Category: General

The usual category I will post under

What have you been up to ?

At the moment I don’t have a lot of exciting adventures to blog about. Or any exciting news, like taking over the Eve Galaxy ;). But in response to Eve’s weekend warrior’s weekend’s summary, I thought I’d write something like that as well.

hawk

Mainly I have been doing production ! And not the very exciting wormhole T3 kind. I did my first dabbling into T2 ship production. My first few Cerberuses I produced sold like hotcakes for 125mil, right after apocrypha. Enthusiastically I produced some more, inventions were a big success, using a prototype diagram helps ! It also gets you a better bpc as the ME get to –2 instead of –4 and saving a lot of materials needed. Unfortunately the next batch didn’t sell that well, but I got rid of em in the past few weeks at lower prices. I have put that project on hold for now. It’s quite a bit of work getting all the parts (and subparts I also produce some of them myself now), and with margins getting slimmer, it’s not that interesting anymore.

Also still producing Hammerhead IIs and Ogre drones. There always seems to be a demand for those. And I still mine and produce some drakes and ravens. These days I cruise around in my hawk to find decent belts. I have moved my orca and hulk to Sinq Laison as Caldari space has it’s belts usually cleared out very fast.

buzzard

Haven’t seen a lot of wormhole action yet, though I still scan from time to time, but haven’t had much luck lately. Only found a few Deadspace plexes that were good for a few million bounties and not much else.

So that’s it, not very exciting, but I am still out there, playing the game in a very relaxed way. Thats what I love about Eve, you can make it as exciting as you want :).

One more comment on Apocrypha:

CCP CAN YOU PLEASE FIX THE SOUND ???

EveMon update

As we all know, this is one tool every ‘serious’ eve player (and even the non serious ones) can’t do without ! Even though it’s numbered a minor update (1.26 –> 1.27), it looks like a good upgrade.

Two nice new features:

  • Added support for 100% skill training bonus for new characters
  • EVEMon installer is now UAC aware

CCP announced that there will be api support for the skill queue, so I hope that will make it into an upcoming release of Evemon as well.

You can find evemon at http://evemon.battleclinic.com/changelog.html

BoB – Kenzoku gets name changed

The Corporation discussion forum over at eve-o is overrun by threads on this new bob related issue. A GM has changed the name of Kenzoku to Bob Reloaded as you can read here. Normally you have to disband your alliance and form a new one under a new name to get this done, apparently having ties with CCP gets things done easier.

People are whining all over now (and deservedly so) that when they tried to changed their name (even a simple c to a Capitcal C) their petition gets denied, but this one went through. This is now of course leaking towards other forums, like MMORPG.

Even when there are no ties, and this petition went through all the proper channels and it got approved, I still think CCP did a really bad job here. After the scandal, now almost two years ago, they should realize that as soon as they soon even the smallest favoritism towards Bob (reloaded) it’s going to look bad.

So all in all a bad decision by CCP and one that will cause some bad PR yet again.

UPDATE: The decision has been reversed, good call by CCP !

Thoughts on Apocrypha I

Eve’s latest expansion is now more than a week old, and I figured it was about time to post my thoughts. The server lag seems to be fixed, after a bit of a rocky ride for the first few days, things appear to have settled down. The thousands of probes going up after this patch’ release probably didn’t help either ;).

Wormholes

Haven’t really been checking them out, except on the test server. I have been putting some T2 ships together and do my regular mining / invention stuff. What I do like is that people seem to loose an awful lot of stuff in there. Business is booming. Ships fly off the shelf, can’t keep my hammerheads and ogres in stock and so on ! From what I read on the forums, there seems to be too many grav. sites. Not quite sure who is supposed to go out mining there. One hulk loss and you’re set back quite a bit, even though theyre not as expensive as they once were. This brings up the next topic.

Exploration

Very much improved, no longer chance based, and faster now. Though it would certainly help a lot if there was some sort of filer, or an equivalent of the multiquest probe. At the moment I am not really interested in wormholes, and it’s very annoying scanning down a site that turns out to be wormhole instead of something I could actually use. Still not too bad though, but it could have been better.

Ui

Could say a lot about it, but someone on the forums posted a summary that seems to be right on the money: Ui getting worse every patch at the eve-o forums.

Skill Queue

Greatest things since uhm well ever in Eve. This should have been in long time ago, very handy and especially nice if you have some l1/2/3 skills to learn !

T3 Ships

Expensive toys for rich people ? Although the concept itself of modules etc is nice, I dont see what the big deal is, if they’re not even marginally better than a HAC or a BC. The production tree is daunting, so don’t expect too many on the market soon !

Graphics / Sound

Some improvements on the graphics, some weird stuff as well. The belt rocks are a very nice touch, laser beams from amarr ships and the mining laser look very nice. The sound sure took a nose dive though, it’s pretty awful. Station chatter is way too loud, gun sounds and mining lasers are barely audible. This is definately an issue that needs be fixed asap. Good sound is needed for a better immersion in the game to be honest, and I really miss the nice relaxing sound of my mining lasers !

Well that’s about it for starters :). This is part I as I am sure more will come up in the coming weeks !

Final post before Apocrypha

Thought I’d make one more post before the next expansion hits in a few days ! Already put on long skills for my characters so I don’t forget that. Bought two skill books for Morph (Minmatar Battleships and Large Projectile turrets) so I can use the queue to it’s full advantage once we can get back in.

The past week or so I have made my first steps into T2 ship production. Already made 2 kitsunes but you barely break even on those, so I shifted towards T2 cruisers. The first one I produced was a falcon, now I have two cerbs in the oven. Those will give a nice profit if they sell for the current market value of around 100mil. I bought some of the T2 component bpos as you can skim off some costs by making those yourself.

wormholest Furthermore I played a bit on the test server. I found a somewhat ‘easier’ wormhole, and found out again that it’s not very viable solo. I could tank the sleepers in my abaddon but not kill them. Smartbombs work well against the little drones though, even though they do try to stay out of range. Once I brought in Morph (Bela was in the abaddon) in an assault frig to get rid of the cruisers, all was well though. Very nice task for small gangs, like 2 BS and maybe a few assault frigs / HACs to get rid of the smaller stuff. And then fight over the loot afterwards ;).

The state of the expansion on the test server is still a bit buggy. Some weird things happened while switching ships in station and some other odd things. I hope the patch we will get on march 10th will be somewhat less buggy, but my guess is that it will definitely break some stuff and some of the new things won’t work properly. By the end of march things will be more stable :).

Hope CCP has some surprises for us in the storyline, come next patchday. Have a nice patchday all, and remember the waiting is the hardest part !

Another CCP wormhole blogpost

This one has just been posted, and it has a very scary ending:

So when you enter a wormhole system and see something ‘unusual’ off your port bow, proceed with the knowledge that some of the things you know about how your ship performs may no longer be true. Your ship drives may push you faster, your weapons may hit harder, you may find yourself with no shields or less effective armor… and just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, things may change again!

As if the sleeper’s AI wasn’t enough, you can even get buffs or debuffs in wormhole space ! Something that hasn’t been reported on Sisi as of yet. Is this one of the tricks ccp will keep up their sleeve ‘till launch ?

The darkness at the end of the tunnel

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

The week in review

To be honest it’s more than a week in review, more the past few weeks or so, since I have been playing a lot more, and participating in the blogging community again, but the title sounded more catchy :). Also this post was getting a bit long so I am saving some stuff, like my thoughts on the upcoming expansion for another post.

First of all, I joined a new corp ! For me this is like turning a new page, a new step in my Eve career. I had been a member of Rakeriku for almost as long as I played, and it was so sad it just bled to death. But the people who were in there, and who are still active, still keep in touch through our own private chat channel which is pretty neat. Some have started a one man corp, some joined an 0.0 corp, and some are still looking around. Hidden Agenda is the corp I joined. After hanging out on various chat channels, webforums and the like (this is worthy of another blogpost entirely), they seemed to be the best fit for me. Thanks to Tarik for suggesting them in the comments ! I already picked up some good trade and invention suggestions, and we’re all looking forward on working together on the upcoming expansion to explore the wormholes. Honourable mention to Rising Sun Inc, they seem to be nice people as well, just thought HA would be more my style.

Ishukone_CorporationAbout missioning: I only needed few 10k of lps for the Ishukone corporation to get the 5 Caldari Navy BCU bpc, so I grinded that out in Hentogeira. They sold like hotcakes once they came out of the oven ! Must still be quite a demand for these type of items (ie. expensive mission gear ;)). I was getting a bit tired of being send into lowsec by the agent in Hento though and have now moved the mission gear to Gekutami, 4 jumps south. A bit crowded there but 2 decent level 4 agents in the system, and no lowsec missions. I don’t run too many missions anymore, but I just like having the opportunity.

On the industrial front: I cashed in the lp’s I had accumulated over the past few months (since late november I think) and did some invention again. Was quite lucky getting 4 ogre II bpcs out of 5 tries. Then 4 out of 4 thermal shield hardeners failed :(. That was a first for me !

2302 Of course I blamed it on Quantum Rise invention changes, but after some forum digging I think it’s probably just bad luck. I currently have some more in the oven and hope those will succeed. Not that big a profit on those, but every bit counts ;). Producing t2 items also comes with a bit of flying about to get all the parts at the best price. I invested in some bpos to make the ‘subitems’ myself, but the current price of ferogel and the like will still make expensive. But maybe I can shave off some expenses.

I was successful in inventing some Kitsune bpcs, so my first step in T2 production has been made. I am currently learning Cruiser Construction, so I might try my hands on somewhat more difficult invention later this month.

The eveblogosphere (including twitter) is currently buzzing with activity. Everybody is anxious to try the new expansion, it’s one of the biggest and game changing ones the game has seen so far ! More on that in a later post.

Eve Alliance Tournament Videos

The Eve-TV crew is finally done putting all videos online at Youtube where you can view them in all their glory !

Day 5 Playlist

Day 6 (Finals)

I’ll link some of my favourites here from day 6.

Wrong Alliance vs. Pandemic Legion

R.U.R. vs. Unaffiliated

R.U.R. vs Goodfellas

And last but not least, G00dfellas vs. Dead Terrorists, featuring The Ice as the smartbombing Hero Hawk.

Basically all semi-finals (hero tanking curse!) and ofcourse the final were well worth watching, nice to see them in higher quality as well ! Enjoy !!!

Intense Debate and EveBloggers.com

After seeing the intense debate comment system on growing number of blogs, I decided to try it out on this one as well. It seems to be very convenient to have all your comments on one place, and being able to login through openid is a plus.

On a totally unrelated note, I’d like to mention a new site here, that’s called evebloggers.com. You don’t have to be a blogger to enjoy the site though ! It has all the eve news very conveniently in one place. Not just the blog pack posts, but also CCP official news, articles from massively etc.. Make sure to check it out at http://www.evebloggers.com

Thanks to the Eve Druid for mentioning eveblogger !