Category: blogpack

BB #47–Wise men say

Intro:

Ripard Teg over at Jester’s Trek wrote a post called Don’t Do Anything Stupid and offered it as the basis of a Blog Banter as he is curious what others feel on the subject. Personally, I’m restarting manufacturing that I haven’t done in years and finding myself having forgotten almost as much as I knew the first time around.

So this month’s Blog Banter will gravitate around knowledge, specifically EVE knowledge. Some examples of topics to cover: Is EVE too complex for one person to know everything? Is it, in fact, too complex for one person to know everything about one topic? How do you maintain any knowledge or skills related to EVE over time with breaks and expansions? Does CCP do a sufficient job documenting the features of the game, and if not, what could they do better? How does one determine where the gaps in their knowledge even are?

My response 

We all know that famous pic of Eve’s learning curve. The thing with Eve in my opinion is that it’s it more overwhelming than it is difficult. There are many things to do and a lot of things to learn so as a new player (and more so in the past than it is now with the new tutorials) that you just don’t know where to start.

Once you learn the basics though, common sense does take you a long way. Fitting ships for example is not too hard once you grasp the basics of shield and armor tanking. Of course there are some specialist roles / ships that need some more knowledge, but that’s what blogs, the eve forums, and the wiki are for. Eve is indeed too complex to know it all. But it’s not necessary to know it all to be honest. I do think after more than 7 years in the game I do know quite a bit, but it’s more general knowledge. I don’t know the first thing about capital ships for example, since I never use them, nor do I have a need for one.

Getting back to that learning curve pic, when you start you feel as if you need to know it all in order to properly play the game and to enjoy it more. But once you start carving out your niche, like industry, mining and maybe a pvp’er, playing tackle in a bigger corp, you start to find out that you don’t need to know it all. Just know your particular area of the game, use some common sense, use the wiki, blogs etc. and you’ll be alright.

Regarding the question how do you determine there are gaps in your knowledge: That is a hard one. I do try to keep up with Dev Blogs on what’s coming and reading Eve Blogs, but sometimes a new module or a new game mechanic does escape me. When people in alliance chat discuss the new thing I do ask what they’re talking about and try to read up on the subject.

Links to the other participants at :

http://www.ninveah.com/2013/07/blog-banter-47.html

BB 42 – Eve In Review – Exploration

From the Freebooted BB 42 initial post:

“A gaming universe as vast and unique as EVE Online is constantly evolving and the experience is different for every participant. Conventional games review techniques cannot possibly hope to provide an accurate measure of every aspect of EVE’s gameplay. However, with a community initiative like the Blog Banters, we have the resources to deliver the most thorough and up-to-date review ever.

By combining the experiences of contributors from across the EVE metasphere, we get a wealth of opinions from veterans and rookies alike. We’ll be able to combine input from faction warfare specialists, wormhole residents, null-sec warriors, missioners, pirates, industrialists, roleplayers, politicians and more to paint a complete picture of the health and progress of EVE Online in its current Retribution incarnation.

Who better to review EVE Online than those who know it best?”

For this review I’ll be focusing on one of my favorite aspects of Eve: Exploration. By any means would I consider myself an expert on the subject, but it’s something I got a lot of experience in, especially the last six months or so when I moved into a C2 wormhole. This is by no means a tutorial, but a review of sorts of this fascinating side of Eve.

What is exploration

From the Eve Wiki : Exploration is the art of scanning a solar system for Deadspace signatures that do not normally appear on a ship’s scanners or overview. These Deadspace zones are designed to reward players for the additional work required to reveal them.

An explorer searches for sites in space, these can be gas clouds, archeology sites, a hidden belt filled with valuable ore, waiting to be mined, or a combat site. They all need different tools to be exploited, so an explorer needs quite a few skills (in game as real life) needs to be diverse. All sites need some combat skills, the lower you get in security status (not your own, but the system’s sec stat), the harder these sites and the ‘rats’ in them become. And since Retribution the enhanced AI also applies to complexes found with exploration.

Continue reading BB 42 – Eve In Review – Exploration

Halp The Eve Blogosphere Is Dying

Lately there has been a discussion amongst some prominent Eve Bloggers about the future of the Eve Blogging community. The MMOmelting pot has a nice summary with some interesting comments. The whole issue came to my attention when Ryxxx’ post showed up on EveBloggers, ironically enough where he claims that The Mittani.com has killed the Eve Community.

Then I started to realize that I do indeed see less activity amongst Eve Bloggers. There used to be a time when you refreshed EveBloggers every now and then, a whole page of new stuff came up. Now not so much. Some blogs I frequently read are fading away or posting a lot less frequently. I am probably amongst a minority, but I don’t visit TheMittani.com very often. I do like some of the articles, for example when they take a look at the upcoming destroyers or review other games. The book reviews are pretty good. I don’t give a hoot for the 0.0 news though, which makes up a big part of the site (at least in my mind).

Apparently though a lot of people seem to like the site, it has lots of content all tucked in a nice place. I do believe there is still more than enough room for personal blogs like this one. Would an article appear on The Mittani’s front page where a small gang kills a retriever on a sunday night ops in a C4 system ? I don’t think so. So where else would I post such an article ? You might argue that no one cares about it, so write about it ? That is an interesting  questions. It all comes down to a blogger’s personal motivation.

Is the Eve Blogosphere doomed ?

The intention for this blog (from 2005 on !) has always been to make it a bit of a  diary of an ‘ordinary’ pod pilot. There are no glorious articles here, not very often very revealing insights, just tales of what can happen or what people do in Eve. And from time to time comments on what direction CCP is going or what I do like about an expansion or hate about it. There is still a lof of room for blogging in Eve. Maybe blogging in general isn’t as popular as in the best days of the Eve Blog Pack. Maybe there are less people now than back then that care to start a blog and write about their experiences. It would be a shame to see the Blog Pack go though, but maybe it has served it’s purpose and it’s time to move on. I do think that EveBloggers.com still serves great service though, I sure hope that will continue to exist in some form. I would have to have to fire up the old Google reader again !

Blog Banter #19 – CCP and the CSM

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

This months topic comes to us from @evepress, and he asks: The CSM: CCP’s Meta Game? – The CSM, an eve players voice to CCP. Right? In the grand scheme of things yes, the players bring up issues and the CSM presents them to CCP. But in its current iteration the CSM was supposed to be given small authority to assign CCP assets to projects that the CSM thought needed work on. As it has now come out this is not the case. So fellow bloggers, is the CSM worth it, has the CSM improved the game in any way, or is it just a well thought out scam by CCP to give us players a false sense of input in the game? What’s your take?

This BlogBanter comes at a delicate time, when the shit has hit the proverbial fan after the minutes of the latest CSM – CCP meeting had been released. If I have to answer this question at the moment, then I would say, No at the moment the CSM isn’t really worth it if no development time can be assigned to any issues. Of course it’s useful to keep the conversation going, but if it’s just talk and no action it’s pretty much useless. CCP does send out press releases about the CSM (at least I see the same type of articles on various press sites) so it’s still being used as a PR tool. Reading the latest ‘18months’ devblog and the responses by various CCP employees, I get the impression that at the moment CCP doesn’t really know what to do with the CSM and CCP_Zulu even seems annoyed by them.

athens1

Overall though I think the CSM has been useful, if not only for the skill queue and various other accomplishments. It’s a really nice idea to have some people represent the players who bring forward concerns by the players. It’s then up to CCP to decide what will be addressed and what will not. Of course we do understand they can not do everything that’s being proposed, but at least some issues would be nice. I assume that was the original idea behind it…

See other participants:

  1. Growing Pains | CrazyKinux’s Musing
  2. CSM: Hoax or Serious Business? « Lost in New Eden
  3. CSM-Power to the people or puppets of CCP « A whole lot of Yarrrr!!!
  4. Gaming the CSM | A Mule in EvE
  5. A Taste Of Democracy | StarFleet Comms
  6. CSM: Player Power or Paper Tiger? | I Am Keith Neilson
  7. Governance Thrash Redux? « The Ralpha Dogs
  8. CCP Doesn’t Care: Blog Banter 19 « OMG! You’re a Chick?!
  9. The Cataclysmic Variable: It’s Crunch Time!
  10. The 19th EVE Blog Banter is upon us… and about the CSM and CCP | Victoria Aut Mors
  11. CSM: Lame Duck from the beginning?
  12. Blog Banter #19 << Dense Veldspar
  13. Be careful what you say, Roc « Roc’s Ramblings
  14. Exchange Fraking Phone Numbers « Scrap Metal & Faction Ammo
  15. Blog Banter #19: Assumptions
  16. EVE Blog Banter #19 | EVE on Real Life
  17. A Reality Check | A “CareBears” Journey
  18. Quit your bitching | Fly Reckless – EVE Online
  19. War has come to EVE | Scram Web
  20. CCP and the CSM | Morphisat’s Blog
  21. More to come…

The improved blogpack

In case anyone missed it, there was some upheaval in bubble that is the eve blogosphere / tweetfleet over a post by CrazyKinux on the eve blogpack. He originally wanted to cut it down to 20 ‘elite’ blogs. This resulted in a discussion on twitter and on blogs. Most noticeably was the response by Roc Wieler, which then led to CK stating, he’d pick 50 blogs. I also had a post in the making but decided it wasn’t very good and a bit ranty so I decided to delete it.

Today CK posted the new list ! And I am glad to be still on it. I know this blog isn’t the best or top notch ones out there, but we can’t all be ‘elite’ ;). Some post I make still get quite a few comments, and I try to give a somewhat more critical view on CCP and their decisions. And of course the view from a regular player in Eve. Someone who missions, occasionally mines and goes out on corp ops every now and then.

A must read, also on CK’s site is the history of the blogpack. I was among the very first to be in there, and it sure has come a long way. There are some amazing and very insightful informative ones out there, while others are just fun to read. Make sure you check the rss feed on the right side, and put it in your favorite RSS reader. I like to read some posts on the bus on my android phone while going to work !

The new, improved blogpack By CrazyKinux

Why I Love Eve

But there is more to Eve than meets the eye. It’s the players, the people. The subculture around it.

This time a special Blog Banter with a few prices attached !

Whether you’ve logged into the game every day since its launch in 2003, or you’ve taken one or several sabbaticals from your capsuleer career, you’ve always come back to New Eden don’t you. Why is that?

We know the EVE Online Community is unique in so many ways, and that EVE Online is like no other MMORPG out there. But what makes the game special for you?

What is it that makes this particular virtual world so enticing, so mysterious and so alluring that we keep coming back for more. Why is EVE one of the very few MMOs to see a continuous growth in its subscriber.

To put it simply: Why do you love EVE Online so much?

At the moment this is a hard question for me to answer. I have only been playing very occasionally the last few months. Once you have done a lot of all the things Eve has to offer, it’s hard to motivate yourself to get back in the game and do those things again. Exploration, mining, production, Factional Warfare PVP, at the moment I have a feeling I have seen it all. I am a bit Eved out. It seems I am not the only one in the blogosphere at the moment (letrange and rettic posted similar thoughts).

All those things I summed up are the plus points of Eve though, so don’t get me wrong. There is a lot to do, to discover, and especially to learn ! But it doesn’t come by itself, the content isn’t slapped in your face, you have to go out and do research and find everything yourself.

But there is more to Eve than meets the eye. It’s the players, the people. The subculture around it. The blogpack, the tweetfleet, and who knows what else ! It keeps you connected to New Eden even when you’re not playing that much.

funny-pictures-your-cat-is-very-concerned

But lately I have also been concerned about the state of the game. Eve’s lack of decent customer service. People with paid for accounts getting locked out and it takes over five days to get a response. The recent server problems and apparent lack of Quality Control on the last patch (the 0.0 part didn’t seem to work to well if I have to believe all the forum whining, although it did shake up 0.0).

The last ‘expansion’ didn’t add a lot to the game, neither Quantum Rise. At least Apocrypha brought wormholes and T3 ships, but for some reason I don’t like wormholes at all. Maybe that explains why I am a bit Eved out at the moment, even in a sandbox, you need a few new tools to play with every now and then. It could be that this is because of the new console game that is being developed, but I doubt that that is the case, as it is an entire separate development team in China doing that. Which makes you wonder what they’re working on at the moment ? It can’t be Incarna (walking in stations) can it ?

Anyway, I love Eve regardless, and it’s healthy to have players worried about the state of the game, rather than them just leaving, and unsubbing without a word. The Eve Playerbase cares a lot about their game and I assume CCP does as well.

Eve Blog Banter #7 – Treading waters unknown

The eveblog banter couldn’t come at a better time. I felt like posting something the past few days but couldn’t come up with a proper subject to write about.

The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read!

This month’s topic comes to us from CrazyKinux, and he asks: “What 3 things haven’t you done in EVE and why? Would you be willing to try one day? Why so? Why not?”

1) Flying capital ships. The Orca is the biggest one I can fly at the moment, and I don’t thin that will ever change. I almost exclusively live in Hisec, and have  no plans to change that soon, so I have no use for them at all. Also they are quite expensive, and so are the skills. I got isk, but can’t be bothered to spend that much on something I will probably never use.

2) Fleet warfare in 0.0. Which is probably just hanging around a lot, or jumping from system to system for hours, only to fight for about 5mins. No thanks.

3) Invent / produce something bigger than a T2 cruiser. I might do this someday, maybe invent and produce a marauder. Don’t have any immediate plans to do this at the moment, but I might some day :).

From what I read so far, no. 1 is pretty common, so is no. 2. Are there any bloggers actually involved in 0.0 wars ? Don’t read a lot about that, maybe the eve bloggers are a different kind :).

People participating in blog banter #7:

BB #5 – Me, Myself and I

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

This might be true in other games, though I cannot think of a good example at the moment. But in Eve it’s just very handy to have a sidekick ! Also the game lends itself much better than other mmorpg’s. The client is not too heavy on the computer’s resources and you can easily run 2 or even 3 windows at the same time. Windowed mode works fine, so you can easily switch between them. Furthermore, a lot of activities where you can use an alternative character, aren’t too stressful that you have to keep your eyes and hands on the keyboard all the time, like in some other games where you need to press keys all the time and have to resort to technical utilities and tools in order to sync your movements.

morp_bela

So for what purposes do you use another account ? Quite a few possibilities come to mind. From my own experience, the idea behind my alt was to pursue another career in Eve and have her go another direction. A combat alt who would do pirating and maybe even go to 0.0, while Morph was missioning and doing industrial stuff in Empire.

But somehow that plan never worked out. The combat part did though, she can fly Gallente, Caldari and Amarr ships very well (Minmatar are next on the list). But she now aids me in missions, and hauls in mining or does some other transports for me.

Another good usage is Factional Warfare. A fw alt to get the grips on pvp, who is financially supported by the main is a nice way to go and enjoy other areas of the game. I did this for a while and it works out fine.

Continue reading BB #5 – Me, Myself and I

Eve Blog Pack RSS Feed

As some of you might have noticed, the Eve Blog Pack google reader feed that CK so kindly provides, is not compatible with the RSS feed reader that comes with the vanilla wordpress distribution. A work around is to setup a feedburner feed and let feedburner convert it to RSS 2.0 so that the widget now picks up the feed correctly.

The link to the RSS 2.0 feed is at http://feeds2.feedburner.com/eveBlogPackViaCrazykinuxInGoogleReader.

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