Boom! Hull-Shot?

Back in Action

2011-11-23T12:18:00.001-05:00

Damn you, CCP!

Despite my best efforts to stay away from Eve during the semester, I have been dragged back in, kicking and screaming, by CCP. What they're putting together for Crucible is sure to be nothing short of amazing. My only problem with all of the incoming goodness is that it required firing 20% of the company and losing 8% of subscribers to make these changes happen. Crucible is most definitely a peace offering, filled with papercuts and long-standing issues, meant to calm down the rageful player base and shore up subscriber numbers with bittervet resubs. Why these hundreds of small- to medium-sized things could not have been implemented sooner, in a happier time is beyond me.

I do not want to go through all of the wonderful things being planned, as many a blogger has done so. I do, however, just want to reinforce how awesome it all is.

Anyway, as I'm sure you're wondering, what exactly is my activity during this comeback? Mostly boring attempts at solo PvP. I've cruised Providence for the past 3 days, and only today, deep in CVA territory, was I able to find a suitable solo enemy. My ship for the expedition was a Rifter, the fit of which I had just copied from Wensley's killboard. (For those of you who can't wait until the killmail to see how it was outfitted: Autos, MSE, AB, and scram.) I had warped to a gate at 0, hoping to draw attention to myself, and at long last, a Worm appeared. I am not at all familiar with the Worm, but seeing it was a frigate, I decided that I would kite with Barrage. That didn't work too well, as he was able to easily control range with a webifier. The fight was slow at first, both of us eating through each others' shields at an equal rate. I didn't really think I had a chance of winning, so I began to deagress and roll back to the gate. But just then, two of his friends hopped into system, finished the remainder of my shields and quickly chewed through armor and structure.

Das Killmail

Overall, an okay fight. As always, solo PvP is subject to "da blob," which was in this case 3 people. I think I will take out a 'Ranis over the coming Thanksgiving weekend and give that another shot.

Fly safe!

-StevieTopSiders

The Community Recession

2011-08-10T16:01:00.000-04:00

These are dark days for the Eve Online community. Ever since Monoclegate, our motley crew of podcasters, bloggers, and tweeters has been losing contributors to ragequiting and inactivity. Is this a long-term trend, or are we merely seeing the effects of the annual summer slowdown? Personally, I believe that we are witnessing a permanent shift in the level of community activity; the amount of involvement that a game like Eve requires, coupled with the fallout from Incarna, has severely injured the viability of CCP's oft-trumpeted, little-loved community.

Podcasting

Although podcasting is the most time-intensive of community labors (labors defined from now on as: tweeting, blogging, podcasting, and foruming), it is the most effective in drawing attention. Everyone and their mother can set up a Blogger account and get writing, but recording and editing a podcast is another thing entirely. We saw the first inklings of this decline when Jade and Jayne of Lost in Eve moved to a bi-weekly release schedule. We continued to see it when they repeatedly failed to meet their own deadlines, despite the planned 50% drop in activity. Now, I realize that it is unfair of me to be mad at someone for not sacrificing time to record a podcast, but I do feel entitled to good content on a regular basis. Blame my parents, I suppose.

The trend has continued, however, as can be noted by the ending of Eve Commune, the departure of Chad from Fly Reckless, and host of other podcasts updating irregularly. The exceptions to the rule are: Voices from the Void, which nicely bridges the "Echo Chamber" and the vociferous 0.0 community, Pod Goo, and Not a Lot of News Newshour. VandV is my favorite, and I hope that adding White Tree as a guest host to keep the show going while either Hallan or Dani is out keeps them viable. Pod Goo is also great, despite Ender being a CCP White Knight and their rather short episode time. Finally, News Hour is good, except for when the hosts start talking about stuff they know nothing about and/or when their Russian-hating bigot friend comes on. Oh, and I forgot Broadcasts from the Ninveah, which although good, usually lasts like 10 minutes and basically has Kirith talking about how he's moving ships around.

Anyway, so now you know whom I like, but how does that relate to a slowdown in podcasting? First, there is the lack of new shows. The only one I can think of is Pixxie's Eve Online Podcast. And even then, the only thing that makes it special is the fact that Pixxie is a gurl (but the role of girls in Eve Online is for another post). Second, there are quite a few newer podcasts that never seemed to get off the ground. One of the best podcasts, which seemed to be everybody's new favorite, ISK, has failed to deliver on any regular basis. All seven episodes out are fantastic, but guessing when the next one comes out is an exercise in futility. Another one that looked good was Sur Jamkar's Corporate New Eden. He hasn't done anything since May (and that was just a re-release of his first episode), so I found it rather funny that he introduced himself as a podcast host in the Community Shout-Out. Did I mention the Community Shout-Out was the biggest pile of shit to ever hit the internet? It was basically a bunch of people who wanted to feel important by announcing their "rationality" and "everyone calm down" attitude to the world.

tl;dr- Few new podcasts, old ones closing down, almost none able to maintain a good release schedule.

Blogging

The blogging sector has suffered less than the podcasting one. Due to the sheer volume of bloggers, there is usually enough content around. Sorting through the chaff, however, can be difficult. That's why we have the Eve Blog Pack! Err... had. CrazyKinux has decided to step down from his role as Blogfather. Moreover, he seems to be stepping away from Eve almost entirely, as his twitter name changed from @CrazyKinux to @SocialDave. And thank God for that. That man is the biggest social media whore I have ever had the pleasure to internet-meet. Anyway, that leaves us with a problem: whom to sort the chaff? He asked for volunteers, and I put my name out there, though due to the rampant inactivity of my blog, I'm not sure I'm in consideration. And I'm not famous, did I mention that? Another hit to the bloggers was the loss of Mord Fiddle, who will be taking a hiatus of a few months. His posts were always insightful and well-thought out, though his anti-PL/Russian bend was somewhat annoying. The thing I most liked about his posts was the "Comments" section, in which the intellectuals of New Eden would show up to debate the topics Mord put out there. Yet another loss that I think most of us feel is Wensley of Rifter Drifter. That blog was a haven for anyone interested in heart-thumping battle reports, solo and small-gang tactics, or pretty graphs about the relative merits of ships' DPS.

Luckily, some new blogs have stepped in to fill the void. First and foremost is Jester's Trek. This guy is so good that riverini has been cross-posting him on EN24 (the problems with that site are, again, for another post). He pushes out tons of content, all of it good. If you're not reading him, you should be. Another great new entrant into the blog arena is GamerChick42. She posts a number of helpful guides that even an experienced player will find useful. But other than that, I have seen little engaging material in the blogoshpere.

As for the other community sectors (Kugu, FHC, and #tweetfleet), I feel that they are all in good health, because they are the most accessible, allowing people to lurk and occasionally sign in to comment or tweet.

Nerd Rage Incoming

2011-06-21T22:05:00.001-04:00

I'm gonna save my whole nerd rage post for tomorrow, but I'd like to do a little foreplay and let you all in on a few things.

First of all, here is my avatar in Captain's Quarters. Really?

Secondly, here is a fun reply a got to a tweet of mine:

Stevie says: #tweetfleet You can buy a useless monocle or two Carriers. What are you gonna choose? @EveOnline knows... The monocle, of course!

K4el says:
@stevietopsiders @EveOnline #tweetfleet F that. Better deal here. nearsights.com/monocles.html

K4el deserves props for that extremely witty remark.

Fly safe!

-Stevie

PS- In response to tweet, I was asked what settings that picture was taken. Max settings all across the board (except AA), even including "Physically Simulated Cloth and Hair." All of that running on an i5-750 and ATI 5770.

Soundwave on Balance

2011-06-21T20:49:00.000-04:00

Those of you who watched the Alliance Tournament this weekend may have heard CCP Soundwave talking about balance. Do you wanna know what I think about his comments? Well, I will tell you in a minute, but first I would like to praise Soundwave for being such a great dev. Most importantly, he ran the Alliance Tournament as a volunteer, a praiseworthy endeavor. Even better, however, he reached out to various Eve podcasts and conducted interviews. Both of these things have earned Soundwave a big A+ in my dev grade book.

But then he started talking about balance. "I don't like balance." My first impression was: "You crazy Icelander, have you never played Eve?" But then I started thinking about what he said afterwards, how balance makes a game un-fun. If we were to talk about "balance" in the way he seems to define it, the game would be very un-fun. Should an Apocalypse and Megathron be able to orbit each other at 50 clicks, shooting each other with their respective racial guns, and die at the same time? Of course not! While that is "balanced," that is certainly not fun.

What Soundwave fails to comprehend is that in a "balanced" game, not everything is equally powerful. In a balanced game, each weapon/object/ship has a role, and with its role, it can counter certain other roles. Take Halo 3. For ultra-close range, you want the shotgun. No other weapon (barring the sword or a Sniper headshot) can take out an opponent in shot. Shouldn't the shotgun be the best weapon in the game then? No, because its strength is countered by its weakness: incredibly short range. Moving further away from the target, we find the Battle Rifle (which is far superior to the DMR; Reach sucks!), which can take down enemies from far away. Get too far away, however, and you'll find yourself getting owned by sniper slugs. Get too close, and you'll go down to an Assault Rifle pretty quickly. This is balance, which it seems CCP Soundwave does not understand.

For argument's sake, though, suppose he does understand this. The problem we're having in Eve is that roles are not working correctly. Ships and weapons are either too weak to carry out their role, don't have a role at all, or are too powerful to be countered. Command Ships are too weak to carry out their roles. They provide boosting to gangs, but their ehp is so low that they die far too quickly to even receive reps from Logistics ships. Dreadnaughts do not have a role. They used to be good for POS bashes, but now, structures have such high levels of hitpoints that only Supercarriers will do. Supercarriers are too powerful to be countered. A well-led and well-equipped fleet should be able to take out a lone Supercarrier or two, but their resists and ehp are so high that only blobs of other supercapitals and touch them.

To fix these things, we need "balance," the kind that Soundwave doesn't seem to like. What is the solution? I do not know, and until I do, I will just whine about it.

Fly safe!

-Stevie

Nerfing the Supercarrier

2011-06-19T23:27:00.003-04:00

As we learned during the Alliance Tournament and the accompanying podcast interviews, CCP Soundwave plans to nerf Supercarriers come this winter. The problem with supercaps, a topic which has been beaten to death already, is that they are too powerful and versatile for their relatively low cost. “Relatively” in relation to Titans, that is. While many ordinary players are excited about the nerf, supercap pilots fear that the ships they trained hard for may become useless rust buckets, much like they were in the Mothership days. Hitting a home run with the nerf bat is going to be difficult, but done correctly, CCP will go a long way towards showing null-sec players that the developers still care about them. What follows are my proposed changes, many of which were fleshed out in an informative thread on Kugutsumen.

Supercarrier Changes:

Change fleet-boosting shield mechanics. At the moment, shield-tanked Supercarriers jump into a system not at their maximum EHP, whereas armor-tanked ones do.
Remove Supercarriers’ ability to field Fighters. Without Fighters, Supercarriers will not be very effective against subcapital fleets. To do damage to subcap fleets, Supercarriers will need to roll with subcap support.
Reduce the size of the Drone bay. Supercarriers should be limited to two flights of stealth bombers plus some normal drones. Their current ability to fit waves upon waves of every type of drone imaginable is just silly.
Allow Supercarriers to dock in stations. A change such as this would be an excellent tweak for Supercarrier pilots. As things stand now, once you get a Supercarrier, you’re stuck with it unless you want to buy/train a parking alt. We may want to extend this to Titans as well.

Dreadnaught Changes:

Reduce the siege timer to 5 minutes. As it is now, any Dread fleet sitting around for 10 minutes is just asking to be hot-dropped.
Increase the tank of Dreads while in siege mode. This should be done by raising resists while in siege mode. Ideally, a Dreadnaught in siege mode should be able to withstand around 3 Doomsdays.

Titan Changes:

Reduce Titan tracking. Currently, Titans can rape Battleships with their guns. Again, this change would make sure that supercaps moved with subcap support.

Other Changes:

Logoff mechanics need to be changed. If you’re flying around in your super and jump to an un-scouted cyno, you should pay for your mistake with your ship. In today’s Eve, the pilot can simply log off, and unless the person who caught you has supercaps or a large gang standing by, the stupid pilot will make off unharmed.

I think that implementing all of these changes in tandem will go a long way towards weakening the supercap (primarily Supercarrier) blob. Increasing these behemoths' reliance on subcap support will discourage the random supercap hotdrop and lower the skillpoint entry barrier for newer pilots, who now don't need a Mom of their own! Additionally, I would like to suggest that Black Ops battleships get a larger fuel bay and slightly longer jump range. These ships are not used very often, and a slight boost to their Black Op-ness will encourage gangs to go behind enemy lines, wreaking havoc and engaging in small-scale PvP. Brilliant!

Fly safe!

-Stevie

The Forked Tongue of CCP

2011-05-19T17:22:00.000-04:00

Talking the Talk and walking the Walk are two very different things. Whether the United States in the middle east or CCP in null-sec, what is said and what is done are radically different.

We have all heard how CCP Greyscale & Co. want to make null-sec open to small alliances. In dev blog after dev blog, Fanfest presentation after Fanfest presentation, the brass at CCP has made it clear to anyone who will listen that they want null-sec to be full of small alliances, constantly engaged in small-gang warfare. Doesn't this sound beautiful? It does, except CCP, through its game design changes, is actively fighting against it.

How? First, they made Supercarriers, an asset usually available only to large null-sec alliances, totally (in the words of my WoW-playing brother) O-Peed. Then, they made sovereignty super-expensive to hold by requiring huge sums of money to pay for upkeep and iHub upgrades. Next, they reduced the amount of income made by individual pilots (and corporations who collect taxes) with the anomaly nerf. And now they have made it easier to make money in high-security space by greatly simplifying missions. These are terrible crimes that strike at the heart of any small alliance, right? They are, but at the same time, they have increased the money available to large alliances. Nay, not even alliances, the dreaded 0.0 power blocks. CCP nerfed power blocks by making technetium available only in the space of the Northern Coaltion, and then the developer placed numerous low true-sec systems in the botting empire of the Drone Russian Federation. The hate for small alliances is clear.

What is the solution? It is simple. Well, not really, but it may be possible. The first step towards small null-sec alliances is a change in players' attitude. Whenever CCP mentions that it wants to encourage small alliances to enter null-sec, members of 0.0 power blocks cry out in anguish: "Bu... Bu... But it's human nature to want to band together and steamroll small groups of players. You can't fight our instincts!" A smaller, quality group of players is capable of defending its holding from an alliance with a larger amount of players. Have you ever heard of Pandemic Legion? Looked at the sov map of Delve recently? To a certain extent, quality can trump quantity, and it will not require your alliance to play Eve as a full-time job, like the Legio Pandemica.

There are also some things CCP could do. Most notably, they could add more space to null-sec. This step (or "tweak" as they might be prone to call it) would have to be implemented carefully, though. If the space is beyond the current border of the galaxy, CCP will have inadvertently made that space accessible only to alliances with either a jump bridge network (nerfed as it is) or a significant supercapital fleet for bridging. I feel what may be required are some "special" gates that can handle the passage of capital ships. These could also be implemented in parts of the current galaxy, say on the Tenal-Cobalt Edge route or the Paragon Soul-Period Basis gates. Such a change would encourage fighting between the alliances at both ends of these long jumps.

CCP has promised some major changes to null-sec this winter, so we will have to see whether or not they stick with their vision of a 0.0 populated by small alliances or whether they fall prey to the allure of the power block. Or maybe, as the recent agent changes suggest, they set course for a fluffy, loving, PvE Eve Online. Only time will tell if CCP can walk the Walk.

Fly safe!

-Stevie

Building Blocs

2011-05-17T23:17:00.001-04:00

Inspired by the Blogfather himself, I am going to restart my own posting. I will be switching the focus of my blog from stories about me towards game-level design changes and aspects. My role-models are Mord Fiddle and Ripard Teg, the latter of whom has sadly left Eve for the time being. But as most of us know, you always come back to Eve, so hopefully he will resume posting at some time in the future.

Anyway, I'm here today to talk about the giant 0.0 power blocks, which CCP hates with a burning passion. My corporation, M. Corp, used to reside in the Catch region, specifically the JZV-06 constellation. There, we were renters of Against All Authorities, under the guise of M. Pire alliance, which combined the different arms of M. Corp into one entity. The alliance was made up of 5 main corporations:

M. Corp Ascension- The directors' sov-holdin', supercap-buildin' corp.
M. Corp Engineering- Our miners and industrialists.
M. Corp Academy- The training corp, which quickly fell by the wayside.
M. Corp Germany- A subdivision for our German-speaking friends.
M. Corp- The PvP arm of the alliance.

Our time in "the pocket," as it is affectionately called, was profitable for individual members but disastrous for the corporation. Over the course of months, we slowly but surely began to bleed PvP'ers. Even a field trip to Delve with the purpose of helping -A- capture old IT space failed to stop the drop in membership. The alliance might have survived on the backs of industrialists, however, if it weren't for CCP's anomaly nerf. Our constellation had suddenly become more valuable. The word on the street is that an ex-BoB corp forced us out of the space while AAA leadership was on vacation. Unable to effectively defend ourselves, we were forced to drop sov in all but one system, whose sovereignty we had to drop the moment after some supercaps finished building. This left the alliance with a problem: where do we go now?

Well first, we go to the actual point of this post: the limited options that small alliances have in null-sec. Scanning the sovereignty influence map, our directors found themselves with a dearth of options. We could not stay with Against All authorities, so the South was dead to us. Joining the Drone Russian Forces was not appealing, because we would then be red to the Northern Coalition and we would live in a botter empire. (Keep in mind that this decision was made before the NC appeared as close to failscading as it is now.) In the West, our only option was to make a land-grab in Delve, which would be impossible due to our lack of PvP'ers. Looking north, we saw only the Northern Coalition and the Deklein Coalition. Becoming bros with Goonswarm or TEST was not appealing to anyone, and thus the decision to combine the alliance into M. Corp and to join the Northern Coalition was made.

At the time, this appeared a good choice. Vale of the Silent was still safe, PL had not yet joined the war, and we would be able to rejoin Mostly Harmless, whom we had left some time ago, on account of hostility from a rogue director. The relationship with the rest of Mostly Harmless command was still warm. As the supercapitals neared completion, however, the war in the north took a turn for the worst. Pandemic Legion, Raiden., and White Noise opened a can of whup-ass onto the Northern Coalition, who soon entered full-on panic/retreat mode. Add to that the jump-bridge nerf, and our proposed move to Branch quickly became a logistical nightmare: moving in the middle of a war zone with friendly forces afraid to engage the enemy. We were in a pretty pickle. We could not back out of the deal for fear of losing face, but we had plenty of time to second-guess ourselves and think about what should have been done.

This catastrophe was perpetrated by the lack of options for a small alliance (300-ish toons, probably 100 pilots). We had only four places to go (three if you count NC and DC as one entity). Each was unappealing in at least one respect, but to have any success in 0.0, an alliance needs to join one of these power blocks to ensure its survival. Something should be done, but for the life of me, I don't know what. Read the following example and see how necessary power blocks have become in Eve:

Imagine the following hypothetical scenario. The Northern Coalition has been conquered by the Russians, so the DRF vacates its eastern holdings to take the tech-rich north. Multiple small alliances soon fill the void, and CCP declares victory for the little guy. But now, imagine that Against All Authorities wants to take the former space of the DRF. The little alliances cannot possibly fight the Drake blob alone, so they band together to repel -A-. After the fight, they reset each other and return to goodfights. But now the DRF invades, hoping to regain its botting empire. The small alliances band together, repel the invaders, and again reset each other. After a few months of this, the alliances will find that it is in their best interests to merely stick together, profiting peacefully in the space they hold and protecting their holdings. What we have now created is the Eastern Coalition. CCP's victory was short lived, and the power block lives on.

Is this inevitable? Of course not. But for a group of small alliances to be left alone by power blocks would require that they either hold low-value space or that they are too far away to make an invasion convenient. This is something that needs to be looked at by CCP. Even the supporters of power blocks should realize that a galaxy with only four main 0.0 factions is not good for the game or for the players.

Fly safe!

-Stevie

Impressions of Fanfest

2011-03-26T20:11:00.000-04:00

Hello, immense following of loyal readers! I apologize that content has been hard to come by. I've been entangled with RL events (week-long swim meet in sunny Florida) and other Eve Projects (now writing for Eve Report; expect articles soon).

Before I embark on FanFest coverage, here is the equivalent of a Facebook status update:

StevieTopSiders is focusing on two areas of skill training. The first are the skills needed for Core Competency Elite; the second are the skills needed for an Amarr BS to do ratting, allowing him to finally make some money. Additionally, he has done some home defense PvP, but without scanning skills, he is pretty much useless. Stevie has lost many ships inattempts to engage bigger ships alone in his Ares.

Now that we have that out of the way, what about FanFest? Sadly, I am not in Iceland, so I can't speak from personal experience. What I do know, however, comes from fellow bloggers, EN24 liveblogging, #tweetfleet, and the free streaming.

Null-sec stuff seemed pretty boring. The only big announcement (which wasn't really a FanFest announcement) was this: the appearance of Havens and Sanctums will now depend on TrueSec. According to Ripard Teg's conspiracy theory, this is an effort by CCP to get the rest of Eve to break up the DRF, who have numerous hi-value systems. He cites the placement of Technetium moons in NC space as precedent. By making NC space more valuable, CCP hoped to give the players reason to break up the NC. As we all can see, this failed terribly.

One interesting tidbit I learned from a YouTube comment is the return of new ships models. I have been obsessed with this dev blog, dealing with the textures used on ships, for ages. I have made post after post in the Eve Forums, scrounging for information, but no one seems to know. Luckily, when I commented on the new turret video, an entrepreneurial commenter informed me that the ship models had been discussed at an art presentation this morning at FanFest. Hooray! Apparently the first ship in the pipe is the Raven. Meh, would have preferred something not Caldari, but progress is progress.

Finally, make sure that you have all watched the Eve: A Future Vision video. While I, a huge console FPS fan, am excited by DUST 514, I don't think any of this will affect Eve too much. Again, we see rendered footage of Incarna, but nothing that couldn't be done from the NeoCom. Also, we learn that the mercenaries have been hired to attack an installation on the planet. Will losing a PI center really be that bad? An interesting point was the capsuleer's death by pistol. Again, what does this do for us? Now, instead of losing your ship and implants, you just lose your implants. Being able to kill people in stations really adds nothing to the game, as far as I can see.

For those of you in Iceland, I hope you've enjoyed your trip. I would like to go next year, depending on how the college situation works out. Speaking of which, I have been accepted to Washington University in St. Louis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Virginia, Carnegie Mellon University, and Centre College. MIT is my first choice, but it remains to be seen if I can scrounge up the 50k.

Fly safe!

-Stevie

My First PvP Loss

2011-03-11T23:09:00.000-05:00

Hey all!

Lost my first ship today. It was an Ares Interceptor.

I'm of course mad about bringing down my corp's killboard, but I'd also like to say just how exciting it was! A corpmate and I were covering a gate into G-7 (in which an NC. Black Ops fleet had just hot-dropped), me in my 'ceptor, him in his Zealot. We saw Youeh (or something) pop into system. For a brief second, his Arazu appeared on overview, during which I tried to lock, but it was a no-go. He leaves local, so I head to MB, our hub system. I get in there and begin my search. I warp to the WLAR gate (our exit system) from 30km off to avoid the bubbles we have around the gate, though I do get stuck in them a little bit. I align towards the G-7 gate, not bothering to fire up the MWD. I get beyond the bubbles but delay jumping due to the pressing need of finishing off some Graeter's ice cream next to me (+10 if you know where that ice cream can be found).

When I turn back to my computer after like 10 seconds or something, I find that little countdown bar thinggy on my screen, which I thought meant he was locking me. "Oh, crap." I warp to the MB station, but can't! Okay, fire up my MWD II and get rolling at 4km a second. Doesn't work either. I frantically call for help in TS, and a German corpmate readies a rescue effort. I target the Arazu (with difficulty, because the overview keeps moving around due to his Warrior II's) and lay down the point and scram. Ironically, he's pointing and scramming me, which is my job as an Interceptor. I begin to orbit him, fire my small Blasters, and activate an energy transfer array (which is out of range). Damn. I'm into armor, and the oracle of TS tells me to align to station for a quick exit. I do, moving away at 300m/s, spamming my MWD. No such luck, though, I'm moving too slow. Eventually, my Ares dies a sad death, and the German arrives in time to destroy my wreck. I safely make it to station, and my heart begins to slow. I wished my killer a gf, told him it was my first loss, etc. He was nice about it and all, though I set him -10 so I can take revenge on his ass should I ever find it while flying a better ship.

So yeah, losing my first ship was fun. I just wish it had happened in fleet combat rather than stupid accident.

I'd also like to take this time to express my distaste for for cloaky ships. There needs to be a disadvantage to going invisible...

Fly safe!

-Stevie

PS- I voted for Ripard Teg for CSM. You should, too!

It's the End of the Eve as We Know It

2011-02-28T07:08:00.003-05:00

Welcome to the twenty-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 or so 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 to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check for other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month's topic comes to us from @Tetraetc - "Tetra's EVE Blog" - who asks:

"Have Alliances and the sovereignty system limited the amount of PVP and RP potential in Null sec? Imagine a Null Sec where anyone could build outposts wherever. Would the reduction of the alliance game mechanic, and the removal of the sovereignty game mechanics (or the modifcation of it from Alliance level to Corp level for that matter) force more PVP into Null sec, or would giant power blocs like the NC still form themselves?"

This blog banter asks way too many and way too confusing questions.

Do alliances and sovereignty limit the PvP potential in null-sec?
Do alliances and sovereignty limit the role-playing potential in null-sec?
Would the reduction of the alliance mechanic force more PvP?
Would the removal of sovereignty force more PvP?
Would the move of sovereigny from alliances to corps force more PvP?
If any of the above three changes occurred, would power blocs still exist?

I'm gonna deal with these systematically, because these questions doesn't flow particularly well.

First of all, do alliances and sovereignty limit the PvP potential of null-sec? No. Alliances do not limit the potential of PvP in null-sec. I believe that this actually allows for more PvP, because groups of players are more organized. I will point to my own M.Pire alliance as an example. We have a number of different corporations within our alliance: M.Corp Academy, M.Corp, M.Corp Germany, M.Corp Engineering, and M.Corp Ascension. If we had to perform all of our functions within one corporation, the situation would be rather confusing. With the alliance mechanic, M.Pire can splinter its operations and thus have less confusion result. M.Corp Academy trains the new players; M. Corp handles the PvP; M. Corp Germany allows our German players to speak German with each other; M.Corp Engineering mines and industries (I've now coined that as a verb); and M.Corp Ascension handles the administrative alliance duties such as sov structures and system upgrades. Some could argue that removing the alliance mechanic would cause different corporations to fight one another, but in reality, this would just cause more headaches for diplomats who need to set even more people blue.

Next up, do alliances and sovereignty limit the role-playing potential in null-sec? No. Alliances allow for more organized groups of role-players to band together and fight for a common cause. In fact, I'm sure they get a kick out of dramatized alliance politics when hardliner Amarr slavers and pro-slavery Minmatar have slight disagreements. Also, as we saw with CVA, sov-holding can contribute greatly to the role-playing by allowing fiery supporters of each faction to "gain space" in 0.0 for their respective overlords. The reason this model doesn't work is because there will always be fewer role-players than real-players, so role-playing alliances will constantly face superior numbers while competing for precious 0.0 space.

Moving right along, would the reduction of the alliance mechanic force more PvP? Here, I'm not quite sure what the "reduction of the alliance mechanic" would imply. For the sake of this argument, let us suppose that it means no more alliances. Yes. The elimination of alliances would result in much more PvP. At first, former alliances would try to blue up, but as individual pilots began to identify more and more strongly with their corp rather than "alliance," combat would escalate until there was fighting everywhere. Three cheers for pew!

Down the list more, would the removal of sovereignty force more PvP? If anyone at all considers this a solution, shame on them. Absolutely not. Some would like to think that corporations, freed from having to hold space, would roam the galaxy in search of pew. This is a terrible assumption. Supposing that everyone didn't unsubscribe after this terrible change, PvP would definitely decline, because pilots would have nothing to fight for. An endless stream of "goodfights" will never make up for the loss of motivation that would result from the inability to own space.

Coming up next, would the move of sovereignty from the alliance to the corp force more PvP? An interesting proposition, and I think yes. First of all, this would remove the need for alliances, except for organizational purposes. Then, as I stated above, corporations would soon grow more nationalistic and fight amongst each other. In addition, corporations would want to seek more lebensraum for themselves at the expense of ex-alliance mates. I do not, however, support this mechanic change.

Finally, with any of these changes, would power blocs still form? Yes. In Eve Online, bigger is always better. To gain an advantage of their opponents, corporations would grow larger and larger. Eventually, it would be more convenient to team up with other corporations rather than to grow even larger. As much as I hate to say it, until the Dominion sov mechanics are changed, power blocs are a way of life. Eve is like the real world more so than any other game, and thus there is greater safety in numbers.

Fly safe!

-Stevie

Participants:

CrazyKinux's Musing: EVE Blog Banter #25: And by Alliance you mean.....?

BB25 What sov changes will come? | A Mule In EvE

Confessions of a Closet Carebear: Alliances and Sovereignty

Blog Banter 25: Nerfing Nulsec « OMG! You're a Chick?!

Have Alliances and the sovereignty system limited the amount of PVP and RP potential in Null sec? | Nitpickin's

Blog Banter #25: Alliance and Sovereignty Limiting PvP in 0.0? | Sarnel Binora's Blog

Blog Banter #25 - Mad Haberdashers

Alliances and sovereignty | Eve Online Focus

...Shall we not Revenge?: BB 25: What if the Alliance vanished?

Blog Banter: Alliances and Sov

EVEOGANDA: BB25: Sov 'n Go!

» TBG:EBB#25 – Alliances and Sovereignty To Boldly Go

Freebooted: BB25: Leviathans of the Deep

Wrong Game Tetra ~ Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah

EVE Blog Banter #25 – Human nature what art thou? | Way of the Gun

Who cares about Sov? - Hands Off, My Loots! ~ well sorta like an entry! :p

The 25th EVE Blog Banter: Alliances and sovereignty - The Phoenix Diaries

Achernar: The space commute

Wandering the Void…my EvE musings. – Blog Banter: Alliances and sovereignty

(OOC) CK’s Blog Banter #25: How To Break EvE. « Prano's Journey

Captain Serenity: Blog Banter #25 - Crappy mechanics

Helicity Boson » Blog Banter #25 Nullsec and sov.

BB #25 – “With whom lie the advantages derived from Heaven and Earth?”

My Big Idea

2011-02-23T20:04:00.001-05:00

Less than six months into the game, and I'm thinking about organizing a community-wide project. Silly, I know. But hear me out, because I think this event will help the community solidify its own vision for the game, which we can then communicate to CCP through the CSM.

What I propose is a week-long "New Eden Economic Forum." My inspiration comes from the World Economic Forum, a gathering of world leaders to discuss world issues, and a TED conference, where you go to listen to people talk about a wide variety of topics.

In a perfect world, the NEEF (need a better acronym) would run for one week in June. Scattered throughout the week, there would be numerous panels and discussions where Eve leaders would discuss solutions to the game's problems and a vision for its future. Some discussions I have in mind are these:

Small-Fleet Combat: In this panel, our experts will discuss the problems surrounding small-fleet combat today. Once an understanding of the topic is reached, the experts will float ideas about how best to end the blob and make small-fleet PvP a viable option for small pirate gangs and large alliances alike.
The New Sov: The current sov-holding situation encourages mega-alliances with numerous renters. What are some ways that CCP could make the entry into 0.0 a possibility for small corporations and alliances?
Factional Warfare 2.0: Critics of CCP often point to FW as a case study of CCP's inability to iterate. Veterans of FW will offer their opinions on how the system can be made fun and workable again.
The Regional Trade Hub: As CCP openly admitted in a QEN, Jita has become the end-all and be-all of Eve's capitalist market. Some have blamed the ease of logistics, others have blamed the low prices of production in Empire space. The panel will examine the problems and propose fixes.
Super-Duper Capitals: As many a null-sec blog laments, supercaps are the "I Win" button of fleet combat. What can be done to make supercapitals balanced with respect to regular capitals and sub capitals?

I had a bigger list when I was dreaming this up a few nights ago, but with sleep comes forgetfulness. Using your feedback, however, we can think up a host of other topics, especially some that are less null-sec oriented.

So I have some example topics, what would I need to make this happen?

Forums: A gathering place is needed for the panel to hammer out discussion points as well as for the community to discuss the panels.
Chat Program: The event will require a TS/Vent/Mumble server. We don't need a whole server to our selves, of course, so I am sure that a willing corporation or alliance would be more than willing to give us a chat room or two.
Website: The website should list the event's schedule and provide links to downloadable discussions for future listening. While this could be done on a forum, I think a dedicated website would add a whole new layer of legitimacy and cleanliness to the conference.
Participation: To make this event a success, it will require participation from all parts of the Eve community. We'll need industrialists, PvP'ers, pirates, alliance leaders, and WH dwellers. Moreover, the panelists should come from beyond the blogoshpere and tweetfleet; we need to reach into the game and find participants who wouldn't normally look to the community for guidance.

Here is my fantastic vision. Any comments, suggestions, or offers for help that you have would be greatly appreciated.

Fly safe!

-Stevie

A Redo of Remaps

2011-02-20T21:13:00.000-05:00

A few months ago, CCP proposed the idea of allowing players to purchase neural remaps for PLEX. This would be their first implementation of micro-transactions. The playerbase response was, not surprisingly, negative. "I r pay $15 a munth for Eve! Why I pay more?" Under attack from the CSM and the players, CCP was forced to back down.

Which made me a little mad. I have the money to afford a neural remap every couple of months, why shouldn't I be allowed to have it? Critics argued that it would give me, a "rich" player, an unfair advantage over the "poor" players. This argument is flawed on multiple accounts. First of all, anyone that has an internet connection and can afford a computer is not "poor." Poor is when your house is made of salvaged scrap metal and your toilet is a hole in the ground. Secondly, the "advantage" that would be given to me is rather small. At most, I might cut a few weeks off of my training, but as all Eve players know, skillpoints aren't the end all and be all.

However, since CCP has been cowed and has now assured us that paid remaps are off the table, we need a new model. Being forced to play the "long game" alienates new players and reduces the flexibility of current players, so in the interest of New Eden's continued growth, I propose a new model. Instead of making remaps a yearly affair, they should be available 23/7. I said it, capsuleers should be able to remap whenever they feel like it.

"But wait!" says the bittervet, "We might as well get rid of remaps entirely, and that would make Eve less hardcore. Heresy!" To a certain extent, the bittervet has a point. If each and every skill is trained at the maximum SP/hr, then there is no reason to even have attributes. But what if by 23/7, I didn't mean 23/7? Cryptic, I know. Before you start spouting flames, here is my idea:

Capsuleers can remap whenever they wish.
Each remap, however, results in a 3-5 day "cool-down" period, during which no skills can be trained.
Capsuleers are thus encouraged to remap only when the time saved is greater than the cool-down period.
From a role-playing perspective, capsuleers need to rest their minds after the dangerous neural remapping surgery and can thus not train skills.

Sounds good, right? This approach has many benefits to the players. First and foremost, players have increased flexibility. Turn your attention to this hypothetical example:

Stevie really wanted to start his own mega-corp. To do that faster, he remapped to favor Charisma. Two months into the corp's lifetime, however, there was a heist, in which his 300 Titan BPO's were stolen. Furious, Stevie vowed to become an elite PVPer and hunt down the thief. But wait! With no extra attributes in Perception, to progress to Caldari Battleship V, it will take 178 days! If only he could remap and lower the training time to 148 days. Now, he is stuck with ten more months low SP/hr for Spaceship Command. Poor Stevie.

With remaps coming only once a year, players are discouraged from changing professions or even focusing in different areas, such as training ECM when you've remapped for Spaceship Command. By allowing players to remap whenever, CCP would increase the scope of the sandbox, as players could quickly switch between careers to find the one they truly enjoy. This strategy would also have the benefit of helping new players surmount the learning ~~curve~~ cliff. They would still be encouraged to plan long-term to make up for the cool-down time, but the newbies would not have to worry about locking themselves into a particular play style for the duration of the year.

Moreover, unlimited remaps would help current players, who have achieved their goals in one skill area and now wish to move on. What's so wrong about that?

The one thing I have not been able to decide myself is the length of the cool-down period. It should be long enough that remapping warrants some thought, but it should not take a whole year to make up the difference. In the example of Stevie, I planned the following skills to Level V (Spaceship Command, Frigate, Destroyer, Cruiser, Battlecruiser, Battleship, Missile Launcher Operation, Standard Missiles, Heavy Missiles). From base stats, the remapping made a month's difference. I'm in favor of a shorter cool-down to facilitate skill training, but I understand a longer one make these decisions more serious.

Do you have thoughts on my system? Drop me a line in the comments section, and your feedback will be taken into consideration before I post this in the Assembly Hall.

Fly safe!

-Stevie

CSM6: The Race So Far

2011-02-14T22:11:00.001-05:00

The CSM6 election process has just gotten underway, and already many candidates have stepped up. Inspired by Mynxee, I will tell you about my favorite candidates. Consider this an early endorsement, though I don't think I am a famous enough blogger to actually endorse candidates... We shall see. Anyway, candidates:

Trebor Daehdoow. The informed among you know that Trebor was a hard-working delegate on CSM5. For those of you who are uninformed, you have been informed. Trebor has made huge strides in giving us, the capsuleers, a voice in what the CSM asks for from CCP. I feel that his actions on the behalf of the community, as well as his experience, show that he is perfectly cut out for the job. Also, Trebor conducted what I thought to be an exceedingly thoughtful and informative interview on the latest (or second latest?) Lost in Eve podcast. The man knows his stuff, and if you know yours, you will vote for him.
Seleene. Seleene is the CEO of the infamous Mercenary Coalition. He has also worked as a developer at CCP. I feel that the skill set Seleene brings to the table, along with his experience maneuvering around CCP, lends itself perfectly to a seat on CSM6. Seleene's main priority is the iteration and balancing of current features, which we can all agree is desperately needed. He also thinks that this will bring new content, though I am more skeptical about that.
Roc Wieler. Wiz Khalifa comes to mind here, because with Roc, "You know who it is..." Roc is famous for his excellent blogging and his Capsuleer app (soon to be updated, according to #tweetfleet). What gets me the most excited about Roc, however, is his excellent kick-off blog post. He promises to be all about the community, and based on his track record, I believe him. Also important is the fact that he promises not to "overpromise." We all know CCP can be tough to work with, and Roc knows that, too. He will shout down CCP with the community's voice, and where pertinent, he will bring up some of his own great ideas, detailed in the above-linked post.

So, I urge you all to gear up for election season and strongly consider these three candidates that I present to you. Now, for that endorsement deal...

Fly safe!

-Stevie

Update: It seems that I lied about Roc's updated app... I could have sworn I saw pictures of some EVE iPod app on tweetfleet, but my eyes do deceive me occasionally.

New Corp

2011-02-11T23:06:00.000-05:00

I'd like to start off by apologizing for not posting during the week. It's something I feel that I always tell myself to do, but fail to follow up on. Oh well, the best I can do is try.

Anyway, this post has two purposes. The first is to let you all know that I have been accepted into M.Corp Academy. I've begun my Eve University title-droppin' period, and by tomorrow night, I'll hopefully be headed to null-sec. I am excited by the new opportunities offered by M.Corp and the M.Pire alliance, but I am also a little worried. My biggest concern is making money. As you may or may not know, I started out my EVE career by buying two PLEX: one for game time, the other for ISK. I've lived off of that rather well, and I'm not even halfway depleted. If I start losing 20mil ships (like my Taranis is fitted), though, I'll need new income, fast. My long-term goal is to get a second account, which will be my industrial side, mining and hauling and all that good stuff. But before I do that, I'd like to at least achieve positive cash flow ratting or something.

Before I get to point two, I'd just like to say that I really enjoyed my time in Eve University. I think everyone there provides a great service to the community, and I am especially thankful for my first fleet experiences. Hopefully, I'll be able to give back to New Eden someday, too.

Now, onto point two. I'm sure that you've all heard about the revival of Fiddler's Edge. All I have to say is that FE is an incredible blog and that you better be readin' it. The success of Mord has led me to another conclusion, though: For one's blog to be successful, it has to focus on issues, not just fun roam stories or updates.

I have run into a couple "bad" blogs like the ones mentioned above. First and foremost are WHore blogs. While I do enjoy reading some of them, stay too long and you start to notice patterns: "I scanned my system, saw an enemy, switched ships, he was gone, I jumped through a hole, etc..." The only excitement occurs when, "The hole I jumped through broke down! Now I have 28 jumps to get back to my system. Luckily it's hi-sec."

The second type of blog is full of "roamin' tales." It's pretty much a pirate/small-gang PvP'er telling you that they gatecamped, killed a few ships, and--oh would you look at that!--lost one. This is embodied by the recent posts on Rifter Drifter. If you recall Wensley's Catch-22 series, that is the kind of writing that generates traffic, not details on one's small-scale fleet ops.

The third and final type, in my opinion, is rare. It is the industrialist blog. These writers detail planetary interaction, market orders, and the status of BPC's. I used to get this stuff from Letrange all the time, but his writing has gotten much more exciting recently.

So there you have, the three types of boring blogs. What do you need to be successful? Perspective on 0.0 politics or game-wide issues. Hopefully, I'll be getting both to you soon.

Fly safe!

-Stevie

PS- I don't want to diss Wensley or Letrange. Although they sometimes fall in the category of blog I don't like, I still read them, because they have a great writing style. Keep up the good work, everyone!

Tin Can Radio

2011-02-06T22:03:00.000-05:00

As I've mentioned before, finding news about null-sec is hard to do. To learn anything, I have to synthesize a bunch of sources (a task usually reserved for English class) or hunt down the one blog that has everything in order.

This is especially the case with the fall of IT. Yeah, some news websites are reporting it, but I'm still thoroughly confused as to what's actually happening. Okay, corps are leaving, IT is screwed, but why hasn't the sov map changed much? Questions like these continue to haunt my waking moments. However, just because the literature is incomprehensible doesn't mean it's not good. For example, check out Easley Thames's excellent post about the drama that is bringing down IT. In addition, the comments section is filled with juicy discussion surrounding Sir Molle. I don't know much about the guy, but hopefully he won't be taking the reigns at Raiden., an alliance that puts a silly period at the end.

In Stevie news, I am in the process of applying to M.Corp Academy. Things seem to be going better than they did at Agony.

So, everyone have a good week; I'll be posting sometime soon once I get word on my application or have time to play EVE.

Fly safe!

-Stevie

Freedom of the Press

2011-01-30T20:16:00.002-05:00

The recent drama in 0.0 has given rise to much in-game conflict. Seemingly more ferocious, however, is the fight regarding the reporting of the conflict.

For new, hi-sec players like myself, null-sec politics is a rather mysterious affair. All of the regions meld together, the different alliances (for the most part) don't seem that different, and the systems all have indistinguishable names. There are only a few ways to find out what goes down in 0.0:

Have a friend who lives there and can give you the inside scoop. This method can be biased and is hobbled by Operation Security.
Read the blog of a pilot who flies out there. Again, maybe biased and censored.
Read the CAOD forum. Oftentimes makes no sense; full of trolls.
Read an EVE News website that summarizes and simplifies the complex events of null-sec.

To me, the second and fourth options seem the best. Being a blogger myself, I'm inclined to favor blogs for my news. Nevertheless, I often find insular reports of what goes on; it is extremely difficult to tie together the different accounts of different bloggers, living on different fronts, fighting for different sides. Thus, it seems like a comprehensive news source is the best way for scaredy-cats like me to get the down-low on 0.0.

There are three main sites that I know of: evenews.co.uk, Eve News 24, and Eve Tribune. Each of these sites has their strengths and weaknesses.

Eve News UK: Does little independent reporting. The majority of their stuff is just linked from CCP's own site. Moreover, the Eve news is distorted by the "Tech News" section, which is cool but doesn't make me think of an ultimate Eve news source.

Eve Tribune: My favorite site. The Tribune provides well-written, in-depth reporting. The only problem is that news is slowwww... They've made strides towards instant gratification with a new RSS feed, but they still aren't a nimble news source.

Eve News 24: Most up-to-date news. This news, however, is usually very biased and shoddily written. This site could be the ultimate in Eve reporting, if only they learned about fairness and the duty of a journalist to record all sides of a story.

Okay, so we've profiled these sites, now why are there issues? Mainly, the problems arise from Eve News 24. My complaint is that the journalism is shoddy and sensational. Articles routinely contain both factual and (irritatingly) spelling errors. For example, read this interview that they conducted. The writer obviously had no editor, asked stupid questions, and did not present a flowing and informative interview. That doesn't have the community up in arms, however. What angers people is their undeniably pro-Pandemic Legion spin. One angry commenter went so far to refer to them as the "FOX news of Eve." Ouch.

This raises questions about the site's mission, as well as that of all Eve critics and bloggers. In a perfect world, we would all bring unbiased, complete, and objective news to our readers. Sadly, everything we write is colored by our views and our experiences. Manasi sums it up quite well:

One slight note with EN24, your only ever getting someone else’s view of the conflict, the true version is somewhere between two completely opposing sides.

True, but since that objective medium is impossible to find, should we just say nothing? I don't think so. I think we should report our side of the story, getting whatever we find out to the community. It is their call to make judgments on the truthfulness and usefulness of information. Eve News 24 provides a service to the community by giving us an inkling of what goes on in 0.0 space. Is it totally correct? Does Pandemic Legion always inflict massive losses on the enemy and only retreat when server lag dictates? Of course not, but because of EN24, I know that PL is fighting out there, I know that Goonswarm is seeking revenge on IT, and I know that there is something going on in 6VDT-H. While I regret the spinning of the story, I'm just happy that there is a story.

I encourage you all to chill out about journalistic bias: you've been there yourself. The best way to reform our news sources is by providing them with good news. If PL wasn't the only alliance sending regular reports to EN24, then the site would offer a much more complete and uncolored picture. So everyone go do a service to the Eve community and get your news out there, drivel or not.

Thoughts?

-Stevie

I R Pee-Vee-Peed! Almost...

2011-01-28T18:56:00.000-05:00

For those of you who are worried about my education, I did go to school today. But I came home, because our school is under construction, the dust from which caused me to feel sick all over again. Luckily, that meant that I got to play EVE!

I logged on and ran some missions for the Republic Fleet. My agent is Level One and -8 quality, but the missions are really easy, so I don't mind. On our Ivy League Navy chat channel, I heard rumblings of an upcoming roam. Elated for my first PvP opportunity, I flew back to my home base and hopped into my Taranis. To it, I added a rig for agility and one for armor; I then waited for the fleet to form up.

This took an incredibly long time, however, mainly because we just switched from TeamSpeak 2 to Mumble, which I like a lot better. Once we fleeted up, everyone warped to our POS. The fleet commander kept telling me that I was in the wrong squad, but I had no clue what squad I was in. I eventually found that my fleet list was in alphabetical order, not under a hierarchy. I fixed that and added myself to the Squad 2 Mumble Channel. Even after that, the fleet took a long time to form up. Our FC was foreign (German, I think), but he was only hard to understand when pronouncing complex system names. In fact, his voice was very calming; had he said, "This is your captain speaking," I would have reached for my seatbelt.

Anyway, an hour after talk of the fleet had started, we were ready to warp out of our staging system. The FC asked if everyone knew what some terms were: Jump, Jump on Contact, Defensive Gate Camp, and Offensive Gate Camp. I surmised what the first too meant (and they were even easier to decipher in context), but I was confused about the last two. It ended up that, for me, they were the same thing: orbit the gate at 1,000m. Easy enough.

We all aligned for warp and started on our roam. It took us about three high-sec systems before we got into low-sec. You wanna know something embarrassing? On the jump into our first 0.4 system, I left after everyone, because I had to click through the dialogue box that said: "LowSec is dangerous. Will you pussy out?" I was sure to check "Don't Show This Again." Anyway, I jumped in and caught up with the fleet. We proceeded to go through about three systems, chasing a "flashy." Half an hour into the roam, our scout reported a fleet of flashies! My squad was chosen to be bait squad. I added the scout to my watchlist and prepared to jump through.

"Actually, Squad 3, you be the bait squad." Damnit. I waited, though, eager to go point some flashy freaks. We jumped, but the flashies were nowhere to be found. We followed them through yet another gate but never made any contact. By this time, it was 5:00 (word of the roam spread at 3:00), and I had to log off and pick up my brother from swim practice. Lame, right? Not actually, because we went to Buy One Get One Free Chipotle burrito night after that. That was the end of my roam, though, so I wished the fleet good luck and docked somewhere in LowSec. I've been assured that, in an interceptor, my journey home will be painless.

So, cool roam, right? I'm looking forward to my next one, and I will be sure to dedicate at least three hours for it. Also, I'd like to give a shoutout to my one, new follower. Tell all your friends!

Fly safe!

-Stevie

Wrapping Up the Day

2011-01-26T17:43:00.000-05:00

I have been posting an awful lot, I know. It's because I have pneumonia. Yuch...

Anyway, I just wanna wrap up some stuff that's been on mind. First things first: everybody should check out the patch notes for tomorrow's patch. Boring stuff, mostly, but I'm most excited for "Dock" to be somewhere visible, as in not the bottom of the click menu. There's some good stuff for PvP'ers, too. As some of you know, there have been a variety of Overview bugs (like the one detailed on EVEOGANDA); these will be fixed.

Also, I did a little mining today. Sadly, it's super boring, and I need a 100x bigger cargohold. I've started training for an Iteron so I can make myself useful for something other than tackling. Wait. I'm useful at tackling? Actually, yes, because I bought myself a brand new Taranis. From what I've read, I created an anti-Tackler Tackler.

High slots:

Three Neutron Blasters

Mid slots:

MWD II
Webifier II
Warp Disruptor II

Low slots:

Damage Control II
I-A Polarized Armor Repair
Micro Auxiliary Power Core

Pretty cool, huh?

To end the day, I'd like to direct you all to EVENews24 and EVE Tribune. Reading these two sites makes me feel like a part of a much larger game. EN24 provides fast, sensational news reporting, but everyone complains about bias. ET has had a poor history of posting regularly, but Kirith assures us that they're back. The latter site has much better writing and analysis, but it isn't updated as nearly as often.

Anyway, that's all for today. I'll be back with more stuff tomorrow. Until then.

Fly safe!

-Stevie

Applications! (Not For College)

2011-01-26T13:36:00.001-05:00

I just want you all to know that I have applied to be a member of Agony. Not a class, but an actual corp member. My application seemed a little weak, because it asked about PvP stuff, which I could only answer with a, "No PvP... yet?" I hope that the admissions counselor, er, recruiter will look fondly on my application, though. Good luck to me!

Fly safe!

-Stevie

Update: Rejected. And rather quickly at that. I'm "a bit too inexperienced." Aren't there corporations that I just join and then learn as I go? I don't wanna take courses...

Blog Banter 24

2011-01-25T23:18:00.005-05:00

Welcome to the twenty-fourth 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 or so 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 to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check for other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month's Banter topic comes to us from the ever helpful Eelis Kiy, capsuleer behind the "Where the frack is my ship" blog. She asks: How does your real life personality compare to who you are as a character in EVE? Does a good leader of people in the real world make a good leader of pilots in game? Or vice-versa? Do your real-life skills help you with the roles you fulfill in your corporation or alliance? Or do you behave completely differently? Does the anonymity of the Internet allow you to thrive on the tears of others in New Eden whilst you work as a good Samaritan away from your keyboard? Or are you as mean outside of your pod as you are inside it? Have experiences in EVE Online affected your behavior, skills or attitudes outside of the game?

This is a deep question, and not really one that I have the experience to answer. Nonetheless, I'll give it a shot.

Does my real life personality compare to my EVE character? Short answer, yes. Long answer, yes. I've never been good at producing a facade for people. Hell, I even find it difficult to be nerdy with one group of friends and cool with the other. It usually blends into a not-totally-socially-hopeless geek image. I feel confident in saying that my in-game personality matches my real life personality.

Does a leader in the real world make a good in-game leader? Of course. The only time this would not hold true is if the in-game leader has not lived up to his potential in the real world. Leaders are made by their drive, organization, and "people skills." All of these translate seamlessly between EVE and planet earth.

Needless to say, the answers to the rest of this multi-part question are the same: one's EVE personality will reflect one's real life personality. The last question is a little different, though. Has an EVE experience affected my real world behavior? Not at all, but I'm sure that is only because I have not played the game enough yet. Trust me, it'll get there.

Fly safe!

-Stevie

List of participants:

EVE Blog Banter #24: Be, all that you can be, and so much more!

BB24:RL + EVE = | A Mule In EvE

Freebooted: BB 24: You Talking to Me?

where the frack is my ship?: Blog Banter 24: Behind the keyboard

(OOC) CK’s Blog Banter #24: I Am Prano. « Prano's Journey

mikeazariah » Blog Archive » BB24 Who are you, who hoo woo hoo

Drifting: The 24th EVE Blog Banter (January 2011 Edition) - Topic: EVE and Real Life

Victoria Aut Mors » Blog Archive » Eve Blog Banter #24 – Where Eve Meets Real Life

Who is more real?? « The Durzo Chronicles

Captain Serenity: blog banter #24 - Personalities

Confessions of a Closet Carebear: EVE and Real Life (EVE Blog Banter #24)

The 24th EVE Blog Banter - EVE and Real Life - The Phoenix Diaries

» EvE Blog Banter #24: EVE and Real Life EvE Blasphemy

Blog Banter 24: In Real Life « Yarrbear Tales

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Alt « the hydrostatic capsule

Blog Banter #24 – Me « Roc's Ramblings

I'm Back... No, Really

2011-01-25T15:00:00.000-05:00

Dear Two Followers and EVE Online,

I am happy to make my triumphant return to EVE. College stuff is done, and now it's just the long waiting until April 1st, when I will have all of my decisions. For your information, I have applied to the following colleges and universities:

MIT (they deferred me in Early Action; first choice)
Harvard
Columbia
Stanford
Carnegie Mellon
Washington University in St. Louis
University of Virginia
Centre College

A pretty prestigious list, I know. How do I plan to pay for it? Centre, WashU, and UVA offer scholarships; at the rest, I would do ROTC. But now that I've finished the life update, I'll talk about EVE.

Today was the first day in a long time that I've been able to do anything more than update my skills. I ran a mission, made some ISK, and consolidated some of my stuff. Pretty basic, but it's the first step to getting back into the game.

What about Incursion? Well, I haven't been to any of the post-expansion events (though I went to one a few months ago), but I have thoroughly enjoyed the character creator. Character customization is my favorite part of any and every video game, so needless to say, I was delighted by this. I tried to make my character looks as much like me as possible, but I was turned off by a few things. For one, there were too few hairstyles. The one that most emulated me was the one that was the least "out there," so I feel that it will be little overused. Also, why are we forced to wear makeup? I know you can turn the opacity all the way down, but it's just kinda odd. Along the lines of color, though, I feel that clothes should be completely customizable in regards to color. The drab olive, camo, and black swatches were too run-of-the-mill. Finally, although my character's chin was rather narrow, in portrait mode it got all big and fat. So I look like a chub in my picture.

Anyway, that's all that I have to blog about now, but be ready for more posts and a Blog Banter. For the latter, I'm not sure if I'll do the most recent one or just wait for next month's. Dilemma...

Fly safe!

-Stevie

College Visit and Blogging

2010-09-22T22:27:00.000-04:00

I have not made any posts recently, because I have been swamped with homework, college applications, my Eagle Scout project, and arguably most importantly, Halo Reach. I will be visiting Washington University in St. Louis this Thursday and Friday, and when I return, I will come back to the blog, also. After this week, school will have slowed down a lot, and I feel that I will be able to devote more time to EVE. Until then, sit tight.

Fly safe!

-Stevie

The Road to PvP

2010-09-12T11:20:00.000-04:00

EVE revolves around PvP. Industrialists build ships to replace those lost in PvP, mission runners are usually PvP'ers making cash, and traders supply the PvP'ers. CCP itself constantly stresses PvP as a means of advertising, but it is quite difficult for new players to get in on the action. To jump-start the process, I signed up for the Ivy League Navy, EVE University's defense force. I was initially wary about committing to a three month tour of duty, but I realize that it will take me about that long to get my PvP skills up to par.

If you're a regular reader, you know that I love to talk about my EVEMon skill plan. I'm on my final learning skill right now. I then move to training Cybernetics for some powerful new learning implants, Engineering for powergrid output, Mechanic for structure hitpoints, and Electronics for CPU output. After these all-around skills are done, I start on Navigation and Gunnery skills. By the time my 90-day tour of duty is up, I'll be able to fly Interceptors and Battlecruisers with more accurate and more powerful guns.

I haven't been on any roams with my battlegroup, but I hope to have cool stories once I do.

Fly safe!

-Stevie

The Great Migration

2010-09-05T00:57:00.001-04:00

As you learned about a week ago, I joined EVE University. Wanting to be an active member of the corp and not being particularly happy with my slice of Caldari space around Jita, I moved down to their headquarters in Aldrat. I sold everything nonessential, including my Tristan and Navitas, and went cruising through the galaxy in my Thorax. I set up shop, bought a new Tristan, and then laid low for a few days. Now that I was down here, I realized that there wasn't much to do.

Today, I decided that I'd take advantage of their Jump Clone program, having listened to a recorded lecture on the subject already. I began to head up to Isikano, where the Uni has high standing with an out-of-the-way NPC corp. On the way, the corp chat channel started buzzing with word of a Sansha's invasion of Urlen. Intrigued, I fleeted up with three corp members and headed for the action. After jumping into Urlen, I aligned for warp and appeared in the middle of a giant blob. Red Sansha's vessels, mostly neutral players, and a bunch of yellow wrecks littered the screen.

The only useful fittings on my Tristan were the two blasters and the webifiers. I started by webbing some Sansha's Tyrants, which I firmly believe allowed some people with real ships to kill them. After that, I started focusing on Sansha's Loyal Raveners, which were webifieing my fellow capsuleers. I would web them and then orbit at 500m, tearing them up with my blasters. I did this to a couple ships, but while I was intently pecking away at my fleet chat box, I looked up to see that I was taking massive damage. In a matter of seconds, I had gone to half armor. I quickly activated my armor repairer, turned on the Afterburner, and warped to a station. There, I quickly recovered and returned to the fight. By the time I returned, it was over. Apparently, a final Sansha's Carrier had come and been destroyed by the capsuleers.

I surveyed the battlefield, which was made almost entirely of yellow wrecks, which I could not have. By scrutinizing the overview, however, I was able to find one white wreck from a Ravener that I had destroyed. Overjoyed, I flew to it and found a shield recharger and some cap charges. When I docked into the nearest station to log off, I found that I was the proud owner of a million ISK for bounties. Lots of excitement with pay?!? Overall, not a bad day.

Fly safe!

-Stevie

New EVE Online Trailer

2010-09-03T18:36:00.001-04:00

All hail the Causality trailer. Legit shit here.

There is also a contest to win sweet prizes such as:

An EVE Online Gaming PC
SteelSeries Keyboard and Mouse
EVE Online Mousepad and Decals

I have the keyboard that they'll be giving away, and it's awesome. Be sure to enter!

Now, I hope you were paying attention to the video. If not, rewatch 1:56 to 2:00. I think this part is very cool, because it relates to us as players versus the masses CCP is trying to attract. Simple things like this go a long way to improving the game. However, fixes to numerous other things need to happen before docking animations. Fleet lag, I'm looking at you.

Fly safe!

-Stevie

Fitting In

2010-08-30T22:01:00.000-04:00

It's official! As of yesterday, I am a member of EVE University, part of the Ivy League alliance. After weeks of waiting, I finally got an interview Sunday at around 11:00 EST. It went smoothly, and I was accepted. I had to go to work, however, so it wasn't until I got back that I was able to do other induction activities such as: registering on the forum, setting up TeamSpeak, and other such tasks. Needless to say, I am excited for when I can log some real playing time with the Uni.

Fly safe!

-Stevie

Long-Term Relationships

2010-08-25T22:06:00.001-04:00

Out of all the video games out there, EVE probably requires the most commitment. Second place would go to Animal Crossing, because if you want to do everything and collect every item, you have to play for at least one calendar year.

Anyway, I am preparing to enter into a long-term relationship with EVE. Over the past few weeks, I've been developing a one-year skill plan. I will be taking advantage of the two neural remaps offered to players in the first year.

In the next three weeks, I will have all basic learning skills at V and advanced ones at IV. For the next six months after that, I will be training Navigation, Gunnery, and Spaceship Command skills. I aim to be almost fully proficient in Hybrid Turrets and associated damage/tracking skills. I want to be able to use MWD's to their full potential and use as little cap as necessary for both MWD's and the full-on Warp Drive. As for ships, I will be able to fly Battlecruisers, Gallente Cruisers, and Interceptors. This phase calls for crazy Perception and some Willpower.

In the second six months of my plan, I will be training rigging, resistance, and ship upgrading skills. Jump Clones and Implants skills are on the list for V, as well as Targeting, Hull Upgrades, and Mechanic. Here I need crazy Intelligence and some Memory.

I know it may seem silly to fly all the ships first and then worry about making them effective, but I have decided that I'd rather gain experience in an ineffective ship versus twiddling my thumbs in a Frigate or Cruiser for six months while it becomes incrementally more powerful.

It's odd to think that this endeavor could cost me $180 if I don't find a very effective way to make ISK. I am, however, hopeful at he prospect of running some good missions or joining a good corp.

Fly safe!

-Stevie

You're Doing It Wrong!

2010-08-20T21:22:00.002-04:00

I finally figured out why my Cruiser couldn't hit anything... It's a Cruiser! Even though I was webifying (Tricky EVE spelling...) my targets, my blasters' tracking was too slow. What kind of targets am I shooting at? Level I mission targets: rogue drones, frigates, more frigates, etc. But until I can move up to Level II missions, I'm stuck.

Luckily, I found a solution: outfitting myself with a crazy Tristan. Now, my set-ups are nothing to brag about, so I'm not even gonna attempt to post it. It gets the job done, however. Frigates are sweet, but shuttles are even sweeter. I bought one to go retrieve my Tristan, my Thorax having just hauled outlying stuff to my home station in Amsen, and it was speedy-fast. If they had medium slots, I would totally slap a MWD on one, because there is nothing wrong with too much speed.

Currently, I am finishing up Spaceship Command V. After that, I plan to spend two weeks finishing off my learning skills. I'm going to bring all the basic skills up to Level V and the advanced learning skills to Level IV. Then, I'm going to get myself into an Interceptor, per Manasi's advice. By then, I'll be well past 3M skillpoints, and I will attempt to join Star Defender's corporation if they'll have me.

Fly safe!

-Stevie

PS- Thanks to CrazyKinux for adding me to the EVE Online Player Blog list.

PPS- To be clear, that is the list that everyone's blog goes on, not the Blog Pack. But maybe someday...

Which Way Does It Shoot?

2010-08-17T16:33:00.001-04:00

That seems to be the question I'm asking myself more and more. I wanted to buy a Gallente ship, because they are, in my opinion, the coolest looking ships. In addition to aesthetics, however, they use Hybrid Turrets, the small version of which I had already trained in my Caldari tutorial. I am currently flying around a Thorax and attempting to use it as a blaster boat. As we learned in my last post, however, it isn't working. Even with an afterburner, I cannot get within the blasters' optimal range. Even 500m outside their optimal range, they never hit! Thus, I decided to try a rail gun. It's optimal range was longer than it's accuracy fall-off, which seems kind of confusing. When I orbit at 5,000m, I don't hit anything; when I orbit at 7,500m, I don't hit anything. If I constantly switch between 5,000m and 7,500m, though, I will hit one shot whenever I cross a secret line. Needless to say, this isn't working, so I am currently researching alternatives. My next choice would be Caldari, because I already have Caldari Frigate trained to V. Missiles don't appeal to me, though... *sigh* Life in EVE can be so stressful at times.

The good news: I'm moving up in the EVE University qeueu! The bad news: in the time it's taken, I feel that I need them less and less...

Fly safe!

-Stevie

Close Encounters of the Newb Kind

2010-08-11T20:39:00.000-04:00

I am, at the moment, bored with EVE, because EVE-University has an odd interview queue process. I can wait in the queue for an hour an end up in a spot behind the one where I started. I guess it'll be a while before I can join them.

In the meantime, I have run off to do some agent missions. I started one in Malkalen, and I was sent to pick up an Amarr diplomat at the Amarr-Caldari Mediation Center, which was luckily in my home system. I warped to the Deadspace Encounter, activated the gate, and appeared near this huge, Star Wars-looking station. I got within 500m of the station and tried unsuccessfully to open the cargo. There was no cargo! Meanwhile, a Republic Thrasher began to take potshots at me from 11km. I ordered my Thorax to orbit him at 500m, because I was really itching to destroy him with my five Anode Particle Blasters. I couldn't get within 10km to use my webifier, though. I booted up the MWD to scoot in close, but "interference in the area" prevented me from activating it. Okay, I thought, I can't kill him, but I can run. Wrong! I aligned for warp and began to drift into the structure. Warp to Station. Wrong! My ship started moving up and down like a see-saw. Okay, I'll just log off.

Now, I've only ever logged off in a station. What will happen if I log off in space? Log back on quickly, and he's still sniping. By now, I'm below half armor (he's been at it for a while). Try warping again, and... Success. I return home and repair. I contemplate buying a ship to go after him, but I just decide to try again. This time, I notice a cargo container. Perfect. I roll up to and pick up the Amarr diplomat before my shields are even 1/4 depleted. My reward was 30,000 ISK and 10 LP to the Caldari Navy. Phooey!

That was too hard for a Level I mission.

Fly safe.

-Stevie

Lost and Confused

2010-08-09T19:22:00.003-04:00

Today, I finished the last of the tutorial missions. I then sold all of my non-essential gear and loaded the rest up into my Merlin. Sadly, I don't have a destination. I've applied to EVE University, but I haven't gone in for an interview due to my lack of mic, though I'm not even sure if a mic is needed... I should probably check that out. Anyway, the plan is to finish up my learning skills, which is gonna take forever, because I was a silly goose and didn't fully utilize my 100% skill training boost.

So far, I've trained Learning and Analytical Mind up to 5; Logic is a few days away from level 5; the other basic learning skills are all at Level 4. I haven't even started on the advanced learning skills, because I haven't even reached 3 million ISK yet (and each book is 4.5 million ISK!). After the learning skills are trained, I plan to get into a Thorax, which I can already fly but not afford. And after I'm comfy in a T1 cruiser, I'm gonna start training HAC's to make myself useful in 0.0. By then, I'll be well over 3M skillpoints and able to join an 0.0 corporation.

Now, dear readers, I need your opinion: should I buy a real-life PLEX and sell it for game-life money? The 300 million ISK it would garner would last me for quite a while, but losing real money for ISK just doesn't feel like such a good thing to me. I have, however, just gotten $36 for an EVGA rebate, so maybe... I'll need to mull it over.

Fly safe!

-Steve

Legitimate Ground for EmoRageQuit

2010-08-09T11:06:00.002-04:00

Ogle at this killmail. A pilot named "aystra" was flying a frigate, in Jita, under a war-dec, with 74 PLEXes! All of the PLEXes were destroyed by the gank of a lifetime. This could be one of EVE's biggest oh shit moments, because around $1300 in real money was lost. I'm just a voice in the crowd here, but make sure you go check out everyone's take on it. Cailais has some very interesting things to say about the situation at his blog, The Hydrostatic Capsule.

Fly safe(r than this unlucky due)!

-Steve

The Way to Play

2010-08-08T11:07:00.000-04:00

Are you a Mac or a PC? My family was a Mac one, and thus, I was prohibited from playing EVE for a long time. I decided to break the mold, however, and build my own PC. It is beautiful, and I love it. Now, I will till you about it:

Processor: Core i5-750 @ stock speeds

Motherboard: EVGA P55 SLI

Memory: GSkill ECO Series (1600MHz, 7-8-7 cas latency)

Hard Drive: Samsung Spinpoint F3 (500GB)

Graphics Card: Asus Radeon 5770

Power Supply: Corsair 650HX

Chassis: CM 690II Basic

Monitor: Dell U2211H

Keyboard: SteelSeries 7G

Mouse: Logitech MX518

My help and inspiration were the friendly people at overclock.net. That website has a great and helpful community, and if you're building for the first time, I recommend that you check it out.

Some EVE-related stuff is coming soon, but that's all for now.

Fly safe!

-Steve

EVE Online: My First MMO

2010-08-08T00:28:00.001-04:00

Hello, everyone. My name is Stephen; I am a Senior in high school; and EVE Online is the first Massively Multiplayer Game I have ever played. For almost a year, I was obsessed with EVE, but I could not play on my iMac G5. During that year, I even tried writing a blog called "Planetside Perspective" about EVE, but other player blogs, press releases, and the in-game board didn't provide me enough to write about. As of three weeks ago, however, I built my first Windows computer and immediately signed up for EVE. Now, I have too much to write about.

I am currently training learning skills and playing the tutorials, but shortly, I'll have adventures to write about.

Fly Safe!

-Steve