensive as you want to make it (you will lose ships, but who cares, you can control how much you spend).
Caldari Faction pilots are too rich for their own good - I mean seriously Faction ships in PvP???? - Hookbill pilot, I'm looking at you....
Did I mention it's fun??

As for the Thorax... well I am enjoying it, it is a good fun ship, very capable in small gangs (as I'd read/heard before), and is a good choice "so far" for FW, for me. However I am already starting to look into my next choice, and using Evemon are planning for a Brutix before moving on to the Gallente Battleships...

As a small aside, boy is it a pain to fit a ship when your fitting skills are rubbish, compared to what you are used to.

Unfortunately, after that first stint, the war back in 0.0 ramped up, and I had to concentrate back on that for the rest of the weekend (at least it felt like that). Though on a positive note I did get 20 kills in my carrier in a single lag free engagement on a POS over an hour - which was a blast.

I really do need to make some isk over the next day or so, I have ships to buy/replace, new fighters (damn manned POS guns), POS to fuel, etc...

But my trade alt does have 300m spare, and that could buy a bunch of Thorax's, and some Brutix's...... hmmmmmmm

~WTM

Oh dear....

2008-07-11T11:32:00.006+12:00

... my factional warfare experiment appears to be going nowhere, fast.

The character continues to skill up, and already has some ships fitted and ready to go, but I just haven't got into it yet.

To be fair though, this is not a reflection on FW, but more a reflection on me suffering one of those "periods". You know, when you suddenly just seem to find it hard to log in and play, when your other non-MMO games suddenly seem more appealing, or god forbid tv seems more watchable.

Obviously family, friends, pets, and RL in general is always more important, than Eve, and indeed some variation in ones gaming is always good. However, there comes a point when you realise you are only logging into Eve for the purpose of changing skills, adjusting market orders, and to check eve-mail in hope of an alliance op.

This is not to say that I am going to quit Eve (so cancel any "Can I have your stuff?" requests), but more that I have been on a hiatus for a wee bit

As for the this lack motivation, all that I can deduce is that it is due to my main alliance being in what is essentially a period on consolidation after a long period of open hostility, and then outright war.

Peace is boring.....

Why this has stopped me from getting into FW I don't know, indeed it makes no sense. All I can deduce is that this is due to a sense of guilt that if I do log in, I should be doing alliance stuff, or helping my in-game friends.

Hmmmm

I think I will make a point of logging in to play FW tonight.... but then... that movie sitting there is looking mighty interesting.

Hey this ain't the same......

2008-07-08T23:11:00.003+12:00

I have to admit something

Something that I am somewhat embarrassed about.

Kahamahl: "Hi...., my name is Kahamahl"

Everyone: "Hi Kahamahl"

Kahamahl:"I'm here, because I have a problem!"

Kahamahl: "I almost lost my Tristan today, doing a level one mission!!!"

Everyone: "NOOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Well okay, not really.... But I am finding that getting standings for Kahamahl, so that he can join a Factional Warfare corp, has proven to take longer than expected due to not spending much time online.

Kahamahl is now sitting at 0.48 with the Gallente Federation, having followed Van Hemlock's advice in Path to Acceptance. So following the path of least resistance, I am now running missions for a level one agent; in a Tristan.

This is where I have to admit there is some truth behind the earlier mention of a particular ship.

First some background. My two regular mains, fly mostly either small fast movers (speed tanking) or Caldari (shield tanking). As such my experience with armour tanking is somewhat less impressive.

During a recent mission, I had got right into the middle of the rats I was fighting, and although I was popping them left, right, and centre, I was also starting to take some damage.

"No worries" I thought, giggling at their pathetic damage. But eventually, down went the shield. Then they started to chew into the armour itself, but still I was not even vaguely concerned.

My finger hovering over the repair button, ready to click, just waiting for the armour to get low enough to warrant using the repair (after all no point wasting cap). Sure enough the moment came, with the armour nearly all gone, I clicked and waited to laugh at them as my armour climbed back up.

However I had forgotten a fundamental difference between active tanking shields and armour, namely that the HP boost comes at the end of the module cycle for armour (not the beginning like shields).

So though the repairer was now active, the armour just kept falling for the duration of the cycle, right through the last of the armour and into the hull itself - gulp.

Then suddenly the first cycle finished, and up shoots the armour... Ship intact, but pride damaged.

This little event, though never really getting out of hand, has made me reevaluate my plan for this character. The original plan of skilling straight for Interceptors, is essentially just repeating what I have done with my other mains. Instead, I'm considering whether I should skill for cruisers first? After all, the skill training time is pretty minimal for Kahamahl at this stage (only a few days).

Indeed was not my aim with this character to try something new, to try stuff differently??

That's not to say that I will not still skill for the fantastic Taranis and Ares, but I think I owe it to myself to try out not only a race I have limited experience with (Gallente) but also a hull size that I had skipped over, and an entire method of tanking.

Thorax! Here I come....

War.... What is it good for?

2008-07-04T11:37:00.003+12:00

...absolutely everything!!

Lets be honest, Eve is driven in all it's forms through warfare. From the dedicated pvper, to the solitary new player just finding their way in the game, to the hardcore industrialist, to the miner mining Veldspar or Ice. In Eve every player contributes to the economy, and hence to the supply or demand of ships/equipment/ammo that is the lifeblood of war in this game.

The more we fight, the richer the game is for everyone, both in isk and fun. It is in this light that I personally view the advent of Factional warfare as a great development for the game.

Factional warfare provides both new and old players an opportunity to engage in some pvp with the sole intention of having "fun". Now that's not to say the pvp experienced elsewhere in Eve is not fun (though people involved in POS sieging may dispute that), but there is a distinct difference.

Factional Warfare is low risk, you can participate at a low cost, and can have a lot of fun, without the real risk of losing your home (in comparison to 0.0 where the cost of loss can be an enforced loss of assets and your 0.0 home).

It is this risk of losing your home that sometimes restricts 0.0 life to long periods of preparation and short explosive stints of all out war. In short the risk of war, often outweighs the benefits in the minds of many alliance leaders..

Factional Warfare so far appears to encourage constant all-out warfare, with people readily feeding ships, equipment, and clones into what is a massive meat grinder....

....and this is good. This constant loss of equipment will lead to an invigorated eve economy, and indeed the faction standing loss for Gallente and Minmatar should help long term to reduce the dependency on Jita. At the very least, my hope is that the position of the minor trading hubs is strengthened...

Indeed, all this opportunity for fun, and listening to WDA and TDB, has convinced me to give Factional Warfare a go...

As such two weeks ago, a new Gallente pilot was born on my third account (yes I am that addicted to eve), and the other character put on a training hiatus. Currently my intention is to train this new character towards a Taranis and Ares (interceptors are a favourite of mine on my other mains), or potentialy some gank/tank cruisers.

Currently Kahamahl is training the base skills he needs to be able to participate in PvP, and so far can now fit T2 blasters and MWDs. Warp jammers and Webs should be finished by tomorrow...

Currently I am doing the Data Center missions, to build my standings with Gallente.... but I should be in the fight by the end of this weekend.

Meanwhile my 0.0 alliance is probably wondering where I have disappeared off to...

So what is the point....

2008-05-23T23:15:00.003+12:00

Although unlikely, there is a chance that this blog may actually be read by someone other than myself. As such I probably should give some context to this blog, i.e. what is the purpose of the blog, why am I writing it, and lastly who am I?

The what and the why, are essentially two sides of the same coin. The purpose of this blog is to provide me with a means to put in writing any opinion I may have on something within the context Eve. Why I am doing this is because I am an opinionated person, but despite that I normally try to control my urges in order to fit in with my corp/team/etc. This blog henceforth is my way of venting, or to have a "mad rant" about whatever is of interest to me, and I admit to finding writing my thoughts quite a good way to get them off my chest.

As for who am I, I have played Eve for over two years, and have experienced many parts of the game, but as of now am an avowed 0.0 resident. I love to pvp, but am under no illusion of grandeur... I have two mains currently, and have skilled them to allow me too experience both small and cap combat.

So it begins....

2008-05-16T14:41:00.003+12:00

When I first created this blog, I couldn't think of what to first write about...

Which is, in many ways, quite ironic for me as usually the one thing I am usually not lacking is some topic that has pushed my button.

However recent events within Eve, have given me something to "rant" about...

"Forum Spying"

Now don't get me wrong, I fully accept spying is part of the game in Eve, and don't take issue with spying in the general sense of the word.

Indeed, the meta-game of trying to work out who the spy is within your ranks, is quite an interesting addition to the game.

No, I'm referring to the retards who give Spies a bad name! The type that gets it's jollies by posting excerpts from your forums, or fleet chats, into local or CAOD.

The main benefit of spying, is that you know information about them, that they don't know you know. By posting it in local or in the COAD forums, you confirm to the enemy what they probably suspected, i.e. a spy amongst them. Also you give them more information to track you down, i.e. who used the forum within x<->y time, or who was in the fleet....

What happened to the good old days of honourable spying...

You know, when no spy gave themselves away, when each side only had it's paranoia and no evidence to confirm it's suspicions. When the enemy would keep it's carefully gathered information to itself, when counter espionage was a valid opportunity to the spy (i.e. your spy in the enemies fleet trying to determine who the enemy spy was in yours).

Showing the world that you have managed to infiltrate your enemy shows nothing. It is easy in a game of multiple accounts and alts, to achieve that, no the achievement is to use that information meaningfully.. You know, to achieve a tactical advantage in-game and in-battle.