Registering for No Remorse. IRC

Here's a quick and dirty guide to registering on No Remorse. IRC so that we can stay in contact during the day, ping for fleets, and do all that cool stuff.

1. Download Xchat here.

2. Install Xchat.

3. Set your nicknames, and create a Stratics server group, like this:

4. Click Edit, and fill out the following information, skipping the "ur password" part for now:

5. Press the Connect button on the Network List.

6. You should join the #no-remorse channel.

7. Pop out to the server tab, and register your nickname as follows:

/nickserv register YOURPASSWORD

8. Quit out of Xchat.

9. Restart.  Edit the Stratics server group again, and put your password into the "ur password" field.  Save and connect.  You may want to check the "Autoconnect at startup" box in the Edit Stratics window and the "Skip network list on startup" box in the Network List window.

10. On the server tab again, type:

/msg NickServ IDENTIFY YOURPASSWORD

11.  You are now registered, and should be set to auto-join the channel.  If not, be sure to type:

/join #no-remorse rainbow

12. Now stay logged on to IRC to talk smack, watch for fleet pings, and pretend it's the 1990's and IRC is cool.


Also, I used to be a nerd and write an Eve Blog.  WOT DO?:

PS- You can join us from your mobile device, too!

http://colloquy.mobi/ is a good iOS app, and Android users should hit up http://www.yaaic.org/

Don't ask me how to set these up, though.

Back in Action

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

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

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

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

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

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